Climate Home News

With just $69 million in the bank account of the fledgling loss and damage fund so far, its new executive director, Ibrahima Cheikh DIONG, was urged to keep running costs as low as possible at his first board meeting this month. Board members from 26 governments around the world questioned the Loss and Damage Fund's current and planned spending on consultants, business-class plane tickets and the need to have a deputy executive director. Joe Lo writes about it. Read the full story 👇

Global demand for #nickel - an essential component of electric vehicle (#EV) batteries - has surged, as countries shift away from fossil fuels.   #Indonesia’s abundant nickel reserves are crucial for a low #carbon world. But extracting them is ruining local peoples’ lives and causing rampant #deforestation, writes our campaigner Perrine Fournier in Climate Home News.   #Mining companies have been granted access to mine around three-quarters of #Kabaena, a tropical island in one of the country’s so-called ‘nickel provinces’. Only a few mining concessions are currently operating, and the human and environmental damage is already apparent.   Amal, a local student, shares his experience: “The mining company broke our forests. They made us lose our river.”   Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/eD8yNyHp

In his first – and most likely last – visit to sub-Saharan Africa as US President this week, Joe Biden chose to focus on the planned upgrade of a cross-border railway that is set to take minerals needed for the energy transition out of Central Africa to the coast and on to the United States. Transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy will require huge amounts of copper to carry electricity and cobalt for batteries. The US and China are competing to source limited supplies of these materials for their electric vehicle manufacturers. Biden told his African peers that the Lobito Corridor railway project would be a “game changer”, transporting copper. Read more here 👇

From tearful speeches to the walkouts that occurred before the end (with a finance deal pushed through in controversial circumstances), #COP29 saw many dramatic moments. Climate Home had a reporting team in Baku throughout, and now we're sharing our list of the most dramatic moments during those two weeks.

The historic hearings on climate change at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), scheduled for December 2-13, may help advance the case for climate reparations. The Court’s pronouncements can produce tangible impacts. While advisory opinions do not settle specific conflicts between states, they are definitive interpretations of binding law – and even considered instruments of preventive diplomacy. People whose rights are harmed by climate impacts deserve remedy and reparation – and legal clarity from the Court would be a first step in achieving it. Read more in this comment piece by Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)'s Lien Vandamme & Joie Chowdhury.

Talks on a new global treaty to end plastic pollution approach the halfway mark in Busan, South Korea, but little progress has been made so far, mainly due to the influence of some fossil-fuel producing nations – led by Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran. Government diplomats have yet to agree on any parts of the text aimed at dealing with plastic pollution across the “full lifecycle” of the material – which means from production to disposal and reuse or recycling. “Progress has been too slow – we need to speed up our work,” said Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the chair of the talks. 

There's no question that COP29 was a tough COP. Against a global backdrop of war, rising emissions and a shift to right-wing populism, it was about holding the line and showing that the UN climate process can survive against the odds. It just about worked, but only just. The new climate finance goal - which nearly didn't get agreed - doesn't cover rich countries in glory, as it won't be a heavy lift for them to reach. Real solidarity was in short supply. The atmosphere was dour and grumpy in the third straight year of trying to make progress at talks hosted by a state that openly pursues fossil fuels while cracking down on civil liberties. COP29 ended in a mixture of relief, disappointment and exhaustion - with limited successes and some failures, as Climate Home News reports. Can we do better next year in Brazil? Let's hope so...

Still wrapping your head around everything that happened at #COP29? Here's our explainer with the most important outcomes, from the new climate finance goal to the just transition. Spoiler: most of this will require further work next year on the path to COP30 in Brazil. Reporting by Vivian Chime, Joe Lo & Mariel Lozada.

“The pollution doesn’t start when plastic misses a bin on the street. As soon as we start to produce plastic, toxic chemicals leak into the environment, causing harm to frontline communities,” Environmental Investigation Agency campaigner Jacob Kean-Hammerson explained. However, some major fossil fuel-producing countries – like Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran, as well as an ever-increasing number of industry lobbyists – are pushing to exclude plastic production from the treaty altogether. Read why it’s essential to tackle the problem at the source via Climate Home News 👇 https://lnkd.in/gPr2bbEA

A global treaty on plastics, - described as the most significant since the 2015 Paris Agreement-, is set to be negotiated in South Korea over the next week. This is the fifth round of negotiations. After four rounds of meetings, in which a small number of fossil fuel-rich countries dug in their heels to delay progress and water down ambition, it is still all to play for in Busan. A central point of contention among delegates is whether the treaty should regulate plastic production at all.