Aberdeen-based firm listed on FTSE 250 knocked back unsolicited approach from Dubai-based Sidara
The British oil services company John Wood Group has rejected a £1.4bn takeover offer from a Dubai-based rival, Sidara, which “fundamentally undervalued” the company.
Aberdeen-based Wood is the latest British company on the London Stock Exchange to face takeover speculation amid deepening concerns that UK-listed stocks are undervalued compared with other markets.
Continue reading...World Weather Attribution group says intensified El Niño effects caused torrential rain, but rules out cloud seeding as cause
Fossil fuels and concrete combined to worsen the “death trap” conditions during recent record flooding in the United Arab Emirates and Oman, a study has found.
Scientists from the World Weather Attribution team said downpours in El Niño years such as this one had become 10-40% heavier in the region as a result of human-cased climate disruption, while a lack of natural drainage quickly turned roads into rivers.
Continue reading...Passengers report being stranded in the desert city as the international hub struggles in the wake of unusually heavy rain
Dubai is wrestling with the aftermath of extraordinary torrential rains that flooded the desert city, with residents describing harrowing stories of spending the night in their cars, and air passengers enduring chaotic scenes at airports.
Up to 259.5mm (10.2in) of rain fell on the usually arid country of the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, the most since records began 75 years ago. The state-run WAM news agency called the rains on Tuesday “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949”.
Continue reading...City records more than 142mm of rain in a day, about as much as it expects in a year and a half, as highways and malls flooded
Highways and malls have been flooded, schools have been closed, and flights disrupted at one of the world’s busiest airports after the United Arab Emirates experienced what the government described as its largest amount of rainfall in 75 years.
At least one person was killed, a 70-year-old man who police said was swept away in his car in Ras Al Khaimah, one of the UAE’s seven emirates.
Continue reading...Heavy rain forecast in Saudi Arabia and UAE as France and Spain cool down after weekend of high temperatures
Intense thunderstorms are forecast across parts of the Gulf on Monday and Tuesday, bringing very high rainfall to the region and a significant flooding risk in parts.
Low pressure over the Arabian peninsula will deepen on Monday while a flow of moist tropical air moves into the region, significantly enhancing the production of showers as a result.
Continue reading...Event has already been widely used as PR opportunity for notorious Chechen unit accused of war crimes in Ukraine
Led out by a beaming Adam Kadyrov, the son of the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, a group of muscular men sporting black beards strode on to the brightly illuminated stage in Dubai last week to receive gold medals and a $5,000 (£3,960) cheque.
The men were members of the notorious Chechen Akhmat Kadyrov special police regiment, a group that Ukrainian officials have said was responsible for some of the worst atrocities in the war with Russia. The unit had just won one of the contests at the international Swat Challenge games, which are held each year in the United Arab Emirates.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here
We are shortly expecting a plenary to take place. The plenary sessions are the decision-making sessions of the Cops. They can be formal, in which a final decision will be made at the end, or informal (also called stocktaking), in which the purpose is to get reaction to the text before a new version is worked on. This one is informal to begin with, according to the UNFCCC, which suggests we may still be some time away from the end of this Cop.
In practice, the plenaries means every country gets a chance to share their view of the new text in an open forum, with discussion and debate taking place in the hope of reaching a final agreement. Sometimes this can be quite dramatic, and it is a rare moment in which countries from around the world, developed and developing, have to listen to each other. We will be following it live and posting excerpts from the country delegate speeches, as well as ongoing wider reaction to the text.
If this text is adopted … it will show a collective recognition that we must turn away from fossil fuels and move towards a cleaner future. Champions for this vision – both small island states and major economies – have worked tirelessly overnight. However, it is clear that not everyone is ready to admit the truth of what’s needed. This text alone might help avoid disaster in Dubai but it does not avoid disaster for the planet.”
I suspect that the language in this new draft text on the Global Stocktake, calling for countries to contribute to a transition away from fossil fuels in energy to achieve net zero by 2050, will be too weak for some Parties.
For the first time in three decades of climate negotiations the words fossil fuels have ever made it into a Cop outcome. We are finally naming the elephant in the room. The genie is never going back into the bottle and future Cops will only turn the screws even more on dirty energy.
Although we’re sending a strong signal with one hand, there’s still too many loopholes on unproven and expensive technologies like carbon capture and storage which fossil fuel interests will try and use to keep dirty energy on life support.
Continue reading...Fury as Graham Stuart returns to London as Caroline Lucas says UK has ‘obliterated its moral authority’
Tuesday morning at Cop28 and we’re back in a waiting game. Heads of delegation met until the early hours, mostly expressing their deep unhappiness with the draft text produced by the summit presidency late Monday afternoon.
The scheduled end of the two-week conference has come and gone – that was 11am local – and as yet there is no new text to replace the document from yesterday. Anybody who says they know when this will end is guessing.
Continue reading...EU’s climate commissioner says there must be ‘deeper discussions with many other partners’. This live blog is closed
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has been speaking to reporters at Cop28, underlining the significance of the next few hours of negotiations.
“We are in a race against time. As I said at the opening of Cop28, our planet is minutes to midnight for the 1.5C limit. And the clock keeps ticking. Cop28 is scheduled to wrap up tomorrow, but there are still large gaps that need to be bridged. Now is the time for maximum ambition and maximum flexibility,” he said.
Continue reading...Sultan Al Jaber calls for countries to come together amid disagreements over the future of climate action
• China ‘would like to see agreement to substitute renewables for fossil fuels’
There is some more food-related news from the conference today, writes Fiona Harvey.
The Alliance of Champions for Food Systems Transformation (ACF) launched on Sunday, a group that’s being called the “high ambition coalition for food”. It has Brazil, Sierra Leone and Norway as co-chairs, and other prominent members include Rwanda and Cambodia.
Strengthen national visions and food systems transformation pathways, inclusive of 10 priority action areas and consistent with science-based targets.
Update Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategies (LT-LEDS), and National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) in line with these updated National Food System Transformation Pathways and/or Implementation Plans, by 2025 at the latest.
Report annually on targets and priority intervention areas
“Peasant family farmers, Indigenous and local communities, forest collectors, pastoralists, fisherfolk, and agricultural workers, are among the populations most harshly affected by climate change worldwide. Yet they are also the central actors who can sustainably transform food systems. Supporting their livelihoods through specifically tailored public policies is essential to achieve an agroecological transition towards healthy, resilient and sustainable food systems.”
Let’s face it: climate summits are broken. The delegates talk and talk, while Earth systems slide towards deadly tipping points. Since the climate negotiations began in 1992 more carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels has been released worldwide than in all preceding human history. This year is likely to set a new emissions record. They are talking us to oblivion.
Continue reading...Sultan Al Jaber holds press conference at start of second week as summit focuses on children, education and food
Canada has been asked by the Cop28 president, Sultan Al Jaber, to help develop language on the potential phase down or phase out of fossil fuels, its environment minister told reporters on Friday morning.
Steven Guilbeault, a former activist who is environment minister for the fourth largest oil and gas producer in the world, announced that Canada would require its fossil fuel industry to cut its emissions between 35% to 38% below 2019 levels starting in 2030 on Thursday.
Continue reading...The 80,000 delegates are thinking of how best to unwind from the climate summit ‘whirlwind’ in Dubai on their only day off
From the world’s largest waterpark to an indoor ski resort in a shopping centre, Cop28 delegates will have plenty of options to choose from on their only day off at the climate summit.
After an exhausting week of negotiations, events and protests, the 80,000 delegates in the United Arab Emirates will have a chance to enjoy Dubai ahead of the final push.
Continue reading...Simon Stiell says’ ‘we need highest ambition, not point scoring or lowest common denominator politics’. This live blog is closed
Countries negotiating at Cop28 must not fall into the trap of point-scoring and “lowest common denominator politics”, Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, has said.
Stiell, who is executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, the structure under the auspices of which the climate summit is held, spoke at a press conference in Dubai as Cop28 reached its midpoint. He said:
All governments must give their negotiators clear marching orders. We need highest ambition, not point scoring or lowest common denominator politics.
We have a starting text on the table … but it’s a grab bag of wishlists and heavy on posturing. The key now is to sort the wheat from the chaff.
For all intents and purposes, moving towards the phase-out of fossil fuel combustion is necessary to keep the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement within reach.
Scenarios consistent with this goal require a complete phase-out of coal by 2050 and rapid phase-down of oil and gas (halved every decade). After 2050 the world needs to rapidly move into net negative emissions, particularly after a number of decades of 1.5C overshoot.
Continue reading...Former president of Republic of Ireland makes first comments since Sultan Al Jaber told her a fossil fuel phase out could mean ‘going back into caves’
Alok Sharma, an MP for the Conservative party in Britain and president of Cop26 that was held in Glasgow two years ago, has made some comments about Al Jaber’s presidency: “everyone should be questioned,” he says.
Environment ministers from Germany and Colombia have led an open letter calling for the inclusion of nature in the global stocktake outcome, which countries are negotiating at Cop28.
“The GST provides a critical moment to recognize the importance of just and inclusive means of implementation, and address the significant finance gap for nature-based solutions,” said Muhamad. “In particular, the involvement and respect for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities is critical, in addition to the urgent need to align financial flows to enable the transformations required to deliver the Paris Agreement goals.”
Continue reading...Cop28 president and oil chief says phase-down and phase-out of fossil fuels is essential and says his comments were misrepresented
John Kerry, the US special envoy for climate was just asked on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme in the UK what he thinks of Damian Carrington’s scoop that Sultan Al Jaber said there was ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels.
He was very diplomatic in his response and appeared to give the oil chief and Cop28 president the benefit of the doubt.
“What you have to do is clearly reduce the emissions. They have made it clear we need a 43% minimum reduction in emissions by 2030, and we need net zero 2050 in order to meet the goal of keeping 1.5. We’ve got all kinds of ways of getting there. Renewables are the one technology we really know we can deploy today and it has the impact we need.”
“We are not only signed up to that, president Biden on behalf of the US voted to join the g7 where we said we must phase out unabated fossil fuel. We have to do that yes otherwise you cannot reach net zero by 2050. What we are trying to figure out is how we can capture those emissions, or reduce those emissions, or not make those emissions in the first place.
“I think the only question here is not whether or not you are going to reduce emissions, it’s what means are you going to use to go at this to provide the energy you want for your country but also keeping faith with the reduction of the emissions that are creating the climate crisis.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: former US vice-president and climate activist says phase-out can be only measure of success for Cop28
An agreement by countries to phase out fossil fuels would be “one of the most significant events in the history of humanity”, according to Al Gore, amid wrangling by governments at Cop28.
It would be a “welcome surprise” if world leaders agreed at the climate talks to call for an end to fossil fuels, but such a declaration would have “enormous impact” upon the world, Gore told the Guardian at the gathering in the United Arab Emirates.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed
The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has been facing criticism at home for the brevity of his visit to the climate conference, having visited for less than a day. He has also been accused of hypocrisy for pushing for a phase-out of fossil fuels only weeks after approving new oil and gas licences in the North Sea.
Al Gore, the former US vice-president, said: “I am not impressed with prime minister Sunak’s climate policies. I think they’re terrible. They’re very disappointing.”
Continue reading...Thousands of activists attending climate conference in UAE, which has a poor record for demonstrations
Cop28 organisers and the UN body that oversees the annual climate conference have failed to clarify whether activists in Dubai are safe to demonstrate outside the conference area, putting civil society at risk in a country where protest is normally prohibited.
At least 80,000 people are registered to attend the conference, including thousands of activists and members of civil society, who normally hold protests around the conference area.
Continue reading...Hosts the UAE also signed the declaration, which drew a mixed reaction
For the first time at a Cop the UNFCCC, which organises the summits, has published the full list of participants in spreadsheet format, making them far easier to analyse.
Carbon Brief have looked at the provisional figures, and found that 84,101 people are registered to attend, 3,074 of whom are attending virtually.
Continue reading...Mafia informant Raffaele Imperiale hands over globe-shaped artificial isle to show willingness to cooperate
A former drug trafficker turned mafia informant has handed over an artificial island he owns off the coast of Dubai to the Italian authorities in the hope of receiving a reduced sentence.
The announcement was made during the trial in Naples on Monday, which involved about 20 defendants, including Raffaele Imperiale, nicknamed “the Van Gogh boss”, a notorious international drug trafficker for the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia.
Continue reading...