China and US renew commitment to tackling climate crisis but differences remain

Xie Zhenhua said he’d had ‘very constructive discussions’ with John Kerry at Cop27 but there’s no change on finance issues

China and the US have renewed their partnership to tackle the climate crisis, and are working closely and productively on ways of bringing down greenhouse gas emissions, China’s head of delegation has said.

The surprise news from Xie Zhenhua, who briefed a small group of journalists at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt on Saturday, comes as a rare moment of progress amid a conference mired in stalemate and bitter fighting between developed and developing countries.

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‘False solutions’: scepticism over Saudi carbon capture plan

Kingdom’s Cop27 announcement of new storage hub part of pattern of delaying fossil fuel transition, experts say

Saudi Arabia is bolstering years of negotiation tactics designed to stymie vital climate negotiations with a focus on carbon capture technologies that experts say risk delaying a meaningful transition from fossil fuels.

The kingdom, which is the world’s second largest oil producer, accounting for roughly 15% of global output, announced plans at Cop27 in Egypt for what it labelled the “circular carbon economy”, in partnership with the national oil company, Aramco, which recently reported $42.4bn in profit.

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What happened at Cop27 on day 11?

EU agrees to loss and damage fund to help poor countries and activists interrupting proceedings lose their passes

The biggest news of the day broke on Friday morning, with the announcement that the EU would agree to a loss and damage fund to help poor countries with climate disasters.

The climate summit will run until Saturday, according to Agence France-Presse. This is not really a surprise to anyone.

Youth activists staged a Friday climate strike to mark the last formal day of negotiations. Meanwhile during the talks, Nakeeyat Dramani, a 10-year-old Ghanaian climate activist, asked delegates to “have a heart”.

Elsewhere the activists who interrupted the US president, Joe Biden, lost their summit passes, as did the Ukrainian protester who spoke out at a Russian press conference.

A surprisingly large number of gas deals were struck at the summit, with more than a dozen set up.

And Desmog crunched the numbers and found that representatives from big agriculture more than doubled at Cop27.

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Summit to be extended to Saturday as talks remain gridlocked – as it happened

The European Union has backed a loss and damage fund, one of the key demands of developing countries at the climate talks

This liveblog is now closed

The low-lying Pacific island of Tuvalu has been reacting to the EU’s proposal on “loss and damage”. Its finance minister, Seve Paeniu, called for support for phasing out all fossil fuels, language so far missing from the draft Sharm el-Sheikh agreement.

He described the EU position on loss and damage as a “breakthrough”.

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EU reversal of stance on loss and damage turns the tables on China at Cop27

China is responsible for more cumulative emissions than any country other than the US

Late on Thursday night in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, the Cop27 UN climate talks seemed stuck in an irretrievable logjam. Rich and poor countries had reached deadlock, a “breakdown between north and south”, according to the UN secretary general, António Guterres.

By Friday morning, the talks had been upended and the battleground dramatically redrawn, in a way it has not been in 30 years of these annual talks. At stake is the question of whether some of the world’s leading economies – countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf petrostates, Russia and countries with high per capita income such as South Korea and Singapore – should start contributing for the first time to help the poorest and most vulnerable countries with the impacts of climate disaster.

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Cop27: EU agrees to loss and damage fund to help poor countries amid climate disasters

Change in stance puts spotlight on US and China, which have both objected to fund

A breakthrough looked possible in the deadlocked global climate talks on Friday as the European Union made a dramatic intervention to agree to key developing world demands on financial help for poor countries.

In the early hours of Friday at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt, the European Commission vice-president, Frans Timmermans, launched a proposal on behalf of the EU that would see it agree to establishing a loss and damage fund.

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Cop27 president bemoans slow negotiations saying some countries failing to address urgency of climate crisis – as it happened

Egypt foreign minister Sameh Shoukry says delegates are shying away from taking ‘difficult political decisions’. This live blog is closed

As global politicians face difficult discussions on the draft over the coming hours, public opinion appears to be supportive of the idea that richer countries should pay loss and damage finances for climate action in poor countries.

Damian Carrington, our environment editor writes: A significant majority of people in the UK think the country has a responsibility to pay for climate action in poorer and vulnerable countries, an opinion poll conducted for the Guardian shows.

No details of a fund on loss and damage financing for poorer countries

“Welcomes” the fact that parties agreed for the first time to include “matters related to funding arrangements responding to loss and damage” on the summit agenda.

No call for a phase down on all fossil fuels

Stresses the importance of exerting all efforts to meet Paris Agreement goal of holding global average temperature to well below 2C and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 C

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‘Asking an arsonist to put out a fire’: climate offender Maduro makes Cop27 comeback

Despite an abysmal environmental and human rights record, Venezuela’s president is back on the international stage

It is unclear whether Cop27 will have any real impact on efforts to halt climate change but one leader is likely to return from the international summit feeling that the trip to Egypt was well worth it: the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.

After years of being frozen out of international relations the Latin American dictator used Cop27 to clearly – if controversially – demonstrate that he is back on the international stage.

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Devastating floods in Nigeria were 80 times more likely because of climate crisis

Stark findings add pressure on Cop27 negotiators to deliver meaningful funding to vulnerable countries

The heavy rain behind recent devastating flooding in Nigeria, Niger and Chad was made about 80 times more likely by the climate crisis, a study has found.

The finding is the latest stark example of the severe impacts that global heating is already wreaking on communities, even with just a 1C rise in global temperature to date. It adds pressure on the world’s nations at the UN Cop27 climate summit in Egypt to deliver meaningful action on protecting and compensating affected countries.

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Lula vows to undo environmental degradation and halt deforestation

President-elect says he will work to save Amazon rainforest and key ecosystems in rousing Cop27 speech

President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has told the world that “Brazil is back” at Cop27, vowing to begin undoing the environmental destruction seen under his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, and work towards zero deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.

Followed by a carnival atmosphere wherever he went on Wednesday, Lula told the climate summit that his administration would go further than ever before on the environment by cracking down on illegal gold mining, logging and agricultural expansion, and restoring climate-critical ecosystems.

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NSW floods: Amber Stevens airlifted from atop a water tank with her baby, husband and two dogs

‘We rang the SES but they couldn’t get to us, there was no boat,’ says the resident of Tichborne in the state’s central west

Amber Stevens went to bed on Sunday night expecting her paddock could get a little wet, nothing more. You didn’t get big floods in Tichborne – hadn’t for 70 years.

The next evening, she was huddled on top of a water tank, with her baby Finn, husband and two dogs, watching a sea of flood water engulf her home in the usually barren central west of New South Wales.

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Global heating to drive stronger La Niña and El Niño events by 2030, researchers say

New modelling suggests climate change-driven variability will be detectable decades earlier than previously expected

Stronger La Niña and El Niño events due to global heating will be detectable in the eastern Pacific Ocean by 2030, decades earlier than previously expected, new modelling suggests.

Researchers have analysed 70 years of reliable sea surface temperature records in the Pacific Ocean to model changes in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (Enso) under current projections of global heating.

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India’s energy conundrum: committed to renewables but still expanding coal

Critics says India’s plans to increase coal production to 1bn tonnes a year are environmentally devastating and unnecessary

Three days before India’s environment minister boarded a flight to Egypt for this year’s UN climate summit, Cop27, the country’s finance minister was busy with a new announcement.

“India needs greater investment in coal production,” said Nirmala Sitharaman at the Delhi launch of India’s biggest ever coalmine auction, where 141 new sites for coalmines will be sold off to the highest bidder.

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Australia news live: immediate evacuation orders as central west NSW faces dramatic floods; record early voting in Victoria

The SES has said the Lachlan River is rising faster than originally forecast. Follow all today’s news

Some issues ‘we have raised will be solved overnight’: Chalmers

Albanese has said there are no preconditions ahead of the meeting with Xi but Karvelas is pressing Chalmers on what could be on the table. He’s staying pretty tight-lipped but here are some of his answers.

We’ve made it really clear for some time … that these trade sanctions are not in Australia’s interests, and we want to see them lifted.

I don’t think anybody pretends some of the issues China has raised, certainly some we have raised will be solved overnight, but again we give ourselves a much better chance where there is engagement and dialogue.

Australia’s made its views clear over a long period of time when it comes to the detention of these two people.

What’s Australia’s ambition here?

We seek a more stable relationship with China.

We will speak up for our national interest where necessary, but we believe engagement is important to give ourselves the chance to work through some of these issues if we’re talking to each other.

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Climate-focused reform of World Bank could be done in a year, says Al Gore

Former US vice-president says bank should refocus its spending and end its role in ‘fossil fuel colonialism’

Fundamental reform of the World Bank could be completed within a year, to refocus its spending on the climate crisis and end its contribution to “fossil fuel colonialism”, according to the former US vice-president Al Gore.

“I don’t know why it need take longer than a year,” said Gore, a longtime campaigner on the climate crisis since leaving politics, in an interview with the Guardian at the Cop27 UN climate summit. “We have an emergency on our hands.”

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Australia still trails most developed countries in climate performance ranking

Despite Labor’s increased emissions target, Australia has only improved four places to 55th out of 63 in the annual index

Australia continues to trail other developed countries in addressing the climate crisis, in part due to the Albanese government’s support for new fossil fuel developments, according to an analysis released at the Cop27 UN conference in Egypt.

The climate change performance index, published by Germanwatch, the NewClimate Institute and the Climate Action Network with input from 450 climate and energy experts and campaigners, found Australia was still a “very low performing country”. It ranked 55th on a list of 63 countries and country groupings, up from 59th last year.

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Ukraine uses Cop27 to highlight environmental cost of Russia’s war

Delegation at climate summit tell of destruction of protected areas and carbon toll of invasion and rebuilding

Ukraine has used the Cop27 climate talks to make the case that Russia’s invasion is causing an environmental as well as humanitarian catastrophe, with fossil fuels a key catalyst of the country’s destruction.

Ukraine has dispatched two dozen officials to the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to spell out the links between the war launched by Russia in February, the soaring cost of energy due to Russia’s status as a key gas supplier, and the planet-heating emissions expelled by the offensive.

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Albanese and Biden discuss climate action and Aukus pact ahead of G20 summit

In a 40-minute meeting, the prime minister also invited the US president to address federal parliament next year during meeting of the Quad

Anthony Albanese has compared notes with the US president ahead of Joe Biden’s landmark meeting with Xi Jinping on Monday at the G20, and discussed Aukus and climate cooperation in a warm catch-up spanning 40 minutes.

Australia’s prime minister met Biden on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit on Sunday in Phnom Penh. That catch-up followed Albanese speaking on Saturday night with the Chinese premier Li Keqiang – which is the first leader-level contact between Australia and China in three years.

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Climate protesters in Lisbon storm building and urge minister to resign

Portuguese economy minister António Costa e Silva was giving a speech when demonstrators got on to the premises

Hundreds of protesters angry about the climate crisis took to the streets of Lisbon on Saturday, with dozens storming a building where Portugal’s economy minister, António Costa e Silva, was speaking, demanding that the former oil executive resign.

Holding banners and chanting slogans, protesters demanded climate action. As some demonstrators broke into the building, those outside shouted: “Out Costa e Silva!”

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Cop27: US ‘totally supportive’ of moves to address loss and damage, says Kerry – as it happened

US climate envoy John Kerry has said his country is ready to discuss the loss and damage at Cop27

After six years as the big cheese of UN climate negotiations, Patricia Espinosa has been enjoying walking the halls of power not quite as an ordinary Joe and apparently isn’t closely following the negotiations. “It has felt just amazing. I knew that as the [UNFCCC] executive secretary that I was missing so much, and it’s been a really wonderful experience.”

Espinosa might not be paying close attention, but we’re starting to see developed countries push back against this year’s hot topic, loss and damage, after developing nations laid out a unified case for why a funding mechanism separate to climate adaptation and mitigation is needed to address the climate catastrophes that can’t be averted. The US in particular has been accused of being a “bad faith actor” due to its long track record of disrupting and delaying progress on the issue.

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