Climate Focus

By Sharon Kimathi, Energy and ESG Editor, Reuters Digital

Hello!

It’s here – the last day of the annual United Nations climate summit, COP30, in Belem, Brazil.

In the words of one of my favorite actors, Richard E. Grant, in an Instagram video describing his feelings after watching Star Wars: The rise of Sky Walker: “I cheered, I shouted, I fist pumped the air, I cried”.

We made it to the end of COP30.

But, for environmentalists, the COP30 deal does not match Grant’s verdict on Star Wars that it was “absolutely everything I hoped it would be.”

Instead, a draft text for a proposed deal for this year's climate summit dropped a proposal to develop a global plan to shift away from fossil fuels that had been included in an earlier version.

The issue has been one of the most contentious at the two-week conference of nearly 200 governments in Brazil's Amazon city of Belem.

In the text released before dawn on Friday, all mentions of fossil fuels had been dropped.

The text, which is still subject to further negotiation, would need approval by consensus in order to be adopted.

In another blow for activists and low-income nations, the draft also called for global efforts to triple the financing available to help nations adapt to climate change by 2030, from 2025 levels, but it did not specify whether this money would be provided directly by wealthy governments, or other sources including development banks or the private sector.

Those were not the only eventful parts about COP30.

Talks at the summit were disrupted on Thursday after a fire broke out in the venue, triggering an evacuation just as negotiators were hunkering down to try to land a deal to strengthen international climate efforts.

Shortly after lunchtime, security footage showed flames breaking out at an exhibition pavilion and spreading rapidly up an internal fabric shell that lined the walls and ceiling of the building, before being extinguished.

Thirteen people were treated for smoke inhalation at the venue, organizers said. The local fire service said it was probably caused by electrical equipment, likely a microwave, and was controlled within six minutes.

Keep scrolling for our ‘Climate Buzz’ this week which is focused on the extreme weather experienced in Bangladesh, Gaza, Indonesia, Vietnam and Iran.

At least five people, including a child, were killed and around 100 injured when a magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck Bangladesh on Friday, said Muhammad Yunus, the head of Bangladesh's interim government, with buildings damaged in many areas including the densely populated capital Dhaka.

The injured included students from Dhaka university, factory workers in the city of Gazipur and residents of Narsingdi, the epicenter of the earthquake, according to Yunus. Tremors were felt in eastern states in neighboring India that border Bangladesh, but there were no immediate reports of major damage there, authorities said.

A child falls into the sea as Palestinians shelter in tents during a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

Palestinians have been flooded by heavy rain and storms in Gaza this week. The head of the Gaza government media office, Ismail al-Thawabta, said flooding had destroyed more than 22,000 tents along with tarpaulins, mattresses and cooking equipment amounting to more than $2 million of damage. 

Emergency shelters also collapsed in areas, turning camps into pools of water and mud, he said. Click here for the full Reuters report.

The death toll from landslides in Central Java, Indonesia has risen to 30 as rescue efforts continued, the country's disaster mitigation agency said. Some 21 people remain missing after landslides triggered by torrential rain struck the city of Cilacap last week and the Banjarnegara region over the weekend, the agency said.

A new round of floods and landslides triggered by torrential rain in central Vietnam since last weekend has killed at least eight people, a government report said, with traders also warning that it could hamper the ongoing coffee harvest in several parts of its central region which is home to a key coffee production belt.

Heavy rain caused floods in parts of western Iran earlier this week after months of severe drought. This comes as authorities separately began cloud seeding last weekend above the watershed of Lake Urmia in Iran's northwest – further north from the areas where flooding was reported, according to the Young Journalists Club (YJC).

Iran has been struggling with its worst water crisis in decades which pushed authorities to begin cloud seeding over the weekend. What is cloud seeding? Cloud seeding is a process in which chemicals are implanted into clouds to increase rainfall in an environment where water scarcity is a concern.

Storm Claudia may have passed, but business owners in Monmouth, Wales, and Ewyas Harold, England, are still counting the losses from its floods, which left shops damaged and communities rallying to help before the Christmas season. Click here for the full Reuters video.

Exclusive: Scientists with the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service told Reuters that the European Union is launching a service to measure the role climate change is playing in extreme weather events like heatwaves and extreme rain. Experts say this could help governments set climate policy, improve financial risk assessments and provide evidence for use in lawsuits. 

Copernicus will publish results by the end of next year and offer two assessments a month – each within a week of an extreme weather event. Click here to read the full Reuters exclusive article.