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With talks teetering, climate negotiators struck a controversial $300 billion deal

Published

1 year ago

November 24, 2024

With talks teetering, climate negotiators struck a controversial 0 billion deal

Activists demanding that rich countries pay up for climate finance for developing countries at the COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.

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Sean Gallup/Getty Images/Getty Images Europe

Negotiators at a global climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, struck a last-minute deal for wealthy countries to help their poorer neighbors deal with global warming, saving the annual meeting as it verged on collapse.

From the outset, the focus of the United Nations’ COP29 climate conference was raising money to help developing nations cut their climate pollution and prepare for threats they face from extreme weather. Developing nations have contributed far less of the pollution heating the planet, but suffer the harms of extreme weather disproportionately.

Those countries had pushed for climate funding of $1.3 trillion a year. But the final agreement set a goal of $300 billion annually. Some representatives of developing countries were furious at the outcome, saying $300 billion a year from industrialized countries is far short of what vulnerable nations need.

“It’s a paltry sum,” said Chandni Raina, a member of India’s delegation, during the conference’s closing meeting. “It is not something that will enable conducive climate action that is necessary for the survival of our country and for the growth of our people, their livelihoods.”

Announced more than a day after the talks were scheduled to end, the funding deal was brokered after world leaders and climate activists leveled sharp criticism at industrialized nations, as well as the Azerbaijani officials who hosted the two-week meeting.

Raina criticized the meeting’s president, Mukhtar Babayev, for passing the financing agreement before he gave countries a chance to comment.

“Trust is the basis for all action, and this incident is indicative of a lack of trust, a lack of collaboration on an issue which is a global challenge, which is faced by all of us, and most of all by the developing countries that are not responsible for it,” Raina said. “But, we’ve seen what you have done.”

Mohamed Adow, director of the Kenyan think tank Power Shift Africa, said at a press conference on Friday that this was “the worst COP in recent memory.”

Taking aim at wealthy countries that built their economies over centuries using fossil fuels, Adow added, “You can’t have a negotiation if only one side is actually engaging in good faith and putting forward proposals that [respond] to the needs on the ground.”

The climate talks were held at the end of what will almost certainly be the hottest year on record. Global temperatures are rising mainly because of heat-trapping pollution that’s created when people burn fossil fuels like coal and oil. Global emissions rose to a new record in 2023, and the world is nowhere close to meeting a goal countries set to limit warming in order to reduce the risks of worsening disasters from extreme weather like floods and heat waves.

The leaders of some developing countries briefly walked out of negotiations on Saturday. Cedric Schuster, Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment, said in a statement that developing countries were treated with “contempt.”

“What is happening here is highlighting what a different boat our vulnerable countries are in, compared to the developed countries,” said Schuster, who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States, which represents dozens of low-lying nations from the Caribbean to the South China Sea. “After this COP29 ends, we cannot just sail off into the sunset. We are literally sinking.”

President Biden said in a statement that the COP29 climate-funding agreement was “ambitious.” “It will help mobilize the level of finance – from all sources – that developing countries need to accelerate the transition to clean, sustainable economies, while opening up new markets for American-made electric vehicles, batteries, and other products,” Biden said.

However, the recent U.S. presidential election hung over the conference. Voters’ decision to send Donald Trump back to the White House raises questions about whether the country will continue working on global climate initiatives. Trump, who has promised to pursue policies in his second term to support the country’s oil and gas industry, is expected to again pull the U.S. out of the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Here’s what else did — and didn’t — happen at COP29.

A sign displays an unofficial temperature as jets taxi at Sky Harbor International Airport at dusk, July 12, 2023, in Phoenix.

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Matt York/AP

Deal calls for at least $300 billion annually for developing countries

Negotiators agreed that wealthy countries will provide developing nations at least $300 billion a year in climate funding by 2035.

That’s triple what poorer nations were promised under a previous commitment, but it’s a fraction of what researchers say is required. A report released during the conference shows developing nations other than China — which boasts the world’s second-largest economy and is the second-biggest contributor of climate pollution historically — will need about $1.3 trillion in climate funding annually.

The final COP29 agreement includes a vague goal for “all actors to work together” to provide $1.3 trillion to developing nations by 2035.

“The poorest and most vulnerable nations are rightfully disappointed that wealthier countries didn’t put more money on the table when billions of people’s lives are at stake,” Ani Dasgupta, chief executive of the World Resources Institute, said in a statement.

The debate over climate funding traces back more than a decade. In 2009, industrialized countries set a goal to give developing nations $100 billion a year by 2020 to help them deal with climate change. In 2015, countries extended the pledge to 2025. They also said they’d set a new goal that reflects the “needs and priorities of developing countries” before the old one expires. That’s what negotiators fought over in Azerbaijan.

Heading into this year’s meeting, it was clear developing countries are in a bind. They need help, but whatever money wealthy nations pledged was certain to be just a portion of what’s required to cope with climate change. And industrialized countries were slow to deliver on their original commitment, so poorer nations are relying on unreliable neighbors.

The dollar figure wasn’t the only point of contention. Leaders of vulnerable states say they need a lot more assistance to come in the form of grants — not loans — in order to avoid increasing the debt burden on poorer countries.

The final agreement doesn’t guarantee poorer countries the grant funding they say they need. The document says the $300 billion annually from wealthy countries can come from “a wide variety of sources,” including private investors.

Developing countries have also pushed for compensation for the damages from climate-related disasters, like more intense storms and droughts. Last year, richer countries agreed to create a “loss and damage” fund to fill that need, housed at the World Bank. So far, more than $720 million has been pledged and at COP29, countries officially opened the fund for donations.

A small number of countries have received payments already, part of pilot projects organized by Scotland.

A call to phase out fossil fuels faces pushback

At last year’s meeting in Dubai, negotiators for the first time agreed countries should transition away from fossil fuels. This time, calls to reiterate that agreement faced pushback.

The world’s largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, was identified as a primary force behind that effort.

“Their blatant obstruction has ensured there’s no clear commitment to phase out fossil fuels — an outrageous betrayal of humanity and the urgent fight against climate catastrophe,” Maria Ron Balsera, executive director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights said in a statement.

The host country for COP29 also came in for criticism.

Oil and gas dominate Azerbaijan’s economy, representing 90% of the country’s exports and finance about 60% of the government’s budget. An official with the COP29 host country, Azerbaijan, was recorded by the human rights group Global Witness arranging a meeting to discuss potential fossil fuel deals.

At COP29, Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, said natural resources like oil and gas are a “gift of the god.”

“And countries should not be blamed for having them, and should not be blamed for bringing these resources to the market,” Aliyev said. “Because the market needs them. The people need them.”

A portion of Amazon rainforest deforested by illegal fire in Brazil this August.

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Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty

Some countries unveiled new climate targets

As part of the Paris climate treaty, countries have to announce plans to make deeper cuts to their own climate pollution by 2035. The hope is that all the pollution cuts combined will limit the world’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to temperatures from the 1800s.

Targets are due in February, and with a looming deadline, some countries announced their targets in Baku.

United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer made a speech early in the summit, announcing the country would slash emissions 81% by 2035, compared with 1990 levels. “It’s very important to establish ambition, and that’s exactly what the UK [target] did,” says Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute.

Brazil, whose climate emissions come mostly from rampant deforestation in the Amazon, also announced its target. It plans to cut climate pollution by as much as two-thirds by 2035 compared to 2005 levels. While Brazil says its cuts align with the 1.5 degree goal, climate policy experts say that’s still unclear.

Deal over carbon markets draws criticism

One of the goals at this year’s summit was to finally agree on rules for a global system for trading carbon offsets, or carbon credits.

Carbon credits are basically a promise. A promise that when a country or business purchases a credit, that money is going toward an action that reduces or removes planet-heating pollution.

At the summit, negotiators concluded negotiations over parts of “Article 6”, a part of the Paris Agreement that allows countries to cooperate to reach their climate targets, including by trading carbon credits.

A leading company in the carbon credit sector, Verra, called it “a historic step.”

But many carbon market researchers voiced concerns. Research has repeatedly shown that many carbon credits don’t reduce emissions. In fact, a new research paper looking at thousands of carbon credit projects found less than 16% of the carbon credits are actually reducing climate pollution.

The new rules “could end up undermining our efforts to rein in emissions rather than advancing them,” said the nonprofit Carbon Market Watch in a statement.

Funding for health initiatives falls short

At last year’s COP28 in Dubai, advocacy organizations made the case that future climate negotiations should include a new priority: protecting human health. Climate change, they said, is now one of the biggest threats to health worldwide. It is amplifying health risks from extreme weather, such as dangerous heat waves like those in Europe or India that killed tens of thousands of people in recent years. It also spurs the spread of infectious disease, worsens air quality, and stresses people’s mental well-being.

“Climate change itself is an overarching issue that influences health,” said Florence Ngala, chief environmental officer at the Ministry of Health in Zambia, at the meeting this year.

In her country this year, a climate-worsened flood lasted for two months and led to thousands of cases of cholera and 800 deaths. But the impacts didn’t end when the flood receded: the disruption to health services lasted for months, and some health facilities postponed upgrades that might have helped them become more resilient.

Advocates hoped at COP29, developed countries would commit to increasing the amount of money flowing to threatened countries like Zambia. Those would be critical to shoring up health services that protect people from climate-worsened risks and to developing climate-resilient health facilities. But the final commitments fall short of what many developing countries were demanding—and what organizations like the World Bank have suggested is needed.

“It is deeply discouraging to yet again see governments of wealthy countries that claim to be leaders kick the can on climate down the road, at the cost of the lives and health of their populations, and of everyone around the world” says Jeni Miller, executive director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance.

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How the federal government is painting immigrants as criminals on social media

Published

9 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

How the federal government is painting immigrants as criminals on social media

Getty Images, Dept. of Homeland Security and The White House via X/Collage by Emily Bogle/NPR

Two days after At Chandee, who goes by Ricky, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the White House’s X account posted about him, calling the 52-year-old the “WORST OF WORST” and a “CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIEN.”

Except that the photo the White House posted was of a different person. The post also incorrectly claimed Chandee had multiple felony convictions — he has one, for second-degree assault in 1993 when he was 18 years old. He shot two people in the legs and served three years in prison.

At “Ricky” Chandee with his wife, Tina Huynh-Chandee.

Via the Chandee family

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Via the Chandee family

Chandee, who came to the U.S. as a child refugee, was ordered to be deported back to his home country, Laos. But Laos had not been accepting all of the people the U.S. wanted it to, so the federal government determined that it was likely infeasible to deport him, his lawyer Linus Chan told NPR. Chandee therefore was granted permission to stay in the U.S. and work so long as he checked in with immigration authorities periodically. He has not missed a check-in in over 30 years and has not had another criminal incident.

People who know Chandee do not see him as “worst of the worst.”

After Chandee completed his prison sentence, he finished school and became an engineering technician. He worked for the City of Minneapolis for 26 years, became a father, and his son grew up to join the military.

In his free time, Chandee enjoys hiking and foraging for mushrooms, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

“We are proud to work alongside At ‘Ricky’ Chandee,” said Tim Sexton, Director of Public Works for the City of Minneapolis in a statement. “I don’t understand why he would be a target for removal now, why he was brutally detained and swiftly flown to Texas, or how his removal benefits our city or country.” Chandee is petitioning for his release in federal court.

Chandee’s case is not unique

Social media accounts from the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and other immigration agencies have spent much of the past year posting about people detained in the administration’s immigration crackdown, typically portraying them as hardened, violent criminals. That’s even as over 70% of the people detained don’t have criminal records according to ICE data.

NPR’s research of cases in Minnesota shows that while many of the people who have been highlighted on social media do have recent, serious criminal records, about a quarter are like Chandee, with decades-old convictions, minor offenses or only pending criminal proceedings. Scholars of immigration, media and criminal law say such a media campaign is unprecedented and paints a distorted picture of immigrants and crime.

A year into President Trump’s second term, the X accounts of DHS and ICE have posted about more than 2,000 people who were targets of mass deportation efforts. Starting late last March, DHS and ICE began posting on X on a near daily basis, often highlighting apprehensions of multiple people a day, an NPR review of government social media posts show.

Among the 2,000 people highlighted by the agencies, NPR identified 130 who were arrested by federal agents in Minnesota and tried to verify the government’s statements about their criminal histories.

In most of the social media posts, the government did not provide the state where the conviction occurred or the person’s age. Public court records do not tend to include photos so definitive identification can be a challenge.

NPR derived its findings from cases where it was able to locate a name and matching criminal history in the Minnesota court and detention system, in nationwide criminal history databases, sex offender databases, and in some cases, federal courts and other state courts.

In 19 of the 130 cases, roughly 1-in-7, public records show the most recent convictions were at least 20 years ago.

Seventeen of the 19 cases with old convictions did include violent crimes like homicide and first-degree sexual assault. ICE provided some of those names to Fox News as key examples of the agency’s accomplishments. “It’s the most disturbing list I’ve ever seen,” said Fox News reporter Bill Melugin on X, highlighting the criminal convictions of each person on the list.

For seven people, their only criminal history involved driving under the influence or disorderly conduct.

ICE agents approach a house before detaining two people in Minneapolis on Jan. 13.

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Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Six of the 130 Minnesota cases highlighted by the administration involved people with no criminal convictions. The government’s social media posts for those six instead rely upon the charges and arrests as evidence of their criminality, even though arrests don’t always lead to charges and charges can be dismissed.

In yet another case, the government highlighted a criminal charge even while noting it had been dismissed. (The person did have other existing convictions.)

For 37 of the 130 people, NPR was unable to confirm matching criminal history after consulting the databases and news coverage. Some of the names turned up no criminal history at all. The government said these people committed crimes ranging from homicide and assault to drug trafficking, and cited one by name to Fox News. NPR tried to reach out to all 37 people and their families for comment but did not receive a response from any.

In a statement to NPR, DHS’s chief spokesperson Lauren Bis did not dispute NPR’s findings or provide documentation where NPR wasn’t able to confirm matching criminal history.

“The fact that NPR is defending murderers and pedophiles is gross,” Bis wrote. “We hear far too much about criminals and not enough about their victims.” before listing four of the people with old convictions of homicide and sexual assault, underlining the date of deportation order for three of them.

Images designed to trigger emotion

The stream of social media posts with photos of mostly nonwhite people are meant to draw an emotional response, says Leo Chavez, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. They “have been used repeatedly over and over to get people to buy into, really drastic, drastic and draconian actions and policies,” he said.

Chavez, whose most recent book is The Latino Threat: How Alarmist Rhetoric Misrepresents Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation, recalls how political campaigns in past decades presented images of Latinos — often men — without context. “Just by showing their image, showing brown people, particularly brown men, it’s supposed to be scary.”

The fact that the government’s social media posts come with statements about criminal history as well as photos reinforces that emotional response, Chavez said. DHS has previously acknowledged inaccuracies on their website. But even if the department issues corrections, Chavez said, “the goal was actually achieved, which was to reinforce the criminality and the visualization.”

CNN’s analysis of DHS’s “Arrested: Worst of the Worst” website showed that for hundreds out of about 25,000 people posted on the website, the crimes listed were not violent felonies. Instead, DHS listed people with records that included traffic offenses, marijuana possession or illegal reentry. DHS said the website had a “glitch” that it will fix but also that the people in question “have [committed] additional crimes.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this when it comes to immigration enforcement in the modern era,” said Juliet Stumpf, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School who studies the intersection of immigration and criminal law. She said the drumbeat of social media posts focused on specific individuals was like “FBI’s most wanted posters” or “like reality TV shows.”

Then-DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin, flanked by deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Madison Sheahan (left), and Acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons, speaks during a news conference at ICE Headquarters, in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 2025.

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Jose Luis Magana/AP

Stumpf drew a parallel with an incident from the 1950s when the U.S. government deported two permanent residents suspected of being communists. “The government was kind of proclaiming and celebrating their deportation because getting rid of these communists was making the country safer,” said Stumpf, “Maybe that’s comparable to something like [this].”

An analysis by the Deportation Data Project shows a dramatic increase in arrests of noncitizens without criminal records during President Trump’s current term compared to President Biden’s term.

“If you look at research, immigrants actually tend to commit fewer crimes than even U.S. citizens do. And that’s true of immigrants who have lawful status here and immigrants who don’t,” said Stumpf. “If we have a number of social media posts that are painting immigrants as the worst of the worst…it’s actually really putting out a distorted version of reality about who immigrants actually are.”

Some claims are disputed by other authorities

In some posts, DHS and ICE have also used photos of people and statements about their criminal histories to burnish the federal government’s accomplishments, defend their agents and criticize states like Minnesota. State and local authorities have in turn pushed back, and some of the federal government’s claims about the people it has detained have been met with setbacks in the courts.

DHS accused Minnesota’s Cottonwood County of not honoring detainers, written requests by ICE to hold prisoners in custody for a period of time so ICE can pick them up. In one post, the agency identified a person who was charged with child sexual abuse, writing “This is who sanctuary city politicians and anti-ICE agitators are defending.”

The Cottonwood County sheriff’s office said DHS’s post “misrepresented the truth” in their own post on Facebook. According to their account, the county did honor the detainer but ICE said it was unable to pick up the person before the order expired and the county had to release the suspect.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections wrote in a blog post that dozens of people DHS listed on its “Worst of the Worst” website were not arrested as DHS described, but were transferred to ICE by the state because they were already in state custody. The Corrections Department has since launched a page dedicated to “correct the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) repeated false claims.”

The “Worst of the Worst” website has some overlap with the department’s social media posts, but it contains a much larger number of people — over 30,000 nationally. It included a Colombian soccer star who was extradited to the U.S., tried in Texas, convicted of drug trafficking and served time in federal prison. The website incorrectly describes him as being arrested in Wisconsin. The soccer player, Jhon Viáfara Mina, recently finished his sentence early and returned to Colombia, according to Spanish newspaper El Diario Vasco.

In some instances, DHS and ICE wrote about incidents where they ran into conflict when carrying out arrests. In those posts, they named the arrestees and posted their photos. But in one case where the incident went to court, the government’s account of the events shifted. After a federal agent shot Julio C. Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis in January, DHS claimed he was lodging a “violent attack on law enforcement.” Assault charges against Sosa-Celis fell apart in court as new evidence surfaced, and the officers involved were put on leave.

Despite the fact that the charges were dropped, DHS’s post profiling Sosa-Celis remains online.

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Bill Clinton to testify before House committee investigating Epstein links

Published

21 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Bill Clinton to testify before House committee investigating Epstein links

Former president Bill Clinton is scheduled to give deposition Friday to a congressional committee investigating his links to Jeffrey Epstein, one day after Hillary Clinton testified before the committee and called the proceedings “partisan political theatre” and “an insult to the American people”.

During remarks before the House oversight committee, Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, insisted on Thursday that she had never met Epstein.

The former Democratic president, however, flew on Epstein’s private jet several times in the early 2000s but said he never visited his island.

Clinton, who engaged in an extramarital affair while president and has been accused of sexual misconduct by three women, also appears in a photo from the recently released files, in a hot tub with Epstein and a woman whose identity is redacted.

Clinton has denied the sexual misconduct claims and was not charged with any crimes. He also has not been accused of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein.

Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times during the early years of Clinton’s presidency, according to White House visitor records cited in news reports. Clinton said he cut ties with him around 2005, before the disgraced financier, who died from suicide in 2019, pleaded guilty to solicitation of a minor in Florida.

The House committee subpoenaed the Clintons in August. They initially refused to testify but agreed after Republicans threatened to hold them in contempt.

The Clintons asked for their depositions to be held publicly, with the former president stating that to do so behind closed doors would amount to a “kangaroo court”.

“Let’s stop the games + do this the right way: in a public hearing,” Clinton said on X earlier this month.

The committee’s chair, James Comer, did not grant their request, and the proceedings will be conducted behind closed doors with video to be released later.

On Thursday, Hillary Clinton’s proceedings were briefly halted after representative Lauren Boebert leaked an image of Clinton testifying.

During the full day deposition, Clinton said she had no information about Epstein and did not recall ever meeting him.

Before the deposition, Comer said it would be a long interview and that one with Bill Clinton would be “even longer”.

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Read Judge Schiltz’s Order

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

CASE 0:26-cv-00107-PJS-DLM

Doc. 12-1 Filed 02/26/26

Page 5 of 17

and to file a status update by 11:00 am on January 20. ECF No. 5. Respondents never provided a bond hearing and did not release Petitioner until January 21, ECF Nos. 10, 12, after failing to file an update, ECF No. 9. Further, Respondents released Petitioner subject to conditions despite the Court’s release order not providing for conditions. ECF Nos. 5, 12–13.

Abdi W. v. Trump, et al., Case No. 26-CV-00208 (KMM/SGE)

On January 21, 2026, the Court ordered Respondents, within 3 days, to either (a) complete Petitioner’s inspection and examination and file a notice confirming completion, or (b) release Petitioner immediately in Minnesota and confirm the date, time, and location of release. ECF No. 7. No notice was ever filed. The Court emailed counsel on January 27, 2026, at 10:39 am. No response was provided.

Adriana M.Y.M. v. David Easterwood, et al., Case No. 26-CV-213 (JWB/JFD)

On January 24, 2026, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and ordered Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release, or anticipated release, within 48 hours. ECF No. 12. Respondent was not released until January 30, and Respondents never disclosed the time of release, instead describing it as “early this morning.” ECF No. 16.

Estefany J.S. v. Bondi, Case No. 26-CV-216 (JWB/SGE)

On January 13, 2026, at 10:59 am, the Court ordered Respondents to file a letter by 4:00 pm confirming Petitioner’s current location. ECF No. 8. After receiving no response, the Court ordered Respondents, at 5:11 pm, to immediately confirm Petitioner’s location and, by noon on January 14, file a memorandum explaining their failure to comply with the initial order. ECF No. 9. Respondents did not file the memorandum, requiring the Court to issue another order. ECF No. 12. On January 15, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and required Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release within 48 hours. ECF No. 18. On January 20, having received no confirmation, the Court ordered Respondents to comply immediately. ECF No. 21. Respondents informed the Court that Petitioner was released in Minnesota on January 17, but did not specify the time. ECF No. 22.

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