Responding to the news that Emirati authorities on 7 December began a new mass trial, prosecuting more than 80 Emiratis, including renowned Emirati human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience – some of whom have already spent a decade behind bars, and are now facing trumped up terrorism charges, Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional...
While high in the public and political discourse, as well as in public health, other environmental stressors, such as noise pollution, are much less researched, talked about and visible. However, the impact of noise pollution on public health is significant, across Europe, and globally. The interplay between climate change mitigation and noise pollution reduction reveals...
A draft agreement from the UN’s COP28 climate summit has dropped references to the phaseout of fossil fuels, triggering a backlash from countries that accuse Saudi Arabia and other petrostates of thwarting efforts to tackle global warming.The document, which will have to be agreed on by almost 200 countries at the summit in Dubai, sets...
COP28 pledges so far not enough to limit warming to 1.5C -IEA. A raft of new pledges announced at the COP28 climate summit – from tripling renewables to reining in methane emissions – won’t be enough on their own to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Sunday....
‘Small minority’ of nations blocking progress on fossil fuels at COP28, says at-risk Vanuatu. A small minority of countries at UN climate talks are blocking a growing consensus to phase out fossil fuels, at-risk Vanuatu’s climate change minister told AFP on Sunday. The COP28 meeting in Dubai is at a “critical stage”, said Ralph Regenvanu, whose low-lying Pacific nation...
Cop28: highlights and lowlights so far. An update on the first half of the UN climate conference in Dubai, including shock over the host president’s comments. A summary of some of the news from the first half of the Cop28 UN climate conference in Dubai, including a spectacular row about the host president’s remarks on the science...
Money offered so far falls far short of estimated $400bn in losses developing countries face each year. Wealthy countries most responsible for the climate emergency have so far pledged a combined total of just over $700m (£556m) to the loss and damage fund – the equivalent of less than 0.2% of the irreversible economic and...
Dubai’s glitzy skyline was obscured by a blanket of smog rated as “unhealthy” on Sunday as thousands of delegates attended the fourth day of the COP28 summit, which was designated as “health” day and where topics of discussion include air quality and the unhealthy affects of climate change. Police said about 20,000 people protested in the...
COP28 president Ahmad Al Jaber promotes blue ammonia as a decarbonisation solution. We spoke to various experts who disagree. “When I first started hearing about blue hydrogen, let alone blue ammonia, it seemed like a scam, quite frankly,” Robert Howarth, Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology at Cornell University, states. “In some ways, it is.”...
Record numbers of delegates have been registered for this year’s COP28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), making it potentially the largest in COP history by some distance. More than 97,000 participants have badges to attend this year’s Conference of the Parties (COP) in Dubai in person. This is almost twice the number...