BAKU: The world approved a bitterly negotiated climate deal Sunday but poorer nations most at the mercy of worsening disasters dismissed a $300 billion a year pledge from wealthy historic polluters as insultingly low.
After two exhausting weeks of chaotic bargaining and sleepless nights, nearly 200 nations banged through the contentious finance pact in the early hours in a sports stadium in Azerbaijan.
But the applause had barely subsided when India delivered a full-throated rejection of the “abysmally poor” deal, kicking off a firestorm of criticism from across the developing world.
“It’s a paltry sum,” thundered India’s delegate Chandni Raina.
“This document is little more than an optical illusion. This, in our opinion, will not address the enormity of the challenge we all face.”
Sierra Leone’s climate minister Jiwoh Abdulai said it showed a “lack of goodwill” from rich countries to stand by the world’s poorest as they confront rising seas and harsher droughts.
Nigeria’s envoy Nkiruka Maduekwe put it more bluntly: “This is an insult.”
Some countries had accused Azerbaijan, an oil and gas exporter, of lacking the will to meet the moment in a year defined by costly disasters and on track to become the hottest on record.
But at protests throughout COP29, developed nations — major economies like the European Union, United States and Japan — were accused of negotiating in bad faith, making a fair deal impossible.
Developing nations arrived in the Caspian Sea city of Baku hoping to secure a massive financial boost from rich countries many times above their existing pledge of $100 billion a year.
Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, said she would return home with only “small portion” of what she fought for, but not empty-handed.
“It isn’t nearly enough, but it’s a start,” said Stege, whose atoll nation homeland faces an existential threat from creeping sea levels.
Nations had struggled at COP29 to reconcile long-standing divisions over how much developed nations most accountable for historic climate change should provide to poorer countries least responsible but most impacted by Earth’s rapid warming.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell acknowledged the final deal was imperfect and said “no country got everything they wanted.”
“This is no time for victory laps,” he said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he had “hoped for a more ambitious outcome” and appealed to governments to see it as a starting point.
Developed countries only put the $300 billion figure on the table on Saturday after COP29 went into extra time and diplomats worked through the night to improve an earlier spurned offer.
Bleary-eyed diplomats, huddled anxiously in groups, were still polishing the final phrasing on the plenary floor in the dying hours before the deal passed.
UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband hailed “a critical eleventh hour deal at the eleventh hour for the climate.”
At points, the talks appeared on the brink of collapse.
Delegates stormed out of meetings, fired shots across the bow, and threatened to walk away from the negotiating table should rich nations not cough up more cash.
In the end — despite repeating that “no deal is better than a bad deal” — developing nations did not stand in the way of an agreement.
US President Joe Biden cast the agreement reached in Baku as a “historic outcome.”
EU climate envoy Wopke Hoekstra said it would be remembered as “the start of a new era for climate finance.”
The agreement commits developed nations to pay at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developing countries green their economies, cut emissions and prepare for worse disasters.
It falls short of the $390 billion that economists commissioned by the United Nations had deemed a fair share contribution by developed nations.
“This COP has been a disaster for the developing world,” said Mohamed Adow, the Kenyan director of Power Shift Africa, a think tank.
“It’s a betrayal of both people and planet, by wealthy countries who claim to take climate change seriously.”
The United States and EU pushed to have newly wealthy emerging economies like China — the world’s largest emitter — chip in.
Wealthy nations said it was politically unrealistic to expect more in direct government funding at a time of geopolitical uncertainty and economic belt-tightening.
Donald Trump, a skeptic of both climate change and foreign assistance, was elected just days before COP29 began and his victory cast a pall over the UN talks.
Other countries, particularly in the EU — the largest contributor of climate finance — saw right-wing backlashes against the green agenda, not fertile conditions for raising big sums of public money.
The final deal “encourages” developing countries to make contributions on a voluntary basis, reflecting no change for China, which already provides climate finance on its own terms.
The deal also posits a larger overall target of $1.3 trillion per year to cope with rising temperatures and disasters, but most would come from private sources.
Developing nations slam ‘paltry’ $300 billion climate deal
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Developing nations slam ‘paltry’ $300 billion climate deal
- Developing countries say finance pact “optical illusion” and “lack of goodwill” from rich countries amid heated negotiations
- Agreement commits developed nations to pay at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developing countries green their economies
Evacuation order for 11 villages on Ukraine border with Russia
“This decision takes into account the constant threat to civilian lives because of the bombardments of border communities,” Sumy’s administration said.
Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said its forces had taken another Sumy village, Vodolagy, known as Vodolahy in Ukrainian.
Russia in recent weeks has claimed to have taken several villages in the northeastern region, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week that Moscow was massing more than 50,000 soldiers nearby in a sign of a possible offensive.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s border guard service, Andriy Demchenko, on Thursday said that Russia was poised to “attempt an attack” on Sumy.
He said the Russian troop build-up began when Moscow’s forces fought Ukrainian soldiers who last year had entered the Russian side of the border, in the Kursk region.
Russia has recently retaken control of virtually all of Kursk.
Currently, Russia — which launched its all-out invasion in February 2022 — controls around 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. The ongoing conflict has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians on both sides.
Washington has been leading diplomatic efforts to try to bring about a ceasefire, but Kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of not wanting peace.
The Kremlin has proposed further negotiations in Istanbul on Monday, after a May 16 round of talks that yielded little beyond a large prisoner-of-war exchange.
Kyiv has not yet said whether it will attend the Istanbul meeting, and is demanding that Moscow drop its opposition to an immediate truce.
Afghanistan welcomes upgraded diplomatic ties with Pakistan
- The move signals easing tensions between the neighboring countries have cooled in recent months
- Tensions fueled by security concerns and a campaign by Islamabad to expel tens of thousands of Afghans
KABUL: Afghanistan has welcomed the decision to upgrade diplomatic relations with Pakistan, where the Taliban government’s foreign minister is due to travel in the coming days, his office said on Saturday.
The move signals easing tensions between the neighboring countries, as relations between the Taliban authorities and Pakistan – already rocky – have cooled in recent months, fueled by security concerns and a campaign by Islamabad to expel tens of thousands of Afghans.
Pakistan’s top diplomat on Friday said the charge d’affaires stationed in Kabul would be elevated to the rank of ambassador, with Kabul later announcing its representative in Islamabad would also be upgraded.
“This elevation in diplomatic representation between Afghanistan & Pakistan paves the way for enhanced bilateral cooperation in multiple domains,” the Aghan foreign ministry said on X.
Kabul’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is due to visit Pakistan “in the coming days,” ministry spokesman Zia Ahmad Takal said.
Muttaqi met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar in May in Beijing as part of a trilateral meeting with their Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
Wang afterwards announced Kabul and Islamabad’s intention to exchange ambassadors and expressed Beijing’s willingness “to continue to assist with improving Afghanistan-Pakistan ties.”
Dar hailed the “positive trajectory” of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations on Friday, saying the upgrading of their representatives would “promote further exchanges between two fraternal countries.”
Only a handful of countries – including China – have agreed to host Taliban government ambassadors since their return to power in 2021, with no country yet formally recognizing the administration.
Russia last month said it would also accredit a Taliban government ambassador, days after removing the group’s “terrorist” designation.
China rebukes Macron's comparison of Ukraine and Taiwan
- China's embassy fired back that the "Taiwan question is entirely China's internal affair
SINGAPORE: China hit back at French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday for drawing a connection between the Ukraine conflict and the fate of Taiwan, saying the two issues are "different in nature, and not comparable at all".
"Comparing the Taiwan question with the Ukraine issue is unacceptable," China's embassy in Singapore said on social media, a day after Macron warned Asian defence officials in Singapore not to view Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a far-away problem.
"If we consider that Russia could be allowed to take a part of the territory of Ukraine without any restriction, without any constraint, without any reaction of the global order, how would you phrase what could happen in Taiwan?" Macron told the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier annual security forum.
"What would you do the day something happens in the Philippines?"
China's embassy fired back that the "Taiwan question is entirely China's internal affair. There is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory."
While Taiwan considers itself a sovereign nation, China has said it will not rule out using force to bring it under its control.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned Saturday at the same forum in Singapore that China was "credibly preparing" to use military force to upend the balance of power in Asia, adding the Chinese military was building the capabilities to invade Taiwan and "rehearsing for the real deal".
South Koreans rally for presidential hopefuls days before vote
- All major polls have placed liberal Lee Jae-myung well ahead in the presidential race
SEOUL: Thousands of supporters of South Korea’s two leading presidential candidates rallied on Saturday in Seoul, days before a vote triggered by the ex-leader’s disastrous declaration of martial law.
Tuesday’s election caps months of political turmoil sparked by Yoon Suk Yeol’s brief suspension of civilian rule in December, for which he was impeached and removed from office.
All major polls have placed liberal Lee Jae-myung well ahead in the presidential race, with a recent Gallup survey showing 49 percent of respondents viewed him as the best candidate.
Kim Moon-soo, from the conservative People Power Party (PPP) that Yoon left this month, trailed behind at 35 percent.
Organizers from both camps told police they expected tens of thousands of supporters to rally in Seoul on Saturday.
In Seocho, in the south of the capital, Lee supporters gathered holding signs condemning Yoon’s “insurrection.”
“I believe the outcome of the presidential election is already decided,” Lee Kyung-joon, a Lee supporter, told AFP.
“I came to today’s rally to help condemn the forces involved in the martial law attempt,” he added, referring to ex-president Yoon’s political allies.
Yoon is currently on trial for insurrection, and Kwon Oh-hyeok, one of the organizers of Saturday’s rally, said a Lee victory in the June 3 vote was crucial to holding him accountable.
“Isn’t the People Power Party’s decision to run in the snap election — triggered by Yoon’s removal from office — an insult and a betrayal of the people?” Kwon told rally participants.
“Fellow citizens, we must win by a landslide to deliver the justice this moment demands.”
On the other side of town, in Gwanghwamun Square, conservatives — including supporters of disgraced ex-leader Yoon — filled the streets holding signs that read “Yoon Again” and “Early voting is invalid!“
Yoon’s martial law attempt, which he claimed was necessary to “root out” pro-North Korean, “anti-state” forces, emboldened a wave of extreme supporters including far-right YouTubers and radical religious figures.
Many have spread unverified content online, including allegations of Chinese espionage and fraud within South Korea’s electoral system.
That sentiment was on full display at Saturday’s rally, where protesters called for the dissolution of the National Election Commission over a series of mishaps during the two-day early voting period this week.
“People believe the root of all these problems lies with the National Election Commission, and that it should be held accountable,” conservative protester Rhee Kang-san told AFP.
Both frontrunner Lee of the liberal Democratic Party and conservative challenger Kim have cast the race as a battle for the soul of the country.
More than a third of those eligible cast their ballots in early voting on Thursday and Friday, according to the election commission.
Overseas voting reached a record high, with nearly four-fifths of the 1.97 million eligible voters casting their ballots last week.
Experts say that regardless of who wins, South Korea’s polarization is likely to deepen.
If Lee wins, the conservatives “will do whatever it takes to undermine him and his government, whether their logic makes sense or not,” political analyst Park Sang-byung told AFP.
“Unless the PPP distances itself from Yoon’s extremist base, it could turn to misinformation — such as unfounded claims of election fraud — to mobilize the right against Lee. That’s a troubling prospect,” he said.
Whoever succeeds Yoon will also have to grapple with a worsening economic downturn, one of the world’s lowest birth rates, the soaring cost of living and bellicose neighbor North Korea.
He will also have to navigate a mounting superpower standoff between the United States, South Korea’s traditional security guarantor, and China, its largest trade partner.
Rescue operations underway after Nigeria flooding kills at least 115
- Torrential rains late Wednesday through early Thursday washed away and submerged dozens of homes in and around the town of Mokwa
- Bodies were swept into the river and carried downstream, complicating efforts to compile a death toll
ABUJA: Search-and-rescue operations continued in Nigeria Saturday after flash flooding in the central west killed at least 115 people, President Bola Tinubu said, as officials warned the toll was expected to rise.
Torrential rains late Wednesday through early Thursday washed away and submerged dozens of homes in and around the town of Mokwa, located near the Niger River.
Bodies were swept into the river and carried downstream, complicating efforts to compile a death toll, Ibrahim Audu Husseini, a spokesman for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, said.
Tinubu, in an overnight post on social media, said that security forces were being sent to help first responders, while “relief materials and temporary shelter assistance are being deployed without delay.”
Buildings collapsed and roads were inundated in the town, located more than 350 kilometers (215 miles) by road from the capital Abuja, an AFP journalist in Mokwa observed Friday.
Emergency services and residents searched through the rubble as floodwaters flowed alongside.
“Some bodies were recovered from the debris of collapsed homes,” Husseini said, adding that his teams would need excavators to retrieve corpses.
He said many were still missing, citing a family of 12 where only four members had been accounted for as of Friday.
Mohammed Tanko, 29, a civil servant, pointed to a house he grew up in, telling reporters: “We lost at least 15 from this house. The property (is) gone. We lost everything.”
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said that the Nigerian Red Cross, local volunteers, the military and police were all aiding in the response.
Nigeria’s rainy season, which usually lasts six months, is just getting started for the year.
Flooding, usually caused by heavy rains and poor infrastructure, wreaks havoc every year, killing hundreds of people across the west African country.
Scientists have also warned that climate change is fueling more extreme weather patterns.
In Nigeria, the floods are exacerbated by inadequate drainage, the construction of homes on waterways and the dumping of waste in drains and water channels.
“This tragic incident serves as a timely reminder of the dangers associated with building on waterways and the critical importance of keeping drainage channels and river paths clear,” NEMA said in a statement.
At least 78 people have been hospitalized with injuries, the Red Cross chief for the state, Gideon Adamu, said.
According to the Daily Trust newspaper, thousands of people have been displaced and more than 50 children in an Islamic school were reported missing.
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency had warned of possible flash floods in 15 of Nigeria’s 36 states, including Niger state, between Wednesday and Friday.
In 2024, more than 1,200 people were killed and 1.2 million displaced in at least 31 out of Nigeria’s 36 states, making it one of the country’s worst flood seasons in decades, according to NEMA.
Local media reported that more than 5,000 people have been left homeless, while the Red Cross said two major bridges in the town were torn apart.
Displaced children played in the flood waters Friday, heightening the possibility of exposure to water-borne diseases, with at least two bodies lying there, covered in banana leaves and printed ankara cloth.
Describing how she escaped the raging waters, Sabuwar Bala, 50, a yam vendor, told reporters: “I was only wearing my underwear, someone loaned me all I’m wearing now. I couldn’t even save my flip-flops.”
“I can’t locate where my home stood because of the destruction,” she said.
