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Following a dramatic fire yesterday, the climate summit is due to finish this evening, but disagreements over the final text look difficult to resolve
Overnight the Guardian revealed that at least 29 nations supporting a phase-out of fossil fuels at the climate summit had sent a letter to the Brazilian Cop presidency threatening to block any agreement that did not include such a commitment, in a significant escalation of tensions at the crunch talks.
The leaked letter also demanded that the roadmap be included in the outcome of the talks.
Dear Presidency,
We wish to reaffirm our deep commitment to working hand in hand with you to ensure that COP30 becomes a true success—one that demonstrates to the world that climate multilateralism can indeed deliver the implementation results needed to keep the 1.5°C goal within reach. The legacy of the Presidency in making COP30 a milestone moment will depend on the quality—rather than the speed—of the outcome. A text that is inclusive, balanced, and ambitious would reflect the leadership needed to inspire confidence. Conversely, a weak text would be remembered as a missed and regrettable opportunity and would undermine the credibility of the process, of the Presidency, and of the regime itself.
This is Brazil’s headliner, so this document is important and worth digging into. Below is a hot-take of the key elements:
*Adaptation - calls for efforts to triple adaptation finance, ‘urges’ developed countries to increase provision of climate finance (para 53, Mutirão).
*Finance - high-level ministerial round table to reflect on the implementation of the $300bn & $1.3 trillion and a 2-year work programme on the provision of finance (para 52, Mutirão).
*Mitigation - no mention of fossil fuels or paragraph 28, but calls for launch of a ‘global implementation accelerator’ as a cooperative, voluntary initiative under the guidance of the presidencies to report back at Cop31.
*NDCs - calls on countries to ‘accelerate the full implementation’ of NDCs [emissions pledges] while ‘striving to do better’collectively and cooperatively (para 33, Mutirão).
*1.5C/NDC gap -calls for a ‘Belém Mission to 1.5’ aimed at accelerating action to close the gap, also to report back at Cop31 (para 42, Mutirão).
*Trade - dialogues over the next 2 years with UN trade agencies to address trade & climate, slams unilateral measures (para 55-56, Mutirão), no mentions of Brazil’s trade forum.
*Transparency - acknowledges reporting creates burdens (para 56, Mutirão).
Globalgoal onadaptation - the range of ‘indicators’ related to adaptation has been reduced and adopted, but defined as voluntary and not a basis for financial commitments; contains a placeholder for adaptation finance goal; establishes 2-year policy alignment plan (para 6, 7, 8, 21, 34, GGA).
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Climate sceptics tell us that more people die of extreme cold than extreme heat. What’s the truth?
I began by trying to discover whether or not a widespread belief was true. In doing so, I tripped across something even bigger: an index of the world’s indifference. I already knew that by burning fossil fuels, gorging on meat and dairy, and failing to make even simple changes, the rich world imposes a massive burden of disaster, displacement and death on people whose responsibility for the climate crisis is minimal. What I’ve now stumbled into is the vast black hole of our ignorance about these impacts.
What I wanted to discover was whether it’s true that nine times as many of the world’s people die of cold than of heat. The figure is often used by people who want to delay climate action: if we do nothing, some maintain, fewer will die. Of course, they gloss over all the other impacts of climate breakdown: the storms, floods, droughts, fires, crop failures, disease and sea level rise. But is this claim, at least, correct?
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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Since 1995, when the first Cop was held, carbon levels have increased from 360.67 parts per million to 426.68 parts now
In 1995, when the first “conference of the parties” (Cop) of the UN’s climate change convention met in Berlin, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was approximately 360.67 parts per million. The then German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, gave a passionate speech about how greenhouse gases must be reduced to save the planet from overheating. There was a relatively unknown East German woman, the environment minister, Angela Merkel, chairing the conference. She was red hot at keeping order. The UK journalists concluded she would have a bright future.
Immediately after the conference I was commissioned to write a book about climate change called Global Warming: Can Civilization Survive? It sold well and was the first of several.
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This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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Winkworth Arboretum, Surrey: This song is not the same as the full-throated spring version, and it’s impossible not to reply to
The arboretum feels like a place in slow transition. The trees are ablaze in shades of maroon, crimson, copper, amber and gold, but with every breath of wind, leaves detach and float to the ground. The spongy bark of a coastal redwood yields under my fingertips. Caught in a crevice, a single downy feather marks where a tree creeper roosted overnight. I scan the surrounding trees, listening out for the high-pitched seeee-seeee-seeee contact call they make as they spiral up a trunk, but there’s no sign.
The birdlife has quietened. All we can hear are carrion crows cawing from the treetops, an occasional croak from a ring-necked pheasant lurking in the bracken, and the wispy voices of a pair of goldcrests probing for insects in the canopy of a weeping Japanese maple.
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She was sure that there would be warnings if there was any danger. But then the floods came. This is Toñi García’s story
Location Valencia, Spain
Disaster Floods, 2024
Toñi García lives in Valencia. On 29 October 2024, devastating storms hit the Iberian peninsula, bringing the heaviest rain so far this century. The national alert system sounded at around8.30pm local time; by then, however, flood waters had already broken through the city. Scientists say the explosive downpours were linked to climate change.
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California faced evacuation warnings over flood risk, while Japan experienced heavy early season snowfall
Evacuation warnings were issued last week in California as heavy rain brought the risk of flooding and landslides. The storms in the US were linked to a phenomenon known as an “atmospheric river” – a long filament of moisture-laden air that originates above the Pacific Ocean and provides vital replenishment of reservoirs and snowpack along the western coast of the US. However, they can also bring destructive volumes of rain, particularly along coastal areas.
Elsewhere in the US, parts of Colorado experienced some of their longest stretches of snowless days ever this year, with Denver surpassing its third-latest snowfall date this week after recording its highest ever November temperature of 28C earlier in the month. The warm temperatures and lack of snowfall have also forced ski resorts to delay opening until December.
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Ending use of coal, oil and gas is essential in tackling climate crisis – but even talking about it is controversial
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Climate summit in Brazil needs to find way to stop global heating accelerating amid stark divisions
“It broke my heart.” Surangel Whipps, president of the tiny Pacific nation of Palau, was sitting in the front row of the UN’s general assembly in New York when Donald Trump made a long and rambling speech, his first to the UN since his re-election, on 23 September.
Whipps was prepared for fury and bombast from the US president, but what followed was shocking. Trump’s rant on the climate crisis – a “green scam”, “the greatest con job ever perpetrated”, “predictions made by stupid people” – was an unprecedented attack on science and global action from a major world leader.
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Brazil’s president welcomes world leaders while navigating divided government, promising action on deforestation and emissions
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has welcomed world leaders to Belém for the first climate summit in the Amazon, where conservationists hope he can be a champion for the rainforest and its people.
But with a divided administration, a hostile Congress and 20th-century developmentalist instincts, this global figurehead of the centre left has a balancing act to perform in advocating protection of nature and a reduction of emissions.
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