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Ilke Wyludda ist mit 55 Jahren einer Krankheit erlegen. Die Diskus-Olympiasiegerin von 1996 war nach einer Beinamputation auch im Para-Sport erfolgreich.

Zürcher Salt-Shops geraten in die Kritik: Die Angestellten empfehlen einem Blick-Leser bei einem Wohnungswechsel die Kündigung und Neuaufsetzung der Verträge. Um eine Provision einzustreichen? Salt nimmt zum Fall Stellung.

Credit: Murad Sezer/Reuters via Gallo Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Dec 2 2024 (IPS)

COP29, the latest annual climate summit, had one job: to strike a deal to provide the money needed to respond to climate change. It failed.

This was the first climate summit dedicated to finance. Global south countries estimate they need a combined US$1.3 trillion a year to transition to low-carbon economies and adapt to the impacts of climate change. But the last-minute offer made by global north states was for only US$300 billion a year.

The agreement leaves vague how much of the promised target, to be met by 2035, will be in the form of direct grants, as opposed to other means such as loans, and how much will come directly from states. As for the US$1 trillion annual funding gap, covering it remains an aspiration, with all potential sources encouraged to step up their efforts. The hope seems to be that the private sector will invest where it hasn’t already, and that innovations such as new levies and taxes will be explored, which many powerful states and industry lobbyists are sure to resist.

Some global north states are talking up the deal, pointing out that it triples the previous target of US$100 billion a year, promised at COP15 in 2009 and officially reached in 2022, although how much was provided in reality remains a matter of debate. Some say this deal is all they can afford, given economic and political constraints.

But global north states hardly engaged constructively. They delayed making an offer for so long that the day before talks were due to end, the draft text of the agreement contained no numbers. Then they made a lowball offer of US$250 billion a year.

Many representatives from global south states took this as an insult. Talks threatened to collapse without an agreement. Amid scenes of chaos and confusion, the summit’s president, Mukhtar Babayev of Azerbaijan, was accused of weakness and lack of leadership. By the time global north states offered US$300 billion, negotiations had gone past the deadline, and many saw this as a take-it-or-leave it offer.

The negotiating style of global north states spoke of a fundamental inequality in climate change. Global north countries have historically contributed the bulk of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions due to their industrialisation. But it’s global south countries that are most affected by climate change impacts such as extreme weather and rising sea levels. What’s more, they’re being asked to take a different development path to fossil fuel-powered industrialisation – but without adequate financial support to do so.

These evident injustices led some states, angered by Babayev bringing talks to an abrupt end, to believe that no deal would have been better than what was agreed. For others, waiting another year for COP30 would have been a luxury they couldn’t afford, given the ever-increasing impacts of climate change.

Financing on the agenda

Far from being settled, the conversation around climate financing should be regarded as only just having begun. The figures involved – whether it’s US$300 billion or US$1.3 trillion a year – seem huge, but in global terms they’re tiny. The US$1.3 trillion needed is less than one per cent of global GDP, which stands at around US$110 trillion. It’s a little more than the amount invested in fossil fuels this year, and far less than annual global military spending, which has risen for nine years running and now stands at around US$2.3 trillion a year.

If the money isn’t forthcoming, the sums needed will be eclipsed by the costs of cleaning up the disasters caused by climate change, and dealing with rising insecurity, conflict and economic disruption. For example, devastating floods in Valencia, Spain, in October caused at least 217 deaths and economic losses of around US$10.6 billion. Research suggests that each degree of warming would slash the world’s GDP by 12 per cent. Investing in a transition that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and enables communities to adapt isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s also the economically prudent option.

The same problems arose at another recent summit on a related issue – COP16 of the Biodiversity Convention, hosted by Colombia in October. This broke up with no agreement on how to meet the funding commitments agreed at its previous meeting. The international community, having forged agreements to address climate change and protect the environment, is stuck when it comes to finding the funding to realise them.

What’s largely missing is discussion of how wealth might be better shared for the benefit of humanity. Over the past decade, as the world has grown hotter, inequality has soared, with the world’s richest one per cent adding a further US$42 trillion to their fortunes – less than needed to adequately respond to climate change. The G20’s recent meeting said little on climate change, but leaders at least agreed that ultra-wealthy people should be properly taxed. The battle should now be on to ensure this happens – and that revenues are used to tackle climate change.

When it comes to corporations, few are richer than the fossil fuel industry. But the ‘polluter pays’ principle – that those who cause environmental damage pay to clean it up – seems missing from climate negotiations. The fossil fuel industry is the single biggest contributor to climate change, responsible for over 75 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s grown incredibly rich thanks to its destructive trade.

Over the past five decades, the oil and gas sector has made profits averaging US$2.8 billion a day. Only a small fraction of those revenues have been invested in alternatives, and oil and gas companies plan to extract more: since COP28, around US$250 billion has been committed to developing new oil and gas fields. The industry’s wealth should make it a natural target for paying to fix the mess it’s made. A proposed levy on extractions could raise US$900 billion by 2030.

Progress is needed, and fast. COP30 now has the huge task of compensating for the failings of COP29. Pressure must be kept up for adequate financing combined with concerted action to cut emissions. Next year, states are due to present their updated plans to cut emissions and adapt to climate change. Civil society will push for these to show the ambition needed – and for money to be mobilised at the scale required.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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A parlament kedden (december 3.) képes lesz jóváhagyni a jövő évi költségvetés tervezetét, az ellenzéki szavazatok nélkül is határozatképes lesz – jelentette ki Robert Fico (Smer) kormányfő a hétfői koalíciós tanács után.

It could save the lives of thousands of children in Nigeria, where 180,000 died from malaria in 2022.

La Vaudoise revient de Montréal où se tenait l’Assemblée parlementaire de l’OTAN. Elle était l’une des cinq représentants de la Suisse.

Aus dem Lager der GC-Fans hagelt es nach der Einkesselung vor dem letzten Derby Vorwürfe gegen die Einsatzkräfte. Sogar eine Anzeige ist auf dem Tisch. Gegenüber Blick bezieht die Stadtpolizei Stellung.

A jövő héten rendkívüli parlamenti ülésen tárgyal a törvényhozás az ellenzéki nagygyűléseken tapasztalt agresszivitásról – jelentette be Robert Fico (Smer) kormányfő a hétfői koalíciós tanács után.

Du bist ein Ski-Fan? Dann ist dieser Ticker der genau richtige Ort für dich. Hier findest du News und Storys rund um den Ski-Weltcup – auf und abseits der Piste.

A group of displaced children in a shelter in northern Gaza. Credit: UNICEF/Mohammed Nateel

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 2 2024 (IPS)

On November 27, a ceasefire agreement was agreed upon by officials for Israel, Lebanon, and a host of other mediating parties, including the United States. Yet even with this step towards peace, conflict and suffering continue in Gaza, raising questions of when – or how – a similar outcome can be achieved.

Under the ceasefire agreement, Israel is required to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon and Hezbollah call off their forces from north of the Litani River. In the following days, relatively few violations were reported from both sides.

This ceasefire has generated considerable discourse from Palestinians and humanitarian officials on if a similar agreement can be reached between Israel and Palestine. Mohammed Nasser, a public relations worker and displaced citizen residing in Khan Younis, informed reporters of his anxiety surrounding Gaza’s future. “We had hoped that this agreement would be comprehensive and include the Gaza Strip, or at least a deal would be reached on a ceasefire and end the ongoing suffering here. There are great concerns here in the Gaza Strip that the ceasefire in Lebanon will become a reason for expanding military operations here in the Gaza Strip,” said Nasser.

On November 28, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told reporters that a ceasefire would only be negotiated once all hostages were returned and Hamas operations were eradicated in Gaza. Sa’ar opined that “right now, it is very hard” to imagine a ceasefire agreement that both parties can agree to, but that he believes that “eventually peace is inevitable”.

Israel’s Minister for Food Security Avi Dichter told reporters that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will likely occupy Gaza for “many years”, while also managing the distribution of humanitarian aid in the enclave for the foreseeable future. “I think that we are going to stay in Gaza for a long time. I think most people understand that [Israel] will be years in some kind of West Bank situation where you go in and out and maybe you remain along Netzarim [corridor],” Dichter said.

Shortly after news of a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon broke, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a statement in which they opined that this yields a “glimmer of hope” for Palestine. However, it is also acknowledged that conditions remain dire in Gaza.

As the winter season approaches, humanitarian organizations grow more concerned about the deterioration of living conditions in Gazan displacement shelters. Repeated bombardments and evacuation orders in the past week have resulted in numerous civilian casualties and exacerbated rates of displacement. Additionally, humanitarian aid continues to be obstructed by increasingly restrictive mandates in northern Gaza.

Although fighting has started to slow down in Lebanon following the ceasefire, bombardments only persist in the Gaza Strip. On November 29, Palestinian medical sources informed reporters that at least 40 civilians were killed in an overnight attack, many of whom were residing in the Nuseirat displacement shelter, located near the central regions of the enclave. A few hours later, another airstrike was reported by medics in Beit Lahiya, located in northern Gaza, which killed at least 19 civilians.

On November 28 Israeli tanks entered northern and western regions of Nuseirat, only to back down the next day. This resulted in further casualties along the northern and southern regions of the enclave. A spokesperson for the IDF told reporters that this was done to “strike terror targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip”. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported on November 28 that the continued hostilities over the past few days have brought the total death toll in Gaza to 44,363 civilians over the past 13 months.

In an earlier incident on November 24, the IDF issued an evacuation order for a residential area in the Shejaiya suburbs, forcing thousands of civilians to flee on donkey carts and rickshaws, with some carrying their children in backpacks as they ran from their homes. According to a statement from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), there have been approximately 1.9 million internal displacements from recent evacuation orders.

According to an UNRWA social media post shared to X (formerly known as Twitter), out of 91 attempts to deliver life-saving humanitarian aid to northern Gaza between October 6 and November 29, 82 have been denied and 9 have been impeded. Current conditions have been described as “beyond miserable”, as heavy rains and lowered temperatures ravage displacement camps. Thousands are currently residing in overcrowded and unsanitary camps while being exposed to cold rains, without access to blankets, mattresses, and waterproof shelters.

Shortly after his visit to Gaza, Ajith Sunghay, the head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, briefed reporters on the deteriorating conditions in the shelters. He states that living conditions are “inhumane”, with significant food shortages and sanitary complications. Many are residing in partially destroyed buildings and have contracted diseases. Additionally, social order has begun to disassemble due to a fierce daily struggle to survive for thousands of civilians.

“The breakdown of public order and safety is exacerbating the situation with rampant looting and fighting over scarce resources. As prices of the meagre commodities that are available have skyrocketed, people have been shot and killed by unknown armed men while trying to buy simple sustenance such as bread. These are not isolated incidents. The anarchy in Gaza we warned about months ago is here,” says Sunghay.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Selon un texte voté lundi, la Confédération n’octroiera sa protection qu’aux Ukrainiens venant des régions occupées par la Russie ou touchées par les combats.

Les équipes de la Protection civile algérienne ont réalisé une intervention réussie ce dimanche, sauvant un enfant tombé dans un puits en construction dans la […]

L’article Aïn Defla : La protection civile sauve un enfant d’un puits de 20 mètres (Vidéo) est apparu en premier sur .

Prime Minister Oury Bah pays tribute to the victims and announces an inquiry into the "tragic" disaster.

Am Samstag, 30. November nahm Boris Becker Abschied von seiner Mutter Elvira (†89). Auf Instagram gibt er jetzt einen emotionalen Einblick in die Trauerfeier.

Euronews: Munkaszerződés, szabadság, nyugdíj - szabályozták a szexmunkások jogi helyzetét Belgiumban, és pluszjogokat is adtak nekik, hogy több befolyással bírjanak a munkakörülményeikre.

Die Nationalmannschaften sollen künftig ganz legal mit dem Schweizer Wappen auf dem Trikot auflaufen dürfen. Der Nationalrat hat eine Motion angenommen, mit der das Wappenschutzgesetz entsprechend angepasst werden soll. Obwohl das eigentlich nicht mehr nötig wäre.

Wer überzeugte, wer brachte in der 16. Runde der Super League keinen Fuss vor den anderen? Blick präsentiert das Top- und das Flop-Team der Runde.

The Council has approved conclusions on fostering the social inclusion of persons with disabilities through employment, reasonable accommodation and rehabilitation.

The Council has approved conclusions on labour and skills shortages in the EU with a focus on mobilising untapped labour potential.

The Council decided to prolong sanctions against 116 individuals and 33 entities responsible for serious human rights violations and abuses in various countries worldwide, until 8 December 2025.