AFP UK

Protesters demand the world stick to the target of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels

UN chief Antonio Guterres urged rich and developing nations to stop the “finger pointing” at crunch climate talks on Thursday and reach a deal on covering the losses suffered by vulnerable nations battered by weather disasters.

With the two-week COP27 conference officially due to wrap up on Friday, negotiators in Egypt said the talks would likely go on overnight as they scramble to find a compromise over the contentious “loss and damage” issue.

Guterres said there was “clearly a breakdown in trust” between developed and emerging economies, adding that the most effective way to build confidence would be to find an “ambitious and credible agreement” on loss and damage and financial support for vulnerable countries.

“This is no time for finger pointing. The blame game is a recipe for mutually assured destruction,” he said.

“The time for talking on loss and damage finance is over — we need action,” he said, after flying back to Egypt from Bali where he had attended a G20 leaders meeting. 

The intervention from the UN chief comes as the climate talks teeter on the edge of failure as poorer countries least responsible for global emissions lock horns with rich polluters over the creation of a “loss and damage” fund.

Ralph Regenvanu, minister of climate change for the Pacific island of Vanuatu, said walking out of the talks “was discussed as an option” if developing nations come away empty handed.

“We are out of time and we are out of money and we are out of patience,” he said at a news conference.

“We must establish at this COP27 a loss and damage finance facility.”

A 130-nation group known as G77+China issued a proposal to create the fund at the COP27 and agree on the nitty-gritty details at the next UN talks in Dubai in 2023.

After dragging their feet over loss and damage, the United States and European Union somewhat softened their position by agreeing to discuss the issue at COP27.

European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said the EU was open to the creation of a funding facility but that it should be among a “mosaic” of options that include existing financial instruments.

“We will do everything to find consensus,” he said, adding however that he expects “quite a long and difficult journey to the end of this process”.

“If this COP fails we all lose and we have absolutely no time to lose,” he told journalists.

Protests held within the conference compound have sought to keep up the pressure on delegates, with small but vocal crowds of demonstrators chanting: “What do we want? Climate justice!” 

– China’s role –

Timmermans took issue with the G77+China proposal as it limits the donor base for a fund to a list of two-dozen rich nations drawn up in 1992.

The top EU official has pointed out that some countries, notably China, would be left “off the hook” from contributing to the fund even though they have grown wealthier since 1992.

“I’m still hopeful that we can reach an agreement on this, but then I do ask of our partners to make sure that it’s fair so that everybody who is in a position to contribute contributes,” Timmermans said.

Pakistan’s climate minister Sherry Rehman, whose country chairs the G77+China, said the group was still “seeking to find common ground even at this late hour”.

Rehman suggested that concerns from rich countries about liability could be addressed.

“For countries worried or anxious about liabilities and judicial proceedings, I think we can work around all those anxieties,” she said.

Rehman recalled that Pakistan was devastated by floods this year that cost the country $30 billion.

“Vulnerability should not become a death sentence,” she said. 

“We are the ground zero of climate change,” she added. “We must convey a message of hope to all those people that have pinned their ambitions on this particular COP.”

– Make-or-break –

Guterres called for progress across the board on the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to preindustrial levels.

Rich nations should also finally deliver on their unmet pledge to provide $100 billion a year since 2020 to help the developing world green their economies and adapt to future impacts, and make progress on future financing.

Observers at the talks said loss and damage could be make-or-break for COP27.

“This is the issue around which the entire (COP)27 package hinges,” said Tom Evans, an expert on climate diplomacy at think tank E3G.

Laurence Tubiana, a main architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement as France’s top negotiator, told AFP a “possible landing zone for a compromise is not yet in view.”

“Things could really go off the rails at the end.”

A woman stands on the edge of Germany's Garzweiler lignite open cast mine on November 12, 2022, with wind turbines in the background

Government action to curb global warming should be a top concern despite inflation, an energy crisis and nuclear sabre-rattling by Russia, according to a YouGov survey in wealthy nations published exclusively by AFP.

Carried out before the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the survey found that more than half of respondents in France, Britain, Italy, Spain, Germany and the United States said halting global warming should be a “key priority” regardless of the state of the economy.

Thirty percent said it should be “paused” so other problems can be addressed.

“This survey shows that there is far more common ground among the public when it comes to climate change and what to do about it, than what we often see on our TV screens and Twitter feeds,” said Luke Tryl, British director for More in Common, a non-profit examining polarisation in society.

But the survey also revealed differences in outlook between the six nations, which could suggest people in rich economies hit hardest by climate impacts see the issue as more urgent, compared to wealthy countries less afflicted.  

More than 60 percent of respondents in France, Spain and Italy said tackling global warming should not give way to other problems, but barely 40 percent held this view in Germany, Britain and the United States.

– ‘Lack of confidence’ in politicians –

Germany and Britain have seen episodes of flooding and extreme heat, but the Mediterranean Basin — a climate change “hotspot” according to the UN’s IPCC climate science advisory body — has been hammered by heatwaves, droughts and wildfires, all of which are predicted to worsen.

Two to three times as many respondents in each country said that climate change will cause “a large amount” of harm to the world in the future, compared to whether they personally will experience harm.

That possibly reflects the extent to which people in rich countries are insulated from severe impacts.

When respondents were asked whether they had already personally experienced weather events caused by climate change, 48 to 58 percent in Spain, Italy and France said they had, compared to 44, 38 and 36 percent in Britain, the United States and Germany, respectively.

The United States was in several ways an outlier in the survey, which polled between 1,000 and 2,000 people in each country.

Despite a crescendo of extreme weather measurably linked to warming in the United States — including intense drought in the southwest, record wildfires in the northwest, flooding and drought in the midwest, and devastating hurricanes on the eastern seaboard — barely half of Americans think that human activity has caused Earth’s climate to change.

That figure rises to an average of nearly 80 percent across the European nations, and to 84 and 88 percent, respectively, in Spain and Italy.

Views in the United States on this question were evenly divided across age, gender and self-identified race, but skewed heavily according to political affiliation.

More than 80 percent of those voting for President Joe Biden in 2020 said global warming is manmade, versus only a quarter of those who voted for Donald Trump, who this week announced he would take another run at the White House in 2024.

Across the board, people said political leaders were not doing enough to fix the climate, the survey showed.

“There is a shared lack of confidence in their national government’s ability to grip this crisis,” Tryl said.

– Protecting future generations –

Nearly 40 percent of respondents said government policies to reduce carbon emissions would have a “positive impact” in the long term, with only 14 percent saying such policies would improve things in the short-run.

Some 90 percent of the total respondents said they believe the climate is changing, with the remainder saying is not, or they did not know.

When asked, however, if they were confident their governments were “prepared to take the necessary action to stop climate change,” two-thirds of respondents who do believe the climate is changing said “no” in European countries. In the United States it was 40 percent.

“Politicians aren’t necessarily keeping up,” said Amiera Sawas, director of programmes and research at Climate Outreach in Britain, who works with survey data.

By a wide margin, the number one reason given for taking action on climate change was to protect future generations, with between 40 and 50 percent giving that as a motive.

Protecting habitats and species from further damage was the second most common answer.

Following on the heels of COP27, a UN biodiversity summit tasked with laying down new targets for protecting nature will convene in Canada in early December.

Protesters demand the world stick to the target of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels

UN climate talks were deadlocked Thursday over calls to create a special fund to cover the losses suffered by vulnerable nations hit by natural disasters, raising the risk that negotiations could collapse.

With the two-week COP27 conference officially due to finish on Friday, negotiators in Egypt said the talks would likely go on overnight as they scramble to find a compromise over the contentious issue.

“We are out of time and we are out of money and we are out of patience,” Ralph Regenvanu, minister of climate change for the Pacific island of Vanuatu, said at a news conference.

“We must establish at this COP27 a loss and damage finance facility.”

Regenvanu said walking out of the talks “was discussed as an option” if developing nations come away empty handed.

Poorer countries least responsible for global emissions have pressed rich polluters to agree at COP27 on the creation of a “loss and damage” fund for nations devastated by climate impacts.

“I think it’s going be quite a long and difficult journey to the end of this process. I’m not sure yet where these talks will land,” said European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans.

“If this COP fails we all lose and we have absolutely no time to lose,” he told journalists.

A 130-nation group known as G77+China issued a proposal to create the fund at the COP27 and agree on the nitty-gritty details at the next UN talks in Dubai in 2023.

After dragging their feet over loss and damage, the United States and European Union somewhat softened their position by agreeing to discuss the issue at COP27.

Timmermans said the EU was open to the creation of a funding facility but that it should be among a “mosaic” of options that include existing financial instruments.

“We will do everything to find consensus,” he said.

– China’s role –

Timmermans took issue with the G77+China proposal as it limits the donor base for a fund to a list of two-dozen rich nations drawn up in 1992.

The top EU official has pointed out that some developing countries, notably China, would be left “off the hook” from contributing to the fund even though they have grown wealthier since 1992.

“I’m still hopeful that we can reach an agreement on this, but then I do ask of our partners to make sure that it’s fair so that everybody who is in a position to contribute contributes,” Timmermans said.

Pakistan’s climate minister Sherry Rehman, whose country chairs the G77+China, said the group was still “seeking to find common ground even at this late hour”.

Rehman suggested that concerns from rich countries about liability could be addressed.

“For countries worried or anxious about liabilities and judicial proceedings, I think we can work around all those anxieties,” she said.

Rehman recalled that Pakistan was devastated by floods this year that cost the country $30 billion.

“Vulnerability should not become a death sentence,” she said. 

“We are the ground zero of climate change,” she added. “We must convey a message of hope to all those people that have pinned their ambitions on this particular COP.”

– No ‘landing zone’ –

The disagreement over loss and damage has overshadowed other priorities at COP27, including calls for rich nations to finally fulfil their pledge to provide $100 billion a year starting in 2020 to help the developing world green their economies and adapt to future impacts.

There have been calls for the final statement to include phrases on reducing all fossil fuels and recalling the aspirational goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to preindustrial levels.

Observers at the talks said loss and damage could be make-or-break for COP27.

“This is the issue around which the entire (COP)27 package hinges,” said Tom Evans, an expert on climate diplomacy at think tank E3G.

Laurence Tubiana, a main architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement as France’s top negotiator, told AFP a “possible landing zone for a compromise is not yet in view.”

“Things could really go off the rails at the end.”

Children from Kenya's Turkana community walk in October to receive food aid; the wider Horn of Africa is facing its worst drought in more than four decades with over 20 million people impacted

The world is in danger of blasting past its goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, said climate champion Laurence Tubiana, slamming a “flagrant” lack of global leadership.

France’s former climate ambassador was one of the key architects behind the Paris Agreement, which says global warming should be slashed to well below two degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, and preferably the safer ambition of 1.5C.

But even with new commitments, the world is on track to heat up by about 2.5C by the end of the century — enough, scientists say, to trigger dangerous climate tipping points.

If temperatures “overshoot” 1.5C, it could take the world into dangerous territory.  

Tubiana, head of the European Climate Foundation (ECF), said humanity would then have to try to pull warming back down by using technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere, that are not yet operational at scale. 

AFP spoke to Tubiana on the sidelines of COP27 climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Her answers have been edited for clarity. 

– Is the 1.5C goal dead? – 

“Yes, it’s dead in the sense that we will most likely exceed this temperature level unfortunately, what we call overshoot.

But if we say ‘2C is acceptable’, first of all, scientifically it is not true. We see (the effects) today, with a temperature increase of only 1.1C or 1.2C. 

You can deny the problem, postpone it, and that is very dangerous. 

We know that every tenth of a degree counts, so I am in favour of keeping this target, even if we are not likely to reach it.

If we exceed it, we will have to find a way to come back to it, or below it, one way or another, by increasing carbon capture efforts.

If we give up on it, we will do less.”

– Can 1.5C commitments be believed? –

“It’s true that with the Covid crisis and crises in all their forms — food, energy — it’s understandable that attention has been diverted. 

It’s true that there have been a lot of headwinds.

But we still have to keep up the pressure and show the real impact that climate change is already having. 

This is no longer a distant or future problem, it is unfortunately here. We have to keep pushing. We need pressure.”

– Is the European Union doing enough? – 

The EU said this week it would raise its net emissions reduction target to 57 percent by 2030 from 55 percent, but advocacy group said that wasn’t enough. AFP asked Tubiana what she thought.

“The (criticism) is a bit excessive, because the European Union is particularly affected by the war (in Ukraine). 

Even with Covid, there was no (backtracking), by saying to ourselves “we will forget about the climate”. 

For the moment, because there has been a lot of mobilisation by citizens, an understanding of urgent action, we have not derailed.

But climate diplomacy during this time, it was put on hold. There’s a lot of talk about missiles, who delivers weapons to whom, or cereals, but not about the climate. 

There is a fairly flagrant lack of international leadership.”

French President Emmanuel Macron backed a proposal by Brazil to hold climate talks in the Amazon rainforest

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday backed a proposal by Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to hold a 2025 United Nations climate conference in the Amazon rainforest.

“I fervently hope that we can have a COP in the Amazon so I fully support this initiative by Lula,” Macron said during a trip to Bangkok for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

“I support the return of Brazil on an Amazon strategy. We need it,” he added.

Lula, who will take office on January 1, expressed a wish Wednesday at the COP27 climate meeting in Egypt to organise COP30 in the Amazon — an ecosystem essential to the balance of the global climate and biodiversity.

Brazil was previously selected to organise a COP summit in 2019 but did not follow through after the election of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro at the end of 2018.

“France is an Indo-Pacific power and an Amazonian power. The largest external border of France and Europe is the border of our Guyana with Brazil,” Macron said.

Lula’s election victory last month has paved the way for a rapprochement between Paris and Brasilia following strained relations under Lula’s predecessor.

“I was waiting with great impatience for this moment so that we could relaunch a strategic partnership worthy of our history,” said Macron, who was one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate Lula after his electoral win.

Paris sees Brazil as an “essential partner in Latin America”, said French Secretary of State for European Affairs Laurence Boone on Tuesday.

The higher temperatures of global warming are making olive growing possible further north

Winemaker and olive grower Jure Susac’s land in Bosnia used to be blanketed with frost or even snow by autumn’s end, but years of rising temperatures now mean balmy weather late into the year.

It was 28 degrees Celsius (82 Fahrenheit) as his family and friends used plastic rakes to help harvest olives in the last days of October, under a radiant sky.

Man-made global warming has amplified extreme events like destructive floods and droughts on Earth, but in Bosnia’s southern Herzegovina region olive growing is booming in its warmer weather. 

“The climate has changed here,” Susac, 68, told AFP. “Winters are no longer extreme, neither is the spring. We practically have no more ice.”

Locals said the region last saw snowflakes in February 2012.

The higher average temperatures give olive trees the conditions they need to grow, and from 2015-2020 the Balkan country’s production more than tripled to 985 tons, official numbers show.

“Olive trees are not at risk of being frozen in winter and damaged,” said Susac, who plans to double his number of trees to 400.

He was encouraged to expand after an extremely good harvest — five tons of olives, which should yield around 16 litres of oil per 100 kilogrammes (220 pounds).

– Mocked by neighbours –

Back in 1989, Susac was among the first in the region to dare to plant a few olive trees.

“I sought advice from some elderly neighbours who told me that it was never done here, they even mocked me a bit.”

“But, I proved them wrong,” said Susac who with his wife runs a three-hectare property, 30 kilometres (19 miles) as the crow flies from Croatia’s Adriatic coast.

According to an analysis of the agro-Mediterranean institute (FAZ) in the southern town of Mostar “trends show that global warming is moving olive plantations northwards”.

Weather statistics confirm the findings on the ground.

“The length of the period with average daily temperatures above 15 degrees Celsius is very important for olives,” said Nedzad Voljevica, an agro-meteorologist of the Sarajevo-based meteorological institute.

Currently there are 192 such days yearly in the olive producing region or 18 days more than the average registered between 1961 and 1990, he said.

Earth has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times and global heat-trapping CO2 emissions are poised to reach an all-time high this year.

Nations were meeting in Egypt through the end of this week for COP27 climate talks aimed at curbing global warming.

In Bosnia, the rising temperatures have also been accompanied by rarer rains. 

Yet for the moment the area benefits from abundant groundwater supplies in a country that, according to the World Bank, has some of the largest water reserves per capita in Europe. 

Like many of Bosnia’s several hundred olive growers, all of whom are in the Hercegovina region, Susac has drilled a 300-metre deep well, which provides his olives with a drip irrigation system.

– Good olive oil –

Olive growing in the Balkan country took off in 2005 and FAZ head Marko Ivankovic told AFP that 10,000 to 15,000 olive trees are planted every year.

Yet, this year’s production amounts to some 300,000 litres of extra-virgin olive oil, which means Bosnia remains tiny in an industry that produces 3.1 million tonnes of oil worldwide each year.

However, local producers, including Susac, have won medals in competitions abroad such as in Croatia, the regional leader in the sector.

One producer in Bosnia has even won the gold medal at the NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, one of the world’s most prestigious, for the past five years

“Olives give the best results, the highest amount of polyphenols (molecules with antioxidant properties), at the edge of the Mediterranean, which is where we are,” said Slavko Ramljak, who has 1,300 olive trees and a mill.

“We can’t make Mercedes, but we can produce good olive oil,” the 70-year-old added.

Besides recurring drought, the monoculture composition of Germany's forests has also made them more vulnerable.

Once a sea of green, thousands of spruces with brown crowns and charred trunks now stand in a forest in eastern Germany, testament to one of the most ferocious forest fires to have ravaged the region in years.

Germany recorded its worst bout of forest fires in 2022, and experts believe such calamities will only intensify in the coming years because of climate change.

Foresters are now racing to make the woods more resilient, including by giving Germany’s forests — known for its acres of evergreens — a complete makeover.

If they are successful, Germany’s forests will in the future no longer be populated primarily by rows of spruces, but by a mish-mash of tree species like oaks, aspens and lindens.

Walking through the tree skeletons in the dry woods near the town of Beelitz, forester Martin Schmitt peeled off the black bark of a tree, saying: “You can clearly see the charred tree trunks that have burnt down on the outside. If we look up now, we can already see a lot of brown crowns.

“Many, many trees are now dead, as we can see… And these trees will also not recover.”

– Generational task –

In June and July, the fires that consumed 200 hectares (500 acres) of the forests in Brandenburg swept close to Beelitz town itself.

Across the state of Brandenburg where Beelitz is located, about 1,411 hectares were affected this year alone, about three and a half times as much as the annual average of the past 10 years.

Besides recurring drought, the monoculture composition of the forests has also made them more vulnerable. 

For foresters, an urgent task at hand is to introduce diversity in the tree population.

“Forest transformation is the core work of my generation of foresters,” said Schmitt.

The patch of woods with charred trees will now be left alone for a while, to determine which trees might recover. In time, the plan is for deciduous trees to take over the space occupied by spruces that fail to regenerate.

A polyculture forest is generally more resistant to the consequences of climate change such as drought or pest infestation, the forester said.

Deciduous trees in particular release water into the air in a process called transpiration at a higher rate than conifers, and as a result, “the forest is ultimately much, much cooler and therefore the fire risk is much lower than in a pure pine forest,” said Schmitt.

– Opportunity –

Post-war Germany had turned to the rapidly growing spruces and pines to repopulate woodland stripped for energy and other necessities during the conflict. The conifers also proved valuable commercially as the manufacturing giant revived its economy.

But as the weather warms, the evergreens with their shallow root system are left gasping for water, and as a consequence, are unable to produce vital resin that helps protect them against insects.

In recent years, mass deaths of forests in iconic places such as the Harz mountain region where Goethe once hiked and composed odes to nature, have traumatised Germans, who see forests as a part of the national soul.

A desperate search for a cure is on, and the agriculture ministry has ploughed over a billion euros (dollars) into reviving the country’s forests.

With its huge swathes of woodland, Brandenburg state began its shift away from monoculture evergreens in the 1990s but it is a task that takes decades.

Ironically, the recent acceleration in frequencies of forest fires may speed up the process. 

A short drive away from the the tree skeletons, Schmitt pointed to a patch of spruce forest that burnt down in 2018.

“Three years later, we have trees there, some are more than six metres (20 feet) tall,” said Schmitt, pointing to the oaks and aspens that have naturally taken root.

“This is a natural forest development that sprang up in May 2019. In April 2019, it was all still completely brown — a complete desert, not a green leaf in the area,” he recalled.

Ingolf Basmer, an official at Brandenburg state’s forestry department, also said it was the right time to advance the forest transformation.

“We have to view it as an opportunity to develop multi-layered, diverse forest stands and not to fall back on the motto of ‘we do everything according to a pattern, uniformly’.”

He underlined the uncertainties of undertaking a transformation that could take decades to complete in an environment which is changing rapidly because of the climate crisis.

But he said there was no other option.

“We really have to start pushing this a bit so that we don’t waste time that we don’t actually have, even with these long time frames,” he stressed.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest has been rampant in recent years

UN climate talks got a boost Wednesday after Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva vowed to fight Amazon deforestation and global leaders reaffirmed key pledges.

While G20 leaders meeting in Indonesia issued a final communique committing to pursue the more ambitious limits on global heating, action on the sidelines of fraught COP27 negotiations in Egypt generated momentum at the UN climate conference.

Lula kicked off COP27 events Wednesday with a call to host the 2025 climate talks in the Amazon region, in his first international trip since defeating outgoing far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who presided over years of rampant Amazon deforestation.

“I am here to say to all of you that Brazil is back in the world,” said Lula as he received a jubilant welcome from hundreds of people at an Amazon region pavilion in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

“We will put up a very strong fight against illegal deforestation,” he said, announcing the creation of an Indigenous people’s ministry to protect the vast region’s vulnerable communities.

“There is no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon,” Lula said later in a speech.

Lula arrived in Egypt on Tuesday and went straight into climate diplomacy, with meetings with US envoy John Kerry and China’s Xie Zhenhua.

– Kerry ‘pleased’ –

Kerry told a COP27 biodiversity panel on Wednesday that he was “really encouraged” by Lula’s pledge to protect the Amazon, and that the United States would work with other nations to help protect the rainforest.

Under Bolsonaro, a staunch ally of agribusiness, average annual deforestation increased 75 percent compared with the previous decade.

“We don’t need to cause deforestation of even one metre of the Amazon to continue being one of the biggest food producers in the world,” Lula said.

Speaking in Bangkok, where he is attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, French President Emmanuel Macron threw his weight behind Lula’s proposal for the next UN climate summit to be held in the Amazon. 

“I ardently wish that we could have a COP in the Amazon, so I fully support this initiative of President Lula,” he said. 

In another boost to the UN climate process, the final communique from world leaders meeting at the Group of 20 talks in Bali, Indonesia, reaffirmed a promise to “pursue efforts” to curb global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The G20 document also addresses the most contentious issue at COP27, as leaders urged “progress” on “loss and damage” — the costs of climate impacts already being felt — though without saying which approach they favoured.

Developing nations are demanding the creation of a loss and damage fund, through which rich polluters would compensate them for the destruction caused by climate-linked natural disasters.

But the United States and the European Union have suggested using existing channels for climate finance instead of creating a new one.

The G20 meeting was also the stage of a crucial meeting between US President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping, where the two leaders agreed to resume their climate cooperation.

Ani Dasgupta, head of the World Resources Institute, said positive signals from leaders at the G20 “should put wind in the sails” of negotiators in Egypt.

In another COP27 announcement, the EU said it would dedicate more than $1 billion in climate funding to help countries in Africa boost their resilience in the face of the accelerating impact of global warming.

– Climate leadership –

In his speech, however, Lula took a dig at developed countries for failing to fulfil a pledge to provide $100 billion in aid annually from 2020 for developing nations to green their economies and adapt to future impacts.

“I’m also back to demand what was promised” at past climate talks, he said. 

The president-elect, who previously served from 2003 to 2010, threw his weight behind the idea of a climate impacts compensation fund.

“We very urgently need financial mechanisms to remedy losses and damages caused by climate change,” said Lula, who made a spectacular political comeback after serving jail time for corruption.

Latin America’s most populous country grew more isolated under Bolsonaro, analysts say, in part due to his permissive policies towards deforestation and exploitation of the Amazon, the preservation of which is seen as critical to fighting global warming.

Brazil is home to 60 percent of the Amazon, which spans eight countries and acts as a massive sink for carbon emissions.

The incoming Lula administration wants the United States to contribute to the Amazon Fund, considered one of the main tools to reduce deforestation in the planet’s biggest tropical forest.

Following Lula’s victory, the fund’s main contributors, Norway and Germany, announced they would participate again, after freezing aid in 2019 in the wake of Bolsonaro’s election.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest has been rampant in recent years

UN climate talks got a boost Wednesday after Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva vowed to fight Amazon deforestation and global leaders reaffirmed key pledges.

While G20 leaders meeting in Indonesia issued a final communique committing to pursue the more ambitious limits on global heating, action on the sidelines of fraught COP27 negotiations in Egypt generated momentum at the UN climate conference.

Lula kicked off COP27 events Wednesday with a call to host the 2025 climate talks in the Amazon region, in his first international trip since defeating outgoing far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who presided over years of rampant Amazon deforestation.

“I am here to say to all of you that Brazil is back in the world,” said Lula as he received a jubilant welcome from hundreds of people at an Amazon region pavilion in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

“We will put up a very strong fight against illegal deforestation,” he said, announcing the creation of an Indigenous people’s ministry to protect the vast region’s vulnerable communities.

“There is no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon,” Lula said later in a speech.

Lula arrived in Egypt on Tuesday and went straight into climate diplomacy, with meetings with US envoy John Kerry and China’s Xie Zhenhua.

– Kerry ‘pleased’ –

Kerry told a COP27 biodiversity panel on Wednesday that he was “really encouraged” by Lula’s pledge to protect the Amazon, and that the United States would work with other nations to help protect the rainforest.

Under Bolsonaro, a staunch ally of agribusiness, average annual deforestation increased 75 percent compared with the previous decade.

“We don’t need to cause deforestation of even one metre of the Amazon to continue being one of the biggest food producers in the world,” Lula said.

Speaking in Bangkok, where he is attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, French President Emmanuel Macron threw his weight behind Lula’s proposal for the next UN climate summit to be held in the Amazon. 

“I ardently wish that we could have a COP in the Amazon, so I fully support this initiative of President Lula,” he said. 

In another boost to the UN climate process, the final communique from world leaders meeting at the Group of 20 talks in Bali, Indonesia, reaffirmed a promise to “pursue efforts” to curb global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The G20 document also addresses the most contentious issue at COP27, as leaders urged “progress” on “loss and damage” — the costs of climate impacts already being felt — though without saying which approach they favoured.

Developing nations are demanding the creation of a loss and damage fund, through which rich polluters would compensate them for the destruction caused by climate-linked natural disasters.

But the United States and the European Union have suggested using existing channels for climate finance instead of creating a new one.

The G20 meeting was also the stage of a crucial meeting between US President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping, where the two leaders agreed to resume their climate cooperation.

Ani Dasgupta, head of the World Resources Institute, said positive signals from leaders at the G20 “should put wind in the sails” of negotiators in Egypt.

In another COP27 announcement, the EU said it would dedicate more than $1 billion in climate funding to help countries in Africa boost their resilience in the face of the accelerating impact of global warming.

– Climate leadership –

In his speech, however, Lula took a dig at developed countries for failing to fulfil a pledge to provide $100 billion in aid annually from 2020 for developing nations to green their economies and adapt to future impacts.

“I’m also back to demand what was promised” at past climate talks, he said. 

The president-elect, who previously served from 2003 to 2010, threw his weight behind the idea of a climate impacts compensation fund.

“We very urgently need financial mechanisms to remedy losses and damages caused by climate change,” said Lula, who made a spectacular political comeback after serving jail time for corruption.

Latin America’s most populous country grew more isolated under Bolsonaro, analysts say, in part due to his permissive policies towards deforestation and exploitation of the Amazon, the preservation of which is seen as critical to fighting global warming.

Brazil is home to 60 percent of the Amazon, which spans eight countries and acts as a massive sink for carbon emissions.

The incoming Lula administration wants the United States to contribute to the Amazon Fund, considered one of the main tools to reduce deforestation in the planet’s biggest tropical forest.

Following Lula’s victory, the fund’s main contributors, Norway and Germany, announced they would participate again, after freezing aid in 2019 in the wake of Bolsonaro’s election.

Turtle eggs in Punta Chame are sold for between 75 cents and $1 each

The sea turtles of Punta Chame, a peninsula of Panama that juts into the Pacific Ocean, face an existential threat similar to the rhino and pangolin: human superstition.

The eggs of the protected olive ridley turtle, illegally harvested from the beach, are sold door to door in town for 75 cents to $1 each for their purported aphrodisiac qualities.

“Especially men think that by eating turtle eggs they will have more sexual pleasure,” said Jorge Padilla, a conservationist with the NGO Fundacion Tortuguias which collects and hatches the precious eggs.

“The eggs won’t help you. They are not an aphrodisiac,” he insisted.

The olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) is listed as “vulnerable” on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with its numbers declining.

Its survival relies heavily on people like Padilla, who with village volunteers collect freshly laid eggs and bury them in sand at the nursery.

Hundreds hatch here each year between July and February. Within hours they are brought to the beach and released near the water’s edge by volunteers who look on with parent-like pride as the tiny critters make a frantic dash for the ocean.

“We cannot just put them (in the water) because they have to go through a process called ‘imprinting’ (along the beach) that will bring them back in 18-20 years to the same beach where they were born” to lay their own eggs.

– Used for combs, clothes –

Day and night, Padilla patrols the beach to scare off poachers.

Other threats include stray dogs roaming the beaches for food, and eagles.

Padilla repels the dogs but leaves the eagles as they are natural turtle predators and part of the circle of life.

The turtles also end up as by-catch from fishing, and face threats to their nesting beaches from human encroachment and climate change.

“There are many threats to sea turtles, both in the Pacific and in the Caribbean: illegal egg harvesting, overconsumption of their meat, their shells… They are used for combs… clothing,” said Padilla.

Marine turtles and their uncertain fate are on the agenda of a global wildlife summit taking place in Panama City, not far from Punta Chame with its 500 human inhabitants.

The gathering of countries under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) will consider ways to combat egg theft and trafficking.

A working document on the CITES website states “the illegal harvest and trade continues to threaten marine turtles.”