AFP UK

Ninawa Huni Kui represents Indigenous communities in the Amazon, the world's biggest rainforest

Delegates at COP27 representing Indigenous communities — some of the world’s most vulnerable to the climate crisis — have used traditional clothing to draw attention to their plight and urge action.

As Indigenous “communities are not the focus of discussions” at the UN climate summit in Egypt, Ninawa Huni Kui said it was important for him to visually represent his constituency as president of the Federation of Huni Kui Peoples in Brazil’s Amazon basin.

“We don’t have much hope for what is happening at COP27,” he told AFP at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, frustrated by his lack of access to the decision-making process at the conference.

The Amazon basin, which stretches over 7.4 million square kilometres (2.9 million square miles), covers nearly 40 percent of South America and takes in nine countries, with around 34 million — mostly Indigenous people — living across this area.

The world’s biggest rainforest, which until recently has helped soak up humanity’s soaring carbon emissions, is now strained to the point of starting to release more carbon than it absorbs, rendering the recent elections in Brazil a key climate issue.

Incoming president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who arrived at COP27 on Tuesday with the world’s eyes on him, has pledged to “fight for zero deforestation”.

Between negotiation halls and in a designated protest space outside that has remained largely empty, small-scale demonstrations have demanded climate justice, including more urgent action to protect the Amazon.

“This COP is more restrictive than any previous one,” Ninawa said.

“In other countries we could demonstrate in the street, rally more people as we went. But here we can only demonstrate inside the Blue Zone.”

Stroking the sacred feathers on his head — instantly striking through a crowd of delegates in suits and activists in T-shirts — Ninawa said he wore them “because I am a chief, but also because the birds that gave us these feathers protect us”.

“I am here to represent the voice of the forest and its living creatures,” he added.

“This is my community’s traditional clothing. Every item here represents a spirit of the forest speaking to us.”

– Fight for rights –

Gloria Ushigua, a celebrated activist in her native Ecuador, told AFP she sought to “force COP27 participants to respect Indigenous peoples”.

A long orange feather emerged from her painted headpiece, above a cascading string of flowers.

While defending the rights of the Sapara people and their segment of the Amazon against oil interests — for which she has faced death threats — Ushigua wore her traditional lanchama dress, because these are the clothes she “grew up in.”

Ushigua said she came to Sharm al-Sheikh with the same clothes she wore to “defend her culture and her people” against drilling and deforestation projects.

Juan Calvin, representing the Mapuche people from Patagonia in southern Chile, said “governments cannot make decisions without our agreement.”

The traditional white hat he dons with colourful embroidery is one more way for him to advocate for “Indigenous people’s identities and their rights to land and resources”.

The hat, symbolising his people’s “relationship with the earth, water and fire”, is a reminder of “our ancestors, who fought to preserve our identity”, he told AFP. 

But traditional clothes also “remind the men and women of today’s society of what they’re really connected to”, which he said is key “to raising awareness about climate change”.

Activists accuse European governments of leading a "dash for gas" in Africa to make up for supply cuts by Russia since its invasion of Ukraine

Developing nations admonished rich polluters for falling short on efforts to help them cope with global warming at UN climate talks Tuesday, as the EU vowed to speed its emissions reductions.

The COP27 conference in Egypt has been dominated by calls for wealthy nations to fulfil pledges to fund the green transitions of poorer countries least responsible for global emissions, help build their resilience, and compensate them for climate-linked losses.

At a wrap-up meeting for Tuesday’s negotiations, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, the COP27 president, said technical sticking points were hampering progress towards higher-level political negotiations on a range of issues.

“Progress has been made, but certainly more remains to be done if we are to achieve the robust outcomes that will drive ambitious, and inclusive climate action,” he told delegates. 

The meeting comes as global CO2 emissions are poised to reach an all-time high this year, making the aspirational goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to preindustrial levels ever more elusive.

European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans told delegates that the European Union would outperform its original plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030.

The 27-nation bloc will now be able to cut those emissions by 57 percent from 1990 levels, he said, pointing to agreements on phasing out fossil fuel-powered cars and protecting forests that serve as “carbon sinks”.

“The European Union is here to move forwards, not backwards,” Timmermans told COP27 delegates.

The invasion of Ukraine by energy exporter Russia has cast a shadow over the talks in Egypt, with activists accusing Europeans of seeking to tap Africa for natural gas following Russian supply cuts.

But Timmermans denied the bloc was in a “dash for gas” amid the Ukraine conflict.

“Don’t let anybody tell you, here or outside, that the EU is backtracking,” he said.

Watchdog groups were unimpressed.

“This small increase announced today at COP27 doesn’t do justice to the calls from the most vulnerable countries at the front lines,” said Chiara Martinelli, of Climate Action Network Europe.

“If the EU, with a heavy history of emitting greenhouse gases, doesn’t lead on mitigating climate change, who will?” 

– ‘Hypocrisy’ –

Addressing a high-level session, ministers from developing nations took turns criticising wealthy nations.

Shawn Edward, sustainable development minister in the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, said major emitters were “backpedalling” by making “small gains” in clean energy initiatives while increasing fossil fuel investments and profits at the same time.

“We the people of Saint Lucia suffer the consequences of this hypocrisy,” he said, describing millions of dollars in damage caused by a recent tropical storm that wracked his island nation.

Wealthy and developing nations are sharply divided over money.

Developing countries say this year’s floods in Pakistan, which have cost the country up to $40 billion, have highlighted the pressing need to create a “loss and damage” compensation fund.

The United States and the European Union, fearful of open-ended liability, have previously slow-walked such calls. 

But as impacts grow they have softened their stance somewhat, agreeing to allow the issue to be discussed at COP27.

The influential G77+China negotiating bloc issued a document outlining their vision for a specific fund, which the group hoped would be created at the COP27 meeting under the UN. 

Wealthy countries favour using existing financial channels, however, and the first draft of the final declaration — which must be approved by all parties — echoes language previously deployed by the US and Europeans to describe “funding arrangements” for loss and damage. 

Timmermans told reporters that the EU has “demonstrated openness to discuss moving forward on loss and damage”, but he said “he was not quite sure we would be able this week to find consensus on the new financial mechanism”.

Conrod Hunte of Antigua and Barbuda, lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, said it would be a “devastating blow” if talks stalled.

“Antigua and Barbuda will not leave here without a loss and damage fund,” he said.

UN climate negotiations often go into overtime and COP27, scheduled to end on Friday, might be no different.

The new study includes data from more than 57,000 men collected over 223 studies across 53 countries, making it the largest meta-analysis ever conducted on the subject.

Sperm count among men worldwide is falling at an accelerated rate after halving over the last 40 years, a large new study said Tuesday, calling for action to stop the decline.

The study, led by Israeli epidemiologist Hagai Levine, updates 2017 research which had come under scrutiny for only including North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

The new study includes data from more than 57,000 men collected over 223 studies across 53 countries, making it the largest meta-analysis ever conducted on the subject.

With the additional new countries, it confirmed the 2017 finding that sperm counts have halved over the last four decades.

Between 1973 to 2018, the concentration of sperm in men not known to be infertile fell by more than 51 percent, from 101.2 million to 49 million sperm per millimetre of semen, the new study found.

“Furthermore, data suggest that this worldwide decline is continuing in the 21st century at an accelerated pace,” said the study published in the journal Human Reproduction Update.

Sperm counts are dropping at a rate of around 1.1 percent a year, the research found.

More action and research is urgently needed “to prevent further disruption of male reproductive health,” it added.

– ‘We genuinely don’t know why’ –

Sperm count is not the only factor that affects fertility — the speed of sperm movement, which was not measured in the study, also plays a crucial role.

And the lower sperm concentration of 49 million is still well above the range considered “normal” by the World Health Organization — between 15 million and 200 million sperm per millilitre. 

Sarah Martins da Silva, an expert in reproductive Medicine at Scotland’s University of Dundee not involved in the study, said it showed that the rate of decline in sperm count has doubled since 2000.

“And we genuinely don’t know why,” she added.

“Exposure to pollution, plastics, smoking, drugs and prescribed medication, as well as lifestyle, such as obesity and poor diet, have all been suggested to be contributory factors although effects are poorly understood and ill-defined.”

Other experts said the new study did not resolve their scepticism about the 2017 research.

“I remain concerned about the quality of the data in the papers that were published, particularly in the far past,” on which the analysis is based, Allan Pacey of the UK’s University of Sheffield told AFP.

While hailing the “very elegant meta-analysis”, Pacey said he believed we have “simply gotten better” at the difficult task of counting sperm, which could account for the falling rates.

But Martins da Silva dismissed critics of the study’s results, saying that “the numbers and consistent findings are difficult to ignore”.

Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, pictured at his home in Cairo in 2019, is serving a five-year prison sentence

Jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah has ended a months-long hunger strike, his family said Tuesday, after fears for his health grew and amid criticism of Cairo during the ongoing COP27 climate summit.

Abdel Fattah, who had consumed “only 100 calories a day” for seven months, had escalated his strike to all food and then stopped drinking water as the COP27 climate summit opened on November 6 in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

“I have ended the strike,” the activist wrote in the letter handed to his family on Tuesday, but dated the day before, shared by his sister Mona Seif.

While the letter did not detail the reasons behind his decision, the 40-year-old, whose family feared he would die, wrote to his mother: “I want to celebrate my birthday with you on Thursday”.

In what was the second letter from the dissident received by his family in two days, Abdel Fattah asked his mother to “bring a cake” to her monthly visit to the Wadi al-Natroun prison, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) northwest of the capital Cairo.

“I’ll see you on the visit day and tell you everything then, and we’ll get back to long letters after the visit.”

His sister, who has been campaigning for his freedom for years, said she welcomed the news with “cautious relief.”

“My heart won’t really be settled until Thursday when my mother and sister see him with their own eyes.”

The dissident’s aunt, novelist Ahdaf Soueif, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday: “So what happened inside? What was negotiated?” 

Abdel Fattah has been leading headlines since UN climate talks began earlier this month in Egypt, which sought to burnish its image by hosting COP27 but has come under fire over its human rights record.

Rights groups estimate Cairo is holding some 60,000 political prisoners, many of them in brutal conditions and overcrowded cells.

– International pressure –

A key figure in the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, Abdel Fattah has spent much of the past decade since behind bars.

He is currently serving a five-year sentence for “spreading false news” by sharing a Facebook post about police brutality.

The hashtag #FreeAlaa has been a fixture of Egyptian social media for years, but was trending on Twitter for the first time in years as world leaders began arriving in Sharm el-Sheikh last week. 

Several raised his case in bilateral meetings with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, notably US President Joe Biden on Friday.

Several speakers at the summit ended with the words “you have not yet been defeated” — the title of Abdel Fattah’s book published while behind bars.

Fears had mounted that prison authorities were force-feeding Abdel Fattah, after his mother was notified he had been put “under medical supervision”.

His other sister Sanaa Seif was repeatedly heckled by pro-government attendees as she campaigned for his release at COP27, including one member of parliament who had to be escorted out by UN security.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, “state security forces arrested” journalist Ahmed Fayez for allegedly spreading fake news after he wrote a Facebook post “in which he claimed that prison authorities are force-feeding” Abdel Fattah.

On Friday, Mona Seif said the family had submitted a new request for a presidential pardon for Abdel Fattah.

That plea was picked up by one of Egypt’s most watched talk show hosts, the ardently pro-Sisi Amr Adib.

On prime time television Friday, Adib said the pardon would be in “the interest of Egypt first and foremost”.

After his family announced the end of the strike Tuesday, Tarek el-Awady — a member of the recently reactivated presidential pardoning committee — wrote on Twitter that he “hopes the state will take the necessary measures to quickly pardon” Abdel Fattah and other prisoners.

The new study includes data from more than 57,000 men collected over 223 studies across 53 countries, making it the largest meta-analysis ever conducted on the subject.

Sperm count among men worldwide is falling at an accelerated rate after halving over the last 40 years, a large new study said Tuesday, calling for action to stop the decline.

The study, led by Israeli epidemiologist Hagai Levine, updates 2017 research which had come under scrutiny for only including North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

The new study includes data from more than 57,000 men collected over 223 studies across 53 countries, making it the largest meta-analysis ever conducted on the subject.

With the additional new countries, it confirmed the 2017 finding that sperm counts have halved over the last four decades.

Between 1973 to 2018, the concentration of sperm in men not known to be infertile fell by more than 51 percent, from 101.2 million to 49 million sperm per millimetre of semen, the new study found.

“Furthermore, data suggest that this worldwide decline is continuing in the 21st century at an accelerated pace,” said the study published in the journal Human Reproduction Update.

Sperm counts are dropping at a rate of around 1.1 percent a year, the research found.

More action and research is urgently needed “to prevent further disruption of male reproductive health,” it added.

– ‘We genuinely don’t know why’ –

Sperm count is not the only factor that affects fertility — the speed of sperm movement, which was not measured in the study, also plays a crucial role.

And the lower sperm concentration of 49 million is still well above the range considered “normal” by the World Health Organization — between 15 million and 200 million sperm per millilitre. 

Sarah Martins da Silva, an expert in reproductive Medicine at Scotland’s University of Dundee not involved in the study, said it showed that the rate of decline in sperm count has doubled since 2000.

“And we genuinely don’t know why,” she added.

“Exposure to pollution, plastics, smoking, drugs and prescribed medication, as well as lifestyle, such as obesity and poor diet, have all been suggested to be contributory factors although effects are poorly understood and ill-defined.”

Other experts said the new study did not resolve their scepticism about the 2017 research.

“I remain concerned about the quality of the data in the papers that were published, particularly in the far past,” on which the analysis is based, Allan Pacey of the UK’s University of Sheffield told AFP.

While hailing the “very elegant meta-analysis”, Pacey said he believed we have “simply gotten better” at the difficult task of counting sperm, which could account for the falling rates.

But Martins da Silva dismissed critics of the study’s results, saying that “the numbers and consistent findings are difficult to ignore”.

Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, pictured at his home in Cairo in 2019, is serving a five-year prison sentence

Jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah has ended a months long hunger strike, his family said Tuesday, after fears for his health grew and amid criticism of Cairo during the ongoing COP27 climate summit.

Abdel Fattah, who consumed “only 100 calories a day” for seven months, escalated his strike, first to all food, then water as the COP27 climate summit opened on November 6 in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

“I have ended the strike,” the activist wrote in the letter handed to his family on Tuesday, but dated the day before, shared by his sister Mona Seif.

Abdel Fattah, 40, wrote to his mother, “I want to celebrate my birthday with you on Thursday”.

In what was the second letter from the dissident received by his family in two days, Abdel Fattah asked his mother to “bring a cake” to her monthly visit to the Wadi al-Natroun prison, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) northwest of the capital Cairo.

“I’ll see you on the visit day and tell you everything then, and we’ll get back to long letters after the visit.”

His sister, who has been campaigning for his freedom for years, said she welcomed the news with “cautious relief.”

“My heart won’t really be settled until Thursday when my mother and sister see him with their own eyes.”

Abdel Fattah has been leading headlines since UN climate talks began last week in Egypt, which sought to burnish its image by hosting COP27 but has come under fire over its human rights record.

Rights groups estimate Cairo is holding some 60,000 political prisoners, many of them in brutal conditions and overcrowded cells.

– International pressure –

A key figure in the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, Abdel Fattah has spent much of the past decade since behind bars.

He is currently serving a five-year sentence for “spreading false news” by sharing a Facebook post about police brutality.

The hashtag #FreeAlaa has been a fixture of Egyptian social media for years, but was trending on Twitter for the first time in years as world leaders began arriving in Sharm el-Sheikh last week. 

Several raised the case in bilateral meetings with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, notably US President Joe Biden on Friday.

Several speakers at the summit ended with the words “you have not yet been defeated” — the title of Abdel Fattah’s book published while behind bars.

Fears had mounted that prison authorities were force-feeding Abdel Fattah, after his mother was notified he had been put “under medical supervision”.

His other sister Sanaa Seif was repeatedly heckled by pro-government attendees as she campaigned for his release at COP27, including one member of parliament who had to be escorted out by UN security.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, “state security forces arrested” journalist Ahmed Fayez for allegedly spreading fake news after he wrote a Facebook post “in which he claimed that prison authorities are force-feeding” Abdel Fattah.

On Friday, Mona Seif said the family had submitted a new request for a presidential pardon for Abdel Fattah.

That plea was picked up by one of Egypt’s most watched talk show hosts, the ardently pro-Sisi Amr Adib.

On prime time television Friday, Adib said the pardon would be in “the interest of Egypt first and foremost”.

After his family announced the end of the strike Tuesday, Tarek el-Awady – a member of the recently reactivated presidential pardoning committee – wrote on Twitter that he “hopes the state will take the necessary measures to quickly pardon” Abdel Fattah and other prisoners.

In an open letter, campaigners called on COP27 delegates and social media giants to adopt common definitions on climate disinformation and misinformation

Campaigners on Tuesday urged the COP27 summit to fight disinformation that undermines efforts to limit deadly global warming, as a survey showed millions of people believe climate change falsehoods.

In an open letter, the campaigners called on UN climate talks delegates and social media giants to adopt a common definition of climate disinformation and misinformation, and work to prevent it.

They also urged the bosses of seven digital giants, including Facebook, Google and Twitter, to implement tough polices preventing false climate information spreading on their platforms, similar to measures taken on the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We cannot beat climate change without tackling climate misinformation and disinformation,” the letter said.

“While emissions continue to rise, humanity faces climate catastrophe, yet vested economic and political interests continue to organise and finance climate misinformation and disinformation to hold back action,” it added.

The letter was signed by 550 groups and individuals, including former leading UN climate official Christiana Figueres and diplomat Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which is the current basis for global targets to curb climate change.

Misinformation is false information that may be shared in good faith. Disinformation is spread with the intent to deceive.

The signatories demanded “swift and robust global action from COP decision-makers and tech platforms to mitigate these threats”.

– ‘Perception gap’ –

The letter accompanied a survey showing the extent that false climate information is believed in six of the world’s major economies.

It found large sections of the populations of Australia, Brazil, Britain, Germany, India and the United States believe false claims about human-caused climate change.

At least 20 percent of those surveyed in each country believe current global warming is a natural phenomenon and not caused by humans.

This is despite global warming’s human causes being exhaustively documented by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says human-made climate change is “unequivocal”.

The survey was published by two climate content watchdogs, Climate Action Against Disinformation and the Conscious Advertising Network, and was compiled by polling respondents to YouGov panels weeks ahead of COP27.

“There is a big gap in public perception and the science on issues as basic as whether climate change exists or whether it is mainly caused by humans,” the survey’s authors said.

“This perception gap weakens the public mandate for climate action and undermines the negotiations to achieve the goals of the Paris climate agreement.”

Climate disinformation monitors say the fossil fuel industry has been deliberately sowing doubt about the role of carbon emissions in global warming for decades.

– Belief in ‘hoax’ –

The survey found that 44 percent of people in Australia and 46 percent in the United States believe climate change is not caused mainly by human activity.

In the United States, 23 percent of people think climate change is a hoax made up by “elite” organisations, the survey showed.

In India, 85 percent of the population believed at least one piece of climate misinformation. Among the six countries, that measure was lowest in Britain at 55 percent.

Respondents who consumed news at least five days per week were more likely to believe certain misinformation.

“This suggests that news outlets’ reporting regularly includes misinformation narratives,” the report said.

Facebook, Google and other tech giants have said they are acting to make false climate claims less visible, including in paid advertisements.

But in a detailed study released earlier this year, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue said messages aiming to “deny, deceive and delay” climate action were prevalent across social media.

The ClimateScam hashtag is currently the top term that pops up on Twitter’s search tool when a user types “climate”.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres last week used the COP27 stage to strike out at greenwashing — a form of corporate disinformation.

He called for an end to the “toxic cover-up” by companies he said were “using bogus ‘net-zero’ pledges to cover up massive fossil fuel expansion”.

'Stop fossil destruction. We're racing towards climate hell,' one of the protesters shouted

Climate activists poured black liquid over a glass screen protecting Gustav Klimt’s masterpiece “Death and Life” in Vienna on Tuesday, in the latest protest at inaction over global heating.

The work by the Austrian painter was undamaged, Vienna’s Leopold Museum said.

Tuesday’s stunt follows a string of actions by activists to highlight the climate emergency.

They have glued themselves to the frame of a Goya in Madrid, thrown soup at screens covering Vincent van Goghs in London and Rome, and mashed potatoes on the glass over a Claude Monet. 

“We were attacked shortly after 11:00 am,” Leopold Museum spokesman Klaus Pokorny said.

“Last generation Austria”, a group campaigning for the Vienna government to stop new investments in fossil fuels, claimed responsibility on Twitter for targeting the Klimt painting.

It shared images on social media of two men pouring a black, oily liquid on the glass protecting the work before being seized by a museum employee. 

One of the activists then glued himself to the picture frame.

“Stop fossil destruction. We’re racing towards climate hell,” one of the protesters shouted.

Museum director Hans-Peter Wipplinger said neither the painting nor the frame had been damaged. 

The two protesters were not arrested, but are subject to a complaint for serious damage to property and disturbance of public order, a Vienna police spokeswoman told AFP.

Admission to the Leopold Museum was free on Tuesday as part of a day sponsored by Austrian oil and gas group OMV.

“The concerns of climate activists… are valid but attacking artworks is definitely the wrong way to go,” Wipplinger said.

Austrian State Secretary for Art and Culture Andrea Mayer said it was wrong to risk causing “irreparable damage to works of art”. 

“Art and culture are allies in the fight against the climate catastrophe, not opponents,” she said.

Dozens of the world’s top museums issued a joint statement last week saying environmental activists who targeted paintings “severely underestimate” the damage that could be caused.

The statement was spearheaded by the Prado in Madrid, and signed by the directors of more than 90 world-renowned museums including the Guggenheim in New York, the Louvre in Paris and the Uffizi in Florence. 

European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans vows the EU will step up its emissions cuts at UN climate talks in Egypt, dismissing suggestions the bloc is backtracking in the face of the Ukraine conflict

The EU vowed Tuesday at UN climate talks to raise its emissions reduction target, as developing nations admonished rich polluters for falling short on efforts to help them cope with global warming.

The COP27 conference in Egypt has been dominated by calls for wealthy nations to fulfil pledges to fund the green transitions of poorer countries least responsible for global emissions, help build their resilience, and compensate them for climate-linked losses.

The meeting comes as global CO2 emissions are slated to reach an all-time high this year, making the aspirational goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to preindustrial levels ever more elusive.

European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans told delegates that the European Union would exceed its original plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030.

The 27-nation bloc will now be able to cut those emissions by 57 percent from 1990 levels, he said, pointing to agreements on phasing out fossil fuel-powered cars and protecting forests that serve as “carbon sinks”.

“The European Union is here to move forwards, not backwards,” Timmermans told COP27 delegates.

The invasion of Ukraine by energy exporter Russia has cast a shadow over the talks in Egypt, with activists accusing Europeans of seeking to tap Africa for natural gas following Russian supply cuts.

But Timmermans denied the bloc was in a “dash for gas” in the wake of the Ukraine conflict.

“So don’t let anybody tell you, here or outside, that the EU is backtracking,” he said.

Watchdog groups were not impressed.

“This small increase announced today at COP27 doesn’t do justice to the calls from the most vulnerable countries at the front lines,” said Chiara Martinelli, of Climate Action Network Europe.

“If the EU, with a heavy history of emitting greenhouse gases, doesn’t lead on mitigating climate change, who will?” 

– Major emitters’ ‘hypocrisy’ –

Addressing a high-level session, ministers from developing nations took turns criticising wealthy nations.

Belize Climate Change Minister Orlando Habet called for more action from the G20 group of the world’s wealthiest nations, which are responsible for 80 percent of global emissions and are meeting at a summit in Indonesia. 

“In how many COPs have we been arguing for urgent climate action? And how many more do we need, how many lives do we need to sacrifice?” Habet said.

Shawn Edward, the sustainable development minister from the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, said major emitters were “backpedalling” by making “small gains” in clean energy initiatives while raising fossil fuel investments and profits at the same time.

“We the people of Saint Lucia suffer the consequences of this hypocrisy,” he said, describing millions of dollars in damages caused by a recent tropical storm that wracked his island nation.

UN climate negotiations often go into overtime and COP27, scheduled to end on Friday, could be no different.

The first draft of the final declaration — which must be approved by all parties — only has bullet points so far, including a line on the “urgency of action to keep 1.5C in reach”, something top emitter China has opposed in the past.

– Compensation fight –

Wealthy and developing nations are sharply divided over money.

Developing countries say this year’s floods in Pakistan, which have cost the country up to $40 billion, have highlighted the pressing need to create a “loss and damage” compensation fund.

In a small breakthrough, the United States and the European Union agreed to have the issue discussed at COP27, though they favour using existing financial channels.

The draft declaration mentions the “need for funding arrangements to address” loss and damage — language previously used by the United States and Europeans. 

Timmermans told reporters that the EU has “demonstrated openness to discuss moving forward on loss and damage” but that he was “not quite sure we would be able this week to find consensus on the new financial mechanism”.

Conrod Hunte of Antigua and Barbuda, lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, said stalling talks would be a “devastating blow”. 

“Antigua and Barbuda will not leave here without a loss and damage fund,” he said.

Spanish anti-animal cruelty activists have slammed the festival as something out of the 'Stone Age'

Writhing and grunting, a bull with burning balls of tar attached to its horns charged in the darkness in a small town in northern Spain.

Animal rights campaigners have called for a ban on the centuries-old festival in the medieval town of Medinaceli, calling it animal abuse.

The “Toro Jubilo” — or “Joy of the Bull” — fiesta typically takes place on the second weekend in November.

Spanish anti-animal cruelty party PACMA has said it is mulling legal action against organisers of the event.

“This grotesque tradition continues to be celebrated even though we are no longer in the Stone Age,” it tweeted.

Just before midnight on Saturday, a group of mostly men dressed in matching grey uniforms dragged the bull into a makeshift bullring set up in the main square of the town.

They then tied the bull to a wooden post and attached balls of highly flammable tar to its horns as hundreds of people watched behind barriers. One man pulled on its tail to keep it steady. 

They caked mud to the animal’s back and face in an effort to protect it from the flames, before setting the tar balls alight.

Participants then released the bull into the square, covered in sand for the occasion, to cheers and applause from the crowd.

The bull frantically shook its head to try to rid itself of the burning balls of tar as it raced around the square.

Several men jumped into the ring and attempted to dodge the bull in a purported test of courage. Some dangled a cape in front of it.

This continued for about 20 minutes until the flammable balls on its horns went out and the bull collapsed. It was then dragged out of the ring.

– ‘Simply animal abuse’ –

The bull’s life is traditionally spared at the end of the event.

But this year the animal died after another young castrated bull — which organisers sent into the bullring to guide him out of the arena — rammed him in the head, the festival said.

Jaime Posada, of the Spanish branch of animal rights group Anima Naturalis, which is also calling for a ban, said the bull is kept in a tight pen for hours before it is dragged into the square.

“It can’t move, it can hardly sit down, so it is stressed simply from that,” he told AFP.

Participants declined to be interviewed, and PACMA and other opponents of the fiesta said locals prevented them from filming the ritual.

“Why are they afraid? Basically because they know that this is not culture, it’s simply animal abuse and they enjoy doing it,” Posada said.

The festival, however, is one of the main events for Medinaceli, which is home to around 650 people.

The regional government of Castilla and Leon has even given the festival a special cultural status.

The Medinaceli town hall did not respond to a request to comment.