After US Veto, UN General Assembly Expected to Vote on Gaza Cease-Fire

"The U.S. veto makes it complicit in the carnage in Gaza," said the executive director of Doctors Without Borders.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres speaks during a Security Council meeting on Gaza at UN headquarters in New York City on December 8, 2023.
(Photo: Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON
Dec 11, 2023

The United Nations General Assembly is expected to vote Tuesday on a Gaza cease-fire resolution after the United States used its veto power late last week to tank a similar measure put before the U.N. Security Council, a move that drew international outrage and condemnation.

Following the U.S. veto on Friday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he "will not give up" in his push for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip as the territory's humanitarian crisis continues to spiral out of control, with the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) warning that conditions created by Israel's siege and near-constant bombing have made it "almost impossible" to respond sufficiently to the emergency.

"Without a cease-fire, there is no peace," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday. "And without peace, there is no health."

In late October, the 193-member U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza, with just 14 countries—including the U.S. and Israel—voting in opposition. Weeks later, Israel and Hamas agreed to a pause that lasted just seven days before Israel resumed and expanded its attack on the Palestinian territory.

After the U.S. blocked a United Arab Emirates-led cease-fire resolution at the Security Council on Friday, Egypt and Mauritania "invoked Resolution 377A (V) to call for an emergency meeting of the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday," Al Jazeerareported.

"The resolution says that if the UNSC is not able to discharge its primary responsibility of maintaining global peace due to lack of unanimity, the UNGA can step in," the outlet explained.

Unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly measures are not legally binding—though they are seen as holding political weight.

The draft resolution expected to come to a vote during Tuesday's emergency UNGA session expresses "grave concern over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip" and demands "an immediate humanitarian cease-fire" as well as the "immediate and unconditional release of all hostages"—language that closely resembles the measure that the U.S. vetoed.



Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said in an explanation of the veto that the resolution did not include language backed by the Biden administration that would have condemned Hamas and explicitly acknowledged Israel's right to defend itself.

Humanitarian groups responded with fury to the U.S. veto, which came as Israel—armed with American-made weaponry—ramped up its assault on southern Gaza, further imperiling displaced people and what's left of the territory's healthcare system.

Avril Benoît, executive director of Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement that the veto was a "vote against humanity."

"The U.S. veto stands in sharp contrast to the values it professes to uphold," said Benoît. "By continuing to provide diplomatic cover for the ongoing atrocities in Gaza, the U.S. is signaling that international humanitarian law can be applied selectively—and that the lives of some people matter less than the lives of others."

"The U.S. veto," Benoît added, "makes it complicit in the carnage in Gaza."

In an op-ed for Common Dreams on Monday, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs—who also serves as president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network—warned against cynicism about the U.N.'s role and purpose, writing that the international body is "currently blocked by the U.S."

"The U.N. is doing its job, building international law, sustainable development, and universal human rights, step by step, with advances and reverses, over the opposition of powerful forces, but with the arc of history on its side," Sachs wrote. "International law is a relatively new human creation, still in the works. It is difficult to achieve in the face of obstreperous imperial power, but we must pursue it."

This teenage tyrannosaur had a stomach full of dino drumsticks

The young Gorgosaurus ate the meatiest parts of two smaller dinosaurs shortly before it died.

CHOKED ON A BONE

BY LAURA BAISAS |

 PUBLISHED DEC 11, 2023

An artist’s illustration of Gorgosaurus libratus eating a small bird-like dinosaur called Citipes elegans.

 Julius Csotonyi/Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology/ Alberta

The stomach of the teenage tyrannosaur Gorgosaurus libratus is a gift that keeps on giving. A team of paleontologists in Canada found the remains of two meals preserved inside of its stomach cavity, including the partially digested drumsticks of two birdlike dinosaurs. The findings were described in a study published December 8 in the journal Science Advances and is the first known time that well-preserved gut continents have been discovered in a fossilized tyrannosaur.

[Related: The ghosts of the dinosaurs we may never discover.]

Gorgosaurus lived about 75 million years ago, or several million years before its more famous relative the Tyrannosaurus rex. In the study, the Gorgosaurus was estimated to be between five and seven years old when it died, or a teenager in dinosaur years. It probably weighed about 738 pounds, or 13 percent of the body mass of a fully grown Gorgosaurus. Adults were about 33 feet long and weighed upwards of 2,200 pounds.


The fossil was first discovered in 2009 by staff from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta. Technicians noticed strange features poking out of the fossil’s rib cage while they were preparing it. These turned out to be small toe bones. Gut contents like these are rarely preserved in dinosaur fossils, but this specimen had the dismembered remains of two herbivorous dinosaurs–Citipes elegans.

Photograph and illustration of the gorgosaur’s stomach contents. CREDIT: Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology.

The tyrannosaur only ate the hind limbs of each tiny Citipes and they appear to be the last and second-to-last meal that the Gorgosaurus consumed before it died.

“It must have killed… both of these Citipes at different times and then ripped off the hind legs and ate those and left the rest of the carcasses,” study co-author and University of Calgary paleontologist Darla Zelenitsky told CNN. “Obviously this teenager had an appetite for drumsticks.”

Tyrannosaurs digested the bones of their prey in their stomach, instead of regurgitating them the way present-day birds do. Since the elements of the two Citipes individuals are at different stages of digestion, the team concludes that these were two different meals eaten hours or days apart.

This specimen also shows direct evidence that young Gorgosaurus had different diets than adults. Fully grown Gorgosaurus are known to have hunted megaherbivore dinosaurs including ceratopsians (horned dinosaurs) and hadrosaurs (duck-billed dinosaurs), based on the tooth marks left behind on bones. They used their massive skulls and teeth to capture their large prey, chomp through bone, and then scrape and tear the flesh.

[Related: Scaly lips may have hidden the T-rex’s fearsome teeth.]

Juveniles were not yet built to hunt such large prey. They had more narrow skulls, blade-like teeth, and long and slender hind limbs. This made them better suited for capturing and dismembering small and young prey like the Citipes found in this specimen. The team also believes that this kind of prey was a preferred snack for these teenage dinos.

“This is a great case of showing small tyrannosaurids fed on small dinosaurs, much smaller than themselves,” University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas Holtz told The Washington Post., “Whereas the grown-up versions, we have the evidence of their bite marks on big adults that were about the same size as adults.”

The dietary shift towards eating bigger prey likely began around the age of 11. This is when the tyrannosaurs’ skulls and teeth started to get more robust. Differences in diet provide a competitive advantage by lessening competition for resources in modern ecosystems. This same strategy could have been applied when tyrannosaurs like Gorgosaurus lived. It would have allowed juveniles and adults to coexist in the same ecosystem with less conflict. Occupying different ecological niches during their lifespan was likely one of the keys to tyrannosaurs’ evolutionary success as some of Earth’s carnivores.

Laura Baisas
Laura is a science news writer, covering a wide variety of subjects, but she is particularly fascinated by all things aquatic, paleontology, nanotechnology, and exploring how science influences daily life. Laura is a proud former resident of the New Jersey shore, a competitive swimmer, and a fierce defender of the Oxford comma.

Trust us, says EU, our AI Act will make AI trustworthy by banning the nasty ones

Big Tech plays the 'this might hurt innovation' card for rules that bar predictive policing, workplace emotion assessments

Laura Dobberstein
Mon 11 Dec 2023 

The European Union (EU) on Saturday reached provisional agreement on the AI Act – a broad legal framework limiting how artificial intelligence can be used.

"The EU's AI Act is the first-ever comprehensive legal framework on Artificial Intelligence worldwide," claimed EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

According to von der Leyen, the agreement focuses on identifiable risks, thereby creating legal certainty for the industry and the technology's development.

The Commission's description of the Act outlines a tiered risk management system, with different AIs categorized by their impact on rights.

The majority of AI systems fit within the "minimal risk" category, the classification used for auto recommendation systems, spam filters and the like. Participation in AI codes of conduct for providers of such services will be voluntary.

AI systems deemed "high-risk" – such as those related to critical infrastructures, education access assessment, law enforcement, or biometric identification – will be subjected to stricter requirements.

Regulations could demand detailed documentation, higher quality data sets, human oversight and risk-mitigation systems.

Anything presenting a clear threat to fundamental rights falls in the "unacceptable risk" tier and is not permitted.

AIs in this category include predictive policing, workplace emotional recognition systems, manipulation of human behavior to circumvent free will, or categorizing people based on qualities including political or religious persuasion, race, or sexual orientation.

The Act will also require labelling of deepfakes and AI generated content, while chatbot users must be made aware they are conversing with a machine.

Meanwhile, foundational models used in AI that require training upwards of 1025 flops will face additional regulation in 12 months' time.

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With a six-month lead time to compliance, AI developers will need to ensure any feature that falls within the unacceptable risk category is quickly removed from their products. Compliance with regs for "high risk" AI must also be in place within half a year of the Act's passage.

Being found afoul of the Act brings substantial fines that AI law expert Barry Scannell evaluated as "a significant financial risk" for businesses.

These fines are anywhere from 1.5 percent of their global turnover or $8 million, to seven percent or $37.7 million – depending on the violation and the developer's capacity.

The Commission did hint it could explore "more proportionate caps" on fines for startups and SMEs.

According to Scanell, there's a lot for businesses to consider. Those that invest in biometric and emotion recognition may need "major strategic shifts."

"Additionally, enhanced transparency requirements might challenge the protection of intellectual property, necessitating a balance between disclosure and maintaining trade secrets," wrote the Dublin-based attorney.

He also assessed that upgrading data quality and acquiring advanced bias management tools could raise operational costs. The increased documentation and human oversight could also present a business nuisance in the form of time and money.

The agreement was signed after 38 hours of negotiation. European Parliament member Svenja Hahn praised the result as preventing massive overregulation, but expressed concerned it could use "more openness to innovation and an even stronger commitment to civil rights."

The lawmaker was disappointed by the failure to prevent allowance of real-time biometric identification "against the massive headwind from the member states," but expressed she was pleased by the prevention of biometric mass surveillance.

Big Tech was also not entirely satisfied with the Act. The Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) quipped that "the outcome seems to indicate that future-proof AI legislation was sacrificed for a quick deal" and "is likely to slow down innovation in Europe."

CCIA members represent a who's who of internet services, software and telecom companies – including names like Amazon, Apple, Cloudflare, Intel, Google, Samsung, and Red Hat.

The CCIA complained in its canned statement about the increased requirements for some technologies and the full on bans for those deemed an "unacceptable risk."

"This could lead to an exodus of European AI companies and talent seeking growth elsewhere," asserted the CCIA.

While the agreement is fairly set, it's not an absolutely done deal. It still must pass formal approval by the European Parliament and the Council. It will enter into force 20 days after publication in the Official Journal.

Von der Leyen promised to continue the work of AI regulation at an international level – through involvement in the G7, OECD, Council of Europe, G20 and UN. ®

Critics pan draft text at UN climate talks as watered down as COP28 nears its finale in Dubai

Jon Gambrell, Jamey Keaten, Seth Borenstein, Sibi Arasu

Dec 12 202


Countries moved closer to reaching what critics called a watered-down final deal on how to act on climate change on Monday, avoiding calls from more than 100 nations to phase out planet-warming fossil fuels as the United Nations summit in Dubai neared its culmination.

A new draft released Monday afternoon on what's known as the global stocktake – the part of talks that assesses where the world is at with its climate goals and how it can reach them – called for countries to reduce “consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner”.

The release triggered a frenzy of fine-tuning by government envoys and gimlet-eye analysis by advocacy groups, just hours before the planned late morning finish to the talks on Tuesday – even though many observers expect the finale to run over time, as is common at the annual U.N. talks.

Small island nations, some of the most vulnerable places in a world of rising temperatures and seas, blasted the draft and were trying to decide their options. Final decisions by COPs have to be by consensus and objections can still torpedo this. Activists said they feared that potential objections from fossil fuel countries, such as Saudi Arabia, had watered down the text.

PETER DEJONG/AP
Demonstrators hold signs that reads "hold the line" and "end fossil fuels" during the COP28 UN Climate Summit.

Anger grew as people had more time to read the document.

“What we have seen today is unacceptable,” Marshall Islands chief delegate and natural resources minister Samuel Silk said. "We will not go silently to our watery graves. We will not accept an outcome that will lead to devastation for our country, and for millions if not billions of the most vulnerable people and communities.”

European climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra called the text “disappointing." German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan said Europe is “extremely unified” in opposing the COP presidency’s text, calling it unacceptable.

“We’re prepared to stay as long as it takes to get the course correction that the world needs,” Morgan told The Associated Press as she walked into the heads of delegation meeting.


RAFIQ MAQBOOL/AP
Germany Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, left, talks after speaking to the media following a plenary stocktaking during the COP28 summit.

A combination of activists and delegation members lined the entry way into a special evening meeting of heads of delegations, with their arms raised in unity as delegations walked through, creating a tunnel-like effect. A few activists told delegates passing by: “You are our last hope. We count on you.”

Delegations are meant to be reaching a deal that’s in line with capping warming by 1.5C to stop the worst effects of climate change, from devastating heat, droughts, storms to sea level rise and other extremes.

In the 21-page document, the words oil and natural gas did not appear, and the word coal appeared twice. It also had a single mention of carbon capture, a technology touted by some to reduce emissions although it's untested at scale.

Activists said the text was written by the COP28 presidency, run by an Emirati oil company CEO, and pounced on its perceived shortcomings. It called for “phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption" but fell short of a widespread push to phase out fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal altogether.

The COP presidency, in a statement, countered that the text was a “huge step forward” and was now “in the hands of the parties, who we trust to do what is best for humanity and the planet”.

RAFIQ MAQBOOL/AP
Licypriya Kangujam protests against the use of fossil fuels.

COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber skipped a planned news conference and headed straight into a meeting with delegates just after 6:30pm (local time). It was the second time for him to cancel a press briefing on Monday.f

“We have a text and we need to agree on the text,” al-Jaber said. “The time for discussion is coming to an end and there’s no time for hesitation. The time to decide is now.”

He added: “We must still close many gaps. We don’t have time to waste.”

Critics said there was a lot to do.

“This text is a nightmare of weak proposals and internal contradictions,” said Tom Evans of the European think tank E3G. “The next 17 hours must see the champions of ambition rally hard."

"The word ‘phase-out’ has been phased out," said Li Shuo, director of the Asia Society Policy Institute. “We need to phase in the word phase-out. I think there's still a chance for countries to do so.”

Jean Su from the Center for Biological Diversity said the text “moves disastrously backward from original language offering a phaseout of fossil fuels”.

"If this race-to-the-bottom monstrosity gets enshrined as the final word, this crucial COP will be a failure,” Su said.

RAFIQ MAQBOOL/AP
COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber, right, greets United Nations Climate Chief Simon Stiell at a plenary stocktaking session at the COP28.

But Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa said the “text lays the ground for transformational change”.

“This is the first COP where the word fossil fuels are actually included in the draft decision. This is the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era,” he said.

Also on Monday, the latest draft on the Global Goal on Adaptation – the text on how countries, especially vulnerable ones, can adapt to weather extremes and climate harms – was released on Monday,

The adaptation is “utterly disappointing” and “an injustice to communities on the frontline of the crisis,” said Amy Giliam Thorp of Power Shift Africa.

“The text is even weaker, more vague in many areas, and lacking in ambition,” she said. It's “set to corrode trust between developed and developing nations. A framework focused on action without concrete targets, especially to support developing countries, is pointless and toothless.”


KAMRAN JEBREILI/AP
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a news conference.

Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio, a senior advisor for adaptation and resilience at the U.N. Foundation said “the new text doesn’t have the strength that we were hoping to see."

“The language on financing of adaptation is wishy washy,” she said.

On Monday morning, visibly tired and frustrated top UN officials urged COP28 talks to push harder for an end to fossil fuels, warning that time is running out for action.

“We can’t keep kicking the can down the road,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “We are out of road and almost out of time.”

Associated Press journalists Olivia Zhang, Malak Harb, Bassam Hatoum and David Keyton contributed to this report.

COP28: Draft agreement calls for reduction in 'consumption and production of fossil fuels'

Axes proposals for full 'phase out'

Michael Holder & Cecila Keating in Dubai
11 December 2023•


China climate envoy Xie Zhenhua heads to bilateral meeting earlier today | Credit: UNFCCC

Draft text from COP28 Presidency includes raft of proposals for accelerating the roll out of clean technologies and references the need to tackle fossil fuel production - but axes proposals for a full 'phase out'

The UN climate talks are set for a dramatic final day, after the COP28 Presidency published a long-awaited draft of its proposals for a final deal in Dubai, including what could prove to be an historic call to reduce fossil fuel consumption and production "in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by, before or around 2050".

The latest iteration of the Global Stocktake - widely regarded as the most important document being negotiated at this year's UN Climate Summit - was published late afternoon local time, finally giving observers the clearest indication yet of the shape of a compromise deal that could be adopted by almost 200 countries.

Crucially, the draft text axes previous references to the need to "phase out" unabated fossil fuels, following fierce opposition from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and others. But the latest iteration does still directly call for a reduction in fossil fuel consumption and production by around mid-century. If adopted, the text would mark the first time fossil fuels have been explicitly referenced in a UN climate accord and would build significantly on the 2021 commitment to "phase down" unabated coal power.

The proposed text "recognises the need for deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions" and sets out eight broad actions that countries can take to achieve them, covering renewables, energy efficiency, coal power plants, fossil fuel subsidies, low carbon hydrogen and carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies, and non-CO2 sources of emissions, among other efforts.


The text "calls upon" countries to take actions "that could" include "reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by, before, or around 2050 in keeping with the science".

Supporting that call, there is also a paragraph calling for "accelerating" efforts to scale up low emissions technologies "so as to enhance efforts towards substitution of unabated fossil fuels in energy systems".

The specific technologies it cites include renewables, nuclear, and "abatement and removal technologies, including such as carbon capture utilisation and storage, and low carbon hydrogen production".

Moreover, the draft includes a reference to "rapidly phasing down unabated coal and limitations on permitting new and unabated coal power generation", and "accelerating efforts globally towards net zero emissions energy systems, utilising zero and low carbon fuels well before or by around mid-century".

And it pushes for the "phasing out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption and do not address energy poverty or just transitions, as soon as possible".

As with previous draft texts, the proposed agreement includes calls for a "tripling [of] renewable energy capacity globally and doubling [of] the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030", although references to specific capacity targets appear to have been removed.

Additionally, a broad call for "accelerating and substantially reducing non-CO2 emission, including, in particular, methane emissions globally by 2030" - which would largely impact oil and gas producers as well as agricultural firms - remains in the updated version of the text.

However, there is no specific call for action to reduce fossil fuels during the current decade, as has been demanded by various 'high ambition' countries and environmental groups, in recognition of the need to peak global emissions by 2025 and then reduce them by 43 per cent by 2030 to keep the Paris Agreement's 1.5C temperature goal within reached.

Green bonds issuance surpasses $2.5trn

Environmental groups also voiced frustration the proposed commitment "phase out" fossil fuels had been completely cut from the Global Stocktake text, and that the word "inefficient" has made it back into the text in relation to the need to curb fossil fuel subsidies.

The decision to include references to "abatement and removal technologies" alongside the calls for more renewable energy and energy efficiency efforts was also singled out for criticism by environmental groups, who gave their snap verdict on the text to journalists outside the halls of the negotiating rooms in Dubai.

Concerns were also raised that the language merely suggested nations "could" take the menu of eight broad actions outlined, rather than more robust wording that is often used in UN texts such as "should", which detractors warned may not provide a strong enough impetus for the rapid energy transition needed to put the world on a 1.5C-aligned pathway.

Accusations were quickly levelled at the likes of Saudi Arabia and Iraq for fighting against more ambitious "phase out" language being included in the text on fossil fuels, both of which have frequently been cited as among the biggest opponents of language pushing an end the global economy's dependency on coal, oil and gas.

All eyes will now turn to countries that have been seeking ambitious language on fossil fuels to provide a signal as to whether there is a deal to be done based on the text that is now on the table.

New COP28 draft deal stops short of fossil fuel 'phase out'

By Kate Abnett, Gloria Dickie and David Stanway for Reuters


The draft will set the stage for a final round of contentious negotiations in the two-week summit in Dubai. Photo: AFP

A draft of a potential climate deal at the COP28 summit on Monday suggested a range of options that countries could take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but omitted the "phase out" of fossil fuels that many nations have demanded.

The draft will set the stage for a final round of contentious negotiations in the two-week summit in Dubai, which has laid bare deep international divisions over whether oil, gas and coal should have a place in a climate-friendly future.

COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber urged the nearly 200 countries at the talks to redouble their efforts to finalise a deal ahead of the scheduled close of the conference on Tuesday, saying they "still have a lot to do".

"You know what remains to be agreed. And you know that I want you to deliver the highest ambition on all items including on fossil fuel language," he said.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said a central benchmark of success for COP28 will be whether it yields a deal to phase out fossil fuels fast enough to avert disastrous climate change.

The new draft of a COP28 agreement, published by the United Arab Emirates' presidency of the summit, proposed various options but did not refer to a "phase out" of all fossil fuels, which had been included in a previous draft.

Instead it listed eight options that countries "could" use to cut emissions, including: "reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by, before, or around 2050".

Other actions listed included: tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, "rapidly phasing down unabated coal" and scaling up technologies including those to capture CO2 emissions to keep them from the atmosphere.

A coalition of more than 100 countries including big oil and gas producers from the United States, Canada and Norway, as well as the European Union and island nations, wanted an agreement that included language to phase out fossil fuels, a feat not achieved in 30 years of the UN summits. The emissions from burning fossil fuels are by far the main driver of climate change.

The US State Department called for the draft agreement language to be strengthened, while the European Union said the new text was disappointing.

"We appreciate the effort on the part of many to produce the text, which seeks to balance a variety of interests," the State Department said in a statement. "At the same time, the mitigation section, including the issue of fossil fuels, needs to be substantially strengthened."

EU chief negotiator Wopke Hoekstra told reporters: "It is lengthy, we're still looking into all the various elements. And yes, there are a couple of things in there. But overall, it is clearly insufficient, and not adequate to addressing the problem we are here to address."

Representatives from Pacific island nations Samoa and the Marshall Islands, already suffering the impacts of rising seas, said the draft was a death warrant.

"We will not go silently to our watery graves," said John Silk, the head of the Marshall Islands delegation.

"We cannot sign on to a text that does not have strong commitment on phasing out fossil fuels," Samoa environment minister Cedric Schuster told reporters.

A new draft document is expected on early Tuesday, which would leave little time for further disagreement ahead of the conference's scheduled close at 0700 GMT. COP summits rarely finish on schedule.

Photo: AFP

Pressure from Saudi Arabia

Sources familiar with the discussions said the UAE had come under pressure from Saudi Arabia, de facto leader of the OPEC oil producers' group of which UAE is a member, to drop any mention of fossil fuels from the text.

Saudi Arabia's government did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.

It was unclear if China, currently the world's top greenhouse gas emitter, supported the draft.

Leaving their pavilion, senior members of the China delegation, including chief envoy Xie Zhenhua, did not respond to questions.

But observers noted that some of the language in the document was in line with China's previous policy positions, as well as the Sunnylands agreement signed by China and the United States in November.

The Sunnylands agreement did not use contentious phrases like "phasing out" but instead called for the accelerated substitution of coal, oil and gas with renewable energy sources, and backed the pledge to triple renewable energy by 2030.

Xie told reporters on Saturday the language in the Sunnylands agreement could provide an opportunity for a breakthrough at COP28.

Brazilian climate negotiator Ana Toni said: "This is an attempt to include the perspectives of all, and not to exclude anyone."

Consensus needed for any deal

For oil-producing nations, a global deal at COP28 to ditch fossil fuels - even without a firm end date - could signal a political willingness from other nations to slash their use of the lucrative products on which fuel-producing economies rely.

Speaking to ministers and negotiators on Sunday, a representative for Saudi Arabia's delegation said a COP28 deal should not pick and choose energy sources, but should instead focus on cutting emissions.

That position echoes a call made by OPEC in a letter to its members earlier in the summit, seen by Reuters, which asked them to oppose any language targeting fossil fuels directly.

Deals at UN climate summits must be passed by consensus among the nearly 200 countries present. That high bar aims to establish a consensus on the world's next steps to tackle climate change, which individual countries should then make happen through their national policies and investments.

Developing nations have said any COP28 deal to overhaul the world's energy system must be matched with sufficient financial support to help them do this.

"We need support as developing countries and economies for a just transition," said Colombia's Environment Minister Susana Muhamad said. Colombia supports a COP28 deal to phase out fossil fuels.

Despite the rapid growth of renewable energy, fossil fuels still produce around 80 percent of the world's energy.

Negotiators told Reuters that other OPEC and OPEC+ members including Russia, Iraq and Iran, have also resisted attempts to insert a fossil fuel phase-out into the COP28 deal.

This story was first published by Reuters.

COP28 Diary (December 10, 2023): New GGA draft weaker than previous text, countries talk about finance gaps at Majlis

Parties still not on same page about responsibilities in GST text; final texts on carbon market expected December 11


By Akshit Sangomla, Avantika Goswami, Tamanna Sengupta, Trishant Dev, Rohini Krishnamurthy, Parth Kumar
Published: Monday 11 December 2023
 Photo: UNclimatechange / flickr
The 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), began November 30, 2023. Here’s a look at what happened on the eleventh day of COP28.

Adaptation 

A new draft text on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) was introduced by the COP28 presidency on the morning of December 10. The text is weaker than the earlier draft not only on the means of implementation (MOI) from developed countries to developing countries but also on thematic targets such as ecosystems. 

The MOI, which includes finance for adaptation measures by developing countries to make vulnerable communities resilient to the ongoing impacts of climate change, is crucial for meeting other specific targets under the GGA framework such as the assessments of risks and vulnerabilities that need to be conducted by countries and also implementing adaptation measures. 

The financial target of $400 billion dollars and the language around the adaptation finance gap have been removed from the text.

Some developing country groups feel that the GGA framework would fail without an assurance on adaptation finance. The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities is also still an option. 

Majlis

The COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber convened a Majlis, a gathering of one head of delegation / minister from each country, to sit in a circle and speak openly. Countries made impassioned statements about their priorities for the COP28 outcome. 

Australia Climate Minister Christopher Bowen said despite being one of the largest oil and gas exporters, Australia believes that fossil fuels have no ongoing role in our energy systems and abatement is not a reason for delay, just a part of the overall solution. 

South Africa mentioned that they have received only 10 per cent of the money promised under the Just Energy Transition Partnerships (a financial mechanism that aims to help a selection of heavily coal-dependent emerging economies make a just energy transition), and for them, the issue is a means of implementation gap, not an ambition gap. 

Bolivia spoke about “procrastination, protectionism, unilateral trade measures” inhibiting climate action. They also said even though developed countries claim the $100 billion target is met, no concrete, tangible money has been seen. 

French Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said, “I am making it crystal clear — we have met $100 billion last year and this year.”

Global Stocktake

There is broad support for the Global Stocktake (GST) to take its basis in science and equity, leading to higher ambitions and balanced outcomes. However, there are still many areas where Parties are far apart from each other. 

There are different views on how to address past, present and future responsibilities in light of the best available science, Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (a principle acknowledges the different capabilities and differing responsibilities of individual countries in addressing climate change) and equity, opposing views on concerns about unilateral measures, and how to include suggestions on ways forward that do not interfere with the nationally determined nature of NDCs. 

Consultations continued on Sunday morning in informal-informals, which is closed to observers. The Presidency is expected to present the GST text for the COP28 package by the morning of December 11, following the Majlis on Sunday.

Carbon markets

Article 6.2: Conversations took place in an informal-informal format. Discussions were far from achieving consensus. Parties held conflicting views, such as whether to have a single authorisation for everything for trading and transfer of Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes or obtain authorisation at every step. A take-it-or-leave-it text is expected to be released on December 11, 2023.

Article 6.4: Late-night informal-informal meetings on priority issues of the work programme for removals and methodologies occurred. Another topic of discussion has been paragraph 9 of the draft, which requests the supervisory body to work on the sustainable development tool, appeals and grievance procedures, and tools and guidance on baseline, additionality, and leakage for fully operationalising the mechanism. A final text is anticipated to be released on Article 6.4 on December 11.

Impact of COP28 pledges

COP28 saw several pledges from companies and industries. On December 10, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said delivery on these pledges would result in the global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 being around four gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent lower than would be expected without them. This, it added, would not be nearly enough to move the world onto a path to limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

Another analysis by the Climate Action Tracker found that many of the announcements lack the ambition, clarity, coverage or accountability needed to make a difference. Further, a lot of them are difficult to measure or overlap with those made at COP26 in Glasgow.

1.5°C for cryosphere

At a side event, cryosphere researchers said the two degrees Celsius upper limit of the Paris Agreement is too high to save the cryosphere. They said a 1.5°C state should not be the preferable option, but the only option. 

Everything happening in the Arctic, for example, influences the rest of the world. “The Arctic cannot tolerate above 1.5°C. Beyond that, we start to see irreversible changes,” Heidi Sevestre, glaciologist at The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme.

Finance 

At a press conference, Bangladesh expressed its disappointment over negotiations on climate finance. The country added that commitments of $100 billion have not been met yet and that they have strong reservations on the methodologies of collection of climate financing. They also want to see a phaseout of fossil fuels but call for a differentiation between developed and developing countries.

India-Sweden Industrial Transition Partnership

After the launch of the India-Sweden Industrial Transition Partnership on December 1 by the Prime Ministers of both countries at COP28, the Indian Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, and Sweden’s Minister of Climate and Environment, Roumina Pourmokhtari, came together for an event at the Swedish Pavilion to further this partnership. 

The Swedish minister said, “We need partnerships between ambitious economies to address issues like the lack of commercially viable low carbon technology and long-term investment cycle risk locking in carbon emissions are the issue”.  

Yadav emphasised on cooperation in areas like tech transfer, finance, intellectual property rights, knowledge exchange and joint research. The event also portrayed the partnership formed between SaltX, a company from Sweden, and Dalmia Cement from India for making fossil fuel-free cement using renewable energy completely.  

KASHMIR IS INDIA'S GAZA

Indian Court Ruling Raises Tensions With Nuclear Rival Pakistan

Dec 11, 2023 at 3:14 PM EST

By Danish Manzoor
Asia Editor at Large
NEWSWEEK


The Indian Supreme Court's ruling to allow the end of the special status for the flashpoint region of Jammu and Kashmir has stoked tensions afresh with neighbour and nuclear-armed rival Pakistan.

While Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi applauded the measure as historic, Pakistan vehemently opposed it, citing international law and UN resolutions. The countries have fought three major wars over Kashmir since partition at independence in 1947, with both states holding part of the region and claiming all of it. China also has claims in Jammu and Kashmir, where a majority of the residents are Muslims.

In a watershed ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court of India affirmed the annulment of Article 370, legitimizing a 2019 Parliamentary resolution that removed the special status that Jammu and Kashmir had held since 1947. That led to its reorganization into two territories — one Jammu and Kashmir, the other Ladakh.

Modi called the Supreme Court ruling a "resounding declaration of hope, progress, and unity for our sisters and brothers in Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh."

The Indian ruling party BJP's Foreign Affairs Chief Vijay Chauthaiwale told Newsweek: " For India, Jammu and Kashmir is an integral and indivisible part of Union of India... Pakistan has no locus standi in this matter. Tomorrow Pakistan may comment on validity of election of [the] US President. But it's meaningless."

Pakistan Furious

Pakistan's Caretaker Foreign Minister, Jalil Abbas Jilani, expressed outright rejection of the decision. During a press conference in Islamabad, Jilani said, "India has not fulfilled its international obligations," reaffirming Pakistan's support for the Kashmiri right to self-determination.

A ministry statement said "Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognized dispute, which remains on the agenda of the UN Security Council for over seven decades." The ministry accused India of flouting international law and UN resolutions, labelling the court's decision as "a travesty of justice."

Further raising the rhetoric after the court's decision, India's Union Home Minister Amit Shah reaffirmed in parliament the country's claim to the part of the region held by Pakistan and set parliamentary seats would be set aside for what India refers to as Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

There are currently no formal talks between India and Pakistan, with relations having worsened after the decision on Jammu and Kashmir in 2019.
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Although the last major war between India and Pakistan was in 1999, the so-called Line of Control remains tense, with sporadic episodes of shelling. India has also accused Pakistan of allowing insurgents to infiltrate.

While both countries have nuclear weapons, India's economy is more than 10 times as big as Pakistan's and is growing faster. India has now overtaken China as the world's most populous country and has more than six times as many people.

Violence Falls

In addition to its legal arguments for changing the region's status, India points to a reduction in violence in Jammu and Kashmir since the 2019 decision as well as infrastructure development. Investment in the region has surged, though historic divisions are far from resolved.

The Supreme Court said Article 370 had been a transient provision and that the Indian president's authority remained intact —with profound implications for the legal and constitutional landscape of the region.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, while delivering the judgement observed, "We have held all provisions of the Constitution of India can be applied to Jammu and Kashmir and non-application of mind cannot be claimed." He also stated, "We hold that president seeking concurrence of the union and not the state is not invalid. Thus, all provisions of the constitution can be applied to the J&K."

An art school teacher makes a painting depicting the Supreme Court's verdict on Article 370, in Mumbai on December 11, 2023. India's top court on December 11 upheld a move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to revoke the limited autonomy of Kashmir.

PHOTO BY INDRANIL MUKHERJEE / AFP

The judgment stipulated that Jammu and Kashmir did not maintain its sovereignty after acceding to the Union of India.

Another judge on the bench, Justice Kaul, said there was also a sentimental element to the decision —saying that one part of the population, meaning Kashmiri Hindus, had migrated.


"People of the state have paid a heavy price and inter-generational trauma the people have gone through, the state needs healing."

The Indian Supreme Court issued directions to the Election Commission of India, mandating the organization of elections in Jammu and Kashmir by September 2024.
Mixed Reaction

While Indian leaders, especially from nationalist Modi's ruling alliance, welcomed the court ruling, many opposition figures voiced disappointment and also called for the restoration of statehood —a possibility now that the court ruling is out of the way.

Indian National Congress MP and former Indian Minister P. Chidambaram said the Supreme Court had not ruled on splitting the state in two.

"The Indian National Congress has always demanded the restoration of full statehood for what has become the union territory of J&K. We welcome the Supreme Court's verdict in this regard. Full statehood must be restored immediately," he said.

But a fellow party leader Dr. Karan Singh, who is also the son of the last Maharaja (ruler) of Jammu and Kashmir, said in a statement to the media said, "I welcome it" while also calling for the restoration of statehood.

Jammu and Kashmir's regional political party National Conference's Leader and former regional Chief Minister Omar Abdullah voiced disappointment: "We were hoping for justice...We respect the Supreme Court...Our attempts will not end here. Will we approach the courts again? We will decide this after legal consultations".

Mehbooba Mufti, former Chief Minister, and local political party Peoples Democratic Party chief described the verdict as a "death sentence" not only for Jammu and Kashmir but also for the idea of India.

The Kashmiri Pandit (Hindu) community and other displaced groups welcomed the decision. They viewed the verdict as addressing the inequalities and challenges faced by marginalized communities in Jammu and Kashmir due to Article 370.

 

CN announces deal to acquire Iowa Northern Railway

The Canadian Press

CN says it's acquiring Iowa Northern Railway, pending regulatory review. 

In a press release Thursday evening, CN says it has signed and closed an agreement to acquire the railway, which serves upper Midwest agricultural and industrial markets. 

The Iowa railway operates approximately 275 track miles in Iowa connecting to CN's U.S. rail network. 

CN says the transaction "represents a meaningful opportunity to support the growth of local business by creating single-line service to North American destinations." 

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. 

CN says a decision from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board regarding the decision is expected in the new year.

 

Indigenous advisory council for CN resigns, says railway won't take responsibility

“Rail and freight cars represent the strong arm of oppression in early Canadian history.”

Jamin Mike, The Canadian Press

A council of prominent Indigenous leaders tasked with advising Canadian National Railway Co. has resigned over what they say is the company's failure to acknowledge past wrongs and follow its recommendations for reconciliation.

The resignations by all 12 members take effect Dec. 31.

Council co-chairs Murray Sinclair, a former senator and head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Roberta Jamieson, the first female First Nations lawyer in Canada, said in a statement that they tried to foster understanding, connections and transparency in outlining steps for the railway's reconciliation efforts. 

But the 104-year-old company has “missed the mark” on reconciliation, they said, and that in order to have a better relationship with Indigenous Peoples, it must accept its past, take action and commit to change led by Indigenous business leaders.

“Regardless of who was in charge, CN played a role in the oppression of Indigenous peoples and there is no path forward without that acknowledgment,” the co-chairs said in the statement Monday.

“Rail and freight cars represent the strong arm of oppression in early Canadian history.”

CN put out on Monday a formal acknowledgment of the historical role railways played "as instruments of colonial policies," and noted the social, cultural, and economic toll they have taken on generations of Indigenous communities.

“CN is committed to its journey towards reconciliation. That journey begins with a better understanding of history, and thoughtful commitments coupled with robust governance to measure our performance against those commitments,” said Olivier Chouc, vice-president responsible for Indigenous relations.

CN thanked the council members for their contributions and said it has accepted their resignations.

The railway says it operates in or near about 230 reserve lands in Canada.

Historians have said the building of Canada's railways often meant land dispossession and starvation for Indigenous people. 

James Daschuk said in his book "Clearing the Plains" that trains brought settlers and were a “fatal disease vector.” Gord Hill, a Kwakwakwa’wakw artist and activist, describes trains as “engines of colonization” in “The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book.” 

In the late 1800s, almost 5,000 Indigenous people were removed from the Cypress Hills in Saskatchewan by withholding food rations to make room for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Fort William First Nation in Ontario settled a land claim in 2016 stemming from a historic relocation to build the Grand Trunk Railway.

When the advisory council was formed in 2021, CN said it was to be independent and made up of Indigenous leaders, with representation of First Nations, Inuit and Métis people from each province and territory.

Its mandate was to provide advice, with goals of reinforcing diversity and inclusion, as well as fostering meaningful and long-lasting relationships between the railway and Indigenous Peoples.

Sinclair said in a telephone interview that council discussions with CN are confidential.

"But in the meantime, we're giving them the opportunity to take their own steps," he said.

"We've decided that our utility to CN is no longer worth the effort that we're putting out and that they need to decide what to do about that."

In their statement, Sinclair and Jamieson said that when they agreed to their roles, they wanted to make CN a better company and that the railway understood success was dependent on bettering its relationships with Indigenous people.

“We were received with great enthusiasm and positive intent by CN at the time,” they said.

They said the council produced a report with recommendations for the company, including that CN acknowledge past harms to Indigenous people and implement an apology framework.

"After the release of the report, it became clear to us that CN had no intention of acknowledging and accepting their role in the historical and ongoing impact on Indigenous Peoples," they said.

They said the company's reconciliation action plan will fail if it’s not based on “full acceptance of responsibility.”

"We are concerned that to continue our work any longer would mislead Indigenous Peoples as to CN’s sincerity and authenticity to reconcile," the co-chairs wrote.

"For that, the Council has decided it can no longer support the notion that CN has a commitment to honour our work and we have resigned."

In the statement, they also urged CN to take a critical look at what it is doing as an organization, look at its scope of influence and transform the way it does business, while continuing to consult with Indigenous people.

CN said Monday it has put together a team of nine managers that includes Indigenous and regional representation to foster respectful relationships with Indigenous communities and develop the railway's "reconciliation action plan" along with senior executives.

CN said it plans to release the plan next year with "specific, measurable initiatives" followed by regular updates on its performance versus its goals.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 11, 2023.

With files from Christopher Reynolds in Montreal

 

Preserving grasslands is good for the planet, ranchers say — and they want to be paid

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

Fed up with taking heat for their industry's carbon footprint, Canadian ranchers say it's time for government to step up and fund a solution that will reduce emissions while also preserving one of earth's most threatened ecosystems.

The beef industry is casting itself as one of the last lines of defence in protecting Canada's native grasslands — the rippling expanse of natural prairie that once covered a significant swath of the western provinces but which has been largely lost over the past century to crop farming and urban development.

Ecologists say only 18 to 25 per cent of Canada's natural grasslands remain. Much of that land is owned or managed by livestock producers, who use it to graze cattle. 

Now, the Canadian Cattle Association industry group is calling on the federal government to fund a program that would pay ranchers for maintaining those grasslands rather than plowing them under or selling the land to a developer.

"The whole idea would be a voluntary system that ranchers could opt into in order to really augment their income and support the conservation of grasslands across the country," said Canadian Cattle Association vice-president Tyler Fulton.

Fulton's organization has partnered with conservation groups Ducks Unlimited and the Nature Conservancy of Canada, both of whom have committed to coupling any government dollars received with private donations in order to get more money into the hands of ranchers.

In order to provide enough of an incentive for ranchers to maintain their grasslands, the groups are seeking $175 million in funding. They say this would be enough for a five-year pilot project that could conserve up to 750,000 acres of native grasslands from conversion to cropland and other development.

"There's obviously lots of different factors that would go into the conservation value of the land, but broadly ... we're probably thinking (ranchers should receive) about anywhere from $10 to $20 an acre," Fulton said. 

Tom Lynch-Staunton, a regional vice-president at the Nature Conservancy of Canada, said today's ranchers face a host of financial pressures to sell off their herds and convert their pasture land to other uses — from the lack of a retirement succession plan to the consecutive droughts that have forced some Western Canadian producers to downsize or exit the industry.

"Even in the last 10 years, we estimate that we've lost about 150,000 acres per year of natural grassland," Lynch-Staunton said. 

"We're still seeing them being lost, and we really believe that these grasslands are one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world and we need to try to keep what's remaining."

Grasslands are home to hundreds of species of birds, wildlife and insects. They also reduce erosion and flooding and promote pollination by providing habitats for bees.

Importantly, they also function as massive carbon sinks. Mark Boyce, a University of Alberta ecology professor, said grasslands have proven to be surprisingly effective at carbon sequestration — a naturally occurring process whereby the soils in grasslands store carbon dioxide in the form of broken-down plant matter and prevent it from getting into the atmosphere.

Estimates suggest that worldwide, grasslands hold around 30 per cent of global terrestrial carbon stocks — making them a critical piece of the arsenal in the fight against climate change.

"In Alberta, grasslands are better than forests for sequestering carbon," Boyce said.

"With forests, every 80 to 120 years they go up in smoke and that lets all that carbon back into the atmosphere. Whereas the carbon in grassland soils is a sink that's there for thousands of years. It stays there unless that soil is broken or cultivated."  

The carbon sequestration role of grasslands matters to the beef industry, which is under huge pressure to address its carbon footprint. Currently, the beef industry is responsible for 24 per cent of Canada's total emissions of methane — a potent greenhouse gas that is a byproduct of cattle digestion, meaning it is emitted into the atmosphere every time a cow belches or passes gas.

Many environmentalists have suggested that reducing beef consumption or adopting a vegan or vegetarian diet is one of the simplest things consumers can do to help the planet.

Whether carbon sequestration through grasslands preservation will be enough to offset the beef industry's methane problem is a sticky question, Boyce said. He added in order to optimize carbon sequestration, ranchers need to care for their pastures properly using techniques such as rotational grazing that allow the grasses time to rest and regenerate. 

"It certainly isn't all rosy in the context of having cattle — the negative side of it is the methane emissions,"  Boyce said. 

"But we don't have a better system, and I don't know of an alternative scheme for managing and preserving our native grasslands that is better."

At her ranch west of Calgary, where her family has grazed cattle for nearly 140 years, Cherie Copithorne-Barnes said managing grasslands effectively is both an art and a science.

"It's about moving those cattle around and making sure that you create that cycle that just works for both the animal and the plants," she said.

Copithorne-Barnes points out that before Europeans settled the Prairies, Canada's grasslands were home to large herds of bison that played an important ecological role in keeping the ecosystem healthy.

Today, cattle can and do fulfil many of those functions, she said.

"The grasslands are alive, so you have to continuously keep clipping that grass in order for that plant to keep re-growing and re-sequestering that carbon back down into the soil," Copithorne-Barnes said.

"And then of course with the manure that's left behind by these grazing animals, you've got an instant fertilizer for it to help promote the grass growth."

Up until now, cattle producers have had no way to account for the good they are doing for the planet, Copithorne-Barnes said. That's why it's so important to measure the impact of grasslands preservation, and ensure ranchers get paid for it.

"One of the things our cattle industry is being so chastised for is our greenhouse gas emissions, but nobody has come to an agreement on how we measure the carbon sequestration we're actually creating," she said.

"How do we get credit for what we're doing?"

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 11, 2023.