On the final official day of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, it is still unclear if this year’s United Nations climate summit will lead to an agreement before the end of the official conference or if talks will extend into the weekend. The COP29 presidency has released a draft text that calls for a $1.3 trillion in annual climate financing by 2035, but it only obligates rich countries to provide $250 billion of that total. Climate justice activists and members of civil society who held a protest at COP29 on Friday say that amount falls far short of what’s needed, demanding “trillions, not billions.” Democracy Now! was there.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
For those who worry about climate change all the time, the results of the November election seemed to send a clear message: American voters just don’t care as much as you do.
But even though President-elect Donald Trump took the popular vote while pledging to roll back the country’s landmark climate legislation, the overall results present a more complicated message. Exit polls show more Americans than ever prioritized climate change. And in several battleground states that backed Trump, Democratic senators who ran on environmental platforms also won their races. Across the country — in blue and red states alike — environmental ballot measures prevailed. So what exactly happened to the climate vote?
“There’s no question that, at the presidential level, climate was not on the ballot,” said Pete Maysmith, senior vice president of campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental nonprofit. “Voters are complex,” he said. “The economy really overrode a lot of other issues at play.”
Climate change was largely absent from this presidential election, with both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump remaining relatively quiet on the subject. The National Election Pool, the country’s largest exit polling consortium, didn’t include a question about the subject in its survey. But the second largest — a collaboration between Fox News and the Associated Press — did. When asked what they viewed as the most important issue facing the country, 7 percent of voters said climate change, a near doubling of climate concern since 2020, placing it as the fifth-most chosen issue out of the nine listed.
“This data shows that climate voters are wielding more political power than ever before, even though it’s still not nearly enough,” said Nathaniel Stinnett, the founder and executive director of the Environmental Voter Project, a nonprofit that tries to persuade environmentalists to get to the polls. Among the share of voters who consider climate change their top issue, the vast majority chose Harris — breaking harder for her than any other constituency did for any other candidate. Some 9 percent of them chose Trump.
An advocacy group’s message is seen displayed on a residential lawn in Michigan in November 2024. Izzy Ross / Grist
But while climate change may not be a top issue for the majority of Americans, that doesn’t mean they don’t care. Environmental initiatives triumphed across the map: In California, for example, voters sent $10 billion toward climate prevention and resilience. In Washington state, a ballot measure to repeal the state’s landmark Climate Commitment Act, which created a cap-and-invest program, resoundingly failed. In Louisiana and South Carolina, places that Trump won handily, nature conservation funding initiatives got the public’s stamp of approval.
“Broadly speaking, large majorities of Americans want to take action on climate change, but it is a high priority for very, very few voters,” Stinnett said. “We saw that bear out in a lot of ballot initiatives, because when voters are presented with a binary choice, you either vote for climate leadership or you vote against it.”
While other issues — like the economy, abortion, and immigration — appeared to guide Americans in their vote for president, downballot candidates seemed to benefit from voters’ climate concerns in battleground states that swung to Trump, such as Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Exit polls show that at least three incoming Democratic senators — Arizona’s Ruben Gallego, Nevada’s Jacky Rosen, and Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin — won more than 90 percent of the votes of voters who prioritize climate change.
Early voting gave another clue to where the climate vote went in these states. In Arizona and Nevada, environmentalists turned out in numbers large enough to boost Democratic candidates to slim margins of victory. Gallego gained his Senate seat by roughly 80,000 votes — a fifth of the number of early ballots cast by voters who prioritize environmental issues, according to data provided by the Environmental Voter Project. In Nevada, the organization found a similar ratio between early climate-first voters and the number of votes Rosen won by.
Democratic senator-elect Elissa Slotkin speaks at a rally hosted by Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Michigan State University campus two days before the 2024 election. Scott Olson / Getty Images
And in Michigan, which Trump took by a slim margin, economic anxieties collided with climate action. There, Democrat Elissa Slotkin squeaked out a victory for a Senate seat over the Republican Mike Rogers, who campaigned against Slotkin’s support of the state’s burgeoning electric vehicle industry, spending tens of millions of dollars on attack ads.
“There are going to be political consequences if you mess with people’s livelihoods,” said Lori Lodes, the executive director of Climate Power, an advocacy group. Lodes believes a shift to clean energy technology, like EVs, will continue — even in red states, which have benefited more from Inflation Reduction Act funding than blue ones. “Democrats and Republicans know first hand the impact of these investments on their communities,” she said.
There’s evidence and precedent to suggest that climate progress will continue, regardless of the presidential election outcome. Some 28 percent of the roughly 400 state-level bills to reduce carbon emissions from 2015 to 2020 — encompassing the years that Trump was last in office — passed through Republican-controlled legislatures. And this summer, 18 House Republicans signed a letter against rolling back clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act. Exit polling showed that 24 percent of voters who support the expansion of clean energy alternatives to oil and gas also chose Trump.
“Long term durable climate progress has to be bipartisan,” said David Kieve, president of Environmental Defense Fund Action, an organization that supports environmentalist candidates, including Republicans friendly to their mission. “I don’t think we can continue to operate in the really divided, fractured way we have in recent years.”
For those who worry about climate change all the time, the results of the November election seemed to send a clear message: American voters just don’t care as much as you do.
But even though President-elect Donald Trump took the popular vote while pledging to roll back the country’s landmark climate legislation, the overall results present a more complicated message. Exit polls show more Americans than ever prioritized climate change. And in several battleground states that backed Trump, Democratic senators who ran on environmental platforms also won their races. Across the country — in blue and red states alike — environmental ballot measures prevailed. So what exactly happened to the climate vote?
“There’s no question that, at the presidential level, climate was not on the ballot,” said Pete Maysmith, senior vice president of campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental nonprofit. “Voters are complex,” he said. “The economy really overrode a lot of other issues at play.”
Climate change was largely absent from this presidential election, with both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump remaining relatively quiet on the subject. The National Election Pool, the country’s largest exit polling consortium, didn’t include a question about the subject in its survey. But the second largest — a collaboration between Fox News and the Associated Press — did. When asked what they viewed as the most important issue facing the country, 7 percent of voters said climate change, a near doubling of climate concern since 2020, placing it as the fifth-most chosen issue out of the nine listed.
“This data shows that climate voters are wielding more political power than ever before, even though it’s still not nearly enough,” said Nathaniel Stinnett, the founder and executive director of the Environmental Voter Project, a nonprofit that tries to persuade environmentalists to get to the polls. Among the share of voters who consider climate change their top issue, the vast majority chose Harris — breaking harder for her than any other constituency did for any other candidate. Some 9 percent of them chose Trump.
An advocacy group’s message is seen displayed on a residential lawn in Michigan in November 2024. Izzy Ross / Grist
But while climate change may not be a top issue for the majority of Americans, that doesn’t mean they don’t care. Environmental initiatives triumphed across the map: In California, for example, voters sent $10 billion toward climate prevention and resilience. In Washington state, a ballot measure to repeal the state’s landmark Climate Commitment Act, which created a cap-and-invest program, resoundingly failed. In Louisiana and South Carolina, places that Trump won handily, nature conservation funding initiatives got the public’s stamp of approval.
“Broadly speaking, large majorities of Americans want to take action on climate change, but it is a high priority for very, very few voters,” Stinnett said. “We saw that bear out in a lot of ballot initiatives, because when voters are presented with a binary choice, you either vote for climate leadership or you vote against it.”
While other issues — like the economy, abortion, and immigration — appeared to guide Americans in their vote for president, downballot candidates seemed to benefit from voters’ climate concerns in battleground states that swung to Trump, such as Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Exit polls show that at least three incoming Democratic senators — Arizona’s Ruben Gallego, Nevada’s Jacky Rosen, and Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin — won more than 90 percent of the votes of voters who prioritize climate change.
Early voting gave another clue to where the climate vote went in these states. In Arizona and Nevada, environmentalists turned out in numbers large enough to boost Democratic candidates to slim margins of victory. Gallego gained his Senate seat by roughly 80,000 votes — a fifth of the number of early ballots cast by voters who prioritize environmental issues, according to data provided by the Environmental Voter Project. In Nevada, the organization found a similar ratio between early climate-first voters and the number of votes Rosen won by.
Democratic senator-elect Elissa Slotkin speaks at a rally hosted by Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Michigan State University campus two days before the 2024 election. Scott Olson / Getty Images
And in Michigan, which Trump took by a slim margin, economic anxieties collided with climate action. There, Democrat Elissa Slotkin squeaked out a victory for a Senate seat over the Republican Mike Rogers, who campaigned against Slotkin’s support of the state’s burgeoning electric vehicle industry, spending tens of millions of dollars on attack ads.
“There are going to be political consequences if you mess with people’s livelihoods,” said Lori Lodes, the executive director of Climate Power, an advocacy group. Lodes believes a shift to clean energy technology, like EVs, will continue — even in red states, which have benefited more from Inflation Reduction Act funding than blue ones. “Democrats and Republicans know first hand the impact of these investments on their communities,” she said.
There’s evidence and precedent to suggest that climate progress will continue, regardless of the presidential election outcome. Some 28 percent of the roughly 400 state-level bills to reduce carbon emissions from 2015 to 2020 — encompassing the years that Trump was last in office — passed through Republican-controlled legislatures. And this summer, 18 House Republicans signed a letter against rolling back clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act. Exit polling showed that 24 percent of voters who support the expansion of clean energy alternatives to oil and gas also chose Trump.
“Long term durable climate progress has to be bipartisan,” said David Kieve, president of Environmental Defense Fund Action, an organization that supports environmentalist candidates, including Republicans friendly to their mission. “I don’t think we can continue to operate in the really divided, fractured way we have in recent years.”
At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, civil society members held a People’s Plenary called “Pay Up, Stand Up: Finance Climate Action, Not Genocide” outside negotiation rooms in which U.N. member states attempted to hammer out a global climate finance deal. In the face of the conference’s restrictions on protest, civil society members unfurled the names of Palestinians who have been killed, reading out the names of those killed by Israel’s military aggression and calling for an end to ecocidal violence worldwide. We hear from three people who participated in the action, including Palestinian activist Jana Rashed and Sudanese activist Leena Eisa — both of whom call on nations to stop providing fuel for genocides being perpetrated against Palestinian, Lebanese and Sudanese people — and the plenary’s co-chair Lidy Nacpil, who calls the gathering a “celebration” of marginalized voices at the climate summit.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
As the U.N. climate summit nears its close, we examine a proposed climate finance deal that is already being contested by participants. Among the major issues is the absence of a firm number in the draft text on how much rich countries will pay. Poorer nations bearing the brunt of the climate crisis say at least $1.3 trillion a year is needed, a target that comprises just 1% of the global economy. “We’re here to negotiate a global settlement on climate finance, which is all about getting the funds that the poor world needs in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions, shift to a low-carbon economy and adapt to the impacts of extreme weather driven by the climate crisis,” explains our guest Fiona Harvey, a longtime environment editor at The Guardian. Developed countries’ resistance to shifting their methods of industrial development, as well as the outsized role of fossil fuel lobbyists at the summit, has led to a deal that satisfies no one. However, says Harvey, for as long as their investment in fossil fuels creates the very problem “we are trying to solve,” it is crucial that wealthy nations commit to setting aside funding for poorer nations, as “the future of these countries depends on getting this finance.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
As the U.N. climate summit nears its close, we examine a proposed climate finance deal that is already being contested by participants. Among the major issues is the absence of a firm number in the draft text on how much rich countries will pay. Poorer nations bearing the brunt of the climate crisis say at least $1.3 trillion a year is needed, a target that comprises just 1% of the global economy. “We’re here to negotiate a global settlement on climate finance, which is all about getting the funds that the poor world needs in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions, shift to a low-carbon economy and adapt to the impacts of extreme weather driven by the climate crisis,” explains our guest Fiona Harvey, a longtime environment editor at The Guardian. Developed countries’ resistance to shifting their methods of industrial development, as well as the outsized role of fossil fuel lobbyists at the summit, has led to a deal that satisfies no one. However, says Harvey, for as long as their investment in fossil fuels creates the very problem “we are trying to solve,” it is crucial that wealthy nations commit to setting aside funding for poorer nations, as “the future of these countries depends on getting this finance.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Like wildfires chewing through dried-out forests, hurricane after hurricane fed on extra-hot ocean water this summer and fall before slamming into communities along the Gulf Coast, causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damages and killing more than 300 people. The warmer the sea, the more potent the hurricane fuel, and the more energy a storm can consume and turn into wind.
Human-made climate change made all of this season’s 11 hurricanes — from Beryl to Rafael — much worse, according to an analysis released on Wednesday from the nonprofit science group Climate Central. Scientists can already say that 2024 is the hottest year on record. By helping drive record-breaking surface ocean temperatures, planetary warming boosted the hurricanes’ maximum sustained wind speeds by between 9 and 28 miles per hour.
That bumped seven of this year’s storms into a higher category on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, including the two Category 5 storms, Beryl and Milton. “Our analysis shows that we would have had zero Category 5 storms without human-caused climate change,” said Daniel Gilford, climate scientist at Climate Central, on a press call. “There’s really this impact on the intensity of the storms that we’re experiencing in the real world on a day-to-day basis.”
In a companion study also released Wednesday, Climate Central found that between 2019 and 2023, climate change accelerated hurricane wind speeds by an average of 18 mph. More than 80 percent of the hurricanes in that period were made significantly more intense by global warming, the study found.
That’s making hurricanes more dangerous than ever. An 18 mph boost in wind speeds might not sound like much, but that can mean the difference between a Category 4 and a Category 5, which packs sustained winds of 157 mph or higher. Hurricanes have gotten so much stronger, scientists are considering modifying the scale. “The hurricane scale is capped at Category 5, but we might need to think about: Should that continue to be the case?” said Friederike Otto, a climatologist who cofounded the research group World Weather Attribution, on the press call. “Or do we have to talk about Category 6 hurricanes at some point? Just so that people are aware that something is going to hit them that is different from everything else they’ve experienced before.”
Hurricanes need a few ingredients to spin up. One is fuel: As warm ocean waters evaporate, energy transfers from the surface into the atmosphere. Another is humidity, because dry air will help break up a storm system. And a hurricane also can’t form if there’s too much wind shear, which is a change in wind speed and direction with height. So even if a hurricane has high ocean temperatures to feed on, that’s not necessarily a guarantee that it will turn into a monster if wind shear is excessive and humidity is minimal.
Climate Central
But during this year’s hurricane season — which runs through the end of November — those water temperatures have been so extreme that the stage was set for catastrophe. As the storms were traveling through the open Atlantic, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico, they exploited surface temperatures made up to 800 times more likely by human-caused planetary warming, according to the Climate Central analysis. Four of the most destructive hurricanes — Beryl, Debby, Helene, and Milton — had their wind speeds increased by an average of 17 mph, thanks to climate change. In early November, Hurricane Rafael managed to jump from Category 1 to Category 3.
Climate Central’s companion study, published in the journal Environmental Research: Climate, looked at the five previous years and found that climate change boosted three hurricanes — Lorenzo in 2019, Ian in 2022, and Lee in 2023 — to Category 5 status. That isn’t to say climate change created any of these hurricanes, just that the additional warming from greenhouse gas emissions exacerbated the storms by raising ocean temperatures. Scientists are also finding that as the planet warms, hurricanes are able to dump more rain. In October, World Weather Attribution, for instance, found that Helene’s rainfall in late September was 10 percent heavier, making flooding worse as the storm marched inland.
All that supercharging might have helped hurricanes undergo rapid intensification, defined as an increase in wind speed of at least 35 mph within 24 hours. Last month, Hurricane Milton’s winds skyrocketed by 90 mph in a day, one of the fastest rates of intensification that scientists have ever seen in the Atlantic basin. In September, Hurricane Helene rapidly intensified, too.
This kind of intensification makes hurricanes particularly dangerous, since people living on a stretch of coastline might be preparing for a much weaker storm than what actually makes it ashore. “It throws off your preparations,” said Karthik Balaguru, a climate scientist who studies hurricanes at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory who wasn’t involved in the new research. “It means you have less time to evacuate.”
Researchers are also finding that wind shear could be decreasing in coastal areas due to changes in atmospheric patterns, removing the mechanism that keeps hurricanes in check. And relative humidity is rising. Accordingly, scientists have found a huge increase in the number of rapid intensification events close to shore in recent years.
The hotter the planet gets overall, and the hotter the Atlantic Ocean gets specifically, the more monstrous hurricanes will grow. “We know that the speed limit at which a hurricane can spin is going up,” Gilford said, “and hurricane intensities in the real world are responding.”
As we broadcast this week from the U.N. climate talks in Baku, human rights groups have warned of Azerbaijan’s escalating crackdown on civil society groups, government critics and the press. Since the announcement last year of Azerbaijan as the host of COP29, dozens of activists and journalists have been arrested, arbitrarily detained or prosecuted on “bogus charges,” says Giorgi Gogia, associate director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch. “Azerbaijan has had an abysmal rights record for many years, but it has dramatically deteriorated in the run-up to COP29,” states Gogia, who joins us from Tbilisi, Georgia, and co-authored the recent HRW report titled “'We Try to Stay Invisible': Azerbaijan’s Escalating Crackdown on Critics and Civil Society.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Indonesia’s plan to convert over 2 million ha of conservation and indigenous lands into agriculture will cause long-term damage to the environment, create conflict and add to greenhouse gas emissions, according to a feasibility study document for the Papua region mega-project.
The 96-page presentation reviewed by Radio Free Asia was drawn up by Sucofindo, the Indonesian government’s inspection and land surveying company.
Dated July 4, it analyses the risks and benefits of the sugar cane and rice estate in Merauke regency on Indonesia’s border with Papua New Guinea and outlines a feasibility study that was to have been completed by mid-August.
Though replete with warnings that “comprehensive” environmental impact assessments should take place before any land is cleared, the feasibility process appears to have been a box-ticking exercise. Sucofindo did not respond to questions from RFA, a news service affiliated with BenarNews, about the document.
Even before the study was completed, then-President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo participated in a ceremony in Merauke on July 23 that marked the first sugar cane planting on land cleared of forest for the food estate, the government said in a statement.
Jokowi’s decade-long presidency ended last month.
Excavators destroy villages
In late July, dozens of excavators shipped by boat were unloaded in the Ilyawab district of Merauke where they destroyed villages and cleared forests and wetlands for rice fields, according to a report by civil society organisation Pusaka
Hipolitus Wangge, an Indonesian politics researcher at Australian National University, told RFA the feasibility study document does not provide new information about the agricultural plans.
But it makes it clear, he said, that in government there is “no specific response on how the state deals with indigenous concerns” and their consequences.
The plan to convert as much as 2.3 million ha of forest, wetland and savannah into rice farms, sugarcane plantations and related infrastructure in the conflict-prone Papua region is part of the government’s ambitions to achieve food and energy self-sufficiency.
Previous efforts in the nation of 270 million people have fallen short of expectations.
Echoing government and military statements, Sucofindo said increasingly extreme climate change and the risk of international conflict are reasons why Indonesia should reduce reliance on food imports.
Taken together, the sugarcane and rice projects represent at least a fifth of a 10,000 square km lowland area known as the TransFly that spans Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and which conservationists say is an already under-threat conservation treasure.
Military leading role
Indonesia’s military has a leading role in the 1.9 million ha rice plan while the government has courted investors for the sugar cane and related bioethanol projects.
The likelihood of conflict with indigenous Papuans or of significant and long-term environmental damage applies in about 80 percent of the area targeted for development, according to Sucofindo’s analysis.
The project’s “issues and challenges,” Sucofindo said, include “deforestation and biodiversity loss, destruction of flora and fauna habitats and loss of species”.
It warns of long-term land degradation and erosion as well as water pollution and reduced water availability during the dry season caused by deforestation.
Sucofindo said indigenous communities in Merauke rely on forests for livelihoods and land conversion will threaten their cultural survival. It repeatedly warns of the risk of conflict, which it says could stem from evictions and relocation.
“Evictions have the potential to destabilize social and economic conditions,” Sucofindo said in its presentation.
If the entire area planned for development is cleared, it would add about 392 million tons of carbon to the atmosphere in net terms, according to Sucofindo.
That is about equal to half of the additional carbon emitted by Indonesia’s fire catastrophe in 2015 when hundreds of thousands of acres of peatlands drained for pulpwood and oil palm plantations burned for months.
Then-President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo participates in a sugar-cane planting ceremony in the Merauke regency of South Papua province in July. Image: Indonesian presidential office handout/Muchlis Jr
Indonesia’s contribution to emissions that raise the average global temperature is significantly worsened by a combination of peatland fires and deforestation. Carbon stored in its globally important tropical forests is released when cut down for palm oil, pulpwood and other plantations.
In a speech last week to the annual United Nations climate conference COP29, Indonesia’s climate envoy, a brother of recently inaugurated president Prabowo Subianto, said the new administration has a long-term goal to restore forests to 31.3 million acres severely degraded by fires in 2015 and earlier massive burnings in the 1980s and 1990s.
Indonesia’s government has made the same promise in previous years including in its official progress report on its national contribution to achieving the Paris Agreement goal of keeping the rise in average global temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius.
“President Prabowo has approved in principle a program of massive reforestation to these 12.7 million hectares in a biodiverse manner,” envoy Hashim Djojohadikusumo said during the livestreamed speech from Baku, Azerbaijan.
“We will soon embark on this programme.”
Prabowo’s government has announced plans to encourage outsiders to migrate to Merauke and other parts of Indonesia’s easternmost region, state media reported this month.
Critics said such large-scale movements of people would further marginalise indigenous Papuans in their own lands and exacerbate conflict that has simmered since Indonesia took control of the region in the late 1960s.
The U.N. climate summit known as COP29 is underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, where negotiators are trying to make progress on reducing emissions and preventing the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Many activists, however, have criticized the decision to hold the talks in an authoritarian petrostate. The host country is also facing accusations that it is using the climate talks for business, after the head of the talks, Elnur Soltanov, was caught in a secret recording promoting oil and gas deals. That sting was organized by the group Global Witness, which put forward a fake investor. “In exchange for just the promise of sponsorship money, that got us to the heart of the COP29,” says Lela Stanley, an investigator at Global Witness. “We need the U.N. to ban petro interests from sitting at the table, from influencing the COP.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
New Zealand’s Climate Change Minister Simon Watts is going to the global climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan next week, where he will be co-leading talks on international carbon trading.
But the government has been unable to commit to using the trading mechanism he is leading high-level discussions about, and critics say he is also vulnerable over New Zealand’s backsliding on fossil fuels.
New Zealand has consistently pushed for two things in international climate diplomacy — one is ending government subsidies for fossil fuels globally, and the other is allowing carbon trading across international borders, so one country can pay for, say, switching off a coal plant in another country.
Nailing down the rules for making sure these carbon savings are real will be an area of focus for leaders at the COP29 summit, starting on 11 November.
But as Watts gets ready to attend the talks, critics say his government is vulnerable to accusations of hypocrisy on both fronts.
In a bid to bring back fossil fuel exploration, the government wants to lower financial security requirements on oil and gas companies requiring them to set aside money for the costs of decommissioning and cleaning up spills.
The coalition says the current requirements — brought in after taxpayers had to pay to deal with a defunct oil field — are so onerous they are stopping companies wanting to look for fossil fuels.
Billion dollar clean-ups
At a recent hearing, Parliament’s independent environment watchdog warned going too far at relaxing requirements could leave taxpayers footing bills of billions of dollars if a clean-up is needed.
The commission’s Geoff Simmons spoke on behalf of Commissioner Simon Upton.
“The commissioner was really clear in his submission that he wants to place on record that he doesn’t think it is appropriate for any government, present or future, to offer any subsidies, implicit or explicit, to underwrite the cost of exploration.”
The watchdog said that would tilt the playing field away from renewable energy in favour of fossil fuels.
Energy Minister Shane Jones says the government’s Bill doesn’t lower the liability for fixing damage or decommissioning oil and gas wells, which remain the responsibility of the fossil fuel company in perpetuity.
But climate activist Adam Currie says that only works if the company stays in business.
“The watering down of those key financial safeguards increases the risk of the taxpaper having to yet again pay to decommission a failed oil field.
“Simon Watts is about to go to COP and urge other countries to end fossil fuel subsidies while at home they are handing an open cheque to fossil fuels .. This is a classic case of do as a say, not as I do.”
Getting flack not feared
Watts says he does not fear getting flack for the fossil-friendlier changes when he is in Baku, citing the government’s goal of doubling renewable energy.
“No I’m not worried about flak, New Zealand is transitioning away from fossil fuels . . . gas [from fossil fields] is going to need to be a means by which we need to transition.”
Nor does he see an issue with the fact he is jointly leading negotiations on a trading mechanism his own government seems unable to commit to using.
Watts is leading talks to nail down rules on international carbon trading with Singaporean Environment Minister Grace Fu. Her country has struck a deal to invest in carbon savings in Rwanda.
New Zealand also needs international help to meet its 2030 target, but the coalition government has not let officials pursue any deals. NZ First refuses to say if it would back this.
Watts says his leadership role is independent of domestic politics and ministers around the world are keen to nail down the rules, as is the Azerbaijan presidency.
“Our primary focus is to ensure that we get an outcome form those negotiators, our domestic considerations are not relevant.”
Paris target discussions
He said discussions on meeting New Zealand’s Paris target were still underway.
His next challenge at home is getting Cabinet agreement on how much to promise to cut emissions from 2030-2035, the second commitment period under the Paris Agreement.
Countries are being urged to hustle, with the United Nations saying current pledges have the planet on track for what it calls a “catastrophic” 2.5 to 2.9 degrees of heating.
A new pledge is due for 2030-2035 in February.
A major goal for host Azerbaijan is making progress on a deal for climate finance.
Currently OECD countries committed to pay $100 billion a year in finance to poorer countries to adapt to and prevent the impacts of climate change.
Not all the money has been paid as grants, with a large proportion given as loans.
Countries are looking to agree on a replacement for the finance mechanism when it runs out in 2025.
Watts said New Zealand would be among the nations arguing for the liability to pay to be shared more widely than the traditional list of OECD nations, bringing in other countries that can also afford to contribute.
Oil states such as UAE have already promised specific funding despite not being part of the original climate finance deal.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Pacific delegates fear the implications of a Trump presidency and breach of the 1.5 degree Celsius warming target will overshadow negotiations on climate finance at the UN’s annual COP talks that have started in Azerbaijan this week.
At the COP29 summit — dubbed the “finance COP” — Pacific nations will seek not just more monetary commitment from high-emitting nations but also for the funds to be paid and distributed to those countries facing the worst climate impacts.
With the US as one of the world’s largest emitters, it is feared Trump’s past withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could foreshadow diminished American involvement in climate commitments.
“We have our work cut-out for us. We are wary that we have the Trump administration coming through and may not be favourable to some of the climate funding that America has proposed,” Samoan academic and COP veteran Salā George Carter told BenarNews.
“We will continue to look for other ways to work with the US, if not with the government then maybe with businesses.”
President’s Scientific Council member Salā Dr George Carter (right) at the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) preliminary meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan. Image: Dylan Kava/PICAN
This year, for the first time, a COP President’s Scientific Council has been formed to be actively involved in the negotiations. Carter is the sole Pacific representative.
Past COP funding promises of US$100 billion annually from developed countries to support vulnerable nations “has never been achieved in any of the years,” he said.
Disproportionate Pacific burden Pacific nations contribute minimally to global emissions but often bear a disproportionate burden of climate change impacts.
Pacific Island Climate Action Network regional director Rufino Varea argues wealthier nations have a responsibility to support adaptation efforts in these vulnerable regions.
“The Pacific advocates for increased climate finance from wealthier nations, utilizing innovative mechanisms like fossil fuel levies to support adaptation, loss and damage, and a just transition for vulnerable communities,” Varea told BenarNews.
COP29 is being held in the capital of Azerbaijan, the port city of Baku on the oil and gas rich Caspian Sea, once an important waypoint on the ancient Silk Road connecting China to Europe.
The country bordering Russia, Iran, Georgia and Armenia is now one of the world’s most fossil fuel export dependent economies.
About 40,000 delegates will attend COP29 from all the U.N. member states including political leaders, diplomats, scientists, officials, civil society organizations, journalists, activists, Indigenous groups and many more.
All nations are party to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and most signed up to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and the 1.5 degree target.
Priorities for Pacific
Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Baron Waqa in a statement yesterday said “the priorities of the Pacific Islands countries, include keeping the 1.5 degree goal alive.”
“The outcomes of COP 29 must deliver on what is non-negotiable – our survival,” he said.
Delegates of Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) formulated their negotiating strategies at preliminary meetings in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, in preparation for COP29 talks. Image: Dylan Kava/PICAN
Ahead of COP29, the 39 members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) — representing the Pacific, Caribbean, African, Indian, and South China Sea — met in Baku to discuss negotiation priorities to achieve the 1.5 degree target and make meaningful progress on climate finance.
Pacific negotiators have historically found COP outcomes disappointing, yet they continue to advocate for greater accountability from major polluters.
“There have been people who have come to COP and refuse to attend anymore,” Carter said. “They believe it is a waste of time coming here because of very little delivery at the end of each COP.”
Papua New Guinea is not attending in Baku in an official capacity this year, citing lack of progress, but some key PNG diplomats are present to support the Pacific’s goals.
Climate data last week from the Europe Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service predicted 2024 will be the hottest year on record, and likely the first year to exceed the 1.5 degree threshold set in Paris.
Science becoming marginalised
Delegates worry science is becoming marginalised in climate negotiations, with some “arguing that we have reached 1.5, why do we continue to push for 1.5?,” Carter said.
“Although we have reached 1.5 degrees, we should not remove it. In fact, we should keep it as a long-time goal,” he said.
Carter argues for the importance of incorporating both scientific evidence and “our lived experience of climate change” in policy discussions.
The fight for the Paris target and loss and damage funding has been central to Pacific advocacy at previous COPs, despite persistent resistance from some countries.
The 1.5-degree target is “a lifeline of survival for communities and people in our region and in most island nations,” Varea said.
He stressed the need for “a progressive climate finance goal based on the needs and priorities of developing countries, small island developing states (SIDS), and least developed countries (LDC) to enable all countries to retain the 1.5 ambition and implement measures for resilience and loss and damage (finance).”
“As Pacific civil society, we obviously want the most ambitious outcomes to protect people and the planet.”
Pacific negotiators include prominent leaders, such as President Hilde Heine of the Marshall Islands, Vanuatu’s Special Envoy Ralph Regenvanu, Tuvalu’s Climate Change Minister Maina Talia and negotiators Anne Rasmussen from Samoa and Fiji’s Ambassador Amena Yauvoli.
New York, November 11, 2024—With the opening of the United Nations annual climate talks in Azerbaijan on Monday, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on visiting delegations to press Azerbaijan to end its unprecedented media crackdown.
“With at least 15 journalists awaiting trial on charges that could see them jailed for between eight and 20 years, Azerbaijan’s treatment of the press is absolutely incompatible with the human rights values expected of a United Nations host country,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “CPJ calls on Azerbaijani authorities to release all unjustly jailed journalists and support press freedom, and for the United Nations to ensure that major events are not held in countries with dire human rights and press freedom records like Azerbaijan”.
Over the last year, Azerbaijani authorities have charged at least 15 journalists with major criminal offenses in retaliation for their work, 13 of whom are being held in pretrial detention. Most of those behind bars work for Azerbaijan’s last remaining independent media outlets and face currency smuggling charges related to the alleged receipt of Western donor funds.
Nine months ago, the oceans became bathwater. As historically hot sea temperatures forced corals to expel the microorganisms that keep them alive, the world endured its fourth mass coral bleaching event, affecting more than half of all coral reefs in dozens of countries. As the temperatures continued to climb, many died.
It was an early taste of what would become a year marked by the consequences of record-breaking heat. And now it’s official: Last week, when much of the world’s attention was turned to the U.S. presidential elections, scientists from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service crowned 2024 as the hottest year on record — and the first year to surpass the 1.5 degrees Celsius benchmark. And that’s with 2 months left to go in the year.
“This marks a new milestone in global temperature records and should serve as a catalyst to raise ambition for the upcoming climate change conference, COP29,” said Samantha Burgess, Copernicus’ deputy direction, in a press release. Burgess called the announcement “virtually certain” because, barring an extreme event like a volcanic eruption that blocks the atmosphere’s excess heat, it’s nearly impossible for temperatures to fall enough for 2024 not to break the record.
It’s against this backdrop that world leaders, policymakers, and activists are descending on Azerbaijan for the 29th United Nations Climate Conference of the Parties, to tout their new climate goals and negotiate funding for vulnerable countries affected by climate change. Back home, many of their countries will still be recuperating from this year’s floods, fires, and other natural disasters. At the last conference in December 2023, governments agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the aim of trying to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial temperatures.
“2024 is the hottest year on record, and nothing can change that at this point,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, which, due to slight variations in their model, found last year exceeded 1.5 degrees C too. “It’s not about a single year passing that that 1.5 level. It’s more important to consider the longer term average of human contribution to climate change.”
There are half a dozen groups, including Berkeley Earth, Copernicus, and NASA, that calculate the progress of global warming, and each has its own approach to filling in data gaps from the beginning of the century when records were less reliable, leading to different estimations of how much the Earth has warmed since then. The average of these models is used by international scientific authorities like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the World Meteorological Organization. This is the first year, Hausfather says, that this communal average also shows the 1.5C threshold has been passed.
“1.5 degrees is not a magic number. Each degree matters,” said Andrew Dessler, director of Texas A&M University’s Texas Center for Climate Studies. Because each part of our climate system has different thresholds for tolerating the excess heat, small changes in temperature can have major consequences, and push ecosystems past their tipping points. “The world is engineered for the climate of the 20th century,” he said, “and we’re just now exiting that climate. We’re maladapted.”
Global warming alone can’t account for all the excess heat from these past two years. At least some of the super-charged temperatures and the disasters they catalyzed can be chalked up to a strong El Niño — a cyclical upwelling of warm water in the Pacific Ocean that shifts weather patterns across the globe. Although the most recent El Niño cycle was expected to give way to the cooler La Niña pattern this summer, the heat has persisted into the end of the year.
Once El Niño’s effects ease up, there’s a chance that coming years may dip back below the 1.5C mark. Hausfather notes that only once the planet’s temperatures have remained above the 1.5 degrees C threshold for a decade or more will scientists consider international emissions agreements to be breached. “A big El Niño year like this one gives us a sneak peek as to what the new normal is going to be like in a decade or so,” he said.
A wildfire burns in the Amazon rainforest in August, 2024. Evaristo Sa / AFP via Getty
And the new normal isn’t pretty. In addition to the widespread demise of coral reefs, the year brought record-setting heat waves in the Arctic and Antarctica that melted sea ice to near-historic lows, stoking concerns that sea levels would rise faster than anticipated. During summer months, some 2 billion people, a quarter of all humans on Earth, were exposed to dangerously hot temperatures, including 91 million people in the United States and hundreds of millions in Asia.
The extra heat fueled disasters throughout the year. Deadly wildfires raged in South America, burning millions of hectares across the Amazon Basin and Chile. Arctic forests in Russia and Canada went up in flames too, spewing record amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Catastrophic flooding killed hundreds in Spain, Africa, and South Asia. And recently, hurricanes Helene and Milton, catalyzed by hot ocean temperatures, tore through the Caribbean and the American South. Meanwhile, droughts gripped communities in nearly every continent.
“Those impacts are unacceptable. They’re being felt by those who are most vulnerable, which also happen to be, in general, those that are least responsible,” said Max Homes, president and CEO of the Woodwell Climate Research Center.
At the U.N. conference in Azerbaijan, organizations like the Woodwell Climate Research Center and the World Wildlife Fund are given the platform to speak directly to country representatives and showcase their research on climate change. There, activists hope that wealthy countries shore up their commitments to support poorer countries in their efforts to cope with the climate crisis, develop clean energy, and restore ecosystems.
“People shouldn’t think the game is over because we passed 1.5 degrees,” Dessler said. “The game is never over.”
The NSW Supreme Court has issued orders prohibiting a major climate protest that would blockade ships entering the world’s largest coal port in Newcastle for 30 hours. Despite the court ruling, Wendy Bacon reports that the protest will still go ahead next week.
SPECIAL REPORT:By Wendy Bacon
In a decision delivered last Thursday, Justice Desmond Fagan in the NSW Supreme Court ruled in favour of state police who applied to have the Rising Tide ‘Protestival’ planned from November 22 to 24 declared an “unauthorised assembly”.
Rising Tide has vowed to continue its protest. The grassroots movement is calling for an end to new coal and gas approvals and imposing a 78 percent tax on coal and gas export profits to fund and support Australian workers during the energy transition.
The group had submitted what is known as a “Form 1” to the police for approval for a 30-hour blockade of the port and a four-day camp on the foreshore.
If approved, the protest could go ahead without police being able to use powers of arrest for offences such as “failure to move on” during the protest.
Rising Tide organisers expect thousands to attend of whom hundreds would enter the water in kayaks and other vessels to block the harbour.
Last year, a similar 24-hour blockade protest was conducted safely and in cooperation with police, after which 109 people refused to leave the water in an act of peaceful civil disobedience. They were then arrested without incident. Most were later given good behaviour bonds with no conviction recorded.
Following the judgment, Rising Tide organiser Zack Schofield said that although the group was disappointed, “the protestival will go ahead within our rights to peaceful assembly on land and water, which is legal in NSW with or without a Form 1.”
Main issue ‘climate pollution’
“The main public safety issue here is the climate pollution caused by the continued expansion of the coal and gas industries. That’s why we are protesting in our own backyard — the Newcastle coal port, scene of Australia’s single biggest contribution to climate change.”
In his judgment, Justice Desmond Fagan affirmed that protesting without a permit is lawful.
In refusing the application, he described the planned action as “excessive”.
“A 30-hour interruption to the operations of a busy port is an imposition on the lawful activities of others that goes far beyond what the people affected should be expected to tolerate in order to facilitate public expression of protest and opinion on the important issues with which the organisers are concerned,” he said.
During the case, Rising Tide’s barrister Neal Funnell argued that in weighing the impacts, the court should take into account “a vast body of evidence as to the cost of the economic impact of global warming and particularly the role the fossil fuel industry plays in that.“
But while agreeing that coal is “extremely detrimental to the atmosphere and biosphere and our future, Justice Fagan indicated that his decision would only take into account the immediate impacts of the protest, not “the economic effect of the activity of burning coal in power plants in whatever countries this coal is freighted to from the port of Newcastle”.
Protest organisers outside NSW Court last week. Image: Michael West Media
NSW Police argued that the risks to safety outweighed the right to protest.
Rising Tide barrister Neal Funnell told the court that the group did not deny that there were inherent risks in protests on water but pointed to evidence that showed police logs revealed no safety concerns or incidents during the 2023 protest.
Although he accepted the police argument about safety risks, Justice Fagan acknowledged that the “organisers of Rising Tide have taken a responsible approach to on-water safety by preparing very thorough plans and protocols, by engaging members of supportive organisations to attend with outboard motor driven rescue craft and by enlisting the assistance of trained lifeguards”.
The Court’s reasons are not to be understood as a direction to terminate the protest.
NSW government opposition
Overshadowing the case were statements by NSW Premier Chris Minns, who recently threatened to make costs of policing a reason why permits to protest could be refused.
Last week, Minns said the protest was opposed because it was dangerous and would impact the economy, suggesting further government action could follow to protect coal infrastructure.
“I think the government’s going to have to make some decisions in the next few weeks about protecting that coal line and ensuring the economy doesn’t close down as a result of this protest activity,” he said.
Greens MP and spokesperson for climate change and justice Sue Higginson, who attended last year’s Rising Tide protest, said, “ It’s the second time in the past few weeks that police have sought to use the court to prohibit a public protest event with the full support of the Premier of this State . . . ”
Higginson hit back at Premier Chris Minns: “Under the laws of NSW, it’s not the job of the Premier or the Police to say where, when and how people can protest. It is the job of the Police and the Premier to serve the people and work with organisers to facilitate a safe and effective event.
“Today, the Premier and the Police have thrown this obligation back in our faces. What we have seen are the tactics of authoritarian politics attempting to silence the people.
“It is telling that the NSW Government would rather seek to silence the community and protect their profits from exporting the climate crisis straight through the Port of Newcastle rather than support our grassroots communities, embrace the right to protest, take firm action to end coal exports and transition our economy.”
Limits of police authorised protests Hundreds of protests take place in NSW each year using Form 1s. Many other assemblies happen without a Form 1 application. But the process places the power over protests in the hands of police and the courts.
In a situation in which NSW has no charter of human rights that protects the right to protest, Justice Fagan’s decision exposes the limits of the Form 1 approach to protests.
NSW Council for Civil Liberties is one of more than 20 organisations that supported the Rising Tide case.
In response to the prohibition order, its Vice-President Lidia Shelly said, “Rising Tide submitted a Form 1 application so that NSW Police could work with the organisers to ensure the safety of the public.
“The organisers did everything right in accordance with the law. It’s responsible and peaceful protesting. Instead, the police dragged the organisers to Court and furthered the public’s perception that they’re acting under political pressure to protect the interests of the fossil fuel industry.”
Shelly said, “In denying the Form 1, NSW Police have created a perfect environment for mass arrests of peaceful protestors to occur . . .
“The right to peaceful assembly is a core human right protected under international law. NSW desperately needs a state-based charter of human rights that protects the right to protest.
“The current Form 1 regime in New South Wales is designed to repress the public from exercising their democratic rights to protest. We reiterate our call to the NSW Government to repeal the draconian anti-protest laws, abolish the Form 1 regime, protect independent legal observers, and introduce a Human Rights Act that enshrines the right to protest.”
Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was professor of journalism at University of Technology Sydney (UTS). She worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism. She is a long-term supporter of a peaceful BDS movement and the Greens. Republished with the permission of the author.
“We will not sign our death certificate. We cannot sign on to text that does not have strong commitments on phasing out fossil fuels.”
These were the words of Samoa’s Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster, speaking in his capacity as chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) at the UNFCCC COP28 in Dubai last year.
Outside, Pacific climate activists and allies, led by the Pacific Climate Warriors, were calling for a robust and comprehensive financial package that would see the full, fast, and fair transition away from fossil fuels and into renewable energy in the Global South.
This is our Pacific Way in action: state parties and civil society working together to remind the world as we approach a “finance COP” with the upcoming COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11-22 that we cannot be conveniently pigeonholed.
We are people who represent not only communities but landscapes and seascapes that are both vulnerable, and resilient, and should not be forced by polluting countries and the much subsidised and profit-focused fossil fuel industries that lobby them to choose between mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage.
Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) are the uncomfortable reminder for those who want smooth sailing of their agenda at COP29, that while we are able to hold the tension of our vulnerability and resilience in the Pacific, this may make for choppy seas.
I recently had the privilege of joining the SPREP facilitated pre-COP29 gathering for PSIDS and the Climate Change Ministerial meeting in Nadi, Fiji, to provide spiritual guidance and pastoral support.
This gathering took place in a spiritually significant moment, the final week of the Season of Creation, ending, profoundly, on the Feast Day of St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of the environment. The theme for this year’s Season of Creation was, “to hope and act with Creation (the environment).
Encouraged to act in hope
I looked across the room at climate ministers, lead negotiators from the region and the regional organisations that support them and encouraged them to begin the preparatory meeting and to also enter COP29 with hope, to act in hope, because to hope is an act of faith, of vision, of determination and trust that our current situation will not remain the status quo.
Pacific church leaders have rejected this status quo by saying that finance for adaptation and loss and damage, without a significant commitment to a fossil fuel phase-out that is full, fast and fair, is the biblical equivalent to 30 pieces of silver — the bribe Judas was given to betray Jesus.
Pacific Council of Churches general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan . . . “We are people who represent not only communities but landscapes and seascapes that are both vulnerable, and resilient, and should not be forced by polluting countries.” Image: RNZ/Jamie Tahana
In endorsing the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and leading the World Council of Churches to do the same, Pacific faith communities are joining their governments and civil societies to ensure the entire blue Pacific voice reverberates clearly into the spaces where the focus on finance is dominant.
As people with a deep connection to land and sea, whose identity does not separate itself from biodiversity, the understanding of the “groaning of Creation” (Romans 8:19-25) resonates with Pacific islanders.
We were reminded of the words of St. Saint Augustine that says: “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”
As we witness the cries and sufferings of Earth and all creatures, let righteous anger move us toward the courage to be hopeful and active for justice.
Hope is not merely optimism. It is not a utopian illusion. It is not waiting for a magical miracle.
Hope is trust that our action makes sense, even if the results of this action are not immediately seen. This is the type of hope that our Pasifika households carry to COP29.
Reverend James Bhagwan is general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches. He holds a Bachelor of Divinity from the Pacific Theological College in Fiji and a Masters in Theology from the Methodist Theological University in Korea. He also serves as co-chair of the Fossil Fuel NonProliferation Treaty Campaign Global Steering Committee. This article was first published by RNZ Pacific.
An international legal judgment on governments’ obligations to prevent human-driven climate change has become more crucial after Donald Trump’s election victory raised the prospect of the U.S. again withdrawing from the landmark Paris agreement, a lawyer in the case said.
The U.N.’s International Court of Justice, or ICJ, is set to begin hearings on Dec. 2 that will culminate in it issuing an opinion on states’ responsibilities and the legal consequences for countries that fail to act. More than 130 nations – but not top polluters China and the U.S. – supported a push by Pacific island nation Vanuatu at the U.N. General Assembly in 2023 for the ICJ opinion.
“All the core norms at stake in the proceedings are norms of customary international law. So, that means that these obligations apply to all states. That is particularly relevant in a volatile political climate,” said Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, legal counsel for Vanuatu at the ICJ hearings.
Climate protesters interrupt former US president and Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump as he speaks at a “commit to caucus rally” in Indianola, Iowa, on Jan. 14, 2024.
During Trump’s first presidency, the U.S. in late 2019 announced its withdrawal from the Paris agreement that obligates countries to make far-reaching changes to limit the increase in average global temperature to well below 2.0 degrees Celsius.
At the time, the State Department cited the “unfair economic burden” imposed on American workers and businesses by U.S. pledges to reduce reliance on fossil fuels under the 2015 agreement. The withdrawal, only briefly in effect because it required a year’s notice, was reversed under President Joe Biden, whose administration began in early 2021.
“There are real threats of, for example, a new U.S. administration again pulling out of the Paris agreement and potentially even pulling out of the climate change convention,” Wewerinke-Singh told a briefing on Thursday. The convention is the foundational 1992 international agreement for preventing climate change.
“So that makes it even more relevant to have a good understanding of what these obligations are, that are universally applicable,” she said.
Vanuatu’s spearheading of the ICJ case has amplified the voices of small island nations whose national interests and even existence are often overlooked as more powerful nations jostle on the international stage.
Collectively, Pacific island nations have made a minute contribution to greenhouse gas emissions but warn they could suffer the brunt of consequences from higher global temperatures.
Tropical cyclones, for example, could become more intense and destructive. Sea-level rise could outpace the natural growth of low-lying coral atoll nations, making them prone to inundation by even normal tides.
Pacific island leaders have said the ICJ case is necessary because of lack of action to implement the Paris agreement. The 29th U.N. climate summit, known as COP, takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan next week.
Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu climate change minister, speaks during a plenary session at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Vanuatu’s special envoy Ralph Regenvanu said the new U.K. government’s decision to implement an ICJ opinion from 2019 that it should return the Chagos Archipelago to former British colony Mauritius shows the role of political will in international law.
“We hope for the right timing as well. We hope for political situations to get to the stage where countries may actually [act],” he told the briefing.
“I’m sure many countries will abide by the advisory opinion, but there will be changes in circumstances also where we get new governments who are more willing to abide than previous governments,” he said.
The U.N. court based in The Hague, in the Netherlands, has received 91 written statements from governments and international organizations on the climate change case – the highest number of written statements ever filed in an advisory proceeding before the court.
The court also received dozens of written responses to the initial submissions. It extended the deadline for written submissions several times.
China and the U.S. both made written submissions, as have organizations such as OPEC and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Regenvanu said in a statement Hurricane Milton last month showed the U.S., like Pacific island nations, increasingly faces extreme weather.
“This is a shared problem that will not solve itself without international cooperation, and we will continue to make that case to the incoming president of one of the world’s largest polluters,” he said.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Stephen Wright for RFA.
Growing U.S. security and diplomatic ties with Pacific island nations are unlikely to slow even if American foreign policy undergoes a major shake-up during Donald Trump’s second term, say former White House advisers and analysts.
Following decades of neglect, Washington has in recent years embarked on a Pacific charm offensive to counter the growing influence of China in the region.
While Trump’s unpredictably and climate change skepticism could be potential flashpoints in relations, deepening U.S. engagement with the Pacific is now firmly a consensus issue in Washington.
Trump is likely to maintain focus on the relationship, experts say, but he will have to prove that U.S. attention extends beyond just security-related matters.
“President Trump saw a strategic rationale for increased engagement in the Indo-Pacific and increased engagement in the Pacific islands,” said Alexander Gray, a senior fellow in national security affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council.
“While the reality is that the security lens is going to galvanize our commitment of resources and time on the region, it’s important for us to send a message that we have other interests beyond just security,” added Gray, who was the first-ever director for Oceania & Indo-Pacific security at the National Security Council.
“We have to show an interest in development, economic assistance and economic growth.”
A number of firsts
Trump’s first term between 2017-21 contained a number of firsts for relations between the world’s No. 1 economy and Pacific islands.
PHOTO
Then-President Donald Trump meets with, from left, Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuelo and Palau President Tommy Remengesau on May 21, 2019.
He invited the leaders of Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau for a historic visit to the White House in May 2019. Later that year Mike Pompeo became the first-ever secretary of state to visit the Federated States of Micronesia.
In 2019, the White House announced more than US$100 million in new assistance to the region under its so-called Pacific Pledge, with additional funding provided the following year. Money was funneled into USAID operations in Pacific islands nations, maritime security, internet coverage, environmental challenges and disaster resilience.
The Biden-Harris administration built upon that relationship, including twice inviting Pacific Islands Forum leaders to meet at the White House in 2022 and 2023.
“The importance of the Pacific is bipartisan in the U.S. system. In fact, re-engagement with the Pacific islands started under the previous Trump administration,” said Kathryn Paik, who served as director for the Pacific and Southeast Asia at the NSC under President Joe Biden.
“This was largely due to increased Chinese interest in the region and the growing understanding within the U.S. system of the strategic importance of these islands.”
In particular, the Biden administration’s commitment to tackling climate change chimed well with Pacific nations, which are vulnerable to rising sea levels and extreme weather events like cyclones that are predicted to become more frequent as the planet warms.
Radically different approach
Trump has taken a radically different approach — pledging to ramp up oil production and threatening to pull out of the Paris climate agreement for a second time.
In June 2017, Trump announced the U.S. would formally withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, the first nation in the world to do so.
That could make climate change a potential “flashpoint” between Pacific nations and another Trump administration, said Benjamin Reilly, a visiting professor at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.
“The climate change issue is right at the top of the agenda for Pacific island leaders. It creates lots of difficulties when you have an administration that’s seen as downplaying the importance of that,” he told BenarNews.
President Joe Biden (R) meets with presidents of Pacific island nations at the U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit in Washington, D.C., Sept. 29, 2022.
Paik, who is now a senior fellow with the Australia Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the climate factor would complicate the relationship, but it was unlikely to “completely sink” it.
Despite Trump’s open skepticism about dangerous planet warming, U.S. support for resilience efforts across the Pacific might not be affected, some observers said.
“The Pacific certainly didn’t agree with us on our macro approach to climate change,” said Gray, who visited the region a number of times, including for the 2019 Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in Tuvalu. “But we made tremendous progress in advancing our relationships in the region because we were able to talk about resilience issues that affect people day to day.”
Shared values, mutual respect
Following Trump’s sweeping victory on Tuesday, Pacific island leaders tried to stress their shared interests with the U.S.
“We look forward to reinforcing the longstanding partnership between our nations, grounded in shared values and mutual respect,” said Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape.
Tonga’s Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni and Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabukia both said they looked forward to advancing bilateral relations and Pacific interests.
Pacific island nations have sought to benefit from the China-U.S. rivalry by securing more aid and foreign investment. But they have expressed alarm that their region is being turned into a geopolitical battleground.
Reilly said a danger for any new president was treating the Pacific islands as a “geopolitical chess board.”
“That’s a terrible way to actually engage and win hearts and minds and build enduring partnerships,” he said.
Paik said the U.S. now needs to build on the successes of the first phase of American re-engagement.
The U.S. renewed its compact of free association deals with Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands earlier this year, but “some of the implementation is still pending,” she said. The deals give the U.S. military exclusive access to their vast ocean territories in exchange for funding and the right for their citizens to live and work in the U.S.
“Some of the embassies have been opened, but we still only have one or two diplomats on the ground,” said Paik. “We still need to open an embassy in Kiribati and potentially other locations.
“We need to get ambassadors out to the region. We need a permanent ambassador to the PIF.”
No sitting U.S. president has ever visited a Pacific island nation.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Harry Pearl for BenarNews.
CPJ and 16 other international human rights organizations on Wednesday called on the European Union to press Azerbaijan to release around a dozen jailed journalists and improve its dire human rights record as the country hosts the United Nations Climate Change Conference on November 11-22, 2024.
The statement highlights how, in the months leading up to the COP29 conference, Azerbaijani authorities have pursued a “relentless crackdown” against independent media and civil society, “eradicating most forms of dissent and legitimate human rights work.”
At least 15 Azerbaijani journalists have been arrested since November 2023 and currently await trial on charges that could see them jailed for between eight and 20 years. Thirteen of them remain in pre-trial detention.
