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“World Leaders Gather at COP28 to Tackle Global Climate Crisis”

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“World Leaders Gather at COP28 to Tackle Global Climate Crisis”

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🔗 Source: United Nations News

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UN Secretary-General António Guterres was briefing reporters in New York after seeing for himself over the weekend the "profoundly shocking" speed at which ice is melting in Antarctica - three times faster than the rate in the early 1990s.

New figures reveal that sea ice at the South Pole is now 1.5 million square kilometres below average for this time of year; that's equal to the combined surface area of Portugal, Spain, France and Germany combined.

Nowhere to hide

"What happens in Antarctica doesn't stay in Antarctica", Mr. Guterres said. "We live in an interconnected world. Melting sea ice means rising seas. And that directly endangers lives and livelihoods in coastal communities across the globe.

He noted that it's not just the impact of floods and saltwater on food and water supplies at stake, but the viability of small islands and entire cities on coasts across the world.

"The movement of waters around Antarctica distributes heat, nutrients and carbon around the world, helping to regulate our climate and regional weather patterns", he told correspondents outside the Security Council.

"But that system is slowing as the southern Ocean grows warmer and less dense. Further slowdown - or entire breakdown - would spell catastrophe."

'Calamitous' rise

With no let-up in fossil fuel extraction "we're heading towards a calamitous three-degree Celsius temperature rise by the end of the century", he warned.

:If we continue as we are, and I strongly hope we will not, the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets will cross a deadly tipping point."

This represents an astonishing rise of around 10 metres.

The vicious cycle means accelerated heating as ice diminishes and more extreme weather.

At COP28 in Dubai, which starts later this week, "leaders must break this cycle", the UN chief declared.

The solutions are there

"The solutions are well known. Leaders must act to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, protect people from climate chaos, and end the fossil fuel age."

Only a global pact to triple renewable energy use, a doubling in energy efficiency and access to clean power for all by 2030, will be sufficient, he argued.

"Antarctica is crying out for action", the Secretary-General added. "I salute the thousands of researchers - in Antarctica and around the world - expanding our understanding of the changes taking place on the continent.

"They are testament to human ingenuity and the immense benefits of international collaboration. Leaders must not let the hopes of people around the world for a sustainable planet melt away."

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Hopes for a sustainable planet must not 'melt away': Guterres

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World leaders at this week's climate conference, COP28, must break the deadly cycle of global warming before a "deadly tipping point" is reached, said the UN chief on Monday.

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Charlie Kirk shooting suspect not cooperating with authorities, Utah governor says

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Charlie Kirk shooting suspect not cooperating with authorities, Utah governor says

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🔗 Source: Reuters

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Governor Cox says investigators seeking to learn motive

Cox says suspect's ideology differed from his upbringing

Conservative influencer was slain at Utah college event

WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) - The man arrested in the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk is not cooperating with authorities, but investigators are working to establish a motive for the shooting by talking to his friends and family, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said on Sunday.

Cox said the accused gunman, Tyler Robinson, 22, would be formally charged on Tuesday. He remains in custody in Utah.

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Investigators have yet to piece together why Robinson allegedly scaled a rooftop at Utah Valley University during an outdoor event and shot Kirk in the neck at long range on Wednesday.

Kirk, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and co-founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA, was killed by a single rifle shot during the event attended by 3,000 people in Orem, about 40 miles south (65 km) of Salt Lake City. The killing ushered in newfound fears of a spike in political violence in the United States and an ever-deepening divide between the left and the right.

Robinson has not confessed to investigators, Cox told the ABC program "This Week."

"He is not cooperating, but all the people around him were cooperating, and I think that's very important," the Republican governor said.

One person who is apparently talking to investigators is Robinson's roommate, who was also a romantic partner, Cox said, citing the FBI. Cox described the roommate as "a male transitioning to female," and said the roommate has been "incredibly cooperative."

Reuters has not been able to locate the roommate, or representatives for the roommate, to seek comment. Reuters could not determine who is serving as Robinson's legal representative.

Asked on CNN's "State of the Union" program whether the roommate's gender identity is relevant to the investigation, Cox said, "That's what we're trying to figure out right now. ... It's easy to draw conclusions from that, and so we've got the shell casings, other forensic evidence that is coming in - and trying to piece all of those things together."

Investigators found messages engraved into four bullet casings, which included references to memes and video game in-jokes. An affidavit filed by authorities in the case described these messages. One of the inscriptions, according to the affidavit, read: "hey fascist! CATCH!" followed by a combination of directional arrows, an apparent reference to a sequence of button presses that unleashes a bomb in a popular video game. Another casing, according to the affidavit, read, "If you read This, you are GAY Lmao," short for "laughing my ass off."

Kirk's charged rhetoric, which often involved anti-LGBT and anti-immigrant comments, attracted legions of conservatives, but also engendered strong feelings from liberals and drew widespread criticism.

Robinson, a third-year student in the electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College, part of Utah's public university system, was taken into custody at his parents' house, about 260 miles (420 km) southwest of the crime scene after a 33-hour manhunt.

INVESTIGATORS SEARCH FOR MOTIVE

Relatives and a family friend alerted authorities that he had implicated himself in the crime, Cox said previously.

While Robinson was raised by religious parents in a deeply conservative region of the state, "his ideology was very different than his family," Cox said on Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" program, without going into specifics.

State records show Robinson was a registered voter but not affiliated with any political party. A relative told investigators that Robinson had grown more political in recent years and had once discussed with another family member their dislike for Kirk and his viewpoints, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

Robinson was "not a fan" of Kirk's, Cox said on Sunday.

The killing has stirred outrage among Kirk's supporters and condemnation of political violence from some across the ideological spectrum.

Many Republicans, including Trump, have been quick to lash out at the political left, accusing liberals of fomenting anti-conservative vitriol that would encourage a kindred spirit to cross the line into violence - even as the president and his allies have often invoked violent imagery against their opponents.

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, urged calm on Sunday.

"We've got to turn the rhetoric down," Johnson said on the "Fox News Sunday" program.

In conversations he has had with Republican and Democratic House members since Kirk's killing, Johnson said, "There's this recognition that people have got to stop framing simple policy disagreements in terms of existential threats to our democracy."

But Johnson also criticized Democrats.

"You can't call the other side fascists and enemies of the state and not understand that there are some deranged people in our society who will take that as cues to act and do crazy and dangerous things. And that's what we've seen in increasing frequency," Johnson said.

On "Meet the Press," Cox assigned some blame to social media, saying it has "played a direct role in every single assassination and assassination attempt that we have seen over the last five, six years."

Trump has credited Kirk with driving young voters to conservatism. His Turning Point movement says it has more than 800 chapters across college campuses. Kirk's widow on Friday said the movement's efforts would go forward.

A memorial event for Kirk will be held on September 21 in Glendale, Arizona, his organization said.

Reporting by James Oliphant and Bo Erickson; Additional reporting by David Ljunggren and Richard Cowan; Editing by Don Durfee and Will Dunham

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Charlie Kirk shooting suspect not cooperating with authorities, Utah governor says

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Investigators have yet to piece together why Robinson allegedly scaled a rooftop at Utah Valley University during an outdoor event and shot Kirk in the neck at long range.

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Russian drone incursion into Poland ‘was Kremlin test on Nato’

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Russian drone incursion into Poland ‘was Kremlin test on Nato’

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🔗 Source: The Guardian

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Russian drone incursion into Poland ‘was Kremlin test on Nato’

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Polish minister says Moscow sought to gauge reaction without starting war as Romania reports new incursion

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Still no Plastics Treaty: How the fossil fuel industry keeps polluting negotiations

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Still no Plastics Treaty: How the fossil fuel industry keeps polluting negotiations

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🔗 Source: Greenpeace International

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It's time for world leaders to confront the elephant in the UN Global Plastics Treaty negotiation room: Big Oil. After two long weeks, world governments could not come to an agreement on how to tackle the plastic pollution crisis. The talks were adjourned with an unclear path forward, but the one thing that is certain coming out of INC-5.2 is that we will continue to demand a Treaty that puts the health of people and the planet before polluters. Millions of voices around the world won't stop until the deal is done.

We can't curb pollution unless we curb production

The root of the plastic problem is clear - the world makes too much of it. There is growing consensus that in order to protect biodiversity, align with the 1.5 degree Celsius climate target of the Paris Agreement, uphold Indigenous rights, and protect our health and communities, global plastic production must be dramatically reduced, and fast. Studies have already projected that plastic production could triple by 2050 if we continue on this path. But the planet and the climate simply cannot handle more plastic.

Plastic is in the air, water, soil, and running through the blood in our veins - this should have been enough of a wake up call for governments to act. Throughout its lifespan, plastic releases harmful emissions, chemicals, and macro, micro, and nano plastics. We can't escape pollution, even in our homes. To actually address the plastic pollution disaster, the Treaty, at minimum, needed to provide a pathway to create international regulations to reduce plastics production. A Treaty that fails to address pollution at its source is doomed to fail to deliver the transformative change required to end the plastics crisis.

Most governments committed to ambition, but blockers held the pen

In the run-up to INC-5.2, over 90 countries reaffirmed their support to an ambitious Treaty by signing on to the ministerial declaration "The Nice wake up call for an ambitious plastics treaty". The declaration symbolised a renewed commitment on ambition including a call for the adoption of a global target to reduce the production and consumption of plastic, and other key elements of a strong Treaty including measures to address harmful products and chemicals, drive reuse systems, ensure equitable financing, and ensuring future conference of parties would be able to vote - to break the deadlock that has plagued 6 rounds of negotiations.

More ambitious countries came to INC-5.2 ready to get to work. Dozens of countries signed on to support the critical measures needed to secure an impactful Treaty. But the work to iron out details and find common ground were once again foiled by a process that allowed a small minority of countries not negotiating in good faith to be rewarded for bad behaviour. In the end two Treaty drafts were presented by the Chair but neither were fit for purpose And here we are again with no clarity on how governments are going to break this toxic cycle.

As the plastic pollution emergency evolves into a public health emergency, history will show that governments' inertia, INC after INC, played a major role in how two years later the world is still waiting for bold action. But even more stark is the role a handful of bad actors played in using a multilateral process to drive ambition into the ground, further entrenching us in a system dripping in fossil fuel dependence, pollution, and destruction.

The business case is clear

As the fossil fuel lobby held on to the status quo by its nails, the counter lobby made it clear that governments could choose a different path - business models and systems that supported communities could thrive, instead of simply survive.

Even major fast moving consumer goods companies dependent on single-use plastics, like Unilever and members of the Business Coalition, have said enough is enough, time for a new system. Over 450 businesses leaders through Greenpeace International, Break Free From Plastic, and the Plastic Pollution Coalition Champions of Change initiative, called for a strong Treaty that cuts production, and bit by bit we have seen a coalescing on key calls to action for governments. Plastic pollution is bad for business, and it's only a matter of time before more industries join the chorus calling for action, with their customers and civil society standing behind them.

Time for Big Plastic to be shown the door

Just like plastic pollution, the fossil fuel and petrochemical industry is everywhere. They take up space in community gatherings, pretend to blend in at sustainability conferences, sponsor public events and sports stadiums, and buy media space to drive their greenwashing agenda. And their stronghold on UN processes aimed at addressing their legacy of harm has been eye-opening through the Plastics Treaty negotiations. INC after INC fossil fuel and petrochemical lobbyists show up in droves, with INC-5.2 hitting a record number of 234 representatives registered, according to Center for International Environmental Law's findings.

Just before the talks began, Greenpeace UK released a report that revealed how some of the world's largest petrochemical companies have been systematically lobbying against cuts to plastic production while generating massive profits from their growing plastics business. According to the report, since the Treaty talks began in November 2022, seven companies alone have produced 1.4 million tonnes, enough plastic to fill five and a half garbage trucks every minute, while sending 70 lobbyists to negotiations, supported by major industry front groups.

Greenpeace International and The Center for International Environmental Law also delivered a letter to the heads of UNEP and the INC secretariat calling for fossil fuel lobbyists to be banned from all future Global Plastics Treaty negotiations.

Does multilateralism need a life raft?

The rough state of multilaterialism has been evident at each painful round of Plastics Treaty negotiations. Challenging geopolitics and the weight of a thousand invisible multilateral dynamics can be crushing when the rate of solving the world's massive environmental and social justice crises is glacial.

We need global solutions to global problems, and global agreements to create global regulations. But something needs to give. As INC-5.2 played out, the Greenpeace delegation shared one meme over and over again in chat channels, reading "The politics are brutal". It provided some dark humour but also served as a reminder that in moments like this, being united with the growing movement of people pushing for a plastic free future is even more essential to hold world leaders accountable.

Where do we go from Geneva?

Can't stop, won't stop. The world needs a global agreement that cuts plastic production, upholds Indigenous Rights, prioritises the health and rights of frontline and impacted communities, protects biodiversity and doesn't further fuel the climate crisis.

In the weeks to come, world leaders will need to decide where they go from here. The inability to reach an agreement in Geneva must be a wake up call for the world: ending plastic pollution means confronting fossil fuel interests head on. Governments cannot continue to do the same thing and expect a different result.

The time for hesitation is over. Only courage and perseverance will get us to a strong agreement. The health of current and future generations, our communities, and our planet's ecosystems depends on it.

Sarah King is a Senior Strategist with the Greenpeace Plastic Free Future campaign.

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Still no Plastics Treaty: How the fossil fuel industry keeps polluting negotiations - Greenpeace International

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It's time for world leaders to confront the elephant in the UN Global Plastics Treaty negotiation room: Big Oil.

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US-China Talks Head Into Second Day With Trade, TikTok on Agenda

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US-China Talks Head Into Second Day With Trade, TikTok on Agenda

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🔗 Source: Bloomberg

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US, China Officials Kick Off Economic, Trade Talks in Madrid

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US and Chinese representatives discussed TikTok, trade and the economy during a day of high-level talks in Madrid, a senior Treasury official said, as diplomacy between the world’s two biggest economies intensifies.