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. 
…

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.” 
…

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.
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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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london — The mpox outbreak continues to represent a public health emergency, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

The WHO first declared the emergency in August, when an outbreak of a new form of mpox spread from the badly hit Democratic Republic of Congo to neighboring countries.

The WHO convened a meeting of its Emergency Committee and, agreeing with its advice, the WHO director-general has determined that the upsurge of mpox continues to constitute a public health emergency of international concern.

The decision is based on the rising number and continuing geographic spread of cases, operational challenges in the field and the need to mount and sustain a cohesive response across countries and partners, the WHO said.

Mpox is a viral infection that spreads through close contact and typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions. It is usually mild, but it can be lethal.

This year, there have been more than 46,000 suspected cases across Africa, mainly in Congo, and more than 1,000 suspected deaths.

The label of “public health emergency of international concern” is the WHO’s highest form of alert and was also applied to a global outbreak of a different form of mpox in 2022-2023.

The alert issued this year followed the spread of a new variant of the virus, called clade Ib.

Cases of this variant have been confirmed in the U.K., Germany, Sweden and India, among other countries.

In September, after facing criticism on moving too slowly on vaccines, the WHO cleared Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine for mpox and, earlier this month, listed Japan’s KM Biologics’ shot for emergency use.
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BAKU, AZERBAIJAN — The COP29 climate summit ran into overtime on Friday after a draft deal that proposed developed nations take the lead in providing $250 billion per year by 2035 to help poorer nations drew criticism from all sides.

World governments represented at the summit in the Azerbaijan capital, Baku, are tasked with agreeing on a sweeping funding plan to tackle climate change, but the talks have been marked by division between wealthy governments resisting a costly outcome and developing nations pushing for more.

The two-week conference in the Caspian Sea city, which was to end Friday evening, spilled past its scheduled close as the wrangling continued, with expectations the $250 billion target could yet rise.

“I’m so mad. It’s ridiculous. Just ridiculous,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, the special representative for climate change for Panama. He called the proposed amount too low. “It feels that the developed world wants the planet to burn.”

A European negotiator, meanwhile, told Reuters the figure in the draft deal released by the summit presidency was uncomfortably high and did not do enough to expand the number of countries contributing to the funding.

“No one is comfortable with the number, because it’s high and [there is] next to nothing on increasing contributor base,” the negotiator said.

Governments that would be expected to lead the financing include the European Union, Australia, the United States, Britain, Japan, Norway, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland.

The draft invited developing countries to contribute voluntarily but emphasized that paying in climate finance would not affect their status as “developing” nations at the United Nations, a red line for countries such as China and Brazil.

“This is not at a landing ground yet, but at least we’re not up in the air without a map,” said Germany’s special climate envoy, Jennifer Morgan.

‘First reflection’

Negotiations have been clouded by uncertainty over the role of the United States in the deal after climate-change skeptic Donald Trump won the presidential election on November 5, promising to withdraw the world’s top historic greenhouse gas emitter from international climate efforts when he retakes office in January.

The Azerbaijani COP29 presidency described Friday’s text as a “first reflection” of what countries had said in consultations and expressed hope negotiators would find agreement soon.

Azerbaijan’s lead negotiator, Yalchin Rafiyev, told reporters the draft deal had room for improvement.

“It doesn’t correspond to our fair and ambitious goal, but we will continue to engage with the parties,” he said.

The draft also set a broader goal to raise $1.3 trillion in climate finance annually by 2035, which would include funding from all public and private sources.

That is in line with a recommendation from economists that developing countries have access to at least $1 trillion annually by the end of the decade. Those same economists criticized the current $250 billion core target as too low.

But filling the gap between government pledges and private ones could be tricky, negotiators have warned.

“This goal will need to be supported by ambitious bilateral action, MDB contributions and efforts to better mobilize private finance, among other critical factors,” a senior U.S. official said, referring to multilateral development banks.

The current climate finance commitment, $100 billion per year, ends in 2025. Without a new collective target agreed through the U.N. process, some of the poorer countries most vulnerable to the impact of climate change would have little assurance of the money they need.

That means such countries have an incentive to negotiate hard, but even those most unhappy have a reason not to walk away or block a deal.

“We are far away from the $1.3 trillion,” said M. Riaz Hamidullah, a Bangladeshi foreign office official. “It’s a bit like haggling in the fish market, which we do often in our part of the world.”

Hottest on record

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres returned to Baku from a G20 meeting in Brazil on Thursday, calling for a major push to get a deal and warning that “failure is not an option.”

The showdown over financing for developing countries comes in a year that scientists say is destined to be the hottest on record. Climate woes are stacking up in the wake of such extreme heat, raising cries for more funding to cope.

Widespread flooding has killed thousands across Africa this year, while deadly landslides have buried villages in Asia. Drought in South America has shrunk rivers — vital transport corridors — and livelihoods.

Developed countries, too, have not been spared. Torrential rain triggered floods in Valencia, Spain, last month that killed more than 200, and the United States has so far registered 24 billion-dollar disasters, just four fewer than last year.
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Kabul residents are struggling with severe water shortages, often waiting hours at the Afghan capital’s dwindling wells for drinking water. The United Nations cautions that urbanization and climate change could deplete the city’s groundwater within the next five to six years. VOA’s Afghan service has this report, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
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LAS VEGAS — Federal water officials made public on Wednesday what they called “necessary steps” for seven states and multiple tribes that use Colorado River water and hydropower to meet an August 2026 deadline for deciding how to manage the waterway in the future.

“Today, we show our collective work,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said as she outlined four proposals for action and one “no action” alternative that she and Biden’s government will leave for the incoming Trump Administration — with formal environmental assessments still to come and just 20 months to act.

The announcement offered no recommendation or decision about how to divvy up water from the river, which provides electricity to millions of homes and businesses, irrigates vast stretches of desert farmland and reaches kitchen faucets in cities including Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles.

Instead it provided a bullet-point sample of elements from competing proposals submitted last March by three key river stakeholders: Upper Basin states Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming, where most of the water originates; Lower Basin states California, Arizona and Nevada, which rely most on water captured by dams at lakes Powell and Mead; and more than two dozen Native American tribes with rights to river water.

“They’re not going to take the any of the proposals,” said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. “The federal government put the components together in a different way … and modeled them to provide near-maximum flexibility for negotiations to continue.”

One alternative would have the government act to “protect critical infrastructure” including dams and oversee how much river water is delivered, relying on existing agreements during periods when demand outstrips supply. “But there would be no new delivery and storage mechanisms,” the announcement said.

A second option would add delivery and storage for Lake Powell and Lake Mead, along with “federal and non-federal storage” to boost system sustainability and flexibility “through a new approach to distributing” water during shortages.

The third, dubbed “cooperative conservation,” cited a proposal from advocates aimed at managing and gauging water releases from Lake Powell amid “shared contributions to sustain system integrity.”

And a fourth, hybrid proposal includes parts of Upper and Lower Basin and Tribal Nations plans, the announcement said. It would add delivery and storage for Powell and Mead, encourage conservation and agreements for water use among customers and “afford the Tribal and non-Tribal entities the same ability to use these mechanisms.”

The “no action” option does not meet the purpose of study but was included because it is required under the National Environmental Policy Act, the announcement said.

In 2026, legal agreements that apportion the river will expire. That means that amid the effects of climate change and more than 20 years of drought, river stakeholders and the federal government have just months to agree what to do.

“We still have a pretty wide gap between us,” Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s main negotiator on the Colorado River, said in a conference call with reporters. He referred to positions of Upper Basin and Lower Basin states. Tribes including the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona have also been flexing their long-held water rights.

Buschatzke said he saw “some really positive elements” in the alternatives but needed time to review them in detail. “I think anything that could be done to move things forward on a faster track is a good thing,” he said.

Democratic U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado said in a statement the alternatives “underscore how serious a situation we’re facing on the Colorado River.”

“The only path forward is a collaborative, seven-state plan to solve the Colorado River crisis without taking this to court,” he said. “Otherwise, we’ll watch the river run dry while we sue each other.”

Wednesday’s announcement came two weeks after Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election to Republican former President Donald Trump, and two weeks ahead of a key meeting of the involved parties at Colorado River Water Users Association meetings in Las Vegas.

Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network advocacy group, said “snapshots” offered in the announcement “underscore the uncertainty that is swirling around future river management as a new administration prepares to take office.”

“The river needs basin-wide curtailments, agreements to make tribes whole, a moratorium on new dams and diversions, commitments for endangered species and new thinking about outdated infrastructure,” he said.

Buschatzke declined to speculate about whether Trump administration officials will pick up where Biden’s leaves off. But Porter, at the Kyl Center, said the announcement “shows an expectation of continuity.”

“The leadership is going to change, but there are a lot of people who have been working on this for a long time who will still be involved in the negotiations and modeling,” she said. 
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BAKU, Azerbaijan — Human-caused climate change made Atlantic hurricanes about 29 kilometers per hour (18 miles per hour) stronger in the last six years, a new scientific study found Wednesday. 

For most of the storms — 40 of them — the extra oomph from warmer oceans made the storms jump an entire hurricane category, according to the study published in the journal, Environmental Research: Climate. A Category 5 storm causes more than 400 times the damage of a minimal Category 1 hurricane, more than 140 times the damage of a minimal Category 3 hurricane and more than five times the damage of a minimal Category 4 storm, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

For three storms, including this month’s Rafael, the climate change factor goosed wind speed so much that the winds increased by two storm categories. 

This isn’t about more storms but increasing power from the worst ones, authors said. 

“We know that the intensity of these storms is causing a lot more catastrophic damage in general,” said lead study author Daniel Gifford, a climate scientist at Climate Central, which does research on global warming. “Damages do scale [up] with the intensity.” 

The effect was especially noticeable in stronger storms, including those that made it to the top of the Saffir-Simpson scale of storm intensity: Category 5, study authors said. The study looked at 2019 to 2023, but the authors then did a quick addition for the named storms this year, all of which had a bump up due to climate change. 

“We had two Category 5 storms here in 2024,” Gifford said. “Our analysis shows that we would have had zero Category 5 storms without human-caused climate change.” 

This year’s three most devastating storms — Beryl, Helene and Milton — increased by 29 kph (18 mph), 26 kph (16 mph) and 39 kph (24 mph) respectively because of climate change, the authors said. A different study by World Weather Attribution had deadly Helene’s wind speed increase by about 20 kph (13 mph), which is close, said Imperial College London climate scientist Friederike Otto, who coordinates the WWA team and praised the Climate Central work. 

“It absolutely makes sense from a fundamental standpoint that what’s going on is we’ve added more energy to the system,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Rick Spinrad said at United Nations climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan. 

“The change is going to manifest in terms of what we’re already seeing. You look at Hurricane Helene, which was massive, 804 km [500 miles] across. We’re going to see changes in terms of the velocity of these storms. We’re going to see changes in terms of Hurricane Milton spawning so many tornadoes.” 

Since 2019, eight storms — 2019’s Humberto, 2020’s Zeta, 2021’s Sam and Larry, 2022’s Earl, 2023’s Franklin and 2024’s Isaac and Rafael — increased by at least 40 kph (25 mph) in wind speed. Humberto and Zeta gained the most: 50 kph (31 mph). 

In 85% of the storms studied in the last six years, the authors saw a fingerprint of climate change in storm strength, Gifford said. 

Warm water is the main fuel of hurricanes. The warmer the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico get, the more potential energy goes into storms. Other factors — such as high-level crosswinds and dry air — can act to weaken hurricanes. 

The waters in the hurricane area have increased by 1.1 to 1.6 degrees Celsius (2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit) in general and as much as 2.2 degrees C (4 degrees F) due to climate change, Gifford said. They know this because Climate Central has used scientifically accepted techniques to regularly track how much warmer oceans are because of the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. 

That technique basically uses computer simulations to create a fictional world with no human-caused warming and then compares it to current reality, with the difference being caused by greenhouse gases. They account for other factors, such as the lessening amount of sulfate pollution from marine shipping which had been counteracting a bit of the warming before the skies cleared up more. 

To go from warmer waters to stronger storms, the authors looked at a calculation called potential intensity, which is essentially the speed limit for any given storm based on the environmental conditions around it, Gifford said. 

MIT hurricane expert and meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel, who pioneered potential intensity measurements, wasn’t part of the study but said it makes sense. It shows the increase in storm strength that he predicted would happen 37 years ago, he said. 

Past studies have shown that climate change has made hurricanes intensify quicker, and move slower, which causes even more rain to be dumped.
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