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Trump claims victory over Harris in US presidential election

By - Nov 06,2024 - Last updated at Nov 06,2024

Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures at supporters after speaking as he holds hands with former US First Lady Melania Trump during an election night event at the West Palm Beach Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, early on November 6, 2024 (AFP photo)

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump claimed victory and pledged to "heal" the country Wednesday as results put him on the verge of beating Kamala Harris in a stunning White House comeback.
His exuberant speech came despite the fact that only Fox News had declared him the winner, with no other US networks having made the call so far.
As jubilant supporters cheered and chanted "USA", Trump took to the stage at his campaign headquarters in Florida along with his wife Melania and several of his children.
"We are going to help our country heal," the Republican former president said.
"It's a political victory that our country has never seen before."
US networks have called the swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina for the 78-year-old, and he led the Democratic vice president in the others although they have not been called yet.
Gloom swiftly descended on Harris's camp.
"You won't hear from the vice president tonight but you will hear from her tomorrow," Cedric Richmond, Harris campaign co-chair, told a watch party in Washington as supporters left.
In a further blow to Democrats, Trump's Republican Party also seized control of the Senate, flipping two seats to overturn a narrow Democratic majority.
A Trump victory threatens to cause shockwaves around the world, as US allies in Europe and Asia fear a return of his nationalist policies and his praise of autocrats like Russia's Vladimir Putin.
But the US dollar surged and bitcoin hit a record high while most equity markets advanced as traders bet on a victory for Trump as the results rolled in.
 
Mood shift 
 
Polls for weeks had shown a knife-edge race between Harris and Trump, who would be the oldest ever president at the time of inauguration, the first felon president and only the second in history to serve non-consecutive terms.
Trump also faces sentencing in a criminal case over hush money payments on November 26, while the controversy over his denial of his 2020 election defeat by Joe Biden still persists.
But in the end victory came surprisingly quickly.
The mood shifted sharply at Harris's watch party in Howard University -- her former college and a historically Black university in Washington -- as the results came in.
"I am scared," said Charlyn Anderson. "I am anxious now. I am leaving, my legs can barely move."
In contrast, the celebrations intensified at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and the watch party nearby.
Tech tycoon Elon Musk, who has backed Trump and stands to lead a government efficiency commission under him, posted a picture of himself with the Republican.
"Game, set and match," Musk said on X, the social media network he owns along with the Tesla electric vehicle firm and the Space X company.
Millions of Americans had lined up throughout Election Day -- and millions more voted early -- in a race with momentous consequences for the United States and the world.
They were deciding whether to either hand a historic comeback to Trump or make Harris the first woman in the world's most powerful job.
In a stark reminder of the tension -- and fears of outright violence -- dozens of bomb threats were made against polling stations in Georgia and Pennsylvania.
The FBI said the threats appeared to originate in Russia, which is accused by Washington of trying to meddle in the election. The threats were all hoaxes but succeeded in disrupting proceedings.
 
Dark rhetoric 
 
Harris, 60, had aiming to be only the second Black and first person of South Asian descent to be president.
She made a dramatic entrance into the race when Biden dropped out in July, while Trump -- twice impeached while president -- has since ridden out two assassination attempts and a criminal conviction.
She hammered home her message that Trump was a threat to democracy and her opposition to Trump-backed abortion bans.
Trump has vowed an unprecedented deportation campaign of millions of undocumented immigrants, in a campaign full of dark rhetoric.
The election is being watched closely around the world including in the war zones of Ukraine and the Middle East. Trump has indicated he will cut aid to Kyiv's battle against the Russian invasion.

Russian strike kills six, wounds 23 in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia

By - Nov 05,2024 - Last updated at Nov 05,2024

Ukrainian law enforcement officers stand next to a destroyed supermarket building following a missile attack in Kharkiv early on Monday (AFP photo)

KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian strike on an infrastructure facility in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia near the front line killed six people and wounded 23 more, authorities said on Tuesday.

The industrial hub had a pre-war population of more than 700,000 people and lies around 35 kilometres from the nearest Russian positions.

The head of the Zaporizhzhia region, Ivan Fedorov reported the toll on social media while prosecutors said a civilian infrastructure facility had been damaged in the ballistic missile attack.

The Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said the Russian strike illustrated that his country needed more support from allies.

"This violence must be stopped by strong action. A stronger stance of the allies is needed," he wrote on social media.

Zaporizhzhia city has come under increasing Russian aerial bombardments in recent weeks and analysts of the Russian invasion have speculated that the Kremlin could launch an offensive towards the city this winter.

The Kremlin claimed to have annexed the wider Zaporizhzhia region in late 2022 despite not having full military control over it.

In a separate attack on the eastern region of Kharkiv, authorities said Russian shelling killed a man and a woman -- both 48-years-old -- in the village of Glushkivka.

Russian forces are also advancing in the Kharkiv region and are pressuring the civilian hub of Kupiansk, where authorities have urged civilians to flee.

In the Russian-occupied district of Lysychansk, Moscow-installed authorities said a Ukrainian strike killed two civilians.

Blue-collar Pennsylvania voters could be 'deciding factor' in US election

By - Nov 05,2024 - Last updated at Nov 05,2024

Voters line up at a polling station at Farmersville Elementary School in Easton, Pennsylvania, on Election Day, Tuesday (AFP photo)

ERIE, United States — Protecting and creating new jobs were among the most pressing issues for voters lining up to cast their ballots on Tuesday in Erie, a competitive blue-collar Pennsylvania county with a formidable reputation for picking US election winners.

Mason Ken Thompson, 66, voted at Edison Elementary School in Erie, the main city in the Pennsylvania county of the same name whose 270,000 people -- voting in a tightly-contested swing state -- will have an outsized role in whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins the White House.

 

"Manufacturing jobs have gone away from Erie. It's a big problem, and Trump hasn't helped that situation at all," said Thompson, who wore a camouflage baseball cap adorned with the US flag.

"I believe that Kamala is going to help the young people with housing," he added as a DJ played a roster of all-American hits while voters streamed into the school-turned-polling station.

 

Nearby, the Country Fair gas station handed free donuts to voters.

 

Erie is one of a handful of counties to have boomeranged between Democrat and Republican, voting for former president Barack Obama twice, then narrowly for Trump, before scraping out a Democratic win for President Joe Biden in 2020.

The path to victory for both former president Trump and Vice President Harris likely runs through Pennsylvania, and largely white- and working-class Erie in the state's northwestern corner encapsulates many of its top issues.

 

Pennsylvania has 19 electoral college votes, more than any of the other swing states which could go for either Harris or Trump, with polls showing them locked in a dead heat.

 

"I don't know how we became so important around here... we are like a deciding factor," said Marchelle Beason, 46, who also cast her vote at Edison Elementary.

Proudly sporting her "I voted" sticker, she said "way, way more people" were casting their ballot than in 2020.

 

'America comes first' 

 

As with many swing counties in the Keystone State, Erie was once a thriving industrial hub that has been hit by outsourcing and automation.

It is now increasingly reliant on the service sector, but is still home to many blue collar jobs.

"A lot of the young people are moving out and something to keep them in Erie is what we really need," voter Chris Quest, 69, told AFP on Monday after casting her early ballot.

 

Darlene Taylor, 56, said she wanted to "close the border" to protect US jobs.

 

"We don't need another four more years of high inflation, gas prices, [and] lying," said Taylor, who wore a homemade Trump T-shirt after also casting her vote at Edison Elementary.

 

"America comes first, and Harris is not going to support that."

 

In 2019, General Electric's rail vehicle building operations shut up shop in Erie, leaving a void in the city where generations of workers had punched in and out for the sprawling US "toasters to TV shows" conglomerate.

Wabtec, formed from the storied Westinghouse corporation, stepped in to continue making trains in the city -- but with far fewer employees than GE.

Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey recently announced $48 million for the Wabtec factory to develop hydrogen batteries for rail.

The timing was no accident.

Casey is locked in a bitter contest for reelection with Republican Dave McCormick, a race which could decide which party has control of the US Senate.

Wabtec worker Henry Miller said he wanted politicians who would "start helping people in our own city".

"I like Donald Trump to a point, but then again, he wouldn't even leave when they try to put him out," he added before climbing into his black pick-up truck, referring to Trump's refusal to accept his 2020 elcetion loss.

Some voters have complained that postal ballots have not arrived, with election officials saying they will have to vote in person, blaming a supplier issue.

David Radcliff, 72, said the fiasco had not dented his confidence in the election's integrity.

"But I will never do mail-in ballots again," he said.

At final Harris rally, a mix of enthusiasm and worry over US election

By - Nov 05,2024 - Last updated at Nov 05,2024

Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the closing rally of her campaign at the base of the iconic "Rocky Steps" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on November 05, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (AFP photo)

PHILADELPHIA — In line for Kamala Harris's final rally of this US election campaign in Philadelphia on Monday, enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate and acute concern at the possible return of Donald Trump to the White House were palpable. 

 

"I'm cautiously optimistic, but I'm worried," said Robin Matthews, a community organiser. "If she doesn't win, we're screwed." 

 

A long queue snaked along the main avenue leading to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, outside which the vice president was due to address a crowd late in the evening, just hours before polls open on Tuesday.

 

Matthews, who lives in the Pennsylvania suburbs that will be so crucial in deciding this key swing state in a knife-edge election, said she feared a second Trump presidency.

 

"He'll ruin everything," she said. "There's no checks and balances anymore (if he is reelected)."

 

Her 16-year-old son Asher intervened to offer what he felt was at stake in this election: "The preservation of our democratic system."

 

 'Short end of the stick' 

 

Under the autumn foliage, percussionists set the mood before a rally where stars such as Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey were expected to attend, and at the foot of the famous museum steps climbed by Sylvester Stallone in an iconic scene from the film "Rocky." 

 

As a long campaign comes to an end, marked by extraordinary twists and turns in a country that appears more divided than ever, Yvonne Tinsley, a 35-year-old accounting manager, just "want(s) it to be over."

 

She is fed up with political ads on TV and tired of having to explain to her friends that Facebook and Instagram videos do not count as real news.

 

She does not expect any political miracles from Harris, though. 

 

"I understand that Kamala is not going to change everything, but I know that she'll at least be able to start this back on the right track," she said.

 

For her, too much is at stake if former president Trump returns to power.

 

"I'm a Black woman in America, so unfortunately, all policies hit me different," she said. 

 

"Every Supreme Court decision or bad Republican policy, or bad Democratic policy, I get the short end of the stick."

 

Robert Rudolf, 58, said Trump had "normalized" racism and misogyny.

 

Wearing a "Harris-Walz" cap and a flannel shirt, he said he comes from a rural Republican-leaning corner of the state, and that it had gotten harder to talk to neighbors about politics.

 

"We have gotten very divided," he said. "It's very difficult to talk to people on the other side."

 

Those tensions are raised even higher by Trump's false allegations of voter fraud, said 42-year-old Roxana Rahe.

 

"Trump is already kind of foreshadowing like that everybody stole the election from him before the election even happened," she sighed.

 

N. Korea fires salvo of short-range ballistic missiles ahead of US election

By - Nov 05,2024 - Last updated at Nov 05,2024

A man watches a television showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on Tuesday (AFP photo)

 

SEOUL —North Korea fired a salvo of short-range ballistic missiles early Tuesday, Seoul's military said, Pyongyang's second launch in days and just hours before Americans vote for a new president.

 

Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the launch of "several short-range ballistic missiles," at around 7:30 am Tuesday into waters east of the Korean peninsula. 

 

"In preparation for additional launches, our military has strengthened surveillance and alertness," it said, adding it was sharing information with Tokyo and Washington.

 

Tokyo also confirmed the launch, with the prime minister's office saying Pyongyang had "launched a suspected ballistic missile".

 

On Thursday, the nuclear-armed North test-fired what it said was its most advanced and powerful solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

 

It was Kim Jong Un's first weapons test since being accused of sending soldiers to Russia. 

 

It also came just hours after US and South Korean defence chiefs called on Pyongyang to withdraw its troops, warning that North Korean soldiers in Russian uniforms were being deployed for possible action against Ukraine.

 

On Sunday, South Korea, Japan, and the United States conducted a joint air drill involving a heavy bomber in response to the ICBM launch.

 

The drill mobilised the US' B-1B bomber, South Korea's F-15K and KF-16 fighter jets, and Japan's F-2 jets.

 

Such joint drills infuriate Pyongyang, which views them as rehearsals for invasion.

 

 'Aggressive nature' 

 

Kim Yo Jong, sister of the country's leader and a key spokesperson, called the drill an "action-based explanation of the most hostile and dangerous aggressive nature of the enemy toward our Republic."

 

In a statement carried Tuesday by the official Korean Central News Agency, she said the drill was "absolute proof of the validity and urgency of the line of building up the nuclear forces we have opted for and put into practice."

 

She warned that any "upset of the balance of power between rivals on the Korean peninsula and in the region precisely means a war."

 

Experts have suggested the spate of weapons tests by Pyongyang could be a bid to distract attention from its purported troop deployment to Russia, or bump itself up the agenda ahead of the US election.

 

Seoul has long accused the nuclear-armed North of sending weapons to help Moscow fight Kyiv and alleged that Pyongyang has moved to deploy soldiers en mass in the wake of Kim Jong Un's signing of a mutual defence deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June.

 

It has also warned that Russia may be providing new technology or expertise in return for weapons and troops to help them fight Ukraine.

 

Seoul, a major weapons exporter, has said it is reviewing whether to send weapons directly to Ukraine in response, something it has previously resisted due to longstanding domestic policy that prevents it from providing weaponry into active conflicts.

 

North Korea has denied sending troops, but its vice foreign minister has said any such deployment would be in line with international law.

 

Spain counts cost a week after catastrophic floods

By - Nov 05,2024 - Last updated at Nov 05,2024

People gather around a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) truck at a school-turned-camp for internally displaced people in Deir el-Balah on November 5, 2024 (AFP photo)

VALENCIA, SPAIN — Rescuers resumed their grim search for missing bodies on Tuesday as Spain reeled from a week of loss after its worst floods in decades that have killed 218 people.

The devastating Mediterranean storm that lashed eastern Spain a week ago triggered surging torrents of muddy water that have left a trail of destruction and an unknown number of missing.

 

Around 17,000 security force and emergency services personnel are working around the clock to repair damaged infrastructure, distribute aid and search for bodies in Spain's largest peacetime deployment of its armed forces.

 

Firefighters painstakingly combed through piles of damaged vehicles and pumped out water from inundated garages and car parks where more victims may be discovered, AFP journalists saw.

 

Maribel Albalat, mayor of the ground-zero town of Paiporta, told public broadcaster TVE they were doing "better, but not well" with many streets still inaccessible and residents struggling to get a phone signal.

 

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez chaired a cabinet meeting on Tuesday where Spanish media reported he would declare the stricken regions "gravely affected" to facilitate more aid.

 

Castilla-La Mancha, Andalusia, Catalonia and Aragon could be included along with the ravaged eastern Valencia region which has suffered almost all the deaths and damage, they said.

 

Five working groups between the left-wing national government and the conservative-run regional authority have been created to coordinate the recovery in Valencia and overcome their occasionally tetchy relationship.

 

'Only the people are helping' 

 

But many survivors are furious with the authorities for failing to warn the population on time last Tuesday and provide urgent rescue and relief work.

 

That anger reached breaking point in Paiporta on Sunday when crowds heckled and hurled mud at King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia and Sanchez.

 

"Only the people are helping... And the politicians, where are they? Why didn't they raise the alarm? Murderers!" Matilde Gregori, 57, told AFP in the mud-soaked town of Sedavi.

 

"They don't know how to take care of their people, let them go home... We know how to do better," said Gregori, whose shop fell victim to the floods.

 

The authorities have warned survivors to shield themselves from health hazards in the stagnant flood water, which may contain toxic waste, chemicals or bacteria from dead humans and animals.

 

Biology teacher Jose, 58, wore a mask and gloves during the clean-up of a garage in Sedavi awash with water for almost a week.

 

"Having stagnant water that can breed germs is a great danger that we want to avoid... we'll see if we can manage," he told AFP.

 

Storms coming off the Mediterranean are common during this season. But scientists have warned human-induced climate change is increasing the ferocity, length and frequency of extreme weather events.

 

Harris vows Gaza peace, Trump tone darkens in final hours

By - Nov 04,2024 - Last updated at Nov 04,2024

This combination of pictures created on November 03, 2024 shows US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (L) walks on stage as she arrives for a campaign rally at the Craig Ranch Amphitheater in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 31, 2024, and Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump (R) gestures at supporters as he walks on stage during a campaign rally at the Sports and Expo Center at the Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan on November 1, 2024 (AFP photo)

EAST LANSING, United States — Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign entered its final hours.

 

The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on Election Day on Tuesday.

 

Trump predicted a "landslide", while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that "we have momentum -- it's on our side."

 

The 2024 race is going down to the wire, with more key states effectively tied at this point than in any comparable election. Over 77.6 million people have cast early votes, around half of the total ballots cast in 2020.

 

With the clock ticking, Harris, 60, spent the day in Michigan where she risks losing the critical support of a 200,000-strong Arab-American community that has denounced US handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

 

"As president, I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza," Harris said at the start of her speech at Michigan State University, noting that there were leaders of the community present.

 

 'Demonic' 

 

But the rest of the speech was upbeat, with Harris spending more time on urging people to get out and vote than on attacks on Trump.

 

"We got two days to get this done," she said.

 

Earlier, Harris quoted scripture in a majority-Black church in Detroit, Michigan and urging Americans to look beyond Trump. 

 

"Let us turn the page and write the next chapter of our history," she said.

 

Trump on Sunday zigzagged through Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia -- the three biggest swing-state prizes in the Electoral College system that awards US states influence according to their population.

 

The 78-year-old Trump, the oldest major party candidate in US history, added to his increasingly dark rhetoric by musing to supporters in Lititz, Pennsylvania, that he wouldn't mind if journalists were shot.

 

Discussing his near-miss assassination attempt against him in July, he said to laughter that to be hit again "somebody would have to shoot through the fake news -- and I don't mind that so much."

 

Trump called Democrats "demonic" and, despite no evidence of any meaningful election cheating so far, claimed that Democrats in Pennsylvania "are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing."

 

Adding to fears that he would not accept a defeat in 2024, Trump added that he "shouldn't have left" the White House after he lost his 2020 reelection effort to Joe Biden.

 

RFK Jr controversy 

 

Trump meanwhile said in Macon, Georgia, that he had asked vaccine-skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who dropped his own presidential bid to support Trump, to work on "women's health" and "pesticides."

 

His comments came a day after Kennedy caused consternation by saying that a Trump White House would order US water systems to remove fluoride from public water supplies.

 

Later in another rambling speech in Kinston, North Carolina Trump said "we're going to have on Tuesday a landslide that's too big to rig."

 

The polls however show that the result is likely to be historically tight. 

 

A final New York Times/Siena poll Sunday flagged incremental changes in swing states, but the results from all seven remained within the margin of error.

 

Harris got a boost Saturday as the final Des Moines Register poll for Iowa -- seen as a highly credible test of wider public sentiment -- showed a stunning turnaround, with Harris ahead in a state won easily by Trump in 2016 and 2020.

 

In the last hours, both candidates are desperately trying to shore up their bases, and win over any undecided voters.

 

Pollsters have noted an erosion in Black support for Harris.

 

But with abortion rights a top voter concern, her campaign has hailed the large proportion of women turning out among early voters.

Russian strikes wound 13, including police, in Kharkiv

By - Nov 04,2024 - Last updated at Nov 04,2024

This handout photograph taken on November 1, 2024 and released on November 2, 2024 by the Ukrainian State Emergency Service shows Ukraine rescuers extinguishing a burning multi-storey residential building after a strike in Kharkiv, amid Russian invasion in Ukraine (AFP photo)

 

KHARKIV, UKRAINE — Thirteen people, including four police officers, were wounded in another night of Russian attacks on Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv, authorities said Monday.

 

Kharkiv, which lies near the Russian border, has been shelled persistently since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022.

 

"The Russian armed forces carried out massive air strikes on Kharkiv and its suburbs," prosecutors said, adding that residential buildings and shops were damaged.

 

AFP journalists at the scene saw buildings gutted by the blast and emergency services assessing the damage.

 

Ukraine has for months been urging Western allies to supply more air defence systems to fend off Russian attacks.

 

Kyiv on Monday said it had downed 50 Iranian-designed Russian drones in nine regions overnight, including over the capital Kyiv.

 

It also said a Russian cruise missile had struck the Dnipropetrovsk region.

UN chief 'very concerned' on reports of N.Korea troops in Russia

By - Nov 04,2024 - Last updated at Nov 04,2024

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was "very concerned" on Sunday about reports that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia (AFP photo)

 

UNITED NATIONS, UNITED STATES — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was "very concerned" on Sunday about reports that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, and at their possible deployment to the conflict zone of Ukraine.

 

"The Secretary-General is very concerned about reports of troops from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea being sent to the Russian Federation, including their possible deployment to the conflict zone," said Stephane Dujarric, the UN chief's spokesman.

 

US intelligence has said North Korean forces have made their way to Russia's Kursk border region, with Washington and Seoul urging Pyongyang to withdraw its troops. 

 

North Korea and Russia have not denied the troop deployment reports, with the grinding war in Ukraine still ongoing more than 2.5 years after Moscow invaded its neighbor. 

 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday the deployment of North Korean troops against Ukrainian forces could happen "in the coming days."

 

On Sunday, Guterres said such a deployment would be "a very dangerous escalation" of the war in Ukraine. 

 

"Everything must be done to avoid any internationalization of this conflict," he said, while reiterating a call for "meaningful efforts" to end the war.

 

North Korea and Iran have emerged as Russia's main backers in Ukraine, with both believed to be supplying Moscow with military hardware.

 

Pyongyang is widely believed to be offering military support in return for Russian nuclear technology. 

 

Nations gather for crunch climate talks in shadow of US vote

By - Nov 04,2024 - Last updated at Nov 04,2024

PARIS — World leaders kick off UN climate talks next week, days after a knife edge US election that could send shockwaves through global efforts to limit dangerous warming.

 

The stakes are high for the COP29 conference in Azerbaijan where nations must agree a new target to fund climate action across huge swathes of the world.

 

It comes in a year likely to be the hottest in human history that has already witnessed a barrage of devastating floods, heatwaves and storms in all corners of the globe.

 

Nations are falling far short of what is needed to keep warming from hitting even more dangerous highs in the future.

 

But leaders arriving in Baku are wrestling with a host of challenges, including conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, trade spats and economic uncertainty.

 

Adding to the uncertainty, the US vote and potential return of Donald Trump, who pulled out of the Paris Agreement and has called climate change a "hoax", could ripple through the negotiations and beyond. 

 

"You can imagine that if Trump is elected, and if the election outcome is clear by the time that we get to Baku, then there will be sort of a crisis moment," said Li Shuo, a Washington-based expert on climate diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

 

He said that countries, likely including China, are preparing to send a "clear message" in support of global climate cooperation if Trump beats his rival Kamala Harris to the White House.

 

The UN talks are seen as critical to laying the groundwork for a major new round of climate commitments due early next year.

 

Current pledges would see the world blast past the internationally agreed limit of a 1.5 degrees Celsius rise in temperatures since the pre-industrial era.

 

"Decisions in Baku could profoundly shape the climate trajectory and whether 1.5 degrees remains within reach," said Cosima Cassel, of think tank E3G.

 

Clash over cash 

 

Azerbaijan hosting the 11-22 November talks has drawn concerns over its heavy reliance on fossil fuels and its human rights record.

 

Countries last year committed to transition away from fossil fuels and triple renewables usage by 2030.

 

This year, negotiators must increase a $100 billion-a-year target to help poorer nations prepare for worsening climate impacts and wean off coal, oil and gas.

 

The overall amount of this new goal, where it comes from, and who has access are major points of contention.

 

Experts commissioned by the UN estimate that developing countries, excluding China, will need to spend $2.4 trillion per year by 2030 on climate priorities.

 

From that, $1 trillion must come from international public and private finance. 

 

Wealthy existing donors, including the EU and US, have said new sources of money will have to be found, including from China and oil-rich Gulf states. 

 

China today the world's largest polluter and second-largest economy,  does pay climate finance but on its own terms.

 

Between 2013 and 2022, China paid on average $4.5 billion a year to other developing countries, the World Resources Institute said in a September paper. 

 

Money could also be raised by pollution tariffs, a wealth tax or ending fossil fuel subsidies, among other ideas.

 

Rachel Cleetus, policy director of the Climate and Energy programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said negotiators in Azerbaijan should aim for a $1 trillion deal.

 

This money "is not charity", Cleetus told AFP, adding that it should mostly come as aid or very low interest loans to avoid adding to developing nations' debt.

 

"Finance might sound like a technical issue, but we all know money talks," she told AFP.

 

"Nations either make those investments up front, or we'll be paying dearly for it after the fact, in disaster costs, in pollution costs. So this is a fork in the road. We have a choice."

 

 Green power 

 

Money was a key stumbling block for another major UN conference, although one that already lacks the US as a signatory. 

 

The meeting to halt humankind's destruction of nature ended on Saturday in Colombia with no agreement on increasing funding for species protection.

 

A finance deal in Baku is seen as crucial to underpinning ambitious national climate pledges in the coming months.

 

Current plans, even if implemented in full, would see the world lurch towards 2.6C warming by the end of the century,  threatening catastrophe for human societies and ecosystems, the UN Environment Programme has said. 

 

Li said those future pledges could be impacted by the US vote, with countries, including China, waiting to see the outcome before finalising longer-term targets. 

 

Beyond Baku, there is also an "increasing interconnection between climate and the economic agenda", he said, including trade tussles between clean energy powerhouse China and the US and Europe. 

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