Talk of a walk-out from poor country groupings grows in response to ‘unacceptable’ and ‘insulting’ finance proposal
Developing countries were being urged by civil society groups to reject “a bad deal” at the UN climate talks on Friday night, after rich nations refused to increase an “insulting” offer of finance to help them tackle the climate crisis.
The stage is set for a bitter battle on Saturday over how much money poor countries should receive from the governments of the rich world, which have offered $250bn a year by 2035 to help the poor shift to a low-carbon economy and adapt to the impacts of extreme weather.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/22/2024 - 12:23
Residents concerned as North Carolina city lifts boil advisory and scientists detect lead in water at area schools
When the western North Carolina town Swannanoa was battered by Hurricane Helene in September, two large trees crushed Stephen Knight’s home. His family of six was launched into a complicated web of survival: finding a temporary home, applying for disaster relief, filing insurance claims.
The new logistics of living included the daily search for food and water. Until earlier this week, most residents of this town east of Asheville had no drinkable tap water for 52 days. After the storm damaged infrastructure around the region, water had been partly restored in mid-October. It was good for flushing toilets but not safe for consumption. In some places, sediment left the water inky like black tea.
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11/22/2024 - 11:51
Chancellor understood to be determined to keep policy despite Treasury analysing ways to soften impact
Rachel Reeves is holding firm against a U-turn on inheritance tax for farmers, despite the Treasury analysing ways of softening the impact.
The chancellor is understood to be determined not to drop the policy even though some Labour MPs – and even ministers – are worrying about the political fallout of the policy that has led to farmers protesting in Westminster this week.
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11/22/2024 - 08:20
Experts are optimistic about energy and drug production breakthroughs but also fear its potential misuse
When better to hold a conference on artificial intelligence and the countless ways it is advancing science than in those brief days between the first Nobel prizes being awarded in the field and the winners heading to Stockholm for the lavish white tie ceremony?
It was fortuitous timing for Google DeepMind and the Royal Society who this week convened the AI for Science Forum in London. Last month, Google DeepMind bagged the Nobel prize in chemistry a day after AI took the physics prize. The mood was celebratory.
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11/22/2024 - 07:51
Cop29 is taking place in a country whose economy has long been dependent on its oil reserves
Oil runs deep in Azerbaijan, the host country of this year’s UN climate summit. Just 30 minutes south-west of the Cop29 conference centre lies the site of the world’s first industrially drilled oil well, opened in 1846.
Just metres away sit a handful of operating oil wells, nodding away. The Guardian spoke to an employee of Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company, Socar, who was working on one of the wells. Asked what oil meant for Azerbaijan, the 47-year-old worker said: “Too much!”
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11/22/2024 - 06:00
Levels in people’s blood for 37 chemicals linked to health issues declined after they were designated under Prop 65
California’s nation-leading restrictions on toxic chemicals in consumer products reduced the population’s body levels for many dangerous compounds linked to cancer, birth defects, reproductive harm and other serious health issues.
New peer-reviewed research showed levels in residents’ blood for 37 chemicals the authors analyzed had declined after the substances were designated under Proposition 65, which regulates toxic chemicals in consumer goods.
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11/22/2024 - 03:00
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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11/22/2024 - 03:00
Labour inherited a dire situation that needed desperate change – but powerful lobbies make any tax reform near-impossible
That was a state-of-the-nation image, those thousands of farmers in Whitehall protesting about inheritance tax (IHT). Their little inheritors on toy tractors could hardly have offered a better portrait of a Britain where even modest reforms of wildly irrational tax reliefs are near-impossible. The country loves Old MacDonald and detests IHT.
This is a symbol of the great malaise those same contrary voters feel about the profound unfairness in this most unequal of countries. Few think it’s OK for the top 1% to own almost a quarter of all wealth, or the top 0.1% to take about 60 times more income than their population share, while we are living through the greatest decline in living standards since records began.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
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11/22/2024 - 02:34
Petrostate’s rebuke comes as Saudi Arabia and allies try to derail transition promise made at climate talks last year
Cop29 climate summit – live updates
The world must stand behind a historic resolution made last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”, the United Arab Emirates has said, in a powerful intervention into a damaging row over climate action.
The petrostate’s stance will be seen as as a sharp rebuke to its neighbour and close ally Saudi Arabia, which had been trying to unpick the global commitment at UN climate talks in Azerbaijan this week.
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11/22/2024 - 02:20
Text ‘decides’ on $250bn for developing countries by 2035 – but faces criticism from African Group of Negotiators
A new text of the Cop29 deal has yet to emerge, but civil society activists have not given up hope, reports Damian Carrington, Guardian environment editor.
Hilda Nakabuye, 27, from Fridays for Future campaign group in Uganda, said:
We are holding on to hope. As a mother I am here to represent my people, my community, but also future generations that we hold close and dear to our hearts and why we are all in this fight. The ones least responsible for climate change undergo its worst effects.
We know what power we hold: the power to act. We are in an emergency. This COP is all about the money, but communities on the ground are not seeing the money. When the climate hits we need to respond like any other emergency, because it is an emergency. We all know deep down there is more than enough money to fill the loss and damage fund with trillions, so why are we still pleading for the bare minimum?
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