EU environment ministers scrapped a commitment to lift its greenhouse gas emissions reduction target after several countries held back during many hours of negotiations over the proposals thebloc will present to the upcoming UN climate summit. Poland, Hungary and Italy objected to a pledge to increase the bloc’s emissions reduction target from 55 per cent...
European Union countries’ climate ministers meet on Monday to decide the bloc’s negotiating position for this year’s COP28 summit – but they are still split over some key issues, like how hard to push for a global deal to phase out fossil fuels. The EU is typically one of the most ambitious negotiators at the...
‘We’re not paying enough attention’ say scientists studying pollinator loss in the tropics. Climate change and habitat loss are combining to dramatically shrink the numbers of insects pollinating key tropical crops. As those problems intertwine and intensify, it likely will hit coffee lovers right in the mug, according to a new study. And that one-two punch will...
The EU’s new climate commissioner has been criticised for backsliding on a commitment to push for a fossil fuel phase-out at the upcoming COP28 climate summit in Dubai, ahead of talks on Monday (16 October) where EU countries are expected to agree their stance. Dutchman Wopke Hoekstra was officially nominated on Monday (9 October), on...
A little more than a month remains before the start of the next United Nations Climate Summit, known as COP28, taking place in Dubai. But the already fraught talks are facing another potential obstacle: the threat of regional Mideast instability following Hamas’ terrorist attacks in Israel. Why it matters: At COP28, countries are tasked with weighing actions...
The UN failed short of a US$10 billion target after the US and other wealthy nations failed to fulfil their climate finance pledges at a crucial climate financing conference held last week in Bonn, Germany. Last week’s Bonn conference on climate change witnessed a significant setback as the US and other rich countries failed to...
To keep pretending, year after year, decade after decade, that the U.N. process is working when everyone can see that it is failing, is its own kind of denial. Every year, the world’s governments gather at what the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, calls a Conference of the Parties, or COP,...
Statement at UN human rights council voices ‘disappointment’ after host country refuses to change restrictive laws. The UK has asked the United Arab Emirates, one of its closest Gulf allies, to explain how it will guarantee free speech around the UN Cop28 climate summit in Dubai after the country refused to change its restrictive laws. The...
The president of Abu Dhabi’s state-owned oil company is set to host critical climate negotiations this autumn. he oil company run by the president of this year’s UN climate conference is set to increase the emissions from its oil and gas products by more than 40% by 2030, according to analysis by Global Witness. Abu...
Pope Francis has called out the “conflict of interest” of the United Arab Emirates as this year’s climate summit host in the strongest ever statement released by the Vatican on the climate crisis. In a new document titled “Laudate Deum” or “Praise God” on Wednesday, the Pope issued a stern call for climate action and questioned UAE’s position as a host for...