World leaders have unveiled new targets to cut planet-heating pollution at the United Nations, in a bid to spur fresh impetus to the beleaguered climate effort a day after Donald Trump called the crisis “the greatest con job ever perpetrated upon the world”. A total of 120 countries and the European Union announced new goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in New York on Wednesday. The pledges most notably include one from China, the world’s leading emitter. António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, convened the special summit for the new goals…
Tag: Climate crisis
‘Something is working’: UN climate chief optimistic about green transition
Cleaning up industry and the global economy will produce massive economic dividends for countries that grasp the opportunity – as the example of China has shown, the UN climate chief has said, before a crunch summit of world leaders this week. In a last-ditch call to heads of government summoned to New York by the UN secretary general this week, Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, said governments would almost certainly fail to come up with the climate commitments needed to fulfil the…
China, climate crisis and Cop31: five takeaways from the Pacific Islands Forum
1. China’s role in the region remains contentious Solomon Islands is China’s biggest security ally in the region and prime minister Jeremiah Manele’s decision to block all external partners from attending this year’s summit fuelled speculation that the move was aimed at keeping Taiwan out of the meeting. For more than 30 years, Taiwan has been deemed a “development partner” to the Pacific forum, so its exclusion – along with China and the US – became one of the key talking points of the forum. Palau’s president, Surangel Whipps Jr,…
Countries failing to act on UN climate pledge to triple renewables, thinktank finds
Most global governments have failed to act on the 2023 UN pledge to triple the world’s renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade, according to climate analysts. The failure to act means that on current forecasts the world will fall far short of its clean energy goals, leading to a continued reliance on fossil fuels that is incompatible with the target of limiting global heating to below 1.5C. A report by the climate thinktank Ember found that only 22 countries, most within the EU, have increased their renewable…
EU’s proposed 2040 emissions target signals its retreat as leader on climate action
For most of the past 30 years, the EU has led the world on climate action. The bloc had the deepest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto protocol; the first climate laws came from EU member states; the first emissions trading scheme, in 2005; and the Paris agreement in 2015. At times when other major countries – the US, Japan, Canada, China and India at various points – have stepped back, the EU has often stepped forward. There would be no Paris accord had the bloc not won…
‘Climate is our biggest war’, warns CEO of Cop30 ahead of UN summit in Brazil
“Climate is our biggest war. Climate is here for the next 100 years. We need to focus and … not allow those [other] wars to take our attention away from the bigger fight that we need to have.” Ana Toni, the chief executive of Cop30, the UN climate summit to be held in Brazil this November, is worried. With only four months before the crucial global summit, the world’s response to the climate crisis is in limbo. Fewer than 30 of the 200 countries that will gather in the Amazonian…
Red Pockets by Alice Mah review – finding hope amid the climate crisis
Eco-anxiety is not an official medical diagnosis, but everyone knows what it means. The American Psychological Association defines it as “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one’s future and that of next generations”. Fear of the future, an ache for the past, the present awash with disquiet: into this turmoil Alice Mah’s new book appears like a little red boat, keeping hope afloat against all odds. Mah is a professor of urban and environmental studies…
Xi contrasts China’s clean energy promises with Trump turmoil
China will continue to push forward on the climate crisis, Xi Jinping has said while appearing to criticise the “protectionism” of Donald Trump’s tariff policies. The Chinese president was attending a closed-door virtual meeting with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and about a dozen other heads of state and government to discuss the climate crisis. Xi told the meeting that China would “not slow down its climate actions”, according a draft of his remarks.…
Starmer calls for ‘lower temperature’ in trans debate as Badenoch says he must admit he was wrong about defining women – UK politics live
From 1h ago Starmer urges MPs to ‘lower the temperature’ in trans debate, as Badenoch challenges him to admit he was wrong about defining women Kemi Badenoch also wishes people a happy St George’s Day. And she says, being married to a Catholic, she knows how much the Pope meant to people. Does the PM accept that, when he said a trans woman was a woman, he was wrong. Starmer says the supreme court ruling has brought clarity. He sets out the principles he is applying. And he says it…
World Bank’s funding of ‘hog hotel’ factory farms under fire over climate effect
The private sector arm of the World Bank is facing claims that it contributes to global heating and the undermining of animal welfare by providing financial support for factory farming, including the building of pig farming tower blocks in China. A coalition of environmental and animal welfare groups is calling on the World Bank to phase out financial support for large-scale “industrial” livestock operations. More than $1.6bn was provided for industrial farming projects between 2017 and 2023, according to an analysis by campaigners. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of…