Monday Briefing: U.N. climate talks end with a deal

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November 25, 2024

	By Gaya Gupta

Good morning. We’re covering a deal coming out of U.N. climate talks and the latest in the Middle East.

Plus, photographing the world’s food.

A demonstration at the summit in Baku on Saturday. Rafiq Maqbool/Associated Press

U.N. climate talks end with a deal

Negotiators at this year’s United Nations climate summit, known as COP29, struck an agreement early yesterday to help developing countries adopt cleaner energy and cope with the effects of climate change. Under the deal, wealthy nations pledged to reach $300 billion per year in support by 2035, up from a current target of $100 billion.

But as soon as the deal was declared done, it was immediately assailed as inadequate by a string of delegates. Independent experts have placed the needs of developing countries at $1.3 trillion per year, much higher than what was promised under the agreement.

Countries are expected to submit updated emissions-reduction pledges in the coming months, before a February deadline. And on the heels of the contentious climate talks, negotiators are descending on Busan, South Korea for another U.N.-led climate effort: the first treaty designed to tackle plastic pollution’s growth.

We spoke to David Gelles, who reported on the summit this week from Baku, Azerbaijan.

What were the main goals of this year’s conference?

Every year diplomats from nearly 200 nations gather to try to agree on plans to combat climate change. This year, during a record spell of extreme heat and severe weather, the main goal was to mobilize as much as $1.3 trillion annually to help developing nations adapt to a warming world and transition away from fossil fuels.

But regardless of the final details of the deal, the major fault lines will remain: Vulnerable nations still need huge amounts of money to cope with global warming, and wealthy nations have been slow to make those funds available.”

With a Trump presidency on the horizon, what can we expect from future climate talks?

The U.S. election result was a major topic of conversation at COP29. President-elect Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and pledged to pull out of the Paris climate accord. Given that, few countries are expecting the U.S. to play a major role in climate diplomacy — or the funding of climate finance goals — in the years ahead.

The site of a rocket strike on a house in central Israel. Abir Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock

Hezbollah fired projectiles into Israel

Hezbollah fired about 250 projectiles into Israel yesterday, a day after an Israeli strike in the heart of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, killed dozens. The aerial attack was one of the largest Hezbollah has mounted against Israel since the start of the conflict in the region. It also coincided with a flurry of diplomacy aimed at halting the intensifying fighting.

More than 65 people were wounded in the attack on Saturday in Beirut, and at least 29 people were killed, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Three Israeli defense officials described the strike as an attempt to assassinate a top Hezbollah military commander, Mohammad Haidar.

West Bank: Residents say Israeli forces are adopting tactics similar to the ones they are deploying in Gaza, including airstrikes and the use of Palestinians as human shields.

Dubai: An Israeli rabbi in the United Arab Emirates who had been missing since Thursday has been found dead. Israeli officials said he had been murdered and called his death an act of terrorism.

Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Trump is running his transition team on secret money

President-elect Donald Trump is keeping secret the names of the donors who are funding his transition effort. It’s a break from tradition that could make it impossible to see what interest groups, businesses or wealthy people are helping him jump-start his second term.

Trump has so far declined to sign an agreement with the Biden administration that would impose strict limits on that fund-raising in exchange for up to $7.2 million in federal funds earmarked for the transition. By dodging the agreement, Trump can raise unlimited amounts of money from unknown donors to pay for the staff, the travel and the office space involved in preparing to take over the government. He is the first president-elect to sidestep the restrictions; his conduct is raising alarm among ethics experts. Read more here.

Korai, who was accused of killing a baby girl with black magic, at a shelter in Port Moresby. Andrew Kutan for The New York Times

Sports

Chris Graythen/Getty Images

Taiwo Aina for The New York Times

Alice Loksha Ngaddah, a nurse and mother of two, was kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2018. For more than six years, she bided her time, hoping for an opportunity to escape her abductors with the child she had given birth to in captivity. To get out, she faked a religious conversion.

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Fishing boats in Mauritania. George Steinmetz

The world’s food, in photos

A magazine assignment for the photographer George Steinmetz to document the global nature of the world’s food supply as the overall population nears 10 billion, became a decade-long obsession across six continents. (He also got arrested while photographing fields from a motorized paraglider.)

His new book, “Feed the Planet,” features the voluminous results: some 300 photos, most of them aerial, depicting a staggering variety of food production across 40 countries. Crocodile farms in Thailand, shrimp shellers in India, crop circles in Kansas. He brought a New York Times critic along to watch him work.

Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Bake: These all-purpose biscuits are easy to make.

Wear: Our Better Than Basic columnist likes these stylish riding boots.

Read: Get lost in these four fantasy books.

Play: Spelling Bee, the Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku. Find all our games here.

That’s it for today. See you tomorrow. — Gaya

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