Activists at U.N. Climate Talks Push Rich Countries to Pay for Green Transition

By Asad Rehman, Amy Goodman

November 19, 2024

Source: Democracy Now!

We are broadcasting live from the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, which has entered its second and final week, and already there is frustration over a lack of progress on the key issue of financing the energy transition and climate adaptation in Global South countries. Asad Rehman, executive director of War on Want and lead spokesperson for the Climate Justice Coalition, says this year’s summit is supposed to be “the finance COP” and calls for about $5 trillion a year in financing, but “rich, developed countries are putting pennies on the table.” He also addresses the overwhelming presence of industry lobbyists at the annual summits and calls from some activists to boycott the talks. “If we, as civil society, weren’t here also holding the feet of Global North governments to the fire, we would see much worse outcomes than we are seeing already,” says Rehman.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We’re broadcasting live from the United Nations climate summit here in Baku, Azerbaijan, which has entered its second and final week. There’s already frustration over a lack of progress on the key issue of financing the energy transition and climate adaptation in Global South countries. This comes after last year’s climate summit, COP28 in Dubai, where world leaders agreed to transition away from fossil fuels, after past summits just called for restrictions.

We just heard voices of protest. Now we’re joined by one of those people, Asad Rehman. He’s executive director of War on Want and lead spokesperson for the Climate Justice Coalition.

Well, another COP, another interview with you, Asad.

ASAD REHMAN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re here in Azerbaijan, a leading petrostate in the world, following last year’s COP summit in another petrostate, in the United Arab Emirates. Can you talk about, for people who aren’t familiar with these U.N. gatherings, the significance of this, what you expect to come out of it, and what you’re seeing actually happen through this last week?

ASAD REHMAN: Well, Amy, the last time we spoke, I think it was in Dubai. The bombs were dropping on Gaza. We, as civil society, were standing in solidarity with our colleagues who were dying in Gaza, and saying, “We must stand up for human rights.” And a year later, of course, we have now the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, countless human rights reports all talking about war crimes, crimes against humanity, a genocide taking place, genocide taking place in Gaza — and, of course, all with impunity and active complicity of some of the most powerful countries in the world — the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union. And the very rules of war — rules of the international rules system, multilateralism is being burnt to the ground. So we came in here with a very heavy heart. Our colleagues are still being killed. We see food being used as a weapon of war. The importance of human rights propelled us to, of course, use this moment to raise our voice and still call for a ceasefire and, of course, call for end to complicity.

But the negotiation themselves, it’s often been called the finance COP. And the reason why it’s called the finance COP is this COP is meant to agree what the next quantum, which is the collective goal of money that is meant to be provided from the Global North to the Global South because of the responsibility of the Global North for causing this crisis — and what that figure will be, what the quality of that money will be. Will it be in public finance, or will it be in debt-created loans? Will it be in private finance? All of these things are being thought out over here in week one and in week two.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I want to ask why you’re here and why so many thousands of people have come to this climate summit. Prominent climate activist Greta Thunberg announced last week she’s not attending this COP summit over Azerbaijan’s climate and human rights record. She spoke Friday in Yerevan, Armenia.


GRETA THUNBERG: I think we have to stop pretending that conferences like the COP, that currently are not leading to any even close to meaningful climate action that we need — for example, last year, we saw an all-time high of greenhouse gas emissions, and 2024 is set to be the hottest year ever recorded. These COP processes are failing us. … Having these conferences as greenwash platforms for politicians to pretend that they’re taking action, of course, it’s also greenwashing the human rights abuses that these countries are committing. So, it’s both greenwashing and greenwashing the climate action and greenwashing their ethnic cleansing.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Greta Thunberg, the well-known Swedish climate and human rights activist. Asad Rehman, you made a different decision.

ASAD REHMAN: Yes, because I see these spaces as fundamentally being about a question about power. We know that the rich and powerful have got way more power than ordinary people, and this is a contested space. And we have to build our power, make sure our politicians act in our interests, in the interests of the planet, and not of the rich and the elite and big business. And that’s true at national level as in a global level.

But it is important that we’re here, because we’re the ears, eyes and voice of those on the frontlines. Many people come here with the hard evidence to try and influence these negotiations. And knowing the imbalance of power that exists between the richest nations and developing countries, if we, as civil society, weren’t here also holding the feet of Global North governments to the fire, we would see much worse outcomes than we are seeing already.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to play another clip. This is of Azerbaijan’s minister of ecology and natural resources. Mukhtar Babayev is COP29’s president. Previously, he spent 26 years at the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, known as SOCAR. Ahead of the summit, the group Global Witness released covert recordings of Azerbaijan’s COP29 chief executive, Elnur Soltanov, promoting possible fossil fuel deals with someone, well, posing as an investor. The fake investor told Soltanov they were considering sponsoring COP29 in exchange for deals with Azerbaijan’s state energy firm SOCAR. This is Soltanov.


ELNUR SOLTANOV: As I said, we have a lot of pipeline infrastructure. We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed. We have a lot of green projects that SOCAR is very interested in. There are a lot of joint ventures that could be established, potential joint ventures. Our SOCAR trading is trading oil and gas all over the world, including in Asia. So, to me, these are the possibilities to explore.

AMY GOODMAN: So, while it’s so critical — again, that was Soltanov thinking he was talking to a fossil fuel exec. In fact, it was someone from Global Witness. But you have at this COP — you could consider them a delegation — the largest delegation here, and that’s of fossil fuel lobbyists. And you have this chief executive making fuel and oil deals while he’s here. So, why do you think you can have an effect, as you talk about the imbalance of power, Asad?

ASAD REHMAN: Well, those very same lobbyists are, of course, affecting our decisions of government at national level as they are at global level. They, of course, want to turn this climate negotiations into a trade fair. They’re coming here to try and strike deals, make bargains and, of course, propose their solutions. You see these lobbyists here calling for carbon capture and storage — unproven, deadly and dangerous technologies — as solutions to the climate crisis.

It’s up to us to be opposing them, to put forward real solutions, to be supporting governments who do want to do the right thing, and say, “We are going to amplify your voice. We’re going to support you. We’re going to raise these issues.” And we’re going to build our movement’s power and make sure we’re making the right call.

AMY GOODMAN: So, the theme is financing. I was just talking to a Kenyan journalist who said Africa is faring very badly here. You’re not wearing the regular COP lanyard. You’re wearing one that says “pay up”?

ASAD REHMAN: “Pay up.” Global civil society came together, and we looked at what the true costs of supporting developing countries to be able to grow cleanly, what the cost of adapting to the climate crisis was, how much the damages were already overwhelming countries in the Global South, and we calculated that that is about $5 trillion a year that the Global North would need to provide to the Global South. That’s just a down payment in the overall cost.

And so, we came here and say, “Look, the only way we’re going to be able to transition fairly, cleanly, the only way that people in the Global South will have the same right to live with dignified lives as people in the Global North, if we have finance and technology being provided.” We made the call for $5 trillion. Developing countries came here and said, “At a base level, the lowest number, we must have $1.4 trillion a year.”

Rich, developed countries are putting pennies on the table. They’re not even talking about billions. They’re talking the private sector will provide this finance. “Open your economies to our big corporations. They will be the answer.” And we know they deliver nothing, nothing in terms of climate action. And, of course, their only goal is to make profit.

AMY GOODMAN: Asad Rehman, we want to thank you for being with us, executive director of War on Want, lead spokesperson for the Climate Justice Coalition.

Asad Rehman is executive director of War on Want and lead spokesperson for the Climate Justice Coalition.

German Greens’ Robert Habeck to lead bruised party into elections

By AFP
November 16, 2024

Habeck championed Germany's move to reduce dependence on fossil fuels - Copyright AFP -

Frank Zeller and Sophie Makris

Germany’s Greens have been environmental trailblazers but their top candidate, Robert Habeck, goes into snap national elections bruised by three stormy years in government that ended in a political crisis.

Habeck’s party is set on Sunday to nominate the 55-year-old as their lead candidate in February’s federal polls — at a time when the Greens are limping along with approval ratings of around 11 percent, down from the 20.5 percent score they won in the 2019 European Parliament elections.

Habeck, a father-of-four and a children’s book author with a PhD in literature and philosophy, hails from the windswept coastal state of Schleswig-Holstein near the Danish border.

He entered Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition as vice chancellor in 2021, when the Greens were riding high and the Fridays for Future movement started by Greta Thunberg made the climate crisis a top political issue.

Habeck also assumed the post of minister for the economy and climate action, with ambitious plans to decarbonise Europe’s biggest economy.

He achieved some notable successes.

A steady increase in wind and solar power raised the share of renewables to more than half of Germany’s electricity production in 2023, and above 60 percent in the first half of this year.

But the ruling coalition soon faced multiple crises — from the Covid pandemic to responding to Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which ended the flow of cheap Russian gas to Germany.

Habeck was forced to quickly shop around for alternative energy sources, asking Gulf suppliers for gas, slowing Germany’s nuclear phase-out and extending the life span of coal-fired power plants.



– ‘Prohibition party’ –



For the Greens, this was a radical departure from their clean energy goals.

Berlin’s commitment to build up its armed forces also spelled a reversal of the party’s long-standing pacifist tradition.

German military aid for Kyiv, second only to US backing for Ukraine, was forcefully defended by Habeck and Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Habeck, a latecomer to politics from the party’s “realist” wing, has pushed back against “fundamentalists” who have criticised what they see as betrayals of the Greens’ orthodoxy since its beginnings in the protest movements of the 1970s and 80s.

But the most damaging attacks have come from conservative quarters, which have hammered home the accusation that the Greens are an elitist party of moralising ecological do-gooders.

If the Greens had their way, the right-wing narrative goes, Germans would have to swap their beloved petrol and diesel cars for cargo bicycles, and their bratwurst for planet-friendly vegetarian meals.

“The Greens were very quickly labelled the ‘prohibition party’ by their detractors,” said Marie Krpata of the French Institute of International Relations.

In particular, the conservative CDU, current frontrunners in the polls, have painted them as “the embodiment of regulation and bureaucracy that impacts citizens and businesses”, she said.



– ‘Time for Change’ –



Habeck suffered his most damaging attacks in 2023 when the tabloid press savaged his plan to ban new gas and oil boilers for domestic use, labelling it a costly “heating hammer” for household incomes.

The proposal was scrapped and Habeck admitted he had “gone too far”, but the damage was done.

In state elections in ex-Communist eastern states in September this year, the Greens scored in the single digits while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) booked strong gains.

The AfD’s key demand is to dramatically cut immigration.

But it also questions climate change and rails against wind farms, electric vehicles and the closure of coal mines.

Poor election results for all three coalition partners deepened a sense of foreboding and fuelled the warring between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).

When it all ended in tears last week, with the SPD and FDP leaders trading bitter recriminations for the break-up, Habeck said more sombrely that, although the end was inevitable, “it feels wrong”.

Ever the optimist, he also sought to label the collapse as a new beginning.

As the February election campaign kicks off, Habeck has published a video on social media site X showing him at home, humming the tune of a German pop song called “Time for Something to Change”.

Eagle-eyed observers spotted a tiny inscription on the bracelet he was wearing that reflected Habeck’s belief in a brighter future for his party — the tiny letters spell out the German words for “Chancellor Era”.

Chlorine and cocoa butter could protect corals from disease and decrease antibiotic pollution of the oceans

Researchers found that chlorine mixed with cocoa butter is effective at treating diseased corals, which could reduce negative side effects of antibiotic treatments on ocean ecosystems

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Frontiers

 

image: 

The study’s co-authors Argel Horton and Laura Arton apply the chlorine paste to a large coral (Orbicella annularis). The bright white area is where the treatment has already been applied. Image: Dr Graham Forrester.

view more 

Credit: Dr Graham Forrester.

In the tropical Atlantic, stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) is particularly severe because the disease is transmitted quickly, spreads to many hosts, and results in high mortality rates. Treatment methods to stop the spread of SCTLD are available; the most common is the use of antibiotics. This, however, comes with side effects like increased antibiotic resistance.

Now, an international team of researchers has investigated if an alternative, antibiotic-free approach to treating infected corals could help avoid antibiotic pollution of the world’s oceans and improve coral health.

“Our study shows that direct treatment of SCTLD can help corals survive a disease outbreak and highlights that active management of disease is possible in the field,” said Dr Greta Aeby, a researcher at Qatar University and senior author of the study published in Frontiers in Marine Science. “Antibiotic pollution is a problem worldwide, so we’re working to develop a non-antibiotic treatment that would slow down tissue loss diseases.”

Antibiotics vs chlorine

The researchers compared the effectiveness of different treatments by applying them to infected corals of Horseshoe Reef, near the British Virgin Islands. Some corals were treated with amoxicillin, an antibiotic; others were treated with a paste mixed from chlorine and cocoa butter.

“In this mix, the active ingredient is sodium hypochlorite, an antiseptic commonly used to kill bacteria or viruses.  The chlorine powder we used in our treatment is the same used to kill germs in swimming pools. The cocoa butter was just the delivery mechanism allowing us to spread the chlorine on the coral lesions,” explained Aeby.

The researchers applied both treatments directly to corals and re-visited the reef every four or five weeks to measure and describe lesions and to reapply the treatment as necessary. After roughly 80 days, the median percentage of tissue lost was 17.6% for chlorine-treated colonies and 1.7% for amoxicillin-treated colonies.

Environmentally friendly

While the antibiotic treatment was more successful at containing SCTLD, the researchers said that unwanted side effects, such as the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, could be lessened when opting for the chlorine treatment. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria do not only affect corals, they said. “Any organism – crabs, fish, even humans – in that same environment has a higher risk of encountering bacteria that are now antibiotic-resistant,” explained Aeby.

While antibiotic treatments greatly impact the environment, the chlorine and cocoa butter paste mixture biodegrades easily, and the chlorine naturally deactivates within a day.

An added benefit is that it is much cheaper to produce – ingredients can be found in drug and hardware stores. “The antibiotic paste is not only tedious to produce, it also is often too expensive for conservationists, who operate with minimal funding on Caribbean islands,” said Argel Horton, a marine biologist at the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Climate Change of the British Virgin Islands and co-author of the study.

Protecting oceans vital to coral health

The researchers said that not all corals responded equally well to the treatments. There also are many more coral species in different regions that haven’t been included in the study. They hope that future research will test the effectiveness of different treatment methods elsewhere.

“Disease treatment can help manage a disease, but it will not remove the disease from the coral populations,” said Aeby. Direct treatments can decrease the pathogen load in the environment, but treating coral colonies like done in study – individually and by hand – is not feasible in the long-term or on a large scale.

“The best strategy would be to improve environmental conditions so that corals have a better chance of fighting disease themselves. This includes cleaning up water pollution and rebalancing the ecosystem,” Aeby pointed out.

The researchers apply the chlorine paste to a large coral (Orbicella annularis) with several visible lesions. Image: Dr Graham Forrester.

Credit

Dr Graham Forrester.

---

Journal

Frontiers in Marine Science

DOI

10.3389/fmars.2024.1465173 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

The relative effectiveness of chlorine and antibiotic treatments for stony coral tissue loss disease

Article Publication Date

14-Nov-2024

As COP29 begins, some voice concerns over religious freedom in host country Azerbaijan

(RNS) — When RNS reached out to the faith groups that have had a leading presence at recent COPs for comment on how they would approach their work given religious liberty violations, most were silent.

Activists demonstrate for climate justice and a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas conflict at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. 

(AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Aleja Hertzler-McCain
November 11, 2024

(RNS) — Global leaders, diplomats and climate advocates are gathering to hammer out climate finance agreements at the latest U.N. climate summit being held today (Nov. 11) through Nov. 22 in Baku, Azerbaijan. But the host country for the annual summit has come under international scrutiny for human rights and religious freedom violations, leading some activists to question why there has not been more pushback from the global climate advocates, including faith organizations.

Days before COP29, the climate summit, began, the Azerbaijani government held a summit of religious leaders working on climate issues, calling itself “well-known for its traditions of tolerance, multicultural values and inter-civilizational and inter-religious cooperation,” even as outside observers have repeatedly raised concerns about religious freedom in the former Soviet country.

The government, led by President Ilham Aliyev, part of a family that has led the Muslim-majority country since 1993, requires religious groups to register with the government in order to operate legally. In the last two years, the number of religious activists who are being held as political prisoners has sharply increased, according to Azerbaijani watchdog Institute for Peace and Democracy, part of a broader escalation of a campaign of repression that has also led to the arrests of journalists and other opposition figures.

The country, funded in large part by fossil fuel revenues, has strengthened its army and recently carried out what the European Parliament called an “ethnic cleansing” of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which though internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, had been governed by ethnic Armenians since the fall of the Soviet Union. Armenians, who trace their heritage to the establishment of the oldest Christian nation, have called attention to Azerbaijani destruction of their religious sites in the region, even as the Azerbaijani government has said Armenians have destroyed Azerbaijani religious sites.

These concerns helped Azerbaijan land on the U.S. Commission of International Religious Freedom’s 2024 “countries of particular concern” list, its designation for governments that engage in or tolerate “particularly severe” violations of religious freedom.

But when RNS reached out to the faith groups that have had a leading presence at recent COPs for comment on how they would approach their work given these concerns over religious liberty, most were silent.

Azerbaijan, red, is located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.

 (Map courtesy Wikimedia/Creative Commons)

Of the core team of faith groups organizing faith activities at the last COP, the World Evangelical Alliance, the Episcopal Diocese of California and the Muslim Council of Elders, none responded to requests for comment.

(After this story was published, the Episcopal Church issued a press release saying it “seeks to balance the urgency of climate change with concerns about ongoing human rights violations in Azerbaijan,” and noting that its government relations office sent an action alert urging Episcopalians to ask their congressional representatives to vote for the Supporting Armenians Against Azerbaijani Aggression Act of 2023.)

The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development and the Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development declined to respond to requests for comment, with PaRD citing its small team and limited resources. Several other faith groups that took secondary roles also did not respond.

The Rev. John Pawlikowski, a professor emeritus of social ethics at Catholic Theological Union, said that in the months leading up to the U.S. election, “there’s a fear right now on the part of some in the religious community to publicly criticize the COP” because it might encourage now President-elect Donald Trump to pull out of the process.

The Servite priest, also a member of the climate action task force of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, said he knew of religious actors who had boycotted previous COPs where there were limits on what participants could say about local human rights and intended to boycott the summit in Azerbaijan. Nonetheless, he said the majority believe in continuing with some level of involvement.

As a formal party to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Vatican, Pawlikowski said, “could raise the human rights issues more strongly and the religious liberty issues more strongly than it has.”

However, Pawlikowski said that the religious groups that participate in the COPs are not ignoring religious liberty but simply making a strategic decision not to pursue the issue during COP.

For some of the religious groups impacted by the Azerbaijani government’s repression, the silence of faith groups attending COP29 is a bitter betrayal.

“When something is happening to the first Christian nation in the world, they don’t care,” said Arshak Makichyan, an ethnic Armenian climate activist who lost his Russian citizenship after speaking out against the war in Ukraine. The Armenian Apostolic Christian, who said his faith sustains his activism, is an icon of the Russian climate movement because of his solo protests as part of Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future movement and his arrest in Russia for those protests after attending COP25 in 2019.

“What is happening to Armenians is really terrible and we need international solidarity,” he said, warning he worries that Azerbaijan will be emboldened to go to war with Armenia.

The activist sees Armenian issues as a natural part of the COP discussion of Indigenous issues. “If you have been colonized by Western countries, then it is colonization, but if you were colonized by Turkey or Azerbaijan, then it’s not colonization,” he said of Western people’s ignorance of Armenian history, which included centuries of Ottoman control and repression before between 600,000 and 1. 5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Empire during World War I, in what is widely considered a genocide.

Makichyan had planned to go back to COP this year, but he said Azerbaijan denied his visa, even after he said the United Nations had approved his accreditation for the event.

Mukhtar Babayev, COP29 president, speaks during an opening plenary session at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. 

(AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

The U.S. embassy of Azerbaijan and the U.N. Framework Convention of Climate Change offices did not respond to RNS’ requests for comment on the denial of Makichyan’s visa.

Makichyan explained, “I think it’s really important to raise the Armenian issue at the conference,” saying he was motivated to go “even though my grandfather’s uncle was killed in Baku, and though my grandparents, they were deported from Nakhchivan,” part of modern-day Azerbaijan.

Makichyan is part of a group calling for the international community at COP29 to demand the release of Armenian and other political prisoners held by the Azerbaijani government, sanctions, the right of return for “Artsakh Armenians to Indigenous lands,” an end to anti-Armenian destruction of cultural heritage and propaganda and divestment from Azerbaijani oil, in addition to a commitment to cease holding COPs in countries with political prisoners.

Azerbaijan has dismissed international concerns about religious freedom in the country as holding pro-Armenian bias.

Kamal Gasimov, a researcher on Islam in Azerbaijan who is currently visiting assistant professor of Arabic at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, said the USCIRF report should have cited third-party sources instead of relying on Armenian scholars to write about Armenian monuments.

Gasimov said the USCIRF report is a “political document,” which is indicative of relationships between Azerbaijan and the U.S. Some Azeris see the document as evidence of U.S. imperialism, while others whose family members are imprisoned are grateful for it, he said.

Mohamed Elsanousi, a commissioner who joined USCIRF after the most recent report’s deliberation process had been completed, said, “Our aim here is not really to blame and shame countries. Our aim is to improve religious freedom.”

USCIRF is made up of appointees by the U.S. president and congressional leaders. A minority of four dissented the Azerbaijan decision, expressing concerns that the country should be given a less severe designation for its religious freedom violations.

Despite controversy over the report, Gasimov said the Azerbaijani government plays a significant role regulating religion in the Muslim-majority country, adapting an approach from the Soviet Union that is common across post-Soviet countries.

“If you are a registered religious community within the state institution, the state gives you a passport, then you exist. If the state refuses your registration, then you don’t exist,” he said.

The goal is “making Islam part of the state bureaucracy, which makes Islam predictable,” as well as “easily observed” and “controlled.” They also accomplish this by “controlling books” and “trying to co-opt the religious leaders, charismatic leaders, (by) offering them jobs in the government.”

RELATED: USCIRF chair rebukes Azerbaijan for imprisoned Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objector

Other religious groups, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, have not been able to register. Jehovah’s Witnesses also highlight that the state has not followed through on its stated exemptions to compulsory military service for conscientious objectors, with some believers experiencing beatings and legal sentences.

While USCIRF cites the 2009 Azerbaijani law requiring registration as a major source of the violation of international human rights standards, Gasimov said the Arab Spring protests motivated the government to double down on control in the name of preventing radicalization and legitimized those actions by juxtaposing “the security of Azerbaijan with what’s happening in the Middle East.”

Azerbaijani watchdog Institute for Peace and Democracy says that the majority of the 319 political prisoners in the Muslim-majority country are “peaceful believers,” coming in at 228, which includes members of the Muslim Unity Movement and other Muslim theologians. Before early 2023, the number of religious political prisoners had been below 100.

Elsanousi said USCIRF had some documentation that “law enforcement also utilized and threatened torture, sexual assaults, and other mistreatment toward non-conforming Shia Muslims in the state custody.”

The Muslim Unity Movement, a Shia group, gained popularity, according to Gasimov, by mixing their religious discourse with concerns about social issues, like bribery and police violence.

Makichyan said that Azerbaijan has previously used “greenwashing,” or a type of spin that portrays the country as an environmental protector, to get away with human rights violations, including against ethnic Armenians.

Looking forward, he emphasized the importance of religious pluralism. As a Christian who knows of genocides that Muslim Indigenous groups have lived through, “it’s really important to be against Islamophobia because we Armenians, hopefully we will be able to return to western Armenia also and try to coexist with other people,” he said.

This story has been updated.

    

Greta Thunberg protests against Azerbaijan hosting global climate summit

 COP20

  

COP29  Thunberg protests at summit

Sophiko Megrelidze, The Associated Press - Nov 11, 2024 / 11:35 am | Story: 516823

(AP Photo/Zurab Tsertsvadze

Sweden's climate activist Greta Thunberg attends a rally in Tbilisi, Georgia, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024, as Baku hosts the COP29 U.N. Climate Conference.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg on Monday attended a rally in Georgia to protest against Azerbaijan hosting the annual United Nations climate talks.

Thunberg and scores of other activists who rallied in Tbilisi, the capital of the South Caucasus nation, argued that Azerbaijan doesn't deserve to host the climate talks because of its repressive policies.

U.N. climate talks, called COP29, opened Monday in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, a major oil producer where the world’s first oil well was drilled.

Thunberg described Azerbaijan as “a repressive, occupying state, which has committed ethnic cleansing, and which is continuing cracking down on Azerbaijani civil society." She charged that the Caspian Sea nation has used the summit as “a chance to greenwash their crimes and human rights abuses.”

"We can't give them any legitimacy in this situation, which is why we are standing here and saying no to greenwashing and no to the Azerbaijani regime,” she said.

Azerbaijan has committed to clean energy projects, but critics have argued that’s just to export more oil and gas.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has been in power since 2003 when he succeeded his father who died after ruling the oil rich nation for the previous decade. He has been accused by critics of intolerance to dissent and freedom of speech.

Earlier this year, Aliyev won another seven-year presidential term in an election that monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said took place in a “restrictive environment” with no real political competition. Aliyev called the early vote while enjoying a surge in popularity after Azerbaijani forces in September 2023 swiftly reclaimed the Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists, who had controlled it for three decades.

After Azerbaijan regained full control of Karabakh, most of its 120,000 Armenian residents fled. The Azerbaijani authorities, however, said they were welcome to stay and promised their human rights would be ensured.

Thunberg, 21, has inspired a global youth movement demanding stronger efforts to fight climate change after staging weekly protests outside the Swedish parliament starting in 2018.

The European climate service Copernicus announced earlier this month that the world is on pace for 1.5 degrees of warming this year, which is heading to become the hottest year in human civilization.

Speaking at the rally in Tbilisi on Monday, Thunberg emphasized that the hottest year ever recorded comes after global greenhouse gas emissions reached an all time high last year. Holding the climate change conference "in an authoritarian petro state is beyond absurd,” she said.

Greta Thunberg Slams Climate Summit Hosted By Azerbaijan

November 10, 2024 

By RFE/RL's Georgian Service,
Sopio Apriamashvili and
Ilia Ratiani

Dozens turned out in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, to hear a lecture by Greta Thunberg on November 8. The Swedish climate activist met with activists from countries in the region -- Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The latter is due to host the COP29 global climate summit on November 11-12. Thunberg said the event "is whitewashing the crimes and the extremely dangerous things that Azerbaijan is doing." She also called the summit "a greenwash conference," an attribute activists give to publicity stunts they say are only pretending to care about the environment.

Several world leaders shun upcoming COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan •

 FRANCE 24 English

Nearly 200 countries will gather next week for the U.N. climate summit, COP29. Reaching a consensus for a deal among so many can be difficult. However, several world leaders do not plan on attending the event. For an in-depth analysis, FRANCE 24's Gavin Lee interviews Brice Lalonde, former French minister for ecological transition.

EXPLAINER

Social media star Peanut the Squirrel has been euthanized after being seized from NY home

Greta Cross, USA TODAY

Updated Sat, November 2, 2024 



Two days after he was seized from his home in New York, Peanut the Squirrel has been euthanized.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and Chemung County Department of Health announced through a statement on Friday afternoon that both a squirrel and raccoon confiscated from a residence on Wednesday had been euthanized to test for rabies. The statement said a person involved in the confiscation investigation was bitten by the squirrel.

Peanut the Squirrel, who boasted 534,000 followers on Instagram, was taken from his home in Pine City, New York, by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation on Wednesday morning. Peanut, also known as PNUT, was the beloved pet of content creator Mark Longo. In more than 1,400 posts shared to Instagram, Peanut can be seen munching on waffles, jumping through hula-hoops, and greeting Longo home from work.

According to DEC and health department statement, rabies have been found in raccoons in New York's Southern Tier, which includes Pine City, for more than 30 years.

Over the past several days, Longo has shared several statements on Peanut's Instagram account, keeping fans updated, in hopes that Peanut may return home. At the time of publication, Longo had not posted in regards to the recent news.

"It has been a terrible nightmare for me," Longo said in his most recent video, posted Friday morning.

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In response to Peanut's seizure, a Change.org petition and GoFundMe campaign were created to "return him (Peanut)" to his family. As of Friday afternoon, the petition had 28,025 signatures, and the GoFundMe has raised $7,875.

Why do animals have to be euthanized to test for rabies?

According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, animals showing signs of rabies must be euthanized for the submission of specimen to a qualified rabies laboratory for testing. This is because a rabies test includes a "full cross-section of tissue from both the brain stem and cerebellum." There are no approved methods for testing rabies in animals ante-mortem.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and Chemung County Department of Health advised that anyone who has been in contact with the seized squirrel or raccoon consult a physician.

Who was Peanut the Squirrel?

Peanut was a rescue squirrel who had lived under Longo's care for seven years.

Longo first connected with Peanut when he saw the squirrel's mom get hit by a car, per previous USA TODAY reporting. Unfortunately, the mother passed, leaving Peanut an orphan. Longo was unsuccessful in finding a shelter that would take him in. Longo ended up feeding baby Peanut for about eight months before attempting to release him back into the wild.

"I released him in the backyard, and a day and a half later, I found him sitting on my porch, missing half his tail. So here I am, bawling my eyes out, like, I failed you as your human," Longo told USA TODAY in 2022. "And I kind of opened the door, he ran inside and that was the last of Peanut's wildlife career."

For the first five years, Longo, Peanut, and Longo's cat, Chloe, lived together in harmony.

Last year, Longo established P'Nuts Freedom Farm Animal Sanctuary in Pine City. The nonprofit serves as a "haven where neglected and homeless animals receive a second chance at life," according to its website. To date, 18 horses, one mini horse, four cows, three alpacas, one parrot, one pig and two geese call the sanctuary home, according to its website.

USA TODAY contacted Longo but was unsuccessful in connecting with him for an interview.

Is it legal for squirrels to be kept as pets in NY?

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation states that it is illegal for young wildlife to be kept as pets.

"Inappropriate care given to young wildlife often results in abnormal attachment to humans," the Department of Environmental Conservation states. "After release, some return to places where people live, only to be attacked by domestic animals or to be hit by cars. Some become nuisances getting into stored food, trash cans or dwellings. And some may be thrust as unwelcome intruders into the home range of another member of their species."

If an individual finds a young wild animal that is injured or orphaned, the department recommends making a call to a wildlife rehabilitator, who "are the only people legally allowed to receive and treat distressed wildlife." The goal of rehabilitators is to safely release the animal, when healthy, back into the wild.

This story has been updated to correct a grammatical error and spelling error of the word "raccoon."

Greta Cross is a national trending reporter at USA TODAY. Follow her on X and Instagram @gretalcross. Story idea? Email her at gcross@gannett.com.