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The top United Nations court took up the largest case in its history on Monday, hearing the plight of several small island nations helpless in combating the devastating impact of climate change that they feel endangers their very survival. They demand that major polluting nations be held to account. After years of lobbying by island nations who fear they could simply disappear under rising sea waters, the U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice last year for an opinion on “the obligations of States in respect of climate change.” “The stakes could not be higher. The survival of...

The United Nations has been looking for issues deemed larger than the perennial conflicts of traditional geopolitics. It created the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 to acquire the authority to run the global economy so as to “save the planet” and “equitably” share the benefits of “sustainable” (i.e., limited) development. It holds a massive conference (over 65,000 attendees) towards the end of each year staged as if governments were adhering to UN mandates. The 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) in the FCCC series concluded Saturday (Nov. 23) in Baku, Azerbaijan. It ran a day over the...

The Biden administration’s “climate envoy,” John Kerry, claimed that the United States was “on the brink of needing to declare a climate emergency.” During a forum hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics last week, when asked what people who care about the climate and are concerned about the future “should be doing,” Kerry stated that people needed to “start focusing” on the arguments that went with President-elect Donald Trump’s transition. Kerry added that there were “seven million people” who were dying each year due to poor air quality.

During Donald Trump’s first successful presidential campaign, he promised to pull the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. He was unable to do so until the day after the 2020 election he lost, and the reprieve lasted only a little more than two months because Joe Biden rejoined the pact the day he was inaugurated. It’s another one of the many of Biden’s messes that Trump has to clean up. The U.S. should have never been a part of the Paris Agreement. Committing our country to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which means reductions in fossil fuel use, is foolish. Reaching the...

While most attendees of the conference recognize that when President-elect Trump takes office in January, the U.S. will likely once again withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement and cut off U.S. funding to the COP29 agenda. The COP29 conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, ended Saturday after two weeks of bitter division, with a pledge from countries considered wealthy pledging to provide $300 billion a year by 2035 to poorer countries to help them deal with the supposed impacts of climate change and to move their economies toward clean energy. COP stands for “Conference of the Parties,” which are the nearly 200...

Environmental negotiators at the U.N.’s COP29 climate alarmism summit issued their once and final demand Sunday for a $300 billion a year pledge from wealthy countries to gift poorer countries between now and 2035. Climate doomers quickly wailed that was not nearly enough and demanded more – much more – to take the sum to $400 billion at least. COP29, formally the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is the 19th edition of the U.N.’s official assembly to discuss how to address the alleged global climate crisis. Around 50,000 people flew in from around...

The Cop29 climate conference is on the verge of collapse, with delegates scrambling to agree an 11th-hour deal after officials from poorer nations walked out in a row over funding.

The COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev says "time is not on our side" as the UN's climate summit is on the verge of collapse A bitter fallout erupted between richer and poorer countries over money to help tackle climate change and several countries walked out of negotiations Developing countries have dismissed an offer of $250bn (£199bn) per year to help them tackle climate change – some want a figure closer to $500bn One agreement has been made, on carbon markets, which has been "nine years in the making" The anger here from developing countries is palpable, our environment correspondent Matt McGrath...

“Shame” shouted some climate campaigners, “pay up!” shouted others. The object of their venom was John Podesta, who is the US climate envoy, and was being escorted from a meeting room in chaotic scenes here in Baku. COP29 has taken a dramatic turn here this afternoon, with walkouts from developing countries from meetings with the Azerbaijani presidency over climate finance. There was palpable anger among the least developed countries and island states that they were being messed around by richer nations. They say that the financial offer being negotiated is insulting, they feel excluded and ignored. In this atmosphere, campaigners...

Austin, Texas, planned to transition all its city buses to electric, but the ambitious climate-friendly goal has come to a screeching halt. The Austin Monitor reports that 46 new electric buses – costing around $1 million each – will be in storage for at least a year due to lack of charging infrastructure to keep them running all day. The buses were manufactured by now-bankrupt Proterra, which has left city transit districts across the country with fleets of inoperable buses. Proterra was acquired by Phoenix Motor Inc., which the Monitor reports is struggling to service warranties and repair technical issues....

“It makes common sense to tax mega polluters and the mega-rich to ensure that we have the money needed for climate action at home and globally” according to one campaigner. Who should foot the climate finance bill - from loss and damage funds to new funding targets - has become an enduring controversy at recent COPs. Experts have said that at least $1 trillion (€948 billion) needs to flow to developing nations by 2030 and a new climate finance goal known as the new collective quantified goal (NCQG) hangs in the balance in Baku. Rich countries are calling for the...

BAKU, Azerbaijan — America’s top climate diplomat John Podesta told foreign officials Monday that the U.S. remains committed to fighting climate change, even if President-elect Donald Trump isn’t.

White House climate adviser John Podesta on Monday sought to reassure the world that the U.S. would move forward on combating climate change despite the election of President-elect Trump, who has long cast doubt on the science behind the issue. “While the United States federal government under Donald Trump may put climate action on the back burner, the work to contain climate change is going to continue in the United States with commitment and passion and belief,” Podesta said during a press conference at the COP 29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. “Here at COP 29 and moving forward, the...

Donald Trump’s decisive victory is a stunning setback for the fight against climate change. The Republican president-elect’s return to the White House means the US is going to squander precious momentum, unraveling hard-won policy progress that was just beginning to pay off, all for the second time in less than a decade. It comes at a moment when the world can’t afford to waste time, with nations far off track from any emissions trajectories that would keep our ecosystems stable and our communities safe. Under the policies in place today, the planet is already set to warm by more than...

Uncle Sam infected by a different strain of “long Covid”... As the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) carries out widely-criticized responses to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, officials say the agency’s Disaster Recovery Fund is incapable of handling a third major storm. While some are circulating false accusations that disaster funds have been diverted to immigrants or poured into the proxy war in Ukraine, a review of the agency’s 2024 outlays reveals a different, ongoing drain on FEMA’s coffers: Long after the end of the declared Covid-19 emergency, FEMA is still pumping out billions of dollars to pay for pandemic expenses...

In today's live we are going over the BRICS and what it really means to have a "GOLD BACKED" not "GOLD PEGGED" currency!

In 1989, Shell published an internal report analyzing two possible futures, one in which fossil fuels were brought under control and one in which they weren't. In the former, which they called the "sustainable world" scenario, greenhouse gas emissions began declining rapidly around the year 2000 and global warming was kept in check. In the other, where fossil fuel production continued apace, Shell researchers predicted a world of climate chaos—one with massive increases in "violent weather," particularly "more storms" and "more deluges." These disasters, Shell concluded, would create crises of such severity that "[c]ivilization could prove a fragile thing."....... If...

DEI is ‘compatible with academic freedom,’ AAUP says.. American Association of University Professors condemns ‘attacks on DEI’ and defends ‘diversity goals’ in a new statement Diversity, equity, and inclusion statements and hiring practices at universities are “compatible with academic freedom,” the American Association of University Professors said in a statement Wednesday. “This committee rejects the notion that the use of DEI criteria for faculty evaluation is categorically incompatible with academic freedom,” the statement, drafted by the subcommittee of the Association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, reads. The left-leaning faculty union said DEI practices do not impose political or...

HAVANA, October 8. /TASS/. Cuba has submitted an official request to be included in BRICS as a partner country in a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the director general of the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s General Division of Bilateral Affair, Carlos Pereira, said. "Cuba has submitted an official request to join BRICS as a partner country in a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin who is the chairman of the grouping which is consolidating global politics and the hope of the Global South as a key player," the senior Cuban diplomat said in a statement on his page on X.

The first thing people have to know is there is absolutely zero scientific evidence that CO2, cars, oil, coal, natural gas, methane, or anything else that is being blamed for the climate has any direct relationship with temperatures, sea levels, or storm activity. Temperatures have risen and fallen the last 160 years, just as they have for billions of years, while we have used all of these products. Droughts come and go today, as they have throughout history. The reason there are so many deserts is long droughts throughout history. Floods and storms come and go, as they always have....