BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA — The world’s nations will wrap up negotiating a treaty this weekend to address the global plastic pollution crisis.

Their meeting is scheduled to conclude Sunday or early Monday in Busan, South Korea, where many environmental organizations have flocked to push for a treaty to address the volume of production and toxic chemicals used in plastic products.

Greenpeace said it escalated its pressure Saturday by sending four international activists to Daesan, South Korea, who boarded a tanker headed into port to load chemicals used to make plastics.

Graham Forbes, who leads the Greenpeace delegation in Busan, said the action is meant to remind world leaders they have a clear choice: Deliver a treaty that protects people and the planet, or side with industry and sacrifice the health of every living person and future generations.

Here’s what to know about plastics:

Every year, the world produces more than 400 million tons of new plastic.

The use of plastics has quadrupled over the past 30 years. Plastic is ubiquitous. And every day, the equivalent of 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic are dumped into the world’s oceans, rivers and lakes, the U.N. said. Most nations agreed to make the first global, legally binding plastic pollution accord, including in the oceans, by the end of 2024.

Plastic production could climb about 70% by 2040 without policy changes.

The production and use of plastics globally is set to reach 736 million tons by 2040, according to the intergovernmental Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Panama is leading an effort to address the exponential growth of plastic production as part of the treaty, supported by more than 100 countries. There’s just too much plastic, said Juan Carlos Monterrey, head of Panama’s delegation.

“If we don’t have production in this treaty, it is not only going to be horribly sad, but the treaty may as well be called the greenwashing recycling treaty, not the plastics treaty,” he said in an interview. “Because the problem is not going to be fixed.”

China, the United States and Germany are the biggest plastics players.

China was by far the biggest exporter of plastic products in 2023, followed by Germany and the U.S., according to the Plastics Industry Association.

Together, the three nations account for 33% of the total global plastics trade, the association said.

The United States supports having an article in the treaty that addresses supply, or plastic production, a senior member of the U.S. delegation told The Associated Press Saturday.

Most plastic ends up as waste

Less than 10% of plastics are recycled. Most of the world’s plastic goes to landfills, pollutes the environment or is burned.

Sarah Dunlop, head of plastics and human health at the Minderoo Foundation, said chemicals are leaching out of plastics and “making us sick.”

The International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Plastics held an event about the impact of plastics Saturday on the sidelines of the talks. They want the treaty to fully recognize their rights and the universal human right to a healthy, clean, safe and sustainable environment.

Juan Mancias of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation in Texas spoke about feeling a spiritual connection to the land.

“Five hundred years ago, we had clean water, clean air, and there was no plastics,” he said. “What happened?”

Many plastics are used for packaging

About 40% of all plastics are used in packaging, according to the United Nations. This includes single-use plastic food and beverage containers — water bottles, takeout containers, coffee lids, straws and shopping bags — that often end up polluting the environment.

U.N. Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen told negotiators in Busan the treaty must tackle this problem.

“Are there specific plastic items that we can live without, those that so often leak into the environment? Are there alternatives to these items? This is an issue we must agree on,” she said.
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YANQING, CHINA — In a research facility in the northwest of Beijing, molecular biologist Li Jieping and his team harvest a cluster of seven unusually small potatoes, one as tiny as a quail’s egg, from a potted plant.

Grown under conditions that simulate predictions of higher temperatures at the end of the century, the potatoes provide an ominous sign of future food security.

At just 136 grams, the tubers weigh less than half that of a typical potato in China, where the most popular varieties are often twice the size of a baseball.

China is the world’s biggest producer of potatoes, which are crucial to global food security because of their high yield relative to other staple crops.

But they are particularly vulnerable to heat, and climate change, driven by fossil fuel emissions, is pushing temperatures to dangerous new heights while also worsening drought and flooding.

With an urgent need to protect food supplies, Li, a researcher at the International Potato Center (CIP) in Beijing, is leading a three-year study into the effects of higher temperatures on the vegetable. His team is focusing on China’s two most common varieties.

“I worry about what will happen in the future,” Li said. “Farmers will harvest fewer potato tubers, it will influence food security.”

Li’s team grew their crop over three months in a walk-in chamber set at 3 degrees Celsius above the current average temperature in northern Hebei and Inner Mongolia, the higher altitude provinces where potatoes are usually grown in China.

Their research, published in the journal Climate Smart Agriculture this month, found the higher temperatures accelerated tuber growth by 10 days, but cut potato yields by more than half.

Under current climate policies, the world is facing as much as 3.1 C of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100, according to a United Nations report released in October.

Farmers in China say they are already feeling the effect of extreme weather events.

In Inner Mongolia, dozens of workers clutching white sacks rush to gather potatoes dug up from the soil before the next downpour.

“The biggest challenge for potatoes this year is the heavy rain,” said manager Wang Shiyi. “It has caused various diseases… and greatly slowed down the harvest progress.”

Meanwhile, seed potato producer Yakeshi Senfeng Potato Industry Company has invested in aeroponic systems where plants are grown in the air under controlled conditions.

Farmers are increasingly demanding potato varieties that are higher-yielding and less susceptible to disease, particularly late blight, which caused the Irish Potato Famine of the mid-19th century and thrives in warm and humid conditions.

“Some new and more aggressive (late blight) strains have begun to appear, and they are more resistant to traditional prevention and control methods,” said general manager Li Xuemin, explaining the Inner Mongolia-based company’s strategy.

The research by CIP, which is headquartered in Lima, is part of a collaborative effort with the Chinese government to help farmers adapt to the warmer, wetter conditions.

In the greenhouse outside Li’s lab, workers swab pollen on white potato flowers to develop heat-tolerant varieties.

Li says Chinese farmers will need to make changes within the next decade, planting during spring instead of the start of summer, or moving to even higher altitudes to escape the heat.

“Farmers have to start preparing for climate change,” Li said. “If we don’t find a solution, they will make less money from lower yields and the price of potatoes may rise.” 
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UNITED NATIONS — The U.N.’s children’s fund raised the alarm on Friday over the high rate of new HIV infections among young women and girls, warning they lacked access to prevention and treatment.

In a report ahead of world AIDS day on Sunday, UNICEF said that 96,000 girls and 41,000 boys aged 15-19 were newly infected with HIV in 2023, meaning seven out of 10 new adolescent infections were among girls.

In sub-Saharan Africa, nine out of 10 new HIV infections among 15- 19-year-olds were among girls in the most recent period for which data is available.

“Children and adolescents are not fully reaping the benefits of scaled up access to treatment and prevention services,” said UNICEF associate director of HIV/AIDS Anurita Bains.

“Yet children living with HIV must be prioritized when it comes to investing resources and efforts to scale up treatment for all, this includes the expansion of innovative testing technologies.”

As many as 77% of adults living with HIV have access to anti-retroviral therapy, but just 57% of children 14 and younger, and 65% of teenagers aged 15-19, can obtain lifesaving medicine.

Children 14 and younger account for only 3% of those living with HIV, but account for 12% — 76,000 — of AIDS-related deaths in 2023.

Around 1.3 million people contracted the disease in 2023, according to a report from the UNAIDS agency.

That is still more than three times higher than needed to reach the U.N.’s goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

Around 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses last year, the lowest level since a peak of 2.1 million in 2004, the report said ahead of World AIDS Day on Sunday.

Much of the progress was attributed to antiretroviral treatments that can reduce the amount of the virus in the blood of patients.

Out of the nearly 40 million people living with HIV around the world, some 9.3 million are not receiving treatment, the report warned. 
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Cucumbers shipped to 13 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces have been recalled because of potential salmonella contamination, the Food and Drug Administration said this week.

SunFed Produce, based in Arizona, recalled the cucumbers sold between October 12 and November 26, the FDA said Thursday.

No illnesses were immediately reported. People who bought cucumbers during the window should check with the store where they purchased them to see if the produce is part of the recall. Wash items and surfaces that may have been in contact with the produce using hot, soapy water or a dishwasher.

Salmonella can cause symptoms that begin six hours to six days after ingesting the bacteria and include diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps. Most people recover without treatment within a week, but young children, people older than 65 and those with weakened immune systems can become seriously ill.

Earlier this summer, a separate salmonella outbreak in cucumbers sickened 450 people in the United States.
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geneva — The World Health Organization on Thursday urged countries to step up surveillance for bird flu after the first case was detected in a child in the United States. 

A small but growing number of H5N1 avian influenza infections have been detected in humans around the world in recent years, Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director,  said at a press conference. 

“What we really need globally, in the U.S. and abroad, is much stronger surveillance in animals: in wild birds, in poultry, in animals that are known to be susceptible to infection, which include swine, which include dairy cattle, to better understand the circulation in these animals,” she said. 

More outbreaks

H5N1 emerged in 1996, but since 2020, the number of outbreaks in birds has grown exponentially, alongside an increase in the number of infected mammals. 

The strain has led to the deaths of tens of millions of poultry, with wild birds and land and marine mammals also infected. 

Human cases recorded in Europe and the United States since the virus surged have largely been mild. 

In March, infections were detected in several dairy herds across the United States. 

U.S. health officials believe the risk for the general public is low, though albeit higher for those working directly with livestock, including birds, dairy cattle and more. 

Last Friday, U.S. authorities said a child in California had become the first in the United States to test positive for bird flu infection. Health officials offered checks and preventive treatment to exposed contacts at the youth’s child care center. 

The child had mild symptoms and was said to be recovering at home following treatment with flu antivirals. 

“Including this most recent case, 55 human cases of H5 bird flu have now been reported in the United States during 2024, with 29 in California,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. 

No human-to-human infections seen

Van Kerkhove said all but two of those had known exposure to infected animals. 

“We have not seen evidence of human-to-human infection. But again, for each of these human detected cases, we want to see a very thorough investigation taking place,” she said. 

“We need much stronger efforts in terms of reducing the risk of infection between animals to new species and to humans,” she added, notably through testing and proper protective equipment. 

Van Kerkhove, who was the WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead, stressed the importance of preparing “for when or if we will be in a situation where we are in a flu pandemic.” 

“We’re not in that situation yet, but we do need more vigilance,” Van Kerkhove said. 
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A clinic initiative in Kenya aims to provide health care to vulnerable mobile populations such as truck drivers and commercial sex workers. The goal is to combat the spread of disease across borders in Africa. Juma Majanga reports from the transit town of Mlolongo in Kenya. Camera: Amos Wangwa
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Geneva, Switzerland — A young South African activist living with HIV will take over Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron’s Instagram account on World AIDS Day, the United Nations said Thursday.

Ibanomonde Ngema, a 21-year-old activist, will be given the reins to the South African-born actress’s global account @charlizeafrica, with some 7.6 million followers, on December 1, UNAIDS said in a statement.

The takeover by Ngema, who was born with HIV and has dedicated her advocacy work to dispelling myths and reducing stigma around HIV, will aim to bring awareness to the first-hand experiences of young people living with HIV, it said.

Theron, a so-called UN Messenger of Peace who has long advocated for tackling the systemic inequalities that drive HIV infections among young women and girls, insisted in the statement that “ending AIDS is within reach.”

But, she warned, “only if we completely dismantle harmful patterns of stigma and discrimination through laws, policies, and practices that protect people living with HIV.”

Theron won a best actress Oscar for her lead role in the 2004 film “Monster” and has more recently starred in pictures such as “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

“I have always loved watching Charlize Theron on the big screen and have long been inspired by her using her influence to help people around the world, especially in our home country of South Africa,” Ngema said in the statement.

The announcement came after UNAIDS this week released a new report that showed how rights violations exacerbate the vulnerability of women and girls to HIV.

Last year, women and girls accounted for 62% of all new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa, UNAIDS said.
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President-elect Donald Trump says he intends to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy disagrees with much of the scientific community on subjects including vaccines and HIV/AIDS. VOA’s Anita Powell has our story.
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HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1, the U.N. has released a report saying that upholding human rights is essential for ending the AIDS pandemic.

The report says human rights violations, including discrimination against girls and women, and criminalization of LGBTQ+ people, obstruct efforts to end AIDS.

UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima released a report online called “Take the Rights Path to End AIDS.”

The report says the world can meet the goal of ending AIDS by 2030 if leaders protect the human rights of everyone living with and at risk of HIV.

She said advances in medicine are helping reduce new cases of HIV.

“But big gaps still remain in the protection of rights. When there is impunity for gender-based violence; when people can be arrested for who they are, or who they love; when a visit to health services is dangerous for people because of their gender — the result is that people are blocked from care, this drives the AIDS pandemic,” she said. “Only rights can fix these wrongs. There is an urgent need to enact laws that protect the human rights of everyone.”

Zimbabwe was one of the countries hit hardest by HIV/AIDS until it introduced an AIDS levy in 1999, a 3% tax on income and business profits which is managed by the National AIDS Council.

Dr. Bernard Madzima, the executive officer of the Zimbabwe National AIDS Council, said the country is aiming to end HIV as a public health threat by the end of the decade. He said the country enforces a policy of no discrimination against HIV patients.

“In Zimbabwe there is no one who has been stigmatized whether they are HIV positive or whether they are HIV negative, they will get access. Our approach in HIV intervention is based on it being a public health approach,” he said. “So our interventions are to make sure that HIV is no longer a public health threat by 2030.”

Madzima said the government is also attempting to reach marginalized groups like sex workers, prison inmates and informal miners with care. In the past, Zimbabwean authorities targeted sex workers and organizations such as Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe.

The UNAIDS report noted that police only stopped arresting sex workers for “loitering” in 2015, after Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights successfully argued in court that the police conduct was illegal. The report said the move has resulted in sex workers being able to seek health services.

The report commended Zimbabwe for stopping the criminalization of HIV transmission in 2022, adding that criminalization and stigmatization of marginalized communities obstruct access to life-saving HIV services.
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JACKSON, Mississippi — Medical marijuana businesses in the southern U.S. state of Mississippi don’t have the right to advertise on billboards or other places because marijuana itself remains illegal under federal law, an appeals court says. 

The owner of a medical marijuana dispensary argued that the First Amendment protects the right to advertise because Mississippi law permits the sale of cannabis products to people with debilitating medical conditions. The state enacted its law in 2022. 

A three-judge panel of 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday rejected the arguments about advertising. They cited the federal Controlled Substances Act, which since 1970 has prohibited the manufacture, distribution, dispensing and possession of marijuana. 

The federal law applies in all states, and Mississippi “faces no constitutional obstacle to restricting commercial speech relating to unlawful transactions,” the judges wrote. 

The Mississippi attorney general’s office praised the court decision for upholding “Mississippi’s reasonable restrictions on advertising for medical marijuana dispensaries by print, broadcast and other mass communications,” said the office spokesperson, MaryAsa Lee. 

Clarence Cocroft II operates Tru Source Medical Cannabis in the northern Mississippi city of Olive Branch. He sued the state in 2023 to challenge its ban on medical marijuana advertising on billboards or in print, broadcast or social media or via mass email or text messaging. 

“Upholding this ban makes it incredibly difficult for me to find potential customers and to educate people about Mississippi’s medical marijuana program,” Cocroft said in a statement Monday. “I remain committed to continuing this fight so my business can be treated the same as any other legal business in Mississippi.” 

The state allows medical marijuana businesses to have websites or social media accounts that provide information about their retail dispensing locations and a list of products available. It allows them to be listed in phone books or business directories and to display cannabis in company logos. The businesses can also sponsor not-for-profit charity or advocacy events. 

Cocroft is represented by the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit libertarian law firm. The firm said Monday that it was considering its next steps in the lawsuit, including possibly asking the entire appeals court to reconsider the case or an appeal to the Supreme Court. 

“Mississippi cannot on the one hand create an entire marketplace for the sale of medical marijuana, and on the other hand rely on an unenforced federal law to prohibit buyers and sellers from talking about it,” said Ari Bargil, an Institute for Justice attorney.
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BAKU, AZERBAIJAN — Anger and frustration from developing nations vulnerable to climate impacts are likely to linger following the conclusion of the climate change summit in Azerbaijan, COP29, as nations adopted a $300 billion global finance target to help poorer nations cope with climate change, a deal that many recipient nations slammed as severely insufficient.

Global North countries, often historic emitters responsible for global warming, agreed on Sunday to pledge $300 billion a year until 2035 for their developing counterparts to stave off the direst effects of climate change — less than a quarter of the acknowledged $1.3 trillion needed annually to reduce emissions and build resilience in vulnerable countries.

The $300 billion figure, also, is an increase by $200 billion each year, compared to the agreement in place since 2009, which is expiring.

Spirited disappointment and rage from Global South countries was expressed at the closing plenary, with some national representatives calling adoption of the new funding package “insulting.”

“We are extremely disappointed,” said Indian negotiator Chandni Raina, who called the figure “abysmal.”

Her Cuban counterpart, Pedro Luis Pedroso, described the deal as “environmental colonialism,” pointing out that, when factoring in today’s inflation, the pledged funding is lower than the $100 billion agreed to in 2009. Bolivia’s negotiator called the deal “insulting” to developing nations.

Some Western representatives were more upbeat.

“COP29 will be remembered as a new era of climate finance,” top EU climate negotiator Wopke Hoekstra said, calling the target amount “ambitious” and “achievable.”

Some experts told VOA that the structure and composition of the $300 billion deal was more important than the actual monetary figure. The final deal allows for both public and private sources of funds to be tapped to bolster climate preparation efforts in the developing world.

Negotiators for developing countries expressed concern that private sources of funding could come in the form of more loans, which could lead to challenging debt accumulation by poorer nations, rather than funding in the preferred form of grants.

Global South countries argued for a new target for green finance and have consistently called for such climate finance to come in the form of public grants. The tense and fraught negotiations of the past week dragged on for two extra days and included at least one episode of negotiators from small island nations and some of the poorest nations in the world walking out of a meeting room with wealthy nations in protest. They asserted that their voices and perspectives were not heard.

”This COP has been a disaster for the developing world,” said Mohammed Adow, director of Kenya-based climate and energy research group Power Shift Africa. ”It’s a betrayal of both people and planet, by wealthy countries, who claim to take climate change seriously.”

The adopted finance package also stated that a further roadmap is set to be discussed at the next conference – likely COP30, set for Belem, Brazil in late 2025 — on how to reach the trillion-dollar figure.

Independent South African climate consultant Gillian Hamilton called the $300 billion core funding target “insufficient,” particularly for building resilience against climate impacts — also known as climate adaptation.

“Developed nations should have shown more leadership and transparency,” Hamilton told VOA. “The biggest emitters need to rapidly decrease their emissions so that adaptation costs for developing countries don’t increase exponentially.”

Campaigners staged multiple environmental protests each day here during the past week-plus of meetings.

Though negotiators for developing nations repeatedly asked for climate finance in the form of grants instead of loans, in the final deal, developed countries stopped short of guaranteeing that could be done.

Adaptation finance

The deal adopted Sunday acknowledges that funding sources for adaptation finance should be public and transparent.

With 2024 going down as the hottest year in history, the world has experienced a slew of climate disasters, ranging from devastating floods in Nepal and Spain, to Hurricane Helene in the Americas, droughts in the Mediterranean and typhoons in the western Pacific region.

Despite the disasters and renewed calls to finance climate-resilient infrastructure across the Global South to guard against rising sea levels and wildfires, funding has been falling short for years, according to a November report from the U.N. Environment Program.

The so-called adaptation projects include developing more advanced disaster warning systems, reforestation, and building catchment mechanisms to ensure water security in regions most affected by climate change.

At COP29, Germany pledged $62 billion, to the adaptation fund; France highlighted its 2023 pledge of $2.9 billion, in adaptation; the U.S. said it pays $3 billion into it each year. A total of 14 Global North countries including Spain, Sweden, South Korea and Switzerland promised to provide $300 million this year, according to a separate negotiation text in the conference.

Despite pledges in recent years, countries didn’t completely deliver on promises. This year, for example, more than $122 million of pledged financial support to poor nations for adapting to climate risk is still up in the air, even though this assistance has been a stated priority at recent COP meetings.

What to expect in Belem?

Countries will be tasked at the Brazil meeting next November with ironing out the details of a global carbon trade system governed by a centralized U.N. regulatory body. They also will try to find a path for wealthy, developed countries to reach the target of $1.3 trillion to support efforts in the Global South to address the consequences of climate disasters. A major component will be reviewing national climate plans, which are due to be submitted in February. Britain, Brazil and the UAE are among the nations that this past week aimed to get ahead of the February deadline and shared some of the goals in their national climate preparation plans.

Harjeet Singh, global engagement director of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, said it is likely that ‘most’ nations will not meet the February deadline to submit their updated plans to address climate change.

The future participation of Argentina is unclear, after hardline President Javier Milei — who has called climate change a hoax — reportedly told his government delegates here to pack their bags and leave the negotiations on the third day of the summit.

Singh was asked by VOA whether wealthy nations would deliver on their promises to lead the effort toward $300 billion in climate finance support, and he responded that the key lies in their ‘willingness, as the money has always been there.’
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As delegates from 175 countries gathered in Busan, South Korea, on Monday for the fifth round of talks aimed at securing an international treaty to curb plastic pollution, lingering divisions cast doubts on whether a final agreement is in sight.

South Korea is hosting the fifth and ostensibly final U.N. Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) meeting this week, after the previous round of talks in Ottawa in April ended without a path forward on capping plastic production.

Instead, the meeting issued a direction for technical groups to focus on chemicals of concern and other measures after petrochemical-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and China strongly opposed efforts to target plastic production.

The United States raised eyebrows in August when it said it would back plastic production caps in the treaty, putting it in alignment with the EU, Kenya, Peru and other countries in the High Ambition Coalition.

The election of Donald Trump as president, however, has raised questions about that position, as during his first presidency he shunned multilateral agreements and any commitments to slow or stop U.S. oil and petrochemical production.

The U.S. delegation did not answer questions on whether it would reverse its new position to support plastic production caps. But it “supports ensuring that the global instrument addresses plastic products, chemicals used in plastic products, and the supply of primary plastic polymers,” according to a spokesperson for the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said she was confident the talks will end with an agreement, pointing to the communique from the Group of 20 nations at a summit last week calling for a legally binding treaty by the end of this year.

“This is a very powerful message,” Andersen told Reuters in Baku, on the sidelines of the UN climate negotiations, before traveling to Busan for the talks. “We know that it is often down to the wire, but if there is a will, I think we will get there.”

For a Pacific island country like Fiji, a global plastics treaty is crucial to protect its fragile ecosystem and public health, said Sivendra Michael, Fiji’s climate minister and chief climate and plastics negotiator.

He told Reuters on the sidelines of the 29th U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP29) this month that despite not producing any plastic, Fiji is bearing the brunt of its downstream pollution.

“Where do these plastics end up? It ends up in our oceans, in our landfill, in our backyards. And the impact of the plastics breaking down into little substances has detrimental effects, not only on the environment, but on us as individuals, on our health,” he said, noting studies that showed most of the fish consumed in the country was polluted with microplastics.

While supporting an international treaty, the petrochemical industry has been vocal in urging governments to avoid setting mandatory plastic production caps, and focus on solutions on reducing plastic waste, like recycling.

“We would see a treaty successful if it would really put … emphasis on ending plastic pollution. Nothing else should be the focus.” said Martin Jung, president for performance materials at chemical producer BASF.

Previous talks have also discussed searching for forms of funding to help developing countries implement the treaty.

At COP29, France, Kenya and Barbados floated setting up a series of global levies on certain sectors that could help ramp up the amount of money that could be made available to developing countries seeking support to aid their clean energy transition and cope with the increasingly severe impacts of climate change.

The proposal included a fee of $60-$70/ton on primary polymer production, which is on average around 5-7% of the polymer price, seen potentially raising an estimated $25 billion-$35 billion per year.

Industry groups have rejected the idea, saying it will raise consumer prices.
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Planet Earth is parting company with an asteroid that’s been tagging along as a “mini moon” for the past two months. 

The harmless space rock will peel away on Monday, overcome by the stronger tug of the sun’s gravity. But it will zip closer for a quick visit in January. 

NASA will use a radar antenna to observe the 10-meter (33-foot) asteroid then. That should deepen scientists’ understanding of the object known as 2024 PT5, quite possibly a boulder that was blasted off the moon by an impacting, crater-forming asteroid. 

While not technically a moon — NASA stresses it was never captured by Earth’s gravity and fully in orbit — it’s “an interesting object” worthy of study. 

The astrophysicist brothers who identified the asteroid’s “mini moon behavior,” Raul and Carlos de la Fuente Marcos of Complutense University of Madrid, have collaborated with telescopes in the Canary Islands for hundreds of observations so far. 

Currently more than 3.5 million kilometers (2 million miles) away, the object is too small and faint to see without a powerful telescope. It will pass as close as 1.8 million kilometers (1.1 million miles) of Earth in January, maintaining a safe distance before it zooms farther into the solar system while orbiting the sun, not to return until 2055. That’s almost five times farther than the moon. 

First spotted in August, the asteroid began its semi jog around Earth in late September, after coming under the grips of Earth’s gravity and following a horseshoe-shaped path. By the time it returns next year, it will be moving too fast — more than double its speed from September — to hang around, said Raul de la Fuente Marcos. 

NASA will track the asteroid for more than a week in January using the Goldstone solar system radar antenna in California’s Mojave Desert, part of the Deep Space Network. 

Current data suggest that during its 2055 visit, the sun-circling asteroid will once again make a temporary and partial lap around Earth.
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JAYAPURA, Indonesia — On the southeastern coast of the city of Jayapura, Petronela Merauje walked from house to house in her floating village inviting women to join her the next morning in the surrounding mangrove forests.

Merauje and the women of her village, Enggros, practice the tradition of Tonotwiyat, which literally means “working in the forest.” For six generations, women from the 700-strong Papuan population there have worked among the mangroves collecting clams, fishing and gathering firewood.

“The customs and culture of Papuans, especially those of us in Enggros village, is that women are not given space and place to speak in traditional meetings, so the tribal elders provide the mangrove forest as our land,” Merauje said. It’s “a place to find food, a place for women to tell stories, and women are active every day and earn a living every day.”

The forest is a short 13 kilometers away from downtown Jayapura, the capital city of Papua, Indonesia’s easternmost province. It’s been known as the women’s forest since 2016, when Enggros’ leader officially changed its name. Long before that, it had already been a space just for women. But as pollution, development and biodiversity loss shrink the forest and stunt plant and animal life, those in the village fear an important part of their traditions and livelihoods will be lost. Efforts to shield it from devastation have begun but are still relatively small.

Women have their own space — but it’s shrinking

One early morning, Merauje and her 15-year-old daughter took a small motorboat toward the forest. Stepping off on Youtefa Bay, mangrove trees all around, they stood chest-deep in the water with buckets in hand, wiggling their feet in the mud to find bia noor, or soft-shell clams. The women collect these for food, along with other fish.

“The women’s forest is our kitchen,” said Berta Sanyi, another woman from Enggros village.

That morning, another woman joined the group looking for firewood, hauling dry logs onto her boat. And three other women joined on a rowboat.

Women from the next village, Tobati, also have a women’s forest nearby. The two Indigenous villages are only 2 kilometers apart, and they’re culturally similar, with Enggros growing out of Tobati’s population decades ago. In the safety of the forest, women of both villages talk about issues at home with one another and share grievances away from the ears of the rest of the village.

Alfred Drunyi, the leader of Drunyi tribe in Enggros, said that having dedicated spaces for women and men is a big part of the village’s culture. There are tribal fines if a man trespasses and enters the forest, and the amount is based on how guilty the community judges the person to be.

“They should pay it with our main treasure, the traditional beads, maybe with some money. But the fines should be given to the women,” Drunyi said.

But Sanyi, 65, who’s been working in the forest since she was just 17, notes that threats to the space come from elsewhere.

Development on the bay has turned acres of forest into large roads, including a 700-meter bridge into Jayapura that passes through Enggros’ pier. Jayapura’s population has exploded in recent decades, and around 400,000 people live in the city — the largest on the island.

In turn, the forest has shrunk. Nearly six decades ago, the mangrove forest in Youtefa Bay was about 514 hectares. Estimates say it’s now less than half that.

“I am so sad when I see the current situation of the forest,” Sanyi said, “because this is where we live.” She said many residents, including her own children, are turning to work in Jayapura instead of maintaining traditions.

Pollution puts traditions and health at risk

Youtefa Bay, where the sea’s brackish water and five rivers in Papua meet, serves as the gathering bowl for the waste that runs through the rivers as they cross through Jayapura.

Plastic bottles, tarpaulins and pieces of wood are seen stuck between the mangrove roots. The water around the mangrove forest is polluted and dark.

After dozens of years being able to feel the clams on the bay with her feet, Sanyi said she now often has to feel through trash first. And once she removes the trash and gets to the muddy ground where the clams live, there are many fewer than there used to be.

Paula Hamadi, 53, said that she never saw the mangrove forest as bad as it is now. For years, she’s been going to the forest almost every day during the low tide in the morning to search for clams.

“It used to be different,” Hamadi said. “From 8 a.m. to 8:30 in the morning, I could get one can. But now, I only get trash.”

The women used to be able to gather enough clams to sell some at the nearest village, but now their small hauls are reserved for eating with their families.

A study in 2020 found that high concentrations of lead from waste from homes and businesses were found at several points in the bay. Lead can be toxic to humans and aquatic organisms, and the study suggests it has contaminated several species that are often consumed by the people of Youtefa Bay.

Other studies also showed that populations of shellfish and crab in the bay were declining, said John Dominggus Kalor, a lecturer on fisheries and marine sciences at Cenderawasih University.

“The threats related to heavy metal contamination, microplastics, and public health are high,” Kalor said. “In the future, it will have an impact on health.”

Some are trying to save the land

Some of the mangrove areas have been destroyed for development, leading to degradation throughout the forest.

Mangroves can absorb the shocks of extreme weather events, like tsunamis, and provide ecosystems with the needed environment to thrive. They also serve social and cultural functions for the women, whose work is mostly done between the mangroves.

“In the future people will say that there used to be a women’s forest here” that disappeared because of development and pollution, said Kalor.

Various efforts to preserve it have been made, including the residents of Enggros village themselves. Merauje and other women from Enggros are trying to start mangrove tree nurseries and, where possible, plant new mangrove trees in the forest area.

“We plant new trees, replace the dead ones, and we also clean up the trash around Youtefa Bay,” Merauje said. “I do that with my friends to conserve, to maintain this forest.”

Beyond efforts to reforest it, Kalor said there also needs to be guarantees that more of the forest won’t be flattened for development in the future.

There is no regional regulation to protect Youtefa Bay and specifically the women’s forests, but Kalor thinks it would help prevent deforestation in the future.

“That should no longer be done in our bay,” he said. 
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UDHAGAMANDALAM, India — Scattered groves of native trees, flowers and the occasional prehistoric burial ground are squeezed between hundreds of thousands of tea shrubs in southern India’s Nilgiris region — a gateway to a time before colonization and the commercial growing of tea that reshaped the country’s mountain landscapes.

These sacred groves once blanketed the Western Ghats mountains, but nearly 200 years ago, British colonists installed rows upon rows of tea plantations. The few groves that stand today are either protected by Indigenous communities who preserve them for their faith and traditions, or are being grown and tended back into existence by ecologists who remove tea trees from disused farms and plant seeds native to this biodiverse region. It takes decades, but their efforts are finally starting to see results as forests flourish despite ecological damage and wilder weather caused by climate change.

The teams bringing back the forests — home to more than 600 native plants and 150 animal species found only here — know that they still need to work around their neighbors. Nearly everyone in the region’s more than 700,000-strong population either farms black, green and white tea or works with the almost 3 million tourists who come to escape the searing heat of the Indian plains.

“In this time of climate change, I think ecological restoration and rewilding is extremely important,” said Godwin Vasanth Bosco, a Nilgiris-based naturalist and restoration practitioner. “What we’re trying to do is to help nature restore itself.”

Degraded land and climate change threaten communities

Environmentalists say industrial-scale tea farming has destroyed the soil’s nutrients and led to conflict with animals like elephants and gaur, or Indian bison, that have little forest left to live in.

Estimates say nearly 54,600 hectares of tea have been planted across the mountains, damaging close to 70% of native grasslands and forests.

“There is no biological diversity,” Gokul Halan, a Nilgiris-based water expert, said of the tea farms. “It doesn’t support the local fauna nor is it a food source.”

The forests among the tea farms are recognized by the United Nations as one of the world’s eight “hottest hotspots for biodiversity,” but the areas degraded by excessive pesticide use and other commercial farming methods have been dubbed “green deserts” by environmentalists for their poor soil and inability to support other life.

The Nilgiris region has also had to clear land to facilitate the increasing number of tourists and people from India’s plains who are moving to the region.

Poorer land makes it more vulnerable to landslides and flooding, which are now more common because of human-caused climate change. The neighboring mountainous region of Wayanad suffered devastating landslides that killed nearly 200 people earlier this year, and Halan warns Nilgiris may suffer a similar fate.

Halan also warned the region is susceptible to long droughts and excess heat because of climate change, and that’s already affected some tea harvests.

Restoring forests brings life back to Nilgiris

In a small mountain fold just a few hundred meters below the region’s tallest peak, native trees planted 10 years ago have grown up to 4.5 meters tall. A stream flows amid the young trees that replaced nearly 3 hectares of tea plants.

“This whole place was tea plantations and this stream was not flowing throughout the year,” said Bosco, the ecologist. “Since we began our restoration work, it flows through the year and the trees and bamboo have grown well along the stream.”

The forests are known as Shola-grassland forests or cloud forests because they can capture moisture from high-altitude mist.

Bosco said the plants and trees have an “incredible capacity to provide for life” across the about 809 hectares his organization works to restore. The native trees maintain the microclimate underneath them by providing nutrients to the soil. That helps saplings and small plants grow even during hot, dry summers.

The region is also home to several Indigenous communities, called Adivasi, many of them classified as highly vulnerable with only a few thousand of their people remaining.

Representatives of these Adivasi communities consider themselves the original custodians of the forests and have also restored forests in the region. They say such restoration initiatives are welcome.

“When the British built tea estates, we were kicked out to the fringes of this district, our lands were lost and we lost our traditions because of deforestation,” said Mani Raman, who belongs to the Alu Kurumbar Adivasi community.

“Such restoration work is good. By bringing the forests back, the wildlife and birds will get more food. Animals that have moved out of forests will have a place to live,” he said.

Tea growers still need a livelihood

Tea growers and factory owners say that the region’s entire economy depends on tea and it is relatively less harmful to the local environment compared to rampant development to cater to tourism.

“To convert tea to grasslands and shola forests will have a negative impact on the region’s economy and environment,” said A. Balakrishnan, the owner of a 2-year-old tea factory near the town of Kotagiri in the Nilgiris.

Eighty-year-old I. Bhojan, who’s been a tea grower all his life, agrees. “There is no Nilgiris without tea,” he said.

Bhojan, president of the small farmers and tea growers welfare association for the Nilgiris, estimates that around 600,000 people — 50,000 of them small farmers — depend on tea for their livelihood.

Balakrishnan argued that tea plants are maintained well given their economic benefits compared to native forests.

“If tea was not there, Nilgiris will become a place for tourists only, there’ll be more construction and urbanization,” he said.

Finding common ground 

Planting woody trees and shrubs in tea plantations, known as agroforestry, can ease the battle for space between farms and restoration, according to some experts.

Other crops and timber “can make tea plantations a bit more biodiverse compared to what is there currently,” said water expert Halan.

Officials of Tamil Nadu state, of which the Nilgiris district is a part, earmarked $24 million earlier this year to encourage farmers to shift away from chemical-laden fertilizers to help preserve soil health. The state’s forest department officials also announced plans last year to plant nearly 60,000 native trees in the region.

Restoration ecologist Bosco said adding value to smaller tea farming operations by growing special, higher-quality tea on smaller parcels of land can open up more land to reforestation without hurting farmers’ pockets.

He added that if those working to restore the land were paid for that service, that could be another stream of revenue for residents, as well as sourcing new products to sell from the native plants. “For example, we’re trying to come up with products from some of the plants that have medicinal value,” he said.

Raman added that future such work could also learn from Adivasi traditional practices.

“Adivasi people have been protecting forests for so long, wherever we live the forests are protected,” he said. “The state government should be taking such work up at large scale.” 
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ACCRA, Ghana — In a sprawling secondhand clothing market in Ghana’s capital, early morning shoppers jostle as they search through piles of garments, eager to pluck a bargain or a designer find from the stalls selling used and low-quality apparel imported from the West.

At the other end of the street, an upcycled fashion and thrifting festival unfolds with glamour and glitz. Models parade along a makeshift runway in outfits that designers created out of discarded materials from the Kantamanto market, ranging from floral blouses and denim jeans to leather bags, caps and socks.

The festival is called Obroni Wawu October, using a phrase that in the local Akan language means “dead white man’s clothes.” Organizers see the event as a small way to disrupt a destructive cycle that has made Western overconsumption into an environmental problem in Africa, where some of the worn-out clothes end up in waterways and garbage dumps.

“Instead of allowing (textile waste) to choke our gutters or beaches or landfills, I decided to use it to create something … for us to use again,” said Richard Asante Palmer, one of the designers at the annual festival organized by the Or Foundation, a nonprofit that works at the intersection of environmental justice and fashion development.

Ghana is one of Africa’s leading importers of used clothing. It also ships some of what it gets from the United Kingdom, Canada, China and elsewhere to other West African nations, the United States and the U.K., according to the Ghana Used Clothing Dealers Association.

Some of the imported clothes arrive in such poor shape, however, that vendors dispose of them to make room for the next shipments. On average, 40% of the millions of garments exported weekly to Ghana end up as waste, according to Neesha-Ann Longdon, the business manager for the Or Foundation’s executive director.

The clothing dealers association, in a report published earlier this year on the socioeconomic and environmental impact of the nation’s secondhand clothing trade said only 5% of the items that reach Ghana in bulk are immediately thrown out because they cannot be sold or reused.

In many African countries, citizens typically buy preowned clothes — as well as used cars, phones and other necessities — because they cost less than new ones. Secondhand shopping also gives them a chance to score designer goods that most people in the region can only dream of.

But neither Ghana’s fast-growing population of 34 million people nor its overtaxed infrastructure is equipped to absorb the amount of cast-off attire entering the country. Mounds of textile waste litter beaches across the capital, Accra, and the lagoon which serves as the main outlet through which the city’s major drainage channels empty into the Gulf of Guinea.

“Fast fashion has taken over as the dominant mode of production, which is characterized here as higher volumes of lower-quality goods,” Longdon said.

Jonathan Abbey, a fisherman in the area, said his nets often capture textile waste from the sea. Unsold used clothes “aren’t even burned but are thrown into the Korle Lagoon, which then goes into the sea,” Abbey said.

The ease of online shopping has sped up this waste cycle, according to Andrew Brooks, a King’s College London researcher and the author of Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-hand Clothes.

In countries like the U.K., unwanted purchases often end up as charity donations, but clothes are sometimes stolen from street donation bins and exported to places where the consumer demand is perceived to be higher, Brooks said. Authorities rarely investigate such theft because the clothes are “seen as low-value items,” he said.

Donors, meanwhile, think their castoffs are “going to be recycled rather than reused, or given away rather than sold, or sold in the U.K. rather than exported overseas,” Brooks said.

The volume of secondhand clothing sent to Africa has led to complaints of the continent being used as a dumping ground. In 2018, Rwanda raised tariffs on such imports in defiance of U.S. pressure, citing concerns the West’s refuse undermined efforts to strengthen the domestic textile industry. Last year, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said he would ban imports of clothing “from dead people.”

Trade restrictions might not go far in either reducing textile pollution or encouraging clothing production in Africa, where profits are low and incentives for designers are few, experts say.

In the absence of adequate measures to stop the pollution, organizations like the Or Foundation are trying to make a difference by rallying young people and fashion creators to find a good use for scrapped materials.

Ghana’s beaches had hardly any discarded clothes on them before the country’s waste management problems worsened in recent years, foundation co-founder Liz Ricketts said.

“Fast forward to today, 2024, there are mountains of textile waste on the beaches,” she said.
…

HOUSTON — Kimberly Rubit had one priority in mind as Hurricane Beryl ripped through Houston this summer: her severely disabled daughter.

The 63-year-old worked nonstop to prevent Mary, 42, from overheating without air conditioning, water or lights after Beryl knocked out power to their home for 10 days. At least three dozen other people suffered heat-related deaths during the extended outage.

“It was miserable,” Rubit said. “I’m sick of it.”

Electric grids have buckled more frequently and outages have become longer across the U.S. as the warming atmosphere carries more water and stirs up more destructive storms, according to an AP analysis of government data. In the Pacific Northwest this week, a “bomb cyclone” caused roughly half a million outages.

People with disabilities and chronic health conditions are particularly at risk when the power goes out, and many live in homes that lack the weatherizing and backup power supplies needed to better handle high temperatures and cold freezes, or can’t pay their electricity bills, said Columbia University sociomedical sciences professor Diana Hernandez, who studies energy instability in U.S. homes.

At any given time, 1 in 3 households in the U.S. is “actively trying to avoid a disconnection or contending with the aftermath of it,” Hernandez said.

In Texas, as another winter approaches, people can’t shake fears of another blackout like the one during a cold freeze in 2021 that left millions without power for days and killed more than 200 people. Despite efforts to create more resilience, a winter storm that powerful could still lead to rolling blackouts, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages most of the state’s power grid.

Beryl also knocked out power to millions for days, sickening many in the sweltering July heat. Local and state officials showered criticism on CenterPoint Energy, Houston’s power utility, saying it should have communicated more clearly, taken more preventive measures such as tree trimming before the storm hit and repaired downed power lines more quickly. The utility’s response remains under investigation by the Texas attorney general.

CenterPoint says it is focused now on improving resiliency, customer communications and community partnerships with the one defining goal: “to build the most resilient coastal grid in the country that can better withstand the extreme weather of the future.”

Texas lawmakers, meanwhile, are debating whether assisted living facilities need more regulation. One suggestion: requiring them to have enough emergency generator fuel to power lifesaving equipment and keep indoor temperatures safe during an extended blackout, as Florida did after a scandal over hurricane-related nursing home deaths.

The legislative panel also reviewed emergency responses this month. Regulated facilities and nursing centers fared better than places such as senior communities that aren’t subject to strict oversight, according to city and state officials. This meant hundreds of apartment complexes catering to older adults, as well as private homes, were likely more susceptible to losing power and going without food.

“We’ve got to find a way to mark these facilities or get it entered into the computer dispatch systems,” said Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management. “There are so many places in our own city that we have no idea until that 911 call comes into that facility,” he said.

Texas energy companies have been required since 2003 to provide advance notice of scheduled outages to medically vulnerable households that submit a form with physician approval. But that law didn’t require the utilities to share these lists with state or local emergency management agencies.

Numerous states have similar regulatory requirements and 38 have policies aimed at preventing disconnections during extreme weather, according to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. In Colorado, medically vulnerable residents are protected from disconnection for up to 90 days. In Arkansas, utilities can’t disconnect power to people who are 65 or older if temperatures are forecast to reach above 34 degrees Celsius.

In Houston, Rubit and her daughter share one of the roughly 3,000 households where unreliable power can quickly spiral into a life-and-death issue because at least one person requires a medical device powered by electricity, according to public filings from CenterPoint. The utility offers such households payment plans to keep the electricity on when they fall behind on their bills.

The utility’s efforts bring little solace to community members at a Houston living center for seniors, Commons of Grace, where outages have become a haunting facet of life for more than 100 residents, said Belinda Taylor, who runs a nonprofit partnered with the managing company.

“I’m just frustrated that we didn’t get the services that we needed,” Taylor said. “It’s ridiculous that we have had to suffer.”

Sharon Burks, who lives at Commons of Grace, said it became unbearable when the power went out. She is 63 and uses a breathing machine for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which causes shortness of breath. She had to resort to her battery-powered breathing pump, which isn’t meant to be used for long periods.

“I didn’t expect anything from CenterPoint,” Burks said. “We’re always the last to get it.”
…

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN — United Nations climate talks adopted a deal to inject at least $300 billion annually in humanity’s fight against climate change, aimed at helping poor nations cope with the ravages of global warming in tense negotiations in the city where industry first tapped oil.

The $300 billion will go to developing countries who need the cash to wean themselves off the coal, oil and gas that causes the globe to overheat, adapt to future warming, and pay for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather. It’s not near the full amount of $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, but it’s three times a deal of $100 billion a year from 2009 that is expiring. Some delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.

It was not quite the agreement by consensus that these meetings usually operate with and developing nations were livid about being ignored.

COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev gaveled the deal into acceptance before any nation had a chance to speak.

When they did, they blasted him for being unfair to them, the deal for not being enough, and the world’s rich nations for being too stingy.

“It’s a paltry sum,” India negotiator Chandni Raina said, repeatedly saying how India objected to rousing cheers. “I’m sorry to say we cannot accept it.”

She told The Associated Press that she has lost faith in the United Nations system.

Nations express discontent

A long line of nations agreed with India and piled on, with Nigeria’s Nkiruka Maduekwe, CEO of the National Council on Climate Change, calling the deal an insult and a joke.

“I’m disappointed. It’s definitely below the benchmark that we have been fighting for for so long,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey, of the Panama delegation. He noted that a few changes, including the inclusion of the words “at least” before the number $300 billion and an opportunity for revision by 2030, helped push them to the finish line.

“Our heart goes out to all those nations that feel like they were walked over,” he said.

The final package pushed through “does not speak or reflect or inspire confidence and trust that we will come out of this grave problem of climate change,” India’s Raina said.

“We absolutely object to the unfair means followed for adoption,” Raina said. “We are extremely hurt by this action by the president and the secretariat.”

Speaking for nearly 50 of the poorest nations of the world, Evans Davie Njewa of Malawi was more mild, expressing what he called reservations with the deal.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a post on X that he hoped for a “more ambitious outcome.” But he said the agreement “provides a base on which to build.”

Some see deal as relief

There were somewhat satisfied parties, with European Union’s Wopke Hoekstra calling it a new era of climate funding, working hard to help the most vulnerable. But activists in the plenary hall could be heard coughing over Hoekstra’s speech in an attempt to disrupt it.

Eamon Ryan, Ireland’s environment minister, called the agreement “a huge relief.”

“It was not certain. This was tough,” he said. “Because it’s a time of division, of war, of (a) multilateral system having real difficulties, the fact that we could get it through in these difficult circumstances is really important.”

U.N. Climate Change’s Executive Secretary Simon Stiell called the deal an “insurance policy for humanity,” adding that like insurance, “it only works if the premiums are paid in full, and on time.”

The deal is seen as a step toward helping countries on the receiving end create more ambitious targets to limit or cut emissions of heat-trapping gases that are due early next year. It’s part of the plan to keep cutting pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the U.N. talks in Paris in 2015.

The Paris agreement set the system of regular ratcheting up climate fighting ambition as away to keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1.3 degrees Celsius and carbon emissions keep rising.

Hope more cash will follow

Countries also anticipate that this deal will send signals that help drive funding from other sources, like multilateral development banks and private sources. That was always part of the discussion at these talks — rich countries didn’t think it was realistic to only rely on public funding sources — but poor countries worried that if the money came in loans instead of grants, it would send them sliding further backward into debt that they already struggle with.

“The $300 billion goal is not enough, but is an important down payment toward a safer, more equitable future,” said World Resources Institute President Ani Dasgupta. “This deal gets us off the starting block. Now the race is on to raise much more climate finance from a range of public and private sources, putting the whole financial system to work behind developing countries’ transitions.”

And even though it’s far from the needed $1.3 trillion, it’s more than the $250 billion that was on the table in an earlier draft of the text, which outraged many countries and led to a period of frustration and stalling over the final hours of the summit.

Other deals agreed at COP29

The several different texts adopted early Sunday morning included a vague but not specific reference to last year’s Global Stocktake approved in Dubai. Last year there was a battle about first-of-its-kind language on getting rid of the oil, coal and natural gas, but instead it called for a transition away from fossil fuels. The latest talks only referred to the Dubai deal, but did not explicitly repeat the call for a transition away from fossil fuels.

Countries also agreed on the adoption of Article 6, creating markets to trade carbon pollution rights, an idea that was set up as part of the Paris Agreement to help nations work together to reduce climate-causing pollution. Part of that was a system of carbon credits, allowing nations to put planet-warming gasses in the air if they offset emissions elsewhere. Backers said a U.N.-backed market could generate up to an additional $250 billion a year in climate financial aid.

Despite its approval, carbon markets remain a contentious plan because many experts say the new rules adopted don’t prevent misuse, don’t work and give big polluters an excuse to continue spewing emissions.

“What they’ve done essentially is undermine the mandate to try to reach 1.5,” said Tamara Gilbertson, climate justice program coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Greenpeace’s An Lambrechts, called it a “climate scam” with many loopholes.

With this deal wrapped up as crews dismantle the temporary venue, many have eyes on next year’s climate talks in Belem, Brazil.
…

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN — As nerves frayed and the clock ticked, negotiators from rich and poor nations were huddled in one room Saturday during overtime United Nations climate talks to try to hash out an elusive deal on money for developing countries to curb and adapt to climate change.

But the rough draft of a proposal circulating in that room was getting soundly rejected, especially by African nations and small island states, according to messages relayed from inside. Then a group of negotiators from the Least Developed Countries bloc and the Alliance of Small Island States walked out because they didn’t want to engage with the rough draft.

The “current deal is unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do,” said Evans Njewa, chair of the LDC group. When asked if the walkout was a protest, Colombia Environment Minister Susana Mohamed told The Associated Press: “I would call this dissatisfaction, [we are] highly dissatisfied.”

With tensions high, climate activists heckled United States climate envoy John Podesta as he left the meeting room. They accused the U.S. of not paying its fair share and having “a legacy of burning up the planet.”

The last official draft on Friday pledged $250 billion annually by 2035, more than double the previous goal of $100 billion set 15 years ago but far short of the annual $1 trillion-plus that experts say is needed. The rough draft discussed on Saturday was for $300 billion in climate finance, sources told AP.

Accusations of a war of attrition

Developing countries accused the rich of trying to get their way — and a small financial aid package — via a war of attrition. And small island nations, particularly vulnerable to climate change’s worsening impacts, accused the host country presidency of ignoring them for the entire two weeks.

After bidding one of his suitcase-lugging delegation colleagues goodbye and watching the contingent of about 20 enter the meeting room for the European Union, Panama chief negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez had enough.

“Every minute that passes we are going to just keep getting weaker and weaker and weaker. They don’t have that issue. They have massive delegations,” Gomez said. “This is what they always do. They break us at the last minute. You know, they push it and push it and push it until our negotiators leave. Until we’re tired, until we’re delusional from not eating, from not sleeping.”

With developing nations’ ministers and delegation chiefs having to catch flights home, desperation sets in, according to Power Shift Africa’s Mohamed Adow. “The risk is if developing countries don’t hold the line, they will likely be forced to compromise and accept a goal that doesn’t add up to get the job done,” he said.

Teresa Anderson, the global lead on climate justice at Action Aid, said that to get a deal, “the presidency has to put something far better on the table.”

“The U.S. in particular, and rich countries, need to do far more to show that they’re willing for real money to come forward,” she said. “And if they don’t, then LDCs [Least Developed Countries] are unlikely to find that there’s anything here for them.”

Climate cash deal is still elusive

Developing nations are seeking $1.3 trillion to help adapt to droughts, floods, rising seas and extreme heat, pay for losses and damages caused by extreme weather, and transition their energy systems away from planet-warming fossil fuels and toward clean energy. Wealthy nations are obligated to pay vulnerable countries under an agreement reached at these talks in Paris in 2015.

Panama’s Monterrey Gomez said even the higher $300 billion figure that was discussed on Saturday is “still crumbs.”

“Is that even half of what we put forth?” he asked.

Monterrey Gomez said the developing world has since asked for a finance deal of $500 billion up to 2030 — a shortened timeframe than the 2035 date. “We’re still yet to hear reaction from the developed side,” he said.

On Saturday morning, Irish Environment Minister Eamon Ryan said it’s not just about the number in the final deal, but “how do you get to $1.3 trillion.”

Ryan said that any number reached at the COP will have to be supplemented with other sources of finance, for example through a market for carbon emissions where polluters would pay to offset the carbon they spew.

The amount in any deal reached at COP negotiations — often considered a “core” — will then be mobilized or leveraged for greater climate spending. But much of that means loans for countries already drowning in debt.

Anger and frustration over state of negotiations

Alden Meyer of the climate think tank E3G said it’s still up in the air whether a deal on finance will come out of Baku at all.

“It is still not out of the question that there could be an inability to close the gap on the finance issue,” he said.

Ali Mohamed, chair of the African Group of Negotiators, said the bloc is “prepared to reach agreement here in Baku … but we are not prepared to accept things that cross our red lines.”

Despite the fractures between nations, several still held out hopes for the talks. “We remain optimistic,” said Nabeel Munir of Pakistan, who chairs one of the talks’ standing negotiating committees.

The Alliance of Small Island States said in a statement that it wants to continue to engage in the talks, as long as the process is inclusive. “If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement,” the statement said.
…

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN — In the sprawling pavilion section of the United Nations climate talks, where countries, nonprofits and tech companies use big, flashy signs to get the attention of the thousands of people walking through, small aqua and purple beverage cans sit conspicuously on a counter at the Singapore display.

Those who approach learn that the cans are beer — a brand call NEWBrew — and free for anybody who asks. But there is something not everybody who cracks one open finds out right away, if at all: the beer is made with treated wastewater.

“I didn’t know. I was really surprised,” said Ignace Urchil Lokouako Mbouamboua, an international relations student from Congo, who recently sipped one while taking a break from the conference.

“I can even suggest that they make more and more of this kind of beer,” added Mbouamboua with a smile, sharing it was his third day in a row he stopped for a can.

NEWBrew is made in Singapore with NEWater, the name of treated wastewater that’s part of a national campaign to conserve every drop in one of the world’s most water-starved places.

The drink, which some attendees jokingly call “sewage beer,” is one of many examples of climate- and environment-related innovations on display during this year’s climate talks, COP29, taking place in Azerbaijan. Highlighting the use of treated wastewater underscores one of the world’s most pressing problems as climate change accelerates: providing drinking water to a growing population.

For years, Singapore has been a leader in water management and innovations. The city-state island of 6 million people in Southeast Asia, one of the most densely populated countries, has no natural water sources. In addition to water imports from Malaysia, the other pillars of its national strategy are catchment, desalination and recycling. Authorities have said they need to ramp up all water sources, as demand is expected to double by 2065.

While drinking treated wastewater is a novelty for many at the climate conference, for Singaporeans it’s nothing new. National campaigns — from water conservation pleas to showing the wastewater recycling process — go back decades. In 2002, then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong was famously photographed drinking a bottle of NEWater after a tennis match, done to normalize its use.

Ong Tze-Ch’in, chief executive of the Public Utilities Board, Singapore’s national water agency, said NEWBrew was developed by a local brewery in 2018. The idea was to showcase treated wastewater at the country’s biennial International Water Week. The beer was next produced in 2022, 2023, then again this year.

“It’s part of the acceptance of the use of recycled water, which in general is a difficult topic,” said Ong. “We did many things to drive it.”

And is he happy with how it turned out? 

“I chose this flavor,” said Ong, adding that he was part of the group that worked with the brewery for this year’s version, a “modern pilsner.”

“You know, beer is always very subjective,” he added with a laugh.

After attending a panel on water management at the Singapore pavilion, Peter Rummel, director of infrastructure policy advancement at Bentley Systems, which creates infrastructure engineering software, stepped up to the counter and got a beer. Rummel told onlookers he was in a good position to judge beer, as he hailed from Munich, Germany, home to the Oktoberfest beer festival.

“It’s fresh, light, cool. It has a nice flavor,” said Rummel, while looking at the can.

Wee-Tuck Tan, managing director of the local brewery, The Brewerkz Group, said they have made about 5,000 liters, or roughly 15,000 cans, for each edition of NewBrew. He said they use the same process as with other beers, and the cost is also similar, about 7 Singaporean dollars (around $5 U.S.) per can when bought in a supermarket.

Wee-Tuck said he believes the beer has shifted how some in Singapore view NEWater.

“They think it tastes funny,” he said. “When put into a beer, it changes the mindset. Most people can’t tell the difference.”

As problems with water scarcity grow, there is increasing embrace of the use of treated wastewater, said Saroj Kumar Jha, the World Bank Group’s global water department director, who participated in the water management panel in the Singapore pavilion. Traveling to over 50 countries in the last two years, he said leaders have frequently told him it’s important not to use the term “wastewater,” and instead call it “used water.”

After the panel concluded, Jha and the other panelists opened NEWBrews and toasted.

“It’s really good,” said Jha. “It’s the fourth time I’ve had it.”

“This year,” he added with a laugh. “Not today.”
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