Nations at UN climate talks agree on $300 billion a year for poor countries in a compromise deal

Update Nations at UN climate talks agree on $300 billion a year for poor countries in a compromise deal
COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev speaks during a closing plenary meeting at the COP29 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Nov. 24, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 24 November 2024
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Nations at UN climate talks agree on $300 billion a year for poor countries in a compromise deal

Nations at UN climate talks agree on $300 billion a year for poor countries in a compromise deal
  • EU, US, others raised their offer after earlier draft rejected
  • Climate talks run into overtime. Talks reach deal on carbon credits

BAKU, Azerbaijan: United Nations climate talks adopted a deal to inject at least $300 billion annually in humanity’s fight against climate change, aimed at helping poor nations cope with the ravages of global warming in tense negotiations in the city where industry first tapped oil.
The $300 billion will go to developing countries who need the cash to wean themselves off the coal, oil and gas that causes the globe to overheat, adapt to future warming and pay for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather. It’s not near the full amount of $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, but it’s three times a deal of $100 billion a year from 2009 that is expiring. Some delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.
It was not quite the agreement by consensus that these meetings usually operate with and developing nations were livid about being ignored.
COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev gaveled the deal into acceptance before any nation had a chance to speak. When they did they blasted him for being unfair to them, the deal for not being enough and the world’s rich nations for being too stingy.
“It’s a paltry sum,” India negotiator Chandni Raina said, repeatedly saying how India objected to rousing cheers. “I’m sorry to say we cannot accept it.”
She told The Associated Press that she has lost faith in the United Nations system.

After a deal, nations express their discontent
A long line of nations agreed with India and piled on, with Nigeria’s Nkiruka Maduekwe, CEO of the National Council on Climate Change, calling the deal an insult and a joke.
“I think we should rethink this. ... We have a right as countries to choose if we are to take this or not. And I am saying we do not accept this,” she said. “This is 3 a.m. and say ‘this is what we’re going to do,’ I don’t think so.”
The final package pushed through “does not speak or reflect or inspire confidence and trust that we will come out of this grave problem of climate change,” India’s Raina said. “The goal (of getting up to $300 billion by 2035) is too little, too distant. At 2035, it’s too far gone.”
“We absolutely object to the unfair means followed for adoption,” Raina said. “We are extremely hurt by this action by the president and the secretariat.”
Speaking for nearly 50 of the poorest nations of the world, Evans Davie Njewa of Malawi was more mild, expressing what he called reservations with the deal.
And UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a post on X that he hoped for a “more ambitious outcome.” But he said the agreement “provides a base on which to build.”
Some see deal as relief following tough talks
There were somewhat satisfied parties, with European Union’s Wopke Hoekstra calling it a new era of climate funding, working hard to help the most vulnerable.
But activists in the plenary hall could be heard coughing over Hoekstra’s speech in an attempt to disrupt it.
Eamon Ryan, Ireland’s environment minister, called the agreement “a huge relief.”
“It was not certain. This was tough,” he said. “Because it’s a time of division, of war, of (a) multilateral system having real difficulties, the fact that we could get it through in these difficult circumstances is really important.”
UN Climate Change’s Executive Secretary Simon Stiell called the deal an “insurance policy for humanity,” adding that like insurance, “it only works – if the premiums are paid in full, and on time.”
The deal is seen as a step toward helping countries on the receiving end create more ambitious targets to limit or cut emissions of heat-trapping gases that are due early next year. It’s part of the plan to keep cutting pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the UN talks in Paris in 2015.
The Paris agreement set the system of regular ratcheting up climate fighting ambition as away to keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) and carbon emissions keep rising.
Hopes that more climate cash will follow
Countries also anticipate that this deal will send signals that help drive funding from other sources, like multilateral development banks and private sources. That was always part of the discussion at these talks — rich countries didn’t think it was realistic to only rely on public funding sources — but poor countries worried that if the money came in loans instead of grants, it would send them sliding further backward into debt that they already struggle with.
“The $300 billion goal is not enough, but is an important down payment toward a safer, more equitable future,” said World Resources Institute President Ani Dasgupta. “This deal gets us off the starting block. Now the race is on to raise much more climate finance from a range of public and private sources, putting the whole financial system to work behind developing countries’ transitions.”
And even though it’s far from the needed $1.3 trillion, it’s more than the $250 billion that was on the table in an earlier draft of the text, which outraged many countries and led to a period of frustration and stalling over the final hours of the summit.
Other deals agreed at COP29
The several different texts adopted early Sunday morning included a vague but not specific reference to last year’s Global Stocktake approved in Dubai. Last year there was a battle about first-of-its-kind language on getting rid of the oil, coal and natural gas, but instead it called for a transition away from fossil fuels. The latest talks only referred to the Dubai deal, but did not explicitly repeat the call for a transition away from fossil fuels.
Countries also agreed on the adoption of Article 6, creating markets to trade carbon pollution rights, an idea that was set up as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement to help nations work together to reduce climate-causing pollution. Part of that was a system of carbon credits, allowing nations to put planet-warming gasses in the air if they offset emissions elsewhere. Backers said a UN-backed market could generate up to an additional $250 billion a year in climate financial aid.
Despite its approval, carbon markets remain a contentious plan because many experts say the new rules adopted don’t prevent misuse, don’t work and give big polluters an excuse to continue spewing emissions.
“What they’ve done essentially is undermine the mandate to try to reach 1.5,” said Tamara Gilbertson, climate justice program coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Greenpeace’s An Lambrechts, called it a “climate scam” with many loopholes.
With this deal wrapped up as crews dismantle the temporary venue, many have eyes on next year’s climate talks in Belem, Brazil.


Musk, with Trump at White House, says US will go ‘bankrupt’ without cuts

Musk, with Trump at White House, says US will go ‘bankrupt’ without cuts
Updated 15 sec ago
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Musk, with Trump at White House, says US will go ‘bankrupt’ without cuts

Musk, with Trump at White House, says US will go ‘bankrupt’ without cuts
  • Trump administration finds itself on a collision course with the US courts, as federal judges questioned the legality of White House cost-cutting measures
  • Musk, who also heads SpaceX — which has multiple US government contracts — and Tesla, said he is seeking to be as transparent as possible
WASHINGTON: Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been tapped by President Donald Trump to lead federal cost-cutting efforts, said Tuesday that the United States would go “bankrupt” without budget cuts.
Musk leads the efforts under the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and was speaking at the White House with Trump, who has in recent weeks unleashed a flurry of orders aimed at slashing federal spending.
In particular, Musk took aim at the country’s budget deficit, which topped $1.8 trillion in the last fiscal year.
He said that reducing federal expenses was not optional.
The remarks, however, came as the Trump administration finds itself on a collision course with the US courts, as federal judges questioned the legality of White House cost-cutting measures.
Trump’s sweeping plans, which have effectively shuttered some federal agencies and sent staff home, have sparked legal battles across the country.
Multiple lawsuits seek to halt what opponents characterize as an illegal power grab.
Asked about his conflicts of interest on Tuesday, Musk, who also heads SpaceX — which has multiple US government contracts — and Tesla, said he is seeking to be as transparent as possible.
The DOGE reform team has triggered alarm among critics as well by gaining access through the US Treasury to the personal and financial data of millions in the United States.

Turkish writer, son accused of fleeing after crash can be extradited, US judge rules

Turkish writer, son accused of fleeing after crash can be extradited, US judge rules
Updated 3 min 11 sec ago
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Turkish writer, son accused of fleeing after crash can be extradited, US judge rules

Turkish writer, son accused of fleeing after crash can be extradited, US judge rules

BOSTON: A US judge on Tuesday ruled that a Turkish author and her son can be extradited to Turkiye to face charges that he caused a reckless, fatal car crash in Istanbul and then fled the country with the help of his mother.
US Magistrate Judge Donald Cabell in Boston rejected arguments that Turkish novelist and poet Eylem Tok and her 17-year-old son, Timur Cihantimur, had not been charged with extraditable offenses, clearing the way for the US State Department to consider turning them over.
Further litigation is likely and could further delay their extradition, which Turkiye has been pursuing since their arrest in June as the mother and son were about to tour a private school in Boston.
David Russcol, Tok’s lawyer, said her attorneys “are evaluating Ms. Tok’s options for further judicial review of the serious legal issues involved.” Her son’s lawyer had no immediate comment.
According to prosecutors, the teenager was driving a Porsche on the night of March 1 when, while speeding around a corner, he crashed into a group of people on all-terrain vehicles. One person, Oguz Murat Aci, died and four others were injured.
Prosecutors said the teenager immediately fled the scene after saying something like “my life is over.” He was picked up by the family’s driver, and within hours Tok had bought one-way plane tickets for them to fly to Cairo, Egypt. They then continued on to the United States.
Their lawyers argued the teenager could not be extradited for the crime of causing reckless killing and injury because the US-Turkiye extradition treaty only covered individuals who are formally charged, while he was only facing an arrest warrant.
They also argued that Tok’s alleged offenses of concealing a cellphone that authorities viewed as evidence and protecting an offender by helping her son flee were not extraditable under that treaty.
But Cabell rejected those arguments. With regard to Tok’s son, he said it was clear that the term “charged” in the treaty did not mean a formal charge. “Rather, construed in the generic and more elastic sense, it is synonymous with accused,” he said.


16 Pakistanis killed in shipwreck off Libya: Islamabad

A migrant looks at the sea from the deck of the boat of the NGO Proactiva Open Arms on July 1, 2018. (AFP)
A migrant looks at the sea from the deck of the boat of the NGO Proactiva Open Arms on July 1, 2018. (AFP)
Updated 44 min 10 sec ago
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16 Pakistanis killed in shipwreck off Libya: Islamabad

A migrant looks at the sea from the deck of the boat of the NGO Proactiva Open Arms on July 1, 2018. (AFP)
  • “So far 16 dead bodies have been recovered and their Pakistani nationalities established on the basis of their passports,” a spokesperson for Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement

ISLAMABAD: Emergency workers have recovered the bodies of 16 Pakistanis after a boat capsized off the coast of Libya, with 10 others believed to be missing, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said Tuesday.
Thirty-seven people survived the accident, according to authorities.
The ministry first reported the accident on Monday. It said 63 Pakistanis had been onboard the vessel and 10 are still missing, according to unconfirmed reports.
“So far 16 dead bodies have been recovered and their Pakistani nationalities established on the basis of their passports,” a spokesperson for Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
“There are 37 survivors including 1 in hospital and 33 in police custody.”
A team from Pakistan’s embassy in Tripoli visited the coastal city of Zawiya to meet with local officials and those from Zawiya hospital.
“The Embassy in Tripoli is in the process of gathering further information and maintaining contact with the local authorities,” the statement added.
Each year thousands of Pakistanis pay large sums to traffickers to launch risky and illegal journeys to Europe, where they hope to find work and send funds to support families back home.
Pakistanis are frequently among those drowned on crammed boats which sink on the Mediterranean Sea separating North Africa from Europe — the world’s deadliest migrant route.
An official from the Federal Investigation Agency, speaking anonymously to AFP in 2023, estimated Pakistanis attempt 40,000 illegal trips every year.
In June that year the Mediterranean witnessed one of its worst migrant shipwrecks when a rusty and overloaded trawler sank overnight. It was carrying more than 750 people — up to 350 of them Pakistanis according to Islamabad — but only 82 bodies were ever recovered.

 


UK’s Princess Catherine visits women’s prison

Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales, visits a mother and baby unit at HMP Styal, a prison and young offender institution.
Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales, visits a mother and baby unit at HMP Styal, a prison and young offender institution.
Updated 49 min 29 sec ago
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UK’s Princess Catherine visits women’s prison

Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales, visits a mother and baby unit at HMP Styal, a prison and young offender institution.
  • Catherine visited HMP Styal in northwest England to meet offenders who had used the services of a charity-run mother and baby unit

LONDON: Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales, on Tuesday visited a women’s prison to meet ex-offenders and those still serving, as she continues her return to public duties having completed her cancer treatment.
Catherine visited HMP Styal in northwest England to meet offenders who had used the services of a charity-run mother and baby unit.
“It is great that you are looking at the mother’s wellbeing as well. The best thing for baby is to have a mother whose emotional needs and wellbeing is met as well,” she told staff at the unit.
Former inmate Sam told the princess that parental support was better in jail than outside.
“I only left six weeks ago and I am just getting rolling with everything again. I have said so many times that I just wish I could take this (prison) nursery and put it in my hometown,” she said.
Catherine, 43, who is mother to Prince George 11, Princess Charlotte, nine, and six-year-old Prince Louis, has only recently begun a gradual return to royal duties after a shock cancer diagnosis last year.
It was the princess’s fifth public engagement in just over two weeks.


Ukraine prepared to offer territory swap with Russia: Zelensky

Ukraine prepared to offer territory swap with Russia: Zelensky
Updated 11 February 2025
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Ukraine prepared to offer territory swap with Russia: Zelensky

Ukraine prepared to offer territory swap with Russia: Zelensky
LONDON: Ukraine will offer to swap territory with Russia in any potential peace negotiations, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published Tuesday, adding that Europe alone would not be able to shoulder Kyiv’s war effort.
Zelensky will meet US Vice President JD Vance on Friday at the Munich Security Conference, the Ukrainian leader’s spokesman told AFP, as Washington pushes for an end to the nearly three-year war with Russia.
Vance has been a frequent critic of US support that has been vital to Ukraine’s war effort.
“There are voices which say that Europe could offer security guarantees without the Americans, and I always say no,” Zelensky told the Guardian newspaper in an interview published on the UK newspaper’s website on Tuesday.
“Security guarantees without America are not real security guarantees,” he said.
Trump is keen for both sides to reach a deal, the terms of which are a source of concern in Ukraine.
Zelensky told the Guardian he would offer Russian President Vladimir Putin territory that Ukraine seized in Russia’s Kursk region six months ago.
“We will swap one territory for another,” he said, adding that he did not know which territories he would ask for in return.
“I don’t know, we will see. But all our territories are important, there is no priority,” he said.
Russia says it has annexed five regions of Ukraine — Crimea in 2014 and then Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia in 2022 — though it does not have full control over them.


Trump confirmed Monday that he would soon dispatch his special envoy Keith Kellogg, who is tasked with drawing up a proposal to halt the fighting, to Ukraine.
The US president is pressing for a swift end to the conflict, while Zelensky is calling for tough security guarantees from Washington as part of any deal.
Kyiv fears that any settlement that does not include hard military commitments, such as NATO membership or the deployment of peacekeeping troops, will allow the Kremlin time to regroup and rearm for a fresh attack.
Zelensky has said he would offer US companies lucrative reconstruction contracts in a bid to win over Trump.
“Those who are helping us to save Ukraine will renovate it, with their businesses together with Ukrainian businesses. All these things we are ready to speak about in detail,” he told the Guardian.
Ukraine has some of the biggest mineral reserves in Europe and it is “not in the interests of the United States” for those to fall into Russian hands, he said.
“Valuable natural resources where we can offer our partners possibilities that didn’t exist before to invest in them. For us it will create jobs, for American companies it will create profits,” he added.
The Munich meeting comes with Russia advancing across Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, where over the past year it has captured several settlements, most completely flattened by months of Russian bombardments.