BARCELONA – As Cyclone Biparjoy approached southern Pakistan this week, top Pakistani negotiator Nabeel Munir told governments at midyear U.N. climate talks in Bonn that it felt like he was “conducting a primary school class,” amid squabbling over the meeting agenda. The evening before the two-week negotiations were due to end in the German city on...
BERLIN – Diplomats pushing for stronger climate action walked away from a two-week preparatory meeting for COP28 climate summit disappointed by inter-country bickering and what some said was a lack of ambition from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 2023’s host nation. Negotiators from Europe and climate-vulnerable nations were looking for two things at the Bonn...
The world cannot afford this year’s climate summit to be a washout The United Arab Emirates is not the first petrostate to host a UN climate COP conference, nor the first authoritarian regime. Sultan al-Jaber, the oil executive it has picked to be president of this year’s COP28 meeting in Dubai, is likewise not the...
BONN, Germany — This was supposed to be the United Arab Emirates’ chance to prove its critics wrong. The host of this year’s COP28 climate summit was under pressure to set out a clear vision at preparatory talks held at the United Nations HQ in Bonn amid growing unease over the petrostate’s fossil fuel interests. But...
Battle Lines Harden Over Big Oil’s Role at Climate Talks in Dubai. Sultan al-Jaber leads the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company as well as the COP28 climate talks coming this November. An unavoidable tension surrounds this year’s United Nations-sponsored climate talks in November: They will take place in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, and the...
In a world of worsening climate extremes, a single red line has caught many people’s attention. The line, which charts sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean, went viral over the weekend for its startling display of unprecedented warming—nearly 2 degrees (1.09 Celsius) above the mean dating back to 1982, the earliest year with comparable...
Climate activist says only ‘rapid and equitable’ phaseout will keep temperatures within 1.5C limit Rich countries are signing a “death sentence” for millions of poor people around the world by failing to phase out fossil fuels, the climate activist Greta Thunberg has told governments. She warned on Tuesday that with annual greenhouse gas emissions at an all-time high,...
The United Arab Emirates began paying high-profile advertising and lobbying agencies to green its image ahead of hosting this year’s climate talks. Then the trouble began. One of the world’s wealthiest oil states is engaged in a wide-ranging public relations and lobbying campaign to cast itself as an environmental leader before it hosts the United...
Fake social media profiles have been spreading propaganda messages about Cop28 and attacking criticism of its host, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in what experts called an “organised” campaign. Purporting to be genuine people based in the UAE, scores of individual Twitter accounts publish similar positive content and defend the UAE in replies to posts...
Representatives from nearly 200 countries are meeting in Bonn, Germany, from June 5 to 15, to prepare for the December climate conference. At the heart of the debates is the end of fossil fuels and the creation of a new fund for loss and damage. A technical session to prepare for the world climate conference...