World

NEW DELHI — G20 leaders meeting Saturday failed to agree to a phase-out of fossil fuels, despite a UN report a day earlier deeming the drawdown "indispensable" to achieving net-zero emissions.

But, for the first time, they backed a target of tripling global renewable energy capacity, a goal championed by the chief of the COP28 climate talks that begin in November.

The much-debated G20 statement also acknowledges that limiting warming to 1.5°C will require slashing greenhouse gases 43 per cent by 2030 from 2019 levels.

And it includes a reference to the need for emissions to peak before 2025.

Still, the decision by nations that account for 80 per cent of global emissions to eschew stronger language on fossil fuels will raise questions about global commitments before the key round of climate discussions in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates.

The Group of 20 is deeply divided by geopolitical faultlines including Russia's Ukraine invasion and relations with China.

But it is similarly riven by disagreement on the future of oil, with major producers like Saudi Arabia among its membership and reluctant to agree to the end of all fossil fuels.

The group’s leaders met in a year expected to be the hottest in human history, which has already offered abundant evidence of disasters worsened by climate change.

And for some their statement offered an alarming lack of ambition.

“Increasing renewables must be backed by phasing down fossil fuels, both are indispensable for just transitions and a net-zero world,” said Madhura Joshi, senior associate at climate think tank E3G.

“We need stronger bolder action from leaders,” she added.

On Friday, the United Nations’ first progress report on meeting Paris Agreement climate goals made clear that net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 cannot be achieved without a phase-out.

“Scaling up renewable energy and phasing out all unabated fossil fuels are indispensable elements of just energy transitions to net zero emissions,” the first UN Global Stocktake said.

“Unabated” refers to fossil fuels that are burned without their emissions being captured or compensated.

‘Terrible signal’ 

Instead G20 leaders repeated language agreed last year on “accelerating efforts towards phasedown of unabated coal power, in line with national circumstances and recognising the need for support towards just transitions”.

And the per capita coal emissions of the group are continuing to rise, according to new research released before the meeting.

“This G20 was meant to show the way towards a future without fossil fuels,” said Friederike Roder, vice president for global advocacy at Global Citizen, an NGO.

The failure to agree targets on fossil fuels “is a terrible signal to the world, especially the poorest and most vulnerable countries and populations, that suffer most from climate change”, she said.

Still, the backing from the group, which includes leading economies including China, the United States and Brazil, for the target of tripling renewable energy capacity was welcomed by some.

Boosting renewables is seen as key to facilitating the move from more polluting sources of energy, and Aditya Lolla, Asia programme lead at energy think tank Ember, called the G20 move a “game-changer”.

“Such an about-turn from Saudi Arabia and Russia to lend support to renewables is very welcome,” she said.

“This is a game-changer for climate action.”

Host India has used its presidency to position itself as the voice of the “Global South” and press rich countries to meet their existing commitments and go further in helping vulnerable nations transition and adapt.

The leaders’ statement warns climate investment must “substantially scale up”, including through more ambitious financing by multilateral institutions.

It notes a UN assessment that developing countries need nearly $6 trillion before 2030 to meet their climate goals, and another $4 trillion a year for clean energy technology.

Wealthy nations have already failed to deliver on a pledge to provide $100 billion a year in climate financing to poorer nations by 2020.

And developing nations are increasingly pushing for the rich world to ensure climate action pledges are backed by sufficient funding.

MADRID — Rescue teams found the body of a woman in central Spain on Saturday, bringing to six the death toll from floods triggered by torrential rains last weekend.

A sniffer dog from Spain's Military Emergencies Unit located the body some 50 metres from the Vallehermoso stream near the town of Valmojado in the central province of Toledo, said Guardia Civil police force spokeswoman Antonia Requena.

"It was hidden in undergrowth and mud," she told reporters at the scene.

The body still needs to be identified but the authorities believe it is of a woman in her 50s who had been missing in the same area since severe rainstorms hit central Spain at the weekend, turning streets into raging torrents and washing away roads and bridges. Her car was found on Monday in poor shape.

Rescuers had already found the bodies of three men on Monday in the central province of Toledo.

And on Friday they located the remains of two men who were missing near the town of Aldea del Fresno where the Alberche River overflowed on Sunday.

Among them was a 47-year-old man whose car was dragged into the river.

Emergency services rescued his wife and daughter on Sunday night while his 10-year-old son was found alive the following morning after spending the night perched in a tree above the floodwaters.

The weekend storm, which swept across the whole country, disrupted travel for tens of thousands of people on the final weekend before the start of the new school year.

The high-speed rail links between the Spanish capital and the south-western region of Andalusia and the east coast region of Valencia was one main travel forced to close, as were several Madrid metro stations.

Scientists warn that extreme weather such as heatwaves and storms is becoming more intense because of climate change.

BRUSSELS — NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday called for all sides to maintain calm in Kosovo after violence in May that wounded 93 peacekeepers.

“I welcome recent steps taken by Pristina to lower tension, including reducing the number of special police in the north and plans to facilitate new municipal elections,” Stoltenberg said after meeting Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu.

“But it is essential to avoid further escalation. So I urge all parties to avoid inflammatory rhetoric and to act with restraint and in line with their commitments.”

He said the situation was “an opportunity for Kosovo to demonstrate that it is a responsible actor, working constructively for the benefit of Euro-Atlantic security”.

Unrest rocked Serb-majority areas in the north of the territory in May, including a riot by ethnic Serbs that Stoltenberg said left 93 NATO peacekeepers injured, some seriously.

Northern Kosovo has remained riven by divisions and periods of unrest since Pristina declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

Tensions skyrocketed after Kosovo’s leadership installed ethnic Albanian mayors in four Serb-majority municipalities.

Kosovo is overwhelmingly populated by ethnic Albanians, but in the northern stretches of the territory near the border with Serbia, ethnic Serbs remain the majority in several municipalities.

KFOR is the country’s top security institution and it bolstered its force level to 4,500 troops in the wake of the violent clashes in May.

The peacekeeping force has been stationed in Kosovo since the end of the 1998-1999 war between ethnic Albanian separatist guerrillas and Serbian forces.

The EU — which has been conducting a years-long push to normalise ties between Kosovo and Serbia — has invited leaders from the two sides for a new round of talks next week.

ISTANBUL — The European Union's enlargement commissioner told Turkey on Wednesday to address issues around democracy and the rule of law if it wants to boost its drive to join the bloc.

Ankara secured a pledge from Brussels to resurrect stalled membership negotiations in exchange for lifting its blockade of Sweden's drive to join the NATO military alliance.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made mending torn ties with Western allies one of his priorities after winning a difficult election in May.

The EU's enlargement chief Oliver Varhelyi came to Ankara to try and gauge where the sides could find common ground.

Varhelyi told reporters that he hoped to come up with "something tangible and something positive" for the bloc's leaders to discuss at a European Council summit in December.

"I think this partnership has huge potential," he said.

But Varhelyi noted that negotiations were currently at a "standstill" and needed action by Turkey on human rights issues to move on.

"For this to remobilise, there are very clear criteria to set out ... [that include] democracy and the rule of law," he said.

Turkey first applied to be a member of the European Economic Community, a predecessor to the EU, in 1987.

It became an EU candidate country in 1999 and formally launched membership negotiations with the bloc in 2005.

The talks stalled over European concerns about human rights violations that came in the midst of a sweeping crackdown Erdogan launched after surviving a failed 2016 military coup.

But Ankara accuses Brussels of never seriously considering membership for what would be the largest majority-Muslim nation of the 27-nation bloc.

Erdogan has publically raised problems Turks have reported getting European tourist visas and accused Brussels of trying to turn Turkey into a “warehouse” for migrants.

Turkey helped stem Europe’s migrant crisis by agreeing to temporarily house millions of Syrians and other people fleeing war zones in exchange for billions of euros in aid in 2016.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan accused Brussels on Wednesday of putting “political” obstacles to the accession talks.

“We expect the EU to demonstrate the will needed to improve relations and to act more brave,” Fidan said.

EU chief Charles Michel said last month that the bloc should get ready to admit new members from eastern Europe and the Balkans by 2030.

Turkey’s membership is not currently on the agenda of the expansion wave.

KYIV — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Kyiv Wednesday after another night of Russian strikes on Ukraine, with Washington set to unveil more than $1 billion in fresh aid to battle Russia.

The visit, his fourth since the start of Moscow's invasion, comes as Kyiv has touted some successes this week in its counteroffensive to push back Russian forces.

As the top US official arrived, Kyiv's army said it was pressing on with "offensive operations" towards eastern Ukraine's war-battered town of Bakhmut, which fell to Russian forces in May, and the southern Moscow-occupied city of Melitopol.

It said troops had been "successful" near the southern villages of Robotyne and Novoprokopivka.

Ukrainian forces have also claimed strategic victories on the southern front, saying they paved the way to push deeper towards Moscow-annexed Crimea.

A US State Department official told reporters en route to Kyiv that they would announce “more than a billion dollars in new US funding for Ukraine”.

Hours before Blinken’s arrival, Kyiv was targeted by a Russian missile strike, which authorities said caused no casualties but did start a fire outside the capital.

The visit also comes as a time for change for Kyiv’s military establishment, days after President Volodymyr Zelenky dismissed defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov, who served throughout the Russian invasion, after allegations of graft in defence ministry contracts.

Parliament on Wednesday approved Zelensky’s nomination to replace Reznikov with Rustem Umerov, a behind-the-scenes deal maker from the Crimean Tatar community with extensive contacts in Turkey and the Middle East.

The US official said it was a “good time” for Blinken to come, several months into Kyiv’s counteroffensive, and before a second winter during the full-scale war, with energy security fears rising again.

Talks will focus on “what they need for this phase of the battle”, said the official, adding that supplying more air defence would be a “high priority”.

The US has supplied key weaponry to Ukraine that has allowed it to go on the advance this summer.

Progress in Kyiv’s counter-offensive has been slower than expected however, due to heavily mined territory and tough Russian defence lines.

The Kremlin dismissed Blinken’s Kyiv visit, a spokesman saying US aid would not “influence the course of the special military operation” — Moscow’s term for its offensive.

He accused Washington of wanting to “keep Ukraine in a state of war, to wage this war till the last Ukrainian”.

Danish PM visits 

A string of Western leaders have visited Kyiv during the war, pledging support against Russian forces.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was also in the Ukrainian capital Wednesday, after pledging to supply Ukraine with 19 F-16 fighter jets.

Denmark and The Netherlands last month announced they would provide the advanced jets to strengthen Kyiv’s Soviet-era air force.

Frederiksen addressed Ukraine’s parliament Wednesday, where lawmakers thanked her for supplying the planes.

The US said Blinken and Frederiksen met on their way to Ukraine, which Western leaders have mostly been reaching by train from Poland.

State Department spokesman Matthew Millar said Blinken thanked her for “Denmark’s leadership in the F-16 coalition of partner nations to train Ukrainian pilots, and for its decision to donate F-16 jets to Ukraine”.

Russia has called the decision to supply Ukraine with the American planes an “escalation”.

Russian drone strikes 

Overnight, Russian drone attacks on the country’s south-western corner near Romania killed one person.

Moscow has pounded Ukraine’s Black Sea and Danube ports for weeks after exiting a key deal that ensured the safe navigation of ships carrying grain.

“Unfortunately, one person died,” said Kiper, adding that it was an agricultural worker who was seriously injured and died in hospital.

“Destruction and fires were recorded in several settlements,” he added, with port and agricultural infrastructure including administrative buildings damaged.

The Danube river port of Izmail, which borders NATO member Romania, has become a main export route for Ukrainian products following Russia’s withdrawal from a UN-brokered grain deal in July.

Following the collapse of the agreement that had allowed grain shipments from Black Sea ports, Russia has ramped up attacks on Ukraine’s southern Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, home to ports and infrastructure vital for agriculture exports.

The president of NATO member Romania, Klaus Iohannis, said on Tuesday that the attacks had taken place “very, very close” to his country’s border.

MOSCOW — Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko has ordered the reclusive country’s embassies to stop issuing passports, in a move that leaves his critics abroad vulnerable to prosecution if they return.

Tens of thousands of Belarusians fled the Moscow-allied country in 2020, after Lukashenko brutally suppressed mass protests against his rule.

According to a decree published on Monday, Belarusians can only get a new passport or renew one in “consular services attached to their last registered place of residence” on Belarusian territory.

Until now, Belarusians living abroad were able to get new passports at the country’s diplomatic missions.

Since the protests, Minsk has jailed hundreds for speaking out against Lukashenko, with many Belarusians who took part in the protests or published anti-regime posts online avoiding returning home for fear of arrest.

Not being able to renew passports abroad would threaten their legal status in a new host country while also putting them at risk of trouble with the authorities back home.

Exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said on social media that she was preparing to launch a “New Belarus passport”, without explaining what this would entail.

“Dear Belarusians, I ask you not to panic and not to commit rash actions,” she said.

“Even if your passport expires, you should not return to your home country if you are threatened with persecution. No document in the world is worth a person’s freedom,” she said.

According to the rights group Viasna, Belarus currently has 1,501 political prisoners.