FURRIES

Fur flies as Russia takes on young fans of ‘quadrobics’


By AFP
November 8, 2024

Quadrobics is a fitness and social media trend that involves imitating the movements of four-legged animals - Copyright AFP Natalia KOLESNIKOVA

Yana, a 12-year-old Moscovite, is worried she will have to give up her hobby of quadrobics — a fitness and social media trend that involves imitating the movements of four-legged animals.

Russian officials, Orthodox clergymen and pro-government intellectuals have harshly criticised the trend in recent weeks, portraying it as a dangerous import from a decadent West.

In line with a hardening of Russia’s ultra-conservative social agenda since the start of the offensive on Ukraine in February 2022, lawmakers have recently proposed to ban quadrobics.

The proposal comes after similar interdictions against the LGBTQ movement and even against couples that don’t want to have children — moves touted by Moscow as necessary to defend Russia’s “traditional values”.

“We are being told how many children to have and how they should play? Seriously?” said Yana’s 38-year-old mother, Yulia, a travel agent.

Yulia spoke on condition of anonymity fearing potential repercussions in Russia’s increasingly repressive environment.

In their upmarket Moscow apartment, Yulia helped her daughter sort through the various bushy tails and cat and fox masks she has made.

Yana, who prefers to do quadrobics at home or in a park with friends, said it is “too cool”.

“Physically, I have become stronger. I can walk on my hands!” she said.

The emerging trend has raised hackles in some circles.

It was the subject of a roundtable in Moscow in July on “the struggle against Satanism” and is debated at length on state television news.

– Quadrobics and LGBT ‘hydra’ –



Irina Volets, the commissioner for children’s rights in the Russian republic of Tatarstan, said recently she had received “numerous complaints” from people concerned about “the dehumanisation of children” as a result of the trend.

“Quadrobics” and “furries” — a similar community of people who like to dress up as animals — “are heads of the same hydra along with the LGBT movement,” she said.

Russian Orthodox Church official Fyodor Lukyanov said that quadrobics “is not a child’s game or sport but a subculture… which prepares children to adopt anti-values like those of a plurality of genders and LGBT.”

Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, said last month: “We are at a stage where we are being pushed not only to renounce our gender identity but also our human identity.”

He called quadrobics a trend “from the United States and the West”.

Russian pro-Kremlin singer Mia Boyka drew attention to the trend in September when she humiliated a young fan dressed as a cat with a series of questions in an on-stage interview.

“Today it’s a cat, tomorrow a dog. The day after tomorrow she will decide she has become a boy… and we will have Mother 1 and Mother 2 in our families,” she said.

– ‘Nefarious foreign influence’ –



Yana’s mother Yulia dismisses this saying: “Horrible! Where do they get this from?

“It’s just our children having fun. There will come a time when they will all become boring adults,” she said.

But ultra-nationalist lawmaker Andrei Svintsov, who is behind a bill that would fine people for practising quadrobics, said it was “disgusting”.

The trend was one of several “imposed by the West” which “aim to destroy our demographics”, he said, referring to a steep demographic crisis in Russia which President Vladimir Putin has promised to address to no avail after more than a quarter century in power.

Konstantin Kalachev, an analyst, said Russian authorities were “driving this debate to create a division between Russians and the West”.

And it seems to be having an effect.

A survey by the pro-Kremlin polling institute VTsIOM found that 35 percent of Russians agreed quadrobics was a “nefarious foreign influence” and a third want to ban it.

Furry fandom - Wikipedia

DRC

On Kinshasa’s streets hairdressers make a quick buck


By AFP
November 8, 2024


Kalume is one of thousands trying to make ends meet with an off-the-books job - Copyright AFP Hardy BOPE

Claire DOYEN

Standing in a makeshift salon on the side of a dusty backstreet in Democratic Republic of Congo capital Kinshasa Papy Kalume pulled a fresh razor out of his bag.

The 47-year-old barber placed the “Gillette” — as it is commonly called by street hairdressers in the city — against the back of a customer’s head and began to shave.

Kalume is one of thousands trying to make ends meet with an off-the-books job in a country which, according to official figures, has nearly 50 percent unemployment.

It only took him a few minutes for him to finish.

But Kalume, like many street barbers, has spent years perfecting his technique on neighbourhood children and relatives.

“You have to master the blade to style hair well,” Kalume told AFP.

“The Gillette can easily injure (someone),” he added.

Brushing any stray hairs from around the customer’s neck and shoulders he finished the cut.

Clients are then treated to a spray of disinfectant on the back of the head and neck to treat any accidental cuts, then a slap of talcum powder.

Dozens of men come into Kalume’s makeshift salon every day, sitting on an office chair so dilapidated only the seat and metal frame remain, in front of a cracked mirror.

The haircut costs the equivalent of 70 cents (US $0.70, 2,000 Congolese francs).

“We earn the bread that God gives us,” said Kalume.

In a hair salon a few blocks away it cost almost 30 times more for a haircut.

But that salon is often deserted.



– A ‘pirate market’ –



Kalume is just one of thousands of Congolese people with an unofficial job.

In the same neighbourhood of Kinshasa where he works, teenage shoe-shiners can be heard tapping their wooden brushes to attract customers.

Coffee sellers push carts topped with flasks through bumpy streets. Men weave through cars on busy roads selling water to thirsty drivers.

Nearly half of the population is unemployed in DRC, according to the planning ministry.

And among those who are employed “only four percent are employed in the formal economy, 72% work in the informal economy,” according to a 2021 report from the International Labour Organization.

The country is one of the five poorest nations in the world. In 2023, almost three quarters of the population lived on less than $2.15 a day, according to the World Bank.

The informal sector accounted for an estimated 41.8 percent of DRC’s GDP in 2022, said a study from the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS) published in May.

This was the third highest in Africa after Zimbabwe and Tanzania, whose informal sectors made up 54.5 percent and 45.6 percent of GDP in 2022 respectively.

Kalume did work “officially” for a few years in a regular salon.

But he found it would be more profitable to set up his own business, even if it does come with some disadvantages.

“In the street we are exposed to bad weather, rain,” said Kalume, whose salon is open from 6:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday to Saturday.

He is also has to pay off the police for so-called infringements: these “tips” — often referred to as “hassles” or “tracasseries” in French — are commonplace.

He also has to pay a few bucks to avoid being evicted from the sidewalk where he works.

“It’s a pirate market,” he said with a sigh.

ETHNIC CLEANSING & GENOCIDE 
Partial UN probe of Gaza war dead over 6 months shows ‘nearly 70%’ women, children


By AFP
November 8, 2024


Gazan children stare at destruction from an Israeli strike on Nuseirat refugee camp - Copyright AFP Punit PARANJPE
Nina LARSON

The UN condemned on Friday the staggering number of civilians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, with women and children comprising nearly 70 percent of the thousands of fatalities it had managed to verify.

In a fresh report, the United Nations human rights office detailed the “horrific reality” that has unfolded for civilians in both Gaza and Israel since Hamas’s attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.

It detailed a vast array of violations of international law, warning that many could amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even “genocide”.

“The report shows how civilians in Gaza have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial ‘complete siege’ of Gaza by Israeli forces,” the UN said.

It also pointed to “the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement”.

“This conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease,” it continued.

“Palestinian armed groups have also conducted hostilities in ways that have likely contributed to harm to civilians.”

The report took on the contentious issue of the proportion of civilians figuring among the now nearly 43,500 people killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.

Due to a lack of access, UN agencies have since the beginning of the Gaza war relied on death tolls provided by the authorities in Hamas-run Gaza.

This has sparked accusations from Israel of “parroting… Hamas’s propaganda messages” but the UN has repeatedly said the figures are reliable.



– International law –



The rights office said it had now managed to verify 8,119 of the more than 34,500 people reportedly killed during the first six months of the war in Gaza, finding “close to 70 percent to be children and women”.

This, it said, indicated “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality”.

Of the verified fatalities, 3,588 of them were children and 2,036 were women, the report said.

“We do believe this is representative of the breakdown of total fatalities — similar proportion to what Gaza authorities have,” UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told AFP.

“Our monitoring indicates that this unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.

“Tragically, these documented patterns of violations continue unabated, over one year after the start of the war.”

His office found that about 80 percent of all the verified deaths in Gaza had occurred in Israeli attacks on residential buildings or similar housing, and that close to 90 percent had died in incidents that killed five or more people.

The main victims of Israeli strikes on residential buildings, it said, were children between the ages of five and nine, with the youngest victim a one-day-old boy and the oldest a 97-year-old woman.

The report said that the large proportion of verified deaths in residential buildings could be partially explained by the rights office’s “verification methodology, which requires at least three independent sources”.

It also pointed to continuing “challenges in collecting and verifying information of killings in other circumstances”.

Gaza authorities have long said that women and children made up a significant majority of those killed in the war, but with lacking access for full UN verification, the issue has remained highly contentious.

Israel has insisted that its operations in Gaza are targeting militants.

But Friday’s report stressed that the verified deaths largely mirrored the demographic makeup of the population at large in Gaza, rather than the known demographic of combatants.

This, it said, clearly “raises concerns regarding compliance with the principle of distinction and reflect an apparent failure to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimise, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects”.

Toll from Mozambique election protests up to at least 30 dead


By AFP
November 8, 2024

Burnt vehicles littered the streets on Friday - Copyright AFP -

Mozambique’s opposition on Friday promised fresh protests, as rights groups said at least 30 people had been killed in three weeks of demonstrations over contested election results.

The southern African nation has been rocked by violence since the Frelimo party was announced winner of the October 9 elections with more than 70 percent of votes. The party has been in power for almost 50 years.

Opposition leader Venancio Mondlane, who won 20 percent of the vote according to the election authority, claims the vote was rigged. In social media posts, he has called his supporters onto the streets in protest.

In the biggest demonstration yet, thousands of opposition supporters marched through Maputo on Thursday.

Security forces fired teargas and deployed dogs to disperse the crowds, as some protesters threw rocks and set up barricades using burning tyres and bins.

The city’s largest hospital, Maputo Central Hospital, registered three deaths from Thursday’s violence, spokesperson Dino Lopes told reporters.

It also treated 66 people for injuries, Lopes said Friday, adding that four of them were in a serious condition. The police did not immediately confirm this toll.

Burnt vehicles littered the streets on Friday and stone barricades were still in place in some areas, but markets and stores had reopened.



– Rising toll –



Human Rights Watch did not have a toll for Thursday’s protests but said it had counted at least 30 dead between October 19 and November 6 across the country.

This includes two opposition figures shot dead on October 19.

Mozambique’s Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CDD) said at least 34 were killed, according to its tally.

“What began as a call for electoral justice has transformed into a brutal display of state repression, with the number of confirmed deaths now at 34,” it said in a post on X.

A police officer has also been killed, Defence Minister Cristovao Chume told reporters Tuesday, warning that the army could intervene “to protect the interests of the state”.

It appeared the protesters intended to “change the democratically established power”, he said.

President Filipe Nyusi is expected to step down at the end of a two-term limit in January and hand over to the party’s Daniel Chapo.

The Constitutional Council, which has to confirm the election results around two weeks before then, has asked for clarification about a possible discrepancy in voter numbers.

Election observers, including from the European Union, have noted irregularities in the poll.



– Protests ‘to continue’ –



Mondlane, a 50-year-old former radio presenter, is in hiding and told AFP in an interview Wednesday that he could not reveal his whereabouts other than to say he was not in Africa.

“I feel that there is a revolutionary atmosphere… that shows that we are on the verge of a unique historical and political transition in the country,” he said.

His Podemos party, which has demanded a recount, said Friday it would not let up the pressure.

Its calls for demonstrations are to demand “electoral truth”, Podemos president Albino Forquilha told reporters.

“We will continue on the streets until we have an answer. We are putting fair pressure and we do not want violence,” he said.

Forquilha said Podemos data showed “inconsistencies in the number of voters and the number of registered voters”.

The unrest in Mozambique has been linked to disturbances at one of its busiest border posts with South Africa, Lebombo, where there were reports of vehicles being torched.

South African authorities shut the crossing on Tuesday but reopened it Friday to allow the movement of people, South Africa’s Border Management Authority said.

About 300 trucks were queueing to enter Mozambique, the Southern African Association of Freight Forwarders said.

Police in Eswatini, which also borders Mozambique, meanwhile reported that scores of Mozambicans had entered the country at one border post apparently to avoid the turmoil.

“Currently there are close to a hundred, which are kept at the Siteki police station but the number has been growing from Wednesday,” said communications officer Senior Superintendent Phindile Vilakati.

Jewish students block Austria far-right parliament speaker at Holocaust memorial

By AFP
November 8, 2024


Austrian parliament speaker Walter Rosenkranz has been widely criticised for being a member of a far-right student fraternity known for its strident pan-German nationalism - Copyright APA/AFP Eva MANHART

A group of Jewish students on Friday prevented Austria’s first far-right parliamentary speaker from laying a wreath at a Holocaust memorial, accusing him of “spitting in the faces of our ancestors”.

Parliament elected Freedom Party (FPOe) lawmaker Walter Rosenkranz as speaker after his far-right party topped national polls in September for the first time ever.

Rosenkranz faces widespread criticism for being a member of a far-right student fraternity known for its strident pan-German nationalism. The country’s main Jewish organisation has ruled out participating in events with him.

As Austria marked the 86th anniversary of the anti-Jewish Kristallnacht — or the Night of Broken Glass — pogrom on Friday, several Jewish demonstrators blocked Rosenkranz from laying a wreath at Vienna’s main Holocaust memorial.

Carrying a banner of the Austrian Union of Jewish Students group that read “The word of whoever honours Nazis is worthless”, they told Rosenkranz they didn’t want to remember the pogrom with him.

“We don’t want you to spit in our faces and those of our ancestors,” one of them said, according to video footage by public broadcaster ORF.

After they refused to let him pass through, Rosenkranz — visibly agitated — left.

He was not invited to the official remembrance ceremony organised by Austria’s main Jewish organisation with its president saying it was “impossible to remember the victims together with such a person.”

After being elected parliamentary speaker, Rosenkranz vowed to continue the country’s fight against anti-Semitism, dismissing accusations he posed a threat to the Jewish community as a “lie”.

The FPOe — founded by former Nazis — has frequently faced accusations of anti-Semitism, which it denies.

Daughter of missing Mexico environment defender pleads for global help


By AFP
November 8, 2024


Brenda Diaz Valencia is seen in Washington holding a photo of her father, Antonio Diaz Valencia, and his colleague Ricardo Lagunes, both of whom disappeared after criticizing mining practices in Mexico - Copyright AFP ETIENNE LAURENT

Issam AHMED

Brenda Diaz Valencia’s life was upended nearly two years ago when the bullet-riddled truck driven by her father, Mexican environmental defender Antonio Diaz Valencia, and lawyer Ricardo Lagunes was found abandoned.

Both men had spent years denouncing what they saw as the catastrophic environmental impacts and inadequate community benefits of a giant open-pit iron mine in San Miguel de Aquila, in Mexico’s central Michoacan state.

Now, the 39-year-old Diaz Valencia said she is determined to rally the international community to action.

“I’m here to ask for help, to find the truth, and for them to be returned,” she told AFP in Washington, where she was accompanied by Alejandra Gonza, an international human rights lawyer.

“I know that the United States can do a lot and put pressure on the Mexican government to do the impossible to bring them back,” she said.

Her father and Lagunes had been fierce critics of the mine’s operator, Luxembourg-incorporated steel giant Ternium, which posted global sales of $17.6 billion in 2023 and operates in a region rife with powerful gangs.

The two men were declared missing on January 15, 2023 after attending an anti-mining community meeting, becoming the latest victims in a grim trend of violence targeting environmental and human rights defenders — and critics of Ternium.

In a statement to AFP, Ternium said it “maintains its deep concern over the disappearance” of the pair, adding that it takes the situation with the “utmost seriousness.”

“Ternium rejects any attempt to contextualize violence in Mexico or the regions where it operates to associate our company or its officials directly or indirectly with violent cases such as the above mentioned or the disappearance of any people.”



– Protecting forests and people –



Diaz Valencia, a teacher, recalls her father’s lifelong commitment to safeguarding the rivers, forests and Indigenous Nahua traditions of San Miguel de Aquila.

Over time, she witnessed the Aquila River, once the lifeblood of the community, run dry as its waters were redirected for iron ore mining, which also led to deforestation for exclusive roads.

“The presence of this mine also fractured the social fabric,” she said, describing a profound consequence of the mine’s operations.

While Ternium paid royalties to the community, publicizing the recipients sparked extortion by organized crime.

In 2019, as Ternium expanded and increased payments, her father accused a small group, allegedly backed by the company, of claiming leadership roles to misappropriate funds.

He and Lagunes were working to elect new officials, renegotiate royalties and address environmental impacts.

But their activism came at a price: they were shadowed by armed men and repeatedly threatened.

At one community assembly, held in the presence of company representatives, they were warned that if they continued to oppose Ternium, they would be forcibly disappeared.

In a letter to then-president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in December 2022, Diaz Valencia accused Ternium of colluding with armed groups to suppress the Aquila community.

A month later, he and Lagunes were gone.



– Critics go missing –



The men’s disappearance isn’t an isolated case.

A decade ago, three Aquila community representatives who challenged Ternium on financial promises vanished and were later found dead.

Between 2006 and 2023, at least 93 land and environmental defenders went missing across Mexico, with 40 percent still unaccounted for.

In April 2023, the Mexican attorney general’s office announced two arrests tied to the activists’ disappearance, citing internal Nahua disputes.

A year later, media reports linked the case to the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of Mexico’s most feared criminal organizations.

Gonza, president of Global Rights Advocacy, argues that it is too convenient for the government to blame the disappearances solely on organized crime rather than investigating systemic issues.

“You have to open up at least all lines of investigation,” she said, noting organized crime’s domination in the area and extremely powerful corporate interests.

She and co-counsel Thomas Antkowiak from Seattle University have filed complaints with the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

“It’s not only Mexico’s responsibility to bring them back,” Gonza argued, but of the many wealthy countries connected to Ternium, which can pressure the company to review its Mexican operations.

Brenda Diaz Valencia said her relentless advocacy is driven by the hope that the disappeared are not forgotten — and that one day, she will see her father again.

“I will keep that hope,” she said.

Boeing to face civil trial over 2019 MAX crash


By AFP
November 8, 2024

Boeing is set to square off on a civil lawsuit over the 2019 crash of a 737 MAX operated by Ethiopian Airlines - Copyright POOL/AFP/File Jennifer Buchanan

Elodie MAZEIN

Beleaguered aviation giant Boeing is set to confront another hurdle next week when it faces a civil trial over the March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed 157 people.

The trial, scheduled for federal court in Chicago, originally included six plaintiffs, but “all but one” have settled, a person close to the litigation told AFP this week.

Barring an accord, the case will be Boeing’s first civil trial over the MAX crashes.

A settlement, which would need court approval, is still possible, even after the proceedings start.

But the source told AFP the case is expected to go to trial, a view held by a second legal source.

Plaintiffs in the case are relatives of Indian-born Manisha Nukavarapu, who was in her second year of medical school, specializing in endocrinology at East Tennessee State University.

Nukavarapu, who was single and without children, boarded a 737 MAX on March 10, 2019 in Addis Ababa in a flight bound for Nairobi to visit her sister who had just given birth, according to a complaint.

But the jet, which had been delivered in November 2018, crashed just six minutes after taking off, killing everyone on board.



– More trials expected –



Relatives of 155 victims were deposed by the court between April 2019 and March 2021 in wrongful death cases due to negligence, according to legal filings.

“As of today, there are 30 cases pending on behalf of 29 decedents,” a third legal source told AFP on October 22.

The cases have been split into groups, with the next trial scheduled for April 2025 unless all the suits are settled.

Boeing has “accepted responsibility for the MAX crashes publicly and in civil litigation because the design of the MCAS … contributed to these events,” an attorney for Boeing said at an October 11 court hearing.

The MCAS was a flight stabilizing system that malfunctioned in both the Ethiopian Airlines and in the October 2018 Lion Air crash in Indonesia, which killed 189 people.

The MAX entered commercial service in May 2017. The worldwide fleet was grounded for 20 months following the Ethiopian Airlines crash.

According to Boeing, more than 90 percent of the cases stemming from the crashes have been settled. The company has not disclosed the overall financial hit from these cases.

“Boeing has paid billions of dollars to the crash families and their lawyers in connection with civil litigation,” Boeing attorney said at the October 11 hearing, which took place in Texas and involves a Department of Justice criminal case over the MAX.

Dozens of plaintiffs have also been deposed in civil litigation over the Lion Air crash, with 46 represented by Seattle law firm Herrmann.

The Texas litigation concerns a new deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice after DOJ concluded Boeing flouted a $2.5 billion January 2021 criminal settlement over fraud charges related to the MAX certification.

In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to fraud as part of the latest DPA, but the accord has yet to be accepted by a federal judge.

UK rules drivers on Bolt ride-hailing platform are employees


By  AFP
November 8, 2024


An employment tribunal said Bolt should consider its drivers as employees - Copyright POOL/AFP/File Jennifer Buchanan

UK drivers using the Bolt ride-hailing platform should be considered employees and have access to rights such as the minimum wage and paid holidays, an employment tribunal ruled Friday.

The tribunal said that its ruling applied to all drivers who used Bolt as their only platform for finding customers.

Leigh Day, the legal firm representing a group of 15,000 drivers, said that the ruling affects all of the estimated 100,000 drivers who use the Bolt app.

The Estonian-based company said that nine in 10 of its drivers use multiple platforms to maximise earnings, so the ruling only applied to 10 percent of its drivers.

The UK Supreme Court made a similar ruling in 2021 in respect to Uber drivers, which was then a world first for the US company. Leigh Day argued that that case should also apply to its clients.

The status of “worker” in the UK is not necessarily formalised by a contract, with those employed under informal arrangements lacking protections afforded to salaried employees, such as sick leave and unemployment insurance.

“This judgment confirms that gig economy operators cannot continue to falsely classify their workers as independent contractors running their own business to avoid providing the rights those workers are properly entitled to,” Leigh Day employment team solicitor Charlotte Pettman said.

“We call on Bolt to compensate our clients without further delay.”

The legal firm believes the compensation for the backdated underpayment of minimum wage and unpaid holidays owed to the 15,000 drivers could be worth more than £200 million ($259 million), or £15,000 each.

Bolt called the figure “speculative”, with another hearing expected to take place next year to decide the figure.

A Bolt spokesman said that “we have always supported the overwhelming majority’s choice to remain self-employed independent contractors, protecting their flexibility, personal control and earning potential.

“We will continue to engage with drivers as we carefully review our options, including grounds for appeal, ensuring that we are helping drivers to succeed as entrepreneurs and grow on their own terms,” he added.

France expects massive slump in 2024 wine harvest


By AFP
November 8, 2024


France expects the worst wine harvest in years 

- Copyright POOL/AFP/File Jennifer Buchanan

Unfavourable weather has likely slashed France’s 2024 wine harvest by 23 percent compared to the previous year, the agriculture ministry said in an estimate published Friday.

The ministry’s 37-million-hectolitre (980 million gallons) forecast for this year’s harvest would be close to the crisis-hit sector’s record lows of 2017 and 2021, both also hamstrung by weather effects.

If confirmed, the figure would also be a 17-percent drop on the average for the past five years.

All types of French wine are affected by the expected lower harvest, with top-name regions like Burgundy, Beaujolais and Champagne especially hard hit.

Friday’s forecast was a significant downward revision of earlier expectations for an 18-percent drop, published in September.

COP29: Urgent action needed to foster a green economy


By Dr. Tim Sandle
November 8, 2024

DIGITAL JOURNAL


High air pollution levels in Bangkok on February 15, 2023 - Copyright AFP Lillian SUWANRUMPHA

In the lead-up to COP29 in Baku (Azerbaijan), as global temperatures exceed 1.2C due to planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuels still take a huge chunk of climate financing and investment.

COP29 has been dubbed the “climate finance COP” for its central goal: to agree on how much money should go each year to helping developing countries cope with climate-related costs. However, concerns have bene expressed that not all world leaders are set to attend the event.

COP29 is the world’s most important meeting on climate change. It is organized by the United Nations and the 2024 event, the 29th staging, with the event running from 11-22 November.

A new report – REN21’s Renewables for Economic & Social Value Creation module of the Global Status Report – reveals that investment in renewable energy accounted for only 7 percent of global GDP growth in 2023. On the plus side, this has created 16.2 million jobs worldwide.

REN21 is a renewable energy network seeking to connect governments, industries, NGOs and science globally to accelerate the shift to renewables.

REN21 also released the Global Overview in April 2024. It provided the big picture status of renewables in the wider energy system in the context of global challenges such as climate change, economic development and the geopolitical landscape.

Despite fossil fuel investments by banks decreasing by 9 percent last year, only 6 of the top 60 major banks in the world currently prioritize renewable finance, highlighting an urgent need to align capital flows with sustainable energy goals. This is set to be a key topic for COP29.

With fossil fuel subsidies at $616 billion renewables face significant barriers to scaling. This gap underscores the urgent need for targeted policy and finance shifts to support the transition to sustainable energy.

Action can still be implemented and the REN21 report demonstrates that the advantages of renewable energy extend beyond climate mitigation, showcasing how renewables drive sustainable economic growth, job creation, and resilience-building.

The report underscores the pivotal role of renewables in achieving the ambitious climate and social policy goals set in COP28. For example, renewables accelerate energy access and alleviate energy poverty, since 2000, renewable power has saved an estimated $409 billion in fuel costs.

Renewables can be distributed in remote areas and improve resilience during emergency situations, such as extreme weather events or wars. The report points out that decentralised renewable energy systems can enhance resilience by supporting essential services during extreme weather events and disasters, strengthening food security, water access, and climate adaptability across communities.