AFP UK

US President Joe Biden heads to a climate gathering this weekend without a commitment on tackling global warming after his deeply divided Democrats failed to get behind his sweeping economic agenda.

Biden had wanted to show the landmark COP26 conference in Scotland that Washington is leading the world on decarbonizing, but the package of social reforms containing his signature climate policy was held up by infighting in Congress.

“The Build Back Better Act is a huge step forward in meeting President Biden’s climate goals,” said Intersect Power chief Sheldon Kimber, part of a group of CEOs calling on lawmakers to end months of inaction as Biden took off for Rome.

“But meeting them is going to take collective will, some social consensus, and leadership from the government and the private sector, and I hope that Congress finds the will to pass this legislation.” 

The White House says it is closer than ever to realizing an ambitious goal of slashing emissions by at least 50 percent over the decade via climate provisions in its $1.75 trillion Build Back Better bill.

Almost a third of the price tag for the package of reforms on health and child care, education and clean energy is made up of spending on greening the environment.

“On climate, on so many other issues, this bill is historic, compared to anything we’ve ever done in our history, really,” said Massachusetts senator and environmental activist Ed Markey. 

“You have to go back to the New Deal in Franklin Roosevelt’s era to find anything that’s comparable.”

– Double blow –

But differences among Democrats mean it is almost certain not to pass before Sunday — the start of the biggest climate conference since talks in Paris in 2015 and a crucial step in setting worldwide emissions targets.

Biden’s biggest setback came when a single coal-state Democrat in the 50-50 split Senate killed a program of incentives and penalties within the bill to push fossil fuel burning utilities toward cleaner energy.

The White House released a slimmed-down bill on Thursday offering alternative climate measures and appeasing moderates by drastically reining in the initial $3.5 trillion top line.

Biden had delayed his flight to rally House Democrats to hold a vote on the pared back bill, but progressives insisted there was not enough time to green-light the compromise ahead of Biden’s European excursion. 

A party-wide commitment would have allowed Biden to arrive at the UN climate summit with a credible pledge to devote more than $500 billion to meet its emissions targets. 

It was a double blow on the environment for Biden, as the party’s left flank has steadfastly refused to support separate infrastructure legislation without a simultaneous vote on their favored social welfare priorities. 

The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure framework (BIF), which has already advanced from the Senate, would provide almost $50 billion to prepare communities for flooding and wildfires fueled by climate change. 

– ‘Good news’ –

Liberals in the House, already angered by long-term priorities like family leave and a proposed billionaires’ tax getting left on the cutting room floor, fear that moderates will drop the party-line social spending bill as soon as the cross-party roads and bridges package passes.

“As you know by now, the House will postpone the vote on the BIF,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues on Thursday night. 

“The good news is that most members who were not prepared for a yes vote today have expressed their commitment to support the BIF.”   

Despite lawmakers’ simmering frustrations as they headed back to their home districts, progressives signaled late Thursday they would be ready — in principle — to vote on the infrastructure bill and the social welfare bill as early as next week.

Mike Vandenbergh, a legal scholar at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and an expert in environmental law, said that even without unity in Congress, Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump alone was a signal to the world that America cares about climate change.

“It is very difficult to prevail over a sitting president, but Biden did that in part because of climate issues,” Vandenbergh told AFP.

“That is the most important lesson of the last year regarding international climate efforts.” 

Flooding from heavy rain hit parts of the US East Coast on Friday, particularly the area around Washington, with potential for some of the worst damage in decades.

The area stretching from the US capital north to Baltimore is facing “the biggest tidal flood events of the past 10-20 years,” the National Weather Service said.

It said that in some areas the damage could be the worst since that caused by Hurricane Isabel in 2003.

“Tidal flooding, strong winds, and severe thunderstorms capable of producing damaging wind gusts and localized rainfall flooding will impact the region,” the local office of the NWS said.

Coastal flooding alerts have been issued from the state of Virginia all the way north to New Jersey.

In the Maryland state capital, Annapolis, located an hour’s drive from Washington on the Chesapeake Bay, the water came up to people’s knees. At least one man used a kayak to navigate the inundated streets.

Sand bags were posted outside stores to keep the water out.

On Monday, California was hit by torrential rain that caused several floods, after months of drought and repeated forest fires.

Climate change is regularly blamed for causing extreme weather events.

Effective vaccines, without a needle: Since the start of the Covid pandemic, researchers have doubled down on efforts to create patches that deliver life-saving drugs painlessly to the skin, a development that could revolutionize medicine.

The technique could help save children’s tears at doctors’ offices, and help people who have a phobia of syringes.

Beyond that, skin patches could assist with distribution efforts, because they don’t have cold-chain requirements — and might even heighten vaccine efficacy.

A new mouse study in the area, published in the journal Science Advances, showed promising results.

The Australian-US team used patches measuring one square centimeter that were dotted with more than 5,000 microscopic spikes, “so tiny you can’t actually see them,” David Muller, a virologist at the University of Queensland and co-author of the paper, told AFP.

These tips have been coated with an experimental vaccine, and the patch is clicked on with an applicator that resembles a hockey puck. “It’s like you get a good flick on the skin,” said Muller.

The researchers used a so-called “subunit” vaccine that reproduces the spikes that dot the surface of the coronavirus.

Mice were injected either via the patch over the course of two minutes, or with a syringe.

The immune systems of those who got the patch produced high levels of neutralizing antibodies after two doses, including in their lungs, vital to stopping Covid, and the patches outperformed syringes. 

The researchers also found that a sub-group of mice, who were given only one dose of vaccine containing an additional substance called an adjuvant used to spur immune response, “didn’t get sick at all,” said Muller.

– Easy to apply –

What makes them more effective?

Vaccines are normally injected into our muscles, but muscle tissue doesn’t contain very many immune cells needed to react to the drug, explained Muller.

In addition, the tiny spikes cause localized skin death, which alerts the body to a problem and triggers a greater immune response. 

For the scientist, the logistical advantages couldn’t be clearer. 

First, when dry-coated on a patch, the vaccine is stable for at least 30 days at 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) and one week at 40C (104F), compared to a few hours at room temperature for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

This offers a major advantage particularly for developing countries.

Second, “it’s very simple to use,” said Muller. “You don’t necessarily need highly trained medical professionals to deliver it.”

Burak Ozdoganlar, a professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in the US city of Pittsburgh, has also been working on the technology since 2007.

He sees yet another advantage: “Less amount of vaccine delivered precisely to skin can activate an immune response similar to intramuscular injection,” he told AFP. It’s an important factor as the developing world struggles to procure enough Covid vaccine.

Ozdoganlar can produce around 300-400 patches a day in his lab, but hasn’t been able to test them out on mRNA vaccines, which have come to the fore during the pandemic, because he hasn’t been authorized by Pfizer or Moderna.

– ‘The future’ –

The patch used in the study published on Friday was made by Australian company Vaxxas, which is the furthest along. Human trials are planned from April. 

Two other American companies are also part of the race: Micron Biomedical and Vaxess.

The latter, founded in 2013 and based in Massachusetts, is working on a slightly different type of patch, with microneedles that dissolve in the skin.

They say this approach has the benefit of requiring fewer spikes per patch — just 121 — made of a protein polymer that is biocompatible.

“We’re working on a seasonal Covid and flu combination product that will be mailed directly to patients’ homes, for self-administration,” CEO Michael Schrader told AFP.

The Covid vaccine they are using is produced by the company Medigen, already authorized in Taiwan. 

Vaxess has just opened a factory near Boston, with funding from the US National Institutes for Health. They aim to produce enough patches to vaccinate 2,000 to 3,000 people in clinical trials, which are to be launched next summer.

The main challenge right now is production, with no manufacturers yet able to make enough patches en masse.

“If you want to launch a vaccine you have to produce hundreds of millions,” said Schrader. “We do not have that scale as of today — no one really has that scale.”

But the pandemic has given a push to the nascent industry, which is now attracting more investors, he added.

“This is the future, in my opinion, it is inevitable,” said Schrader. “I think you’re going to see over the next 10 years, this (will) pretty dramatically reshape the way that we get vaccines around the world.”

US President Joe Biden heads to a climate gathering this weekend without a commitment on tackling global warming after his deeply-divided Democrats failed to get behind his sweeping economic agenda.

Biden had wanted to show the landmark COP26 conference in Scotland that Washington is leading the world on decarbonizing, but the package of social reforms containing his signature climate policy was held up by infighting in Congress.

“The Build Back Better Act is a huge step forward in meeting President Biden’s climate goals,” said Intersect Power chief Sheldon Kimber, part of a group of CEOs calling on lawmakers to end months of inaction as Biden took off for Rome.

“But meeting them is going to take collective will, some social consensus, and leadership from the government and the private sector, and I hope that Congress finds the will to pass this legislation.” 

The White House says it is closer than ever to realizing an ambitious goal of slashing emissions by at least 50 percent over the decade via climate provisions in its $1.75 trillion Build Back Better social welfare bill.

Almost a third of the price tag for the package of reforms on health and child care, education and clean energy is made up of spending on greening the environment.

But differences among Democrats mean it is almost certain not to pass before Sunday — the start of the biggest climate conference since talks in Paris in 2015 and a crucial step in setting worldwide emissions targets.

– Double blow –

Biden’s biggest setback came when a single coal-state Democrat in the 50-50 split Senate killed a program of incentives and penalties within the bill to push fossil fuel burning utilities toward cleaner energy.

The White House released a slimmed-down bill on Thursday offering alternative climate measures and appeasing moderates by drastically reining in the initial $3.5 trillion top line.

Biden had delayed his flight to rally House Democrats behind the pared back bill, but progressives insisted there was not enough time to green-light the compromise ahead of Biden’s European excursion. 

A party-wide commitment would have allowed Biden to arrive at the UN climate summit with a credible pledge to devote more than $500 billion to meet its emissions targets. 

It was a double blow on the environment for Biden, as the party’s left flank has steadfastly refused to support separate infrastructure legislation without a simultaneous vote on their favored social welfare priorities. 

The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure framework (BIF), which has already advanced from the Senate, would provide almost $50 billion to prepare communities for flooding and wildfires fueled by climate change. 

Liberals in the House, already angered by long-term priorities like family leave and a proposed billionaires’ tax getting left on the cutting room floor, fear that moderates will drop the party-line social spending bill as soon as the cross-party roads and bridges package passes.

– ‘Good news’ –

“As you know by now, the House will postpone the vote on the BIF,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues on Thursday night. 

“The good news is that most members who were not prepared for a yes vote today have expressed their commitment to support the BIF.”   

Despite lawmakers’ simmering frustrations as they headed back to their home districts, progressives signaled late Thursday they would be ready — in principle — to vote on the infrastructure bill and the social welfare bill as early as next week.

Mike Vandenbergh, a legal scholar at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and an expert in environmental law, said that even without unity in Congress, Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump alone was a signal to the world that America cares about climate change.

“It is very difficult to prevail over a sitting president, but Biden did that in part because of climate issues. That is the most important lesson of the last year regarding international climate efforts,” Vandenbergh told AFP.

Vandenbergh said the legislation — even in its slimmer form — would likely be sufficient to enable Biden to meet his emissions target, especially with the private sector backing political action.  

“During the Trump administration, US emissions went down despite Trump’s efforts to stop federal climate mitigation efforts, and that was in part because of state and private sector actions,” he said.  

“We will see even more of that over the next decade, and the combined efforts of the federal government, the states and the private sector will enable the US to achieve its carbon goals.”

A soft drizzle fell on a cluster of American climate activists as they set off smoke bombs in George Square in Glasgow’s city centre.

The clouds of white smoke were symbolically aimed at the heads of state beginning to arrive in Scotland’s biggest city for COP26, the United Nations climate change conference which starts on Sunday.

The demonstration on Thursday night was one of the first in an expected multitude of protests and publicity stunts planned as tens of thousands of delegates pour into the city during the next fortnight.

Home to around 635,000 people and still grappling with the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, locals appear divided in their feelings towards the event.

“I am very proud that COP is being held in Scotland,” said Isabelle Barkley, a Glasgow resident who strolled over to join the activists. 

Barkley added she has previously seen Nelson Mandela speak here, as well as countless Scottish independence rallies and Black Lives Matter protests in recent years.

In the coming two weeks the square, named after the 18th century British King George III, is set to be one of the main gathering areas for climate activists.

On November 5, up to 100,000 protesters will rally in the square after marching through the city, according to organisers. 

“There is so much negativity in the world today,” said Barkley.

“We need to be positive, to remember that we can all do our bit for this. Eat less meat. Buy less plastic.”

– ‘Increase in cases’ –

Heavy rainfall has lashed Glasgow as it prepares for the conference, which will be attended by more than 100 world leaders including US President Joe Biden.

Although the city is famous for its rainy climate, the extent of the recent downpours has left some roads flooded, causing delays to public transport.

As a security measure, police have blocked off the streets surrounding the summit venue — the Scottish Event Campus, known as the SEC Centre — beside the River Clyde, further inconveniencing locals. 

But for many, the overriding concern is that the huge global event, due to be attended by up to 25,000 delegates from 200 countries, could cause a surge in Covid-19 cases.

Devi Sridhar, a professor of global public health at the University of Edinburgh and a member of the Scottish government’s Covid advisory group, warns it is happening at the worst possible time.

“A mass event (with major movement of people in & out) with an infectious virus will cause an increase in cases,” she said on Twitter last week.

If the predicted increasing infections “put stress on limited health services” then they could prompt the “need for further restrictions,” Sridhar added.

– ‘Failure and cop-out’ –

Shaun Clerkin, a 60-year-old Glasgow resident watching the smoke bomb scenes in George Square, is pessimistic about the attendees reaching an agreement.

“To be quite frank: I believe COP26 will be a failure and a cop-out,” he told AFP. 

He also accused the event organisers of “infringing on the rights of everyday Glaswegians” and shielding visitors from the city’s very real social problems.

“We’ve got homeless people on our streets,” Clerkin said.  

“We’ve got lots of people living in temporary accommodation: in hotels and bed-and-breakfasts. They are living in very substandard accommodation. 

“But at the end of day, the city council wants to hide the homeless and the poor from the delegates at the conference.” 

But for the climate activists in the square, the summit cannot be allowed to fail.

“The outcome of COP26 here in Glasgow is nothing less than life or death for people around the world,” says Andrew Nazdin, the protest’s 33-year-old organiser.

“We need world leaders to step up to the plate, build on the ambitious commitments they made in Paris and make sure we stay below 1.5 degrees of warming.” 

Leaders including Biden have a golden opportunity to take action, Nazdin added, and the activists were there to make sure they hear that message “loud and clear”.

US President Joe Biden heads to a climate gathering this weekend without a commitment on tackling global warming after his deeply-divided Democrats failed to get behind his sweeping economic agenda.

Biden had wanted to show the landmark COP26 conference in Scotland that Washington is leading the world on decarbonizing but the package of social reforms containing his signature climate policy was held up by infighting in Congress.

“The Build Back Better Act is a huge step forward in meeting President Biden’s climate goals,” said Intersect Power chief Sheldon Kimber, part of a group of CEOs calling on lawmakers to end months of inaction as Biden took off for Rome.

“But meeting them is going to take collective will, some social consensus, and leadership from the government and the private sector, and I hope that Congress finds the will to pass this legislation.” 

The White House says it is closer than ever to realizing an ambitious goal of slashing emissions by at least 50 percent over the decade via climate provisions in its $1.75 trillion Build Back Better social welfare bill.

Almost a third of the price tag for the package of reforms on health and child care, education and clean energy is made up of spending on greening the environment.

But differences among Democrats mean it is almost certain not to pass before Sunday — the start of the biggest climate conference since talks in Paris in 2015 and a crucial step in setting worldwide emissions targets.

– Double blow –

Biden’s biggest setback came when a single coal-state Democrat in the 50-50 split Senate killed a program of incentives and penalties within the bill to push fossil fuel burning utilities toward cleaner energy.

The White House released a slimmed-down bill on Thursday offering alternative climate measures and appeasing moderates by drastically reining in the initial $3.5 trillion top line.

Biden had delayed his departure to rally House Democrats behind the pared back bill but progressives insisted there was not enough time to green light the compromise ahead of Biden’s European excursion. 

A party-wide commitment would have allowed Biden to arrive at the UN climate summit with a credible pledge to devote more than $500 billion to meet its emissions targets. 

It was a double blow on the environment for Biden, as the party’s left flank has steadfastly refused to support separate infrastructure legislation without a simultaneous vote on their favored social welfare priorities. 

The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure framework (BIF), which has already advanced from the Senate, would provide almost $50 billion to prepare communities for flooding and wildfires fueled by climate change. 

Liberals in the House, already angered by long-term priorities like family leave and a proposed billionaires’ tax getting left on the cutting room floor, are wary that moderates will drop the party-line social spending bill as soon as the cross-party roads and bridges package passes.    

– ‘Good news’ –

“As you know by now, the House will postpone the vote on the BIF,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues on Thursday night. 

“The good news is that most members who were not prepared for a yes vote today have expressed their commitment to support the BIF.”   

Despite lawmakers’ simmering frustrations as they headed back to their home districts, progressives signaled late Thursday they would be ready — in principle — to vote on the infrastructure bill and the social welfare bill as early as next week.

And Ro Khanna, a progressive congressman from California and deputy whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), told CNN his caucus was “pretty assured” that the social spending package would move forward. 

Biden will see this as a major sign that the left wing is on board with Build Back Better, despite many of their priorities being scaled back, even if they still have objections over the timetable. 

“We wanted a $3.5 trillion package, but we understand the reality of the situation,” CPC chairwoman Pramila Jayapal told reporters. 

Even leftist icon Senator Bernie Sanders, who had complained of “major gaps” in the framework, specifically on prescription drugs and health care expansion, acknowledged that it was the “most consequential bill since the 1960s.” 

Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg attended a small protest in London on Friday against global banks’ role in the fossil fuel industry, ahead of travelling to the upcoming COP26 summit in Scotland.

The 18-year-old environmental icon joined a few dozen young protesters demanding banks stop financing polluting projects, such as fossil fuel extraction, outside the headquarters of Standard Chartered bank.

After being thronged by the hordes of waiting cameras, she briefly rallied with other young activists at the site in London’s financial district before leaving without making a speech.

The group posed for picture behind a banner reading “defund climate chaos! Stop funding our destruction!” while others held aloft placards with similar slogans.

“Today we’re outside @StanChart asking them to stop funding our destruction,” Thunberg tweeted soon after. 

“Banks still pour fantasy amounts into fossil fuels, destabilising the planet and putting many people’s lives at risk.”

The demonstrators had earlier protested at several other sites in the City of London finance hub and were due to hold a vigil later Friday outside the Bank of England.

“We’ve come here today as a part of this week of action because… the UK and corporations in the UK have been funding climate chaos and the destruction of our islands for decades,” Joseph Sikuli, an activist from Tonga in the South Pacific, told AFP.

Organisers say similar protests are being held in 26 countries worldwide ahead of COP26.

The 12-day gathering of world leaders and environmental policy delegates kicks off Sunday in the Scottish city Glasgow.

Thunberg, whose Fridays For Future movement has inspired massive street protests around the world since 2018, has confirmed she plans to join a November 5 march for “climate justice” there.

Earlier this month, she voiced concern the summit would not achieve the landmark agreements needed to combat catastrophic climate change.

“As it is now, this COP will not lead to any big changes, we’re going to have to continue pushing,” she told AFP on the sidelines of a climate concert organised in Stockholm.

The climate crisis does not look like good news for the oil industry, but Saudi Arabia is sniffing an opportunity that could help retain its energy dominance for decades.

Not only is the world’s top oil exporter ramping up production, it is also making a major play for the trillion-dollar emerging industries touted as a route to cleaner air.

Such a move by one of the globe’s biggest polluters has not gone down well with environmental campaigners, with Greenpeace complaining of “greenwashing”.

But a push for the Saudi-promoted “circular carbon economy” is likely to feature at the United Nations’ COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, starting on Sunday, after winning G20 approval during the kingdom’s presidency of the body last year.

The message screamed out loud and clear at this week’s Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in Riyadh: the Saudis are sticking with oil, and they want it to be part of the solution.

“I’m sure that people have noticed that we have been repositioning ourselves,” Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman told the thousands-strong gathering dubbed “Davos in the desert”, featuring superstars of the business world.

Prince Abdulaziz, who cast doubt on predictions of dwindling oil demand, was speaking after Saudi Arabia promised to go carbon-neutral by 2060 and pledged more than $1 billion for circular carbon economy initiatives and to produce “clean” fuel for 750 million of the world’s poor.

– ‘Green era’ –

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, the de facto ruler who briefly appeared at the Riyadh conference, has called it a “green era” for the country, which is simultaneously raising oil production to 13 million barrels a day by 2027.

Prince Abdulaziz flashed up a graphic on the big screen emphasising Saudi plans for “preeminence in the global energy sector” through leadership in oil and gas, petrochemicals, renewables, hydrogen and carbon, listed in that order.

The UN has warned that even with aggressive cuts in greenhouse emissions, average world temperatures are poised to rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by 2030, accelerating a devastating trend of drought, floods and extreme heat worldwide.

So circular carbon efforts — sucking carbon from the air and emissions, and repurposing it for products such as cleaner fuels and fertilisers — are needed to ease pollution further, experts say.

“The circular carbon economy may not sound great to those advocating for a hard break with hydrocarbons, but it is the logical way to produce a number of low or zero-emission fuels,” Karen Young, director of the Program on Economics and Energy at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told AFP.

The problem with carbon capture and reuse lies in implementation: the technologies are unproven, they can be costly and hard to scale, and they will need vast investment to get off the ground.

“The need is hundreds of billions (of dollars) a year,” Bill Winters, group CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, told the FII.

“Without a market to facilitate that transfer from the private sector into the hands of people that can actually get the carbon out of the environment, we won’t get there.”

– ‘Fossil fuel bastion’ –

Greenpeace cast doubt on Saudi Arabia’s motives, saying environmental concerns were “at best secondary” in the switch to the new approach.

“Saudi Arabia remains the bastion of the fossil fuel era, despite their ‘Green Initiatives’ and renewable projects, which represent a fraction of the investment that they continue to pump into the fossil fuel industry,” Greenpeace MENA campaign manager Ahmed El Droubi told AFP.

“Their strategic position, as the cheapest producer of oil on the planet, is allowing them to continue to securely invest in fossil fuels, with at best secondary consideration to the impacts on the climate.”

However, Saudi Arabia’s strong position in the energy sector is likely to remain as the industry evolves, according to Young.

“Saudi Arabia can be dominant as we continue to use oil especially for petrochemicals and transport fuels, and more so natural gas in the next decade or two,” she said.

“In renewables, Saudi Arabia has a strong stake in blue and green hydrogen production, solar production… and in solutions in carbon capture and storage. They will be in the energy business for many years to come.”

On Monday John Kerry, US President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, told world leaders at the Middle East Green Initiative summit in Riyadh that the shift to cleaner energy was the “biggest market opportunity the world has ever known”.

“The winners are going to be the people that get into that market, and I think that is something the crown prince has understood,” he said, nodding to MBS who was seated nearby.

For over three decades, Sandor Perzolt’s ancestral farm has resided in Serbia or Croatia, depending on the map. His family’s land near the Danube is locked in an ongoing dispute shaped by the river’s changing course.

The quarrel has left locals like Perzolt caught in an administrative tug of war, curtailing their livelihoods in a row that has the potential to become combustible.  

Over the generations, Perzolt’s small patch of gentle farmland has seen kingdoms rise and fall with borders coming and going. 

The meandering Danube has long served as a boundary throughout much of central and southeastern Europe, where the river divided competing empires and ethnic groups. 

In the 1990s, new borders were again drawn following years of brutal fighting that saw Yugoslavia ripped apart and several republics emerge in its wake.   

“I do have a feeling that I live in two countries”, the 64-year-old told AFP, while shucking corn with his wife.

The ongoing tussle over the area stems from different interpretations of where exactly the border lies. 

For decades, Serbia has argued that the national boundary cuts through the centre of the river — wherever it may be flowing at the moment — with the land east of the Danube belonging to Belgrade. 

Croatia, on the other hand, claims a smattering of enclaves along the Danube’s eastern banks, citing older maps that no longer reflect the river’s current course.  

– Talking about talks –

The Perzolts and a small number of families residing in the disputed patches are left to manage the pitfalls that come with living in the territorial purgatory. 

“After I got married in (the early) 1990s, I became a Croatian for the first time and I am still their citizen,” Perzolt explained. 

“But I also received Serbian citizenship because I could not register my tractors otherwise.” 

Zagreb continues to provide the family with state subsidies to farm. 

Still, Perzolt is barred from selling his goods in Croatia because Croatian officials require customs duties for all products that move through its checkpoint on the opposite side of the river.  

“You know the procedure… They would ask if I carry alcohol or cigarettes. We are not smugglers, we are farmers,” Perzolt said.

Most of the disputed 140 square kilometres (54 miles) of land is uninhabited and consists largely of forests and islands.

The area briefly made headlines in 2015 when a group of right-wing libertarians sought to exploit the overlapping claims and announced the formation of a new country — the “Free republic of Liberland” — on one of the river’s islands, only to be chased away by Croatian border police.  

Croatian and Serbian authorities have made occasional attempts over the years at resolving the issue. 

In the early 2000s, a joint commission was created to address the dispute but rarely met and offered no roadmap to move ahead.  

And then in 2018, the presidents of Serbia and Croatia vowed to take the case to international arbitration if they failed to reach an agreement before 2020. 

The deadline later passed with officials citing the pandemic as the reason for the delay.

“We expect that after international travel returns to normal as well as the practice of holding sessions, talks over establishing the border will continue,” said the Croatian foreign ministry in a statement. 

– ‘Complicated and stupid’ –

Croatia — an EU member — has vowed to use the issue to block Serbia’s pathway to membership in the bloc if they fail to reach an agreement.

Serbian officials appear to have little appetite for conceding any land to their erstwhile rivals in Zagreb, come what may.    

“It’s certain that the Republic of Serbia will not accept any arrangement that would imply trading our own territory,” Nemanja Starovic, a state secretary in the Serbian foreign ministry, told AFP.

Political analyst Aleksandar Popov said neither country appeared to be doing much to hammer out a deal, with both sides using “inflammatory rhetoric” instead.

Disagreements over scraps of land are common in several former Yugoslav countries, with Brussels warning EU aspirants in the Balkans that border disputes must be resolved before joining the bloc. 

With no solution in sight, residents in the disputed areas remain stuck in the middle, with some longing for the days when the land was part of a single country and life was simpler. 

“It is complicated and stupid,” said Petar Maksimovic, who owns a fish restaurant along the contested eastern riverbank.  

Gone are the days, the fisherman explained, when he could cross the river with ease to help a friend with their harvest or enjoy a glass of wine. 

“In order to visit my old friends on the Croatian side… I need my passport and a vaccination pass,” Maksimovic told AFP.

“Now, I don’t even go anymore.”

Days before the United Nations COP26 summit in Glasgow, China has submitted a renewed emissions-cutting plan that failed to include substantial new commitments to drastically reduce carbon output in the near future from the world’s biggest polluter.

As part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, all countries agreed to slash emissions to limit temperature rises, and to submit ambitious plans for further cuts every five years.

Ahead of the summit, which begins Sunday, we look at China’s position.

What is China promising?

Beijing’s new submission to the UN confirmed its goal to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060 and slash emissions intensity — or emissions per unit of economic output — by more than 65 percent.

China promises to peak emissions “before” 2030, but it has failed to specify the size of the peak or set an absolute cap, meaning it can essentially keep increasing emissions until then.

By 2030, its share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption will be “around 25 percent”.

There was also a new commitment to increase wind and solar power capacity.

But there is little real detail of how it will achieve its climate goals.

Is it enough?

China’s new commitments are virtually unchanged from previous promises.

Environmentalists say they are not enough to cap a global temperature rise at well below 2 degrees Celsius, as stipulated in the Paris agreement.

Many had hoped for China to wean itself off coal and peak emissions much earlier than 2030, and reduce pollution from heavy industries such as cement, steel and aluminium over the next five years.

“There has been a lot of resistance within the system to embrace higher ambitions that would be in line with international ambitions,” Li Shuo, from Greenpeace Asia, said.

“If we wait until 2030… the curve (for emission cuts) between 2030 and 2060 is so steep to the extent that some people think this is science fiction.”

How important is China?

Commitments from China — the world’s biggest polluter — matter more than any other country’s.

It is responsible for emitting more than a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The country is currently running 1,058 coal plants, more than half the world’s capacity, with more in the pipeline.

US climate envoy John Kerry warned on a recent visit to China that Beijing’s continued building of coal-fired plants — the single largest source of carbon pollution — could “undo” the potential to meet environmental targets globally.

What about power supply?

China faces a struggle to wean itself off coal, which fuels nearly 60 percent of its economy.

Although it announced plans to have 80 percent of its economy powered by renewables by 2060, transmission and storage bottlenecks and a dwindling supply of raw materials for wind and solar farms have slowed investments in renewables.

A domestic backlash against nuclear power over safety concerns means coal is crucial to China’s energy security.

Officials delayed submitting their climate pledges after a severe power crunch led to ramping up coal production, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

“They’ve kept it to the last minute so that they can take into account China’s domestic priorities while not eroding its international image,” Greenpeace’s Li said.

Beijing has already committed to stopping funding coal projects overseas, and will start cutting coal output at home in 2026.

Will plans for new forests help?

China plans to increase its forest stock by six billion cubic metres compared with 2005 levels to serve as carbon sinks, according to the UN document. This is up from 4.5 billion cubic metres.

But artificial forests planted in haste to meet official targets threatened to erode the country’s biodiversity, conservationist Zhou Jinfeng warned.

Protecting biodiversity is key to adapting to life on a warming planet, but China is also yet to sign up to the “30 by 30” agenda, which commits to giving 30 percent of the Earth’s land and oceans protected status by 2030.

Why isn’t China doing more?

China is reluctant to be pressured by other countries to act, and is also scoring political points.

Top climate envoy Xie Zhenhua this week said China was “going through the latest developments”, including promises from other big countries, before announcing its plans.

Beijing has warned Washington that cooperation on climate matters could be hit by declining relations and criticised rich countries for giving funds that are “far from meeting the needs of developing countries to adapt to climate change”.

China will also seek exemptions from the carbon tax imposed by the European Union, experts said.

While more than 120 heads of government will travel to Glasgow, President Xi Jinping has not left China during the pandemic and is unlikely to attend.