EU to propose more flexible climate goal in July, sources say
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Arab News
an hour ago
- Arab News
For hope on climate change, follow the money, UN chief tells AP
NEW YORK: For nearly a decade, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been using science to warn about ever more dangerous climate change in increasingly urgent tones. Now he's enlisting something seemingly more important to the world's powerful: Money. In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Guterres hailed the power of market forces in what he repeatedly called 'a battle' to save the planet. He pointed to two new UN reports showing the plummeting cost of solar and wind power and the growing generation and capacity of those green energy sources. He warned those who cling to fossil fuels that they could go broke doing it. 'Science and the economy show the way,' Guterres said in a 20-minute interview in his 38th-floor conference room overlooking the New York skyline. 'What we need is the political will to take the decisions that are necessary in regulatory frameworks, in financial aspects, in other policy dimensions. Governments need to take decisions not to be an obstacle to the natural trend to accelerate the renewables transition.' That means by the end of the autumn, governments need to come up with new plans to fight climate change that are compatible with the global goal of limiting warming and ones that apply to their entire economy and include all greenhouse gases, Guterres said. But don't expect one from the United States. President Donald Trump has pulled out of the landmark Paris climate agreement, slashed efforts to boost renewable energy and made fossil fuels a priority, including the dirtiest one in terms of climate and health, coal. 'Obviously, the (Trump) administration in itself is an obstacle, but there are others. The government in the US doesn't control everything,' Guterres said. Sure, Trump pulled out of the Paris accord, but many states and cities are trying to live up to the Biden administration's climate-saving goals by reducing the burning of coal, oil and natural gas that release heat-trapping gases, Guterres said. Invest in fossil fuels, risk stranded assets? 'People do not want to lose money. People do not want to make investments in what will become stranded assets,' Guterres said. 'And I believe that even in the United States, we will go on seeing a reduction of emissions, I have no doubt about it.' He said any new investments in exploring for new fossil fuel deposits 'will be totally lost' and called them 'just a waste of money.' 'I'm perfectly convinced that we will never be able, in the history of humankind, to spend all the oil and gas that was already discovered,' Guterres said. But amid the hope of the renewable reports, Guterres said the world is still losing its battle on climate change, in danger of permanently passing 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degree Fahrenheit) warming since preindustrial times. That threshold is what the Paris agreement set up as a hoped-for global limit to warming 10 years ago. Many scientists have already pronounced the 1.5 threshold dead. Indeed, 2024 passed that mark, though scientists say it requires a 20-year average, not a single year, to consider the threshold breached. A scientific study from researchers who often work with the UN last month said the world is spewing so much carbon dioxide that sometime in early 2028, a couple years earlier than once predicted, passing the 1.5 mark will become scientifically inevitable. Guterres: 'We need to go on fighting' even as it looks bleak Guterres hasn't given up on the 1.5 degree goal yet, though he said it looks bad. 'We see the acceleration of different aspects of climate change, rising seas, glaciers melting, heat waves, storms of different kinds,' he said. 'We need to go on fighting,' he said. 'I think we are on the right side of history.' Guterres, who spoke to AP after addressing the UN Security Council on the Israeli occupation of Gaza, said there's only one way to solve that seemingly intractable issue: An immediate ceasefire, a release of all remaining hostages, access for humanitarian relief and 'paving the way for a serious political process leading to the two-state solution. Some people say the two-state solution is now becoming extremely difficult. Even some saying it's impossible. But the question is, what is the alternative?' Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan are all crises, Guterres said, but climate change is an existential problem for the entire planet. And he said people don't realize how climate-caused droughts and extreme weather can feed poverty and terrorism. He pointed to the Sahel as an example. 'We see that people live in worse and worse conditions, less and less capacity to grow their crops, less and less capital,' he said. 'And this is largely due to climate change.' 'Everything is interlinked: Climate change, artificial intelligence, geopolitical divides, the problems of inequality and injustice,' Guterres said. 'And we need to make sure that we make progress in all of them at the same time.'
Arab News
an hour ago
- Arab News
Trump tariffs would hit Hungary hard despite warm relations with MAGA-friendly Orbán
BUDAPEST: Hungary's populist prime minister has spent years building a close political relationship with US President Donald Trump and aligning himself with the MAGA movement. But despite Viktor Orbán's success in gaining favor with the culturally conservative and nationalist wing of Trump's administration, his country is poised to be among those hard hit by Trump's tariffs against the European Union. Trump earlier this month announced he would levy tariffs of 30 percent against Mexico and the EU beginning Aug. 1 — a move that could cause massive upheaval between the United States and the 27-member EU, of which Hungary is a member. As a small, export-oriented economy with major automobile, pharmaceutical and wine industries — some of the main categories of products Europe exports to the US — Hungary will be particularly vulnerable to Trump's tariffs. The duties 'would put the Hungarian economy in a very, very difficult situation, because then the entire possibility for Hungary to export to America would be essentially eliminated,' Péter Virovácz, chief analyst at ING Hungary, told The Associated Press. 'Not the best way to make money' Hungary's largest trading partners are other EU countries like Germany, Italy and Romania, as well as China, but many Hungarian companies export their goods across the Atlantic. Outgoing trade to the United States represents around 15 percent of all Hungarian exports to countries outside the EU. One such enterprise, a Budapest-based company specializing in Hungarian wine, said it will likely cease doing business in the US altogether if the 30 percent duty is levied on its products. 'If it's really going to be 30 percent, then there is no more shipment ... We might just call it a day at the end of the year,' said Gábor Bánfalvi, co-owner of Taste Hungary. Bánfalvi's company has been shipping around 10,000 bottles of premium Hungarian wine per year to the US for about half a decade. With a base in Washington D.C., it exports a range of red and white wines to clients in numerous US states including specialty wine shops and bars. Until now, 'it's been a thin profit margin, but it's been fine because we want Hungarian wine to be available' to US consumers, Bánfalvi said. 'Then came 2025,' he said. When Trump began imposing tariffs on EU exports earlier this year, the cost of Taste Hungary's shipments tripled, Bánfalvi said — price hikes he had to build into the sticker price of the wine. The imposition of 30 percent tariffs would make exporting 'unsustainable.' 'You just start to think, why are we doing this? Is it really worth it? It's just not the best way to make money,' he said. In total, the value of EU-US trade in goods and services in 2024 amounted to 1.7 trillion euros ($2 trillion.) Doubts that political ties could soften the blow Hungary's government, a vocal proponent of Trump's 'patriotic' foreign policy prioritizing national interests, has acknowledged that the tariffs would present a challenge. But, careful not to criticize the Trump administration, it has instead blamed the EU, a frequent target of Orbán's scorn, for failing to reach a comprehensive trade agreement with Washington. Confident that his right-wing populist policies would help win him favor with Trump's administration, Orbán said in an interview in April that while tariffs 'will be a disadvantage,' his government was negotiating 'other economic agreements and issues that will offset them.' But Péter Krekó, director of the Budapest-based Political Capital think tank, expressed doubt that political affinities could play a meaningful role in mitigating damage to Hungary's economy caused by Trump's trade policy. 'The unquestionably good bilateral relations simply cannot compensate for the trade conflicts between the EU and the US, and as a consequence, Hungary will suffer the tariffs the same way that the EU will,' Krekó said. 'Mutual nationalisms cannot be coordinated in a way that it is going to be a win-win situation.' Car manufacturing and pharmaceuticals Virovácz, the economist, pointed out that Hungary is home to numerous automobile factories for major automakers like Audi and Mercedes. The manufacturing of cars and motor vehicle parts represents an 'overwhelming majority' of the country's total exports, he said. Pharmaceuticals make up an even larger share of Hungarian exports to the United States — an industry on which Trump this month threatened to impose 200 percent tariffs. That 'will essentially kill European and thus Hungarian exports to America,' Virovácz said. 'It's impossible for tariffs to be levied on EU products but not on Hungarian ones,' he said. 'A theoretical option is that Trump could somehow compensate Hungary because he's on good terms with the Hungarian political leadership, but if that only starts happening now, it's way too late.' Krekó, the political analyst, said Trump's administration 'gives practically nothing for free. If Hungary ... cannot fulfill the interests of the US, then I think Hungary is not going to receive gifts.' 'Hungary just doesn't have the cards, to use Trump's terminology,' he added.
Arab News
2 hours ago
- Arab News
COP30 must make good on past climate pledges
In 2015, the landmark Paris climate agreement set the ambitious but necessary goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and ensuring that the increase stays 'well below' 2 C. With the average global surface temperature having already reached 1.1 C above the 20th-century baseline, time is running out to reach this goal. Yet governments so far have failed to agree on a strategy for doing so. At the 62nd session of the UN Climate Change Subsidiary Bodies (SB62) in Bonn last month — the negotiations intended to lay the groundwork for November's UN Climate Change Conference in Brazil — countries got so hung up on the details of the agenda that little progress was made. Such delays have long characterized the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, but they are at odds with scientific reality, which demands rapid and unified action. Building consensus is, thus, a key challenge facing Brazil's COP30 presidency. The task ahead is formidable not only because of the challenges inherent in the UNFCCC process, but also because four interconnected global developments are undermining trust and impeding multilateral cooperation. First, the global-governance architecture, with the UN at its core, is showing signs of disarray. Institutions that were designed to nurture and facilitate cooperation are increasingly hamstrung by bureaucratic inertia and outdated organizational structures. With reform efforts gridlocked, the UN system risks losing its relevance, and multilateralism its credibility. Second, the rise of transactional diplomacy has meant countries prioritize their own short-term interests over collective long-term needs. This approach, based on a narrow conception of national interest, effectively precludes broad-based cooperation, as it erodes the norms that have traditionally underpinned international engagement. Brazil's COP30 presidency must eschew flashy results in favor of pragmatic pathways to deliver on past commitments. Jacinda Ardern, Carlos Lopes, and Laurence Tubiana Third, compromise is increasingly being rejected in favor of 'realism,' leading to extreme polarization and entrenched negotiating positions. Multilateral negotiations frequently come down to the wire, and the results are often disappointing, further encouraging transactional engagement at the expense of cooperation and compromise. Finally, climate change is increasingly taking a back seat to other challenges, with armed conflicts, a global trade slowdown, intensifying growth headwinds, and record debt levels consuming countries' political attention, diplomatic space, and financial resources. Brazil clearly has its work cut out. Above all, it must resist the tendency for COP presidencies to emphasize fresh agreements and ambitious commitments — the kind that grab headlines and make the negotiations look like a smashing success, but often fall short when the hard work of implementation begins. Brazil's COP30 presidency must eschew flashy results in favor of pragmatic pathways to deliver on past commitments. Fortunately, Brazil recognizes this. Its fourth letter to the international community outlines an action agenda aimed at making progress on what the world has 'already collectively agreed' during previous COPs and in the Paris climate agreement. Specifically, the agenda seeks to leverage existing initiatives to complete the implementation of the first 'global stocktake' under the Paris agreement, which was concluded at COP28. This focus on previously agreed outcomes is well-suited to the current geopolitical context, in which any agreement can be difficult to reach. Representatives at the SB62 in Bonn did not achieve a consensus, and last month's G7 summit failed to deliver a joint communique. Rather than perpetuating stalemates, the action agenda invites stakeholders to make progress where agreement already exists. The agenda also charts the way forward. It is organized into six thematic 'axes,' including stewarding forests, oceans, and biodiversity; transforming agriculture and food systems; and building resilience for cities, infrastructure, and water. 'Unleashing enablers and accelerators' in finance, technology, and capacity-building — the final, cross-cutting axis — will accelerate implementation at scale. Since responsibility for the implementation and governance of climate policy is distributed among many actors — which must have some level of trust that others are doing their part — the agenda also establishes 'transparency, monitoring, and accountability' as top priorities. To this end, Brazil's COP30 presidency should seek to deliver a set of shared principles and supportive mechanisms. As COP30 special envoys, we extend our full support to the action agenda. By emphasizing consolidation, rather than spectacle, Brazil is setting the stage for a highly productive COP30 — one focused on bridging divides, building trust, and delivering genuine progress. The task ahead is daunting, but the chance to rebuild momentum is real. Copyright: Project Syndicate.
