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African nations demand climate change financing ahead of COP27

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African nations demand climate change financing ahead of COP27

The African continent emits just some 3 p.c of world CO2 emissions, but is amongst most uncovered to local weather change.

The leaders of two dozen African international locations have urged wealthier nations to uphold their support pledges so the continent can sort out local weather change impacts for which it shares little blame.

African minister made their name in a communique on the shut of a three-day discussion board within the Egyptian capital Cairo on Friday and two months earlier than Egypt hosts the essential COP27 local weather convention in Sharm El-Sheikh in November.

We urge “developed international locations to fulfil their pledges in relation to local weather and improvement finance, and ship on their commitments to double adaptation finance, particularly to Africa,” the 24 leaders mentioned in a closing assertion.

The African continent emits just some 3 p.c of world CO2 emissions, former UN chief Ban Ki-moon famous this week.

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And but African nations are amongst these most uncovered to the influence of local weather change, notably worsening droughts and floods.

The African leaders mentioned the monetary support was wanted in view of “the disproportionate influence of local weather change and nature loss on the African continent”.

Africa not solely has a “low carbon footprint”, they mentioned, however it additionally performs a key function in capturing greenhouse gases, together with within the Congo Basin, which is residence to the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest after the Amazon.

‘Abrupt disinvestments from fossil fuels’

The communique urged wealthy international locations to satisfy and develop local weather pledges, and mentioned poor international locations ought to be capable to develop economically whereas receiving extra funds to adapt to the influence of local weather change.

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The doc careworn “the necessity to keep away from approaches that encourage abrupt disinvestments from fossil fuels, as it will… threaten Africa’s improvement”.

The function of fuel within the transition to cleaner power is about to be a key level of competition at COP27. Local weather activists say it must be shortly phased out and changed with renewables.

However, Nigerian Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed instructed the Cairo discussion board that fuel was a matter of survival for her nation.

“If we’re not getting cheap finance to develop fuel, we’re denying the residents in our international locations the alternatives to realize primary improvement,” she mentioned.

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The communique additionally known as for specializing in local weather change in a assessment of multilateral improvement banks and worldwide monetary establishments. It urged the creation of a sustainable sovereign debt hub that would cut back the price of capital for growing states and assist debt-for-nature swaps.

Funding to assist poorer international locations curb their emissions and strengthen their resilience can be a key problem at COP27.

A longstanding objective for developed international locations to spend $100bn a 12 months from 2020 on serving to susceptible nations adapt to local weather change stays unmet.

In response to the African Improvement Financial institution, the continent will want as a lot as $1.6 trillion between 2020 and 2030 for its personal efforts to restrict local weather change and to adapt to the antagonistic results which can be already obvious.

Kevin Chika Urama, chief economist on the African Improvement Financial institution, mentioned Africa confronted a local weather financing hole of about $108bn annually.

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“Local weather finance construction at this time is definitely biased towards climate-vulnerable international locations. The extra susceptible you’re the much less local weather finance you obtain,” he mentioned.

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Hamas says three captives to be released amid ceasefire deal collapse fears

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Hamas says three captives to be released amid ceasefire deal collapse fears

Hamas says it will release captives according to timeline set out in truce after fears agreement would not hold following Israel’s violations.

Hamas says it is committed to the release of captives held in Gaza according to a timeline set out in a ceasefire, days after fears arose that the truce would not hold following Israel’s violation of the agreement.

In a statement released on Thursday, Hamas said it “confirms continuation in implementing the agreement in accordance with what was signed, including the exchange of prisoners according to the specified timetable”.

Hamas spokesperson Abdul Latif al-Qanoua also confirmed to the Anadolu news agency that the group will release captives on Saturday if Israel adheres to the terms of the ceasefire.

“The [Israeli] occupation has violated the agreement multiple times, whether by preventing the return of displaced people or blocking the entry of humanitarian aid,” he said. “If Israel does not adhere to the terms of the agreement, the prisoner exchange process will not take place.”

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A Palestinian source quoted by AFP news agency said on Thursday that mediators had obtained from Israel a “promise … to put in place a humanitarian protocol starting from this morning” that would allow construction equipment and temporary housing into the devastated territory.

The Hamas statement added that talks being held this week in Cairo aimed at overcoming an impasse in implementing the deal had been “positive”.

Later on Thursday, Israel said Hamas must release three living captives on Saturday or Israel will return to war.

This week, the agreement with Israel has come under severe strain.

Hamas warned it would delay the next release of captives scheduled for Saturday due to Israel violating the truce by shooting Palestinians in Gaza and not allowing the agreed-upon number of tents, shelters and other vital aid to enter the besieged enclave.

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Israel responded by saying that if Hamas failed to free captives according to the schedule, it would resume its war.

Since the ceasefire went into effect on January 19, Israeli forces have killed at least 92 Palestinians and wounded more than 800, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss the ceasefire with mediators Egypt and Qatar.

Egyptian state-linked media said heavy equipment and trucks carrying mobile homes were ready to enter Gaza from Egypt on Thursday. The AFP news agency shared images showing a row of bulldozers on the Egyptian side of the border.

However, Israel later said they would not be allowed to enter through the crossing.

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“There is no entry of caravans or heavy equipment into the Gaza Strip, and there is no coordination for this,” Omer Dostri, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote on X, adding: “No goods are allowed to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing.”

Bulldozers and trucks carrying caravans wait to enter Gaza at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza [Mohamed Arafat/AP Photo]

Hamas has previously accused Israel of holding up the delivery of heavy machinery needed to clear the vast amounts of rubble across the enclave.

United States President Donald Trump had warned this week that “hell” would break loose if Hamas failed to release “all” the remaining captives by noon (10:00 GMT) on Saturday.

If fighting resumes, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said: “The new Gaza war … will not end without the defeat of Hamas and the release of all the hostages.”

“It will also allow the realisation of US President Trump’s vision for Gaza,” he added.

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Trump, whose return to the White House has emboldened the Israeli far right, caused a global outcry over his proposal for the US to take over the Gaza Strip and move its 2.3 million residents to Egypt or Jordan.

The Gaza truce, currently in its first phase, has seen Israeli captives released in small groups in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody.

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Czech Dam Project Was Stalled by Bureaucracy. Beavers Built Their Own.

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Czech Dam Project Was Stalled by Bureaucracy. Beavers Built Their Own.

For years, officials in the Czech Republic had pushed a dam project to protect a river south of Prague, and the critically endangered species living in it. But the project, hamstrung by land negotiations, stalled.

In the meantime, a group of chisel-toothed mammals — renowned for their engineering skills and work ethic, and unencumbered by bureaucracy — decided to take on the task. The beavers of Prague simply built dams themselves.

The rodents’ fast work saved the local authorities some 1.2 million euros, according to a news release from the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic, a government agency responsible for conservation across the country. “Nature took its course,” Bohumil Fišer, the head of the Brdy Protected Landscape Area, where the revitalization project was planned, said in the statement. The beavers, he added, had created the ideal environmental conditions “practically overnight.”

The project, on a former army site on the Klabava, a river about 40 miles southwest of Prague, the Czech capital, was drafted in 2018 and had a building permit, but had been delayed for years by negotiations over the land, which had been used as a military training grounds, Agence France-Presse reported on Tuesday. Officials had hoped to build a barrier to protect the river and its population of critically endangered crayfish from sediment and acidic water spilling over from two nearby ponds, A.F.P. reported.

The beavers began working before the excavators could even break ground. It was not immediately clear specifically when the dams were built and how long it took to build them.

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The new wetland created by the dams covers nearly five acres, the conservation group said. It is twice as large as the area that the humans had planned, Agence France-Presse reported. “It’s full service,” Mr. Fišer told A.F.P. “Beavers are absolutely fantastic and when they are in an area where they can’t cause damage, they do a brilliant job.”

Despite their remarkable ability to construct dams, beavers often draw the ire of landowners and farmers for destroying trees, eating crops and flooding roads and fields. But in thinning a tree canopy, the rodents can often help to diversify an ecosystem by allowing in sunlight in so that other plant species can thrive, said Emily Fairfax, an assistant professor of ecology at the University of Minnesota.

“They’re fundamentally changing the way water and life moves through that landscape,” she said.

To build a dam, the beavers, whose weight as adults can range from about 40 to 80 pounds, begin by piling small stones across a river or stream, packing those stones in with mud, and repeating the process to construct a pond, which they then expand to become a wetland, Dr. Fairfax said.

They are motivated by their fear of predators: Beavers are adept swimmers and can hold their breath underwater for 15 minutes. On land, their ungainly waddle makes them easy prey. “They’re basically a big chicken nugget for predators,” which include bears, mountain lions and wolves, she said.

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The Czech dam is not the first time the rodents have assisted in building a wetland. Beavers in California have helped to restore a floodplain about 30 miles northeast of Sacramento. In that case, the beavers’ work also helped local officials save money. “All they had to do was let the beavers be there,” Dr. Fairfax said. In other cases, beavers often did work that went unacknowledged. “We sort of have a blindness for beavers,” she said, noting that they were often considered a nuisance because of their alarming size and capacity to rapidly change the landscape.

“They’re powerful, they’re big, and they’re elusive,” Dr. Fairfax said, noting that, despite the beavers’ engineering prowess, they presented a challenge for conservation groups when planning restoration projects.

“Oftentimes we don’t want to allow the beavers to make the choices, because it’s hard to plan around that uncertainty; it’s hard to turn over control to a giant water rodent,” she said. “But that’s when beavers are at their best.”

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Mother of Israeli hostage begs Trump, Netanyahu to bring son home before ceasefire collapses: 'No more time'

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Mother of Israeli hostage begs Trump, Netanyahu to bring son home before ceasefire collapses: 'No more time'

Idit Ohel, the mother of Israeli hostage Alon Ohel, urgently pleaded for President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to secure the release of the remaining Oct. 7 captives held by Hamas amid fears the current ceasefire deal is disintegrating.

“They have no more time. And please don’t go back to war. Please. Because if that happens, if we go back to war, the hostages could die. The hostages that are alive could die,” she told Fox News Digital. “That’s what happened last time. Last time we saw that after the hostages came out and war started, so many hostages died and were murdered by Hamas. So we cannot let this happen. Please do everything in your power and do something for my son. He’s in the tunnels. He’s crying for help.” 

Idit Ohel said she received confirmation that her son is still alive from released hostages Eli Sharabi and Or Levy, two of the three gaunt, frail-looking Israelis forced to speak Saturday during a Hamas hand-over ceremony in Gaza. 

The mother said the released hostages, who were held with her son for part of their nearly 500 days in captivity, told her that Alon Ohel is unable to see out of an eye after being struck by shrapnel when Hamas was closing in on Oct. 7, 2023. Alon Ohel, a civilian, was attending the Nova music festival when terrorists attacked, and he took cover in a bomb shelter. Hamas pounded the shelter with grenades and gunfire, and he “was taken, wounded, with blood all over him,” Idit Ohel said. 

ISRAEL SLAMS PALESTINIAN ‘DECEPTION SCHEME’ OVER CLAIM IT HALTED TERROR REWARDS PROGRAM

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A placard of Alon Ohel seen during a rally marking his 24th birthday in Tel Aviv. (Eyal Warshavsky/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Alon Ohel’s ancestors survived the Holocaust, including his great-grandfather who weighed just 30 kilos [about 66 pounds] when he was released from the Auschwitz concentration camp, Idit Ohel said. “So if he was alive today, he would probably die instantly just knowing that his great-grandson in the year of 2025 is starving,” she said. “Alon has these genes. So he’s fighting. He’s fighting for his life every day.” 

Under the deal, another three hostages were due to be released by next Saturday, but Hamas said Monday that the group would not let them go, accusing Israel of violating terms of the ceasefire agreement. 

Concerns that fighting will resume are rising. Trump has since said that Hamas must release all remaining 76 hostages by noon Saturday, or he would demand the ceasefire deal be canceled and “let all hell break out.” Netanyahu backed the demand. 

Israeli media is reporting that Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is being dispatched to Israel and Qatar this week to prevent the ceasefire deal from unraveling. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected in Israel on Saturday. 

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To Trump and Netayanhu directly, Idit Ohel said, “Do something and bring them home. Please. Please.” 

Alon Ohel's mother speaks at Tel Aviv rally

Idit Ohel speaks to the crowd during a Tel Aviv rally marking the 24th Birthday of her son Alon Ohel who is held hostage by Hamas. (Eyal Warshavsky/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

“Give him a chance. It’s unbearable. Something has to change. You have to do everything in your power to bring him home to me, to his family,” she said. “There’s still hostages alive. There’s still hostages alive. Please. Please, do something.” 

Idit Ohel said she learned her son is being held in tunnels without medical attention and little food and has been “tortured, chained and starved.” 

“It’s not humane. There’s so much food getting into Gaza, and he’s not getting any of it,” she said.

HAMAS SAYS IT’S DELAYING NEXT HOSTAGE RELEASE, CLAIMING CEASEFIRE VIOLATIONS

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“Alon, right now as we speak, is still being not fed, sleeping on the floor, being chained, constrained. So he cannot move for 494 days,” Idit Ohel said. “My son is important. My son is only an innocent civilian. He went to the Nova festival to have fun. He’s a pianist. He loves music. He did nothing wrong to nobody. We need to get him out now. He cannot continue. This is humanitarian.” 

Days before Trump took office, Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement. Former President Joe Biden said at the time that the first phase involved a “surge of humanitarian assistance into Gaza” – something Idit Ohel stressed her son is not getting. 

She said the International Committee of the Red Cross “have never seen Alon and have never seen any of the hostages – [he] didn’t get any treatment.” 

Tel Aviv demonstration in honor of Alon Ohel's 24th birthday

Israelis stand under placards with photos of hostages during a rally in Tel Aviv marking the 24th Birthday of Alon Ohel, who is held by Hamas in Gaza.  (Eyal Warshavsky/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

“Where is he? Why is he not coming?” Idit Ohel added. “I do not understand it. I will never understand it. This is wrong. This is not moral.” 

Ohel rallied thousands in Tel Aviv over the weekend on her son’s 24th birthday – the second birthday he has spent in captivity since the Oct. 7 attacks. 

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“I wanted to say happy birthday to my son. I couldn’t even talk [to him] and see and hear his voice,” she said. “When I heard about his condition, I fainted … I haven’t been sleeping for days … I cannot control what Hamas is doing to my son.” 

“Every mother in this world. Think just for a second. If there’s one night that your son or daughter doesn’t eat, you can’t even live with yourself,” Ohel added. “My son has not been getting food for 494 days.”

The mother also delivered a message directly to her son. 

“If you’re listening to me, you know I love you and your father loves you. And we’re doing everything in our power to make sure that you’re home alive. You’re coming home. And there’s so many people all over the world and in Israel that are with you and are praying for you,” Ohel said, asking fellow musicians to play songs in her son’s honor in the coming days. “And you are not alone, Alon. You are not alone.” 

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