Daily News Brief

November 22, 2024

Top of the Agenda

The presidency of this year’s COP29 UN climate conference released a draft agreement only hours before the curtains are due to go down on the summit today, which has faced backlash from all sides. It would see wealthy countries take the lead in providing $250 billion per year to poor ones by 2035 to address climate change. Agreeing on such a finance target was a chief goal of this year’s conference before the current commitment of $100 billion per year from wealthy countries expires next year. The target is meant to spur additional climate finance from private sources. Developing countries blasted the proposal as too low, while developed countries were unhappy that it was too high since the draft did not grow the contributor base. Azerbaijan’s COP29 presidency said it will work with countries in the coming hours on outstanding issues to the deal.  

Talks in Baku this year have been marked by concerns that the United States could again draw out of the Paris Agreement under President-Elect Donald Trump and by broader calls for summit reform from veteran climate negotiators. The fractious negotiations over finance have been coupled with a string of green pledges from individual nations. Yesterday, Mexico’s new President Claudia Sheinbaum pledged to bring its economy to net-zero by 2050, meaning that among the world’s fifteen largest emitters, only one—Iran—has yet to make a net-zero commitment. (Reuters, Bloomberg)

Analysis

“There is no deal to come out of Baku that will not leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, but we are within sight of a landing zone for the first time all year,” the Inter-American Development Bank’s Avinash Persaud tells Bloomberg. “The $250 billion commitment to be led by developed countries is short given adaptation needs alone.”

“The American election is far from the determining factor in the global fight against climate change,” CFR Senior Fellow David M. Hart writes in this Expert Brief. “What matters is how fast clean energy and climate technologies can get cheaper and better.”

This Expert Brief from CFR Senior Fellow Alice C. Hill and CFR’s Priyanka Mahat lays out how to read the summit in Baku.

Europe

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Ukrainian officials will hold talks in Brussels next week over Russia’s firing yesterday morning of a hypersonic missile, unnamed diplomats told AFP. A NATO spokesperson said Russia using the weapon would not deter NATO allies from supporting Ukraine, and a White House spokesperson said Russia was escalating “at every turn.” Yesterday, the U.S. sanctioned Gazprombank, which had been the last major Russian bank it had not penalized over Russia’s war. (AFP, Bloomberg)

At this event, CFR experts discuss whether the latest missile deployments will change the war. 

U.S./Sweden: Battery maker Northvolt filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States, a blow to the company that had been seen as one of Europe’s strongest contenders against Chinese competition in the electric vehicle battery space. (Reuters)

Pacific Rim

Lai Ching-te will visit allies Marshall Islands, Palau, and Tuvalu in his first overseas trip as president later this month into early next; the Pacific island countries are among the group of twelve countries that have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. (NHK)

For the Asia Unbound blog, CFR expert David Sacks questions whether Trump will abandon Taiwan. 

U.S./China: Texas Governor Greg Abbott told his state’s agencies they are prohibited from new investments in Chinese funds and they should divest at their first opportunity. His public letter cited the “belligerent actions” of the Chinese Communist Party. (Reuters)

South and Central Asia

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the gun attacks; the victims were mostly Shiite Muslims and the incident comes after months of sectarian violence in Pakistan’s Kurram region. (Dawn, NYT)

Turkmenistan: Security forces in the country detained journalist Soltan Achilova as she was preparing to depart for an international human rights award ceremony in Switzerland. A group of eleven nongovernmental organizations called for her immediate release; Turkmenistan’s diplomatic mission in Geneva did not immediately comment. (Reuters)

Middle East and North Africa

Yesterday’s resolution was the second such censure in five months for Iran’s failure to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The resolution requires the agency to produce a “comprehensive and updated assessment” of Iran’s nuclear activities, which could eventually trigger a referral to the UN Security Council to consider new sanctions. (AP)

This episode of The President’s Inbox gets into preventing the threat of nuclear terrorism. 

Israel: Prosecutors charged an aide in the prime minister’s office and an unnamed military reservist yesterday over leaks of classified military intelligence on Hamas to German newspaper Bild. The accused, media advisor Eliezer Feldstein, did so to influence how the Israeli public viewed negotiations for a cease-fire, Israeli prosecutors said. A lawyer for Feldstein did not immediately comment. (NYT)

Sub-Saharan Africa

The junta sacked the previous prime minister, a civilian who had served since 2021, earlier this week after he made a rare public criticism over delays to previously scheduled elections. His replacement is a military colonel who had been an international spokesperson for the junta, Abdoulaye Maïga. (NYT) 

Senegal: The party of new President Bassirou Diomaye Faye is on track to win 78 percent of parliamentary seats, according to provisional election results. Faye’s party has been outperforming in areas seen as strongholds for former leader Macky Sall. One of their first orders of business will be addressing a stalled International Monetary Fund reform package. (Reuters, Africanews) 

Americas

The runoff presidential election vote Sunday is taking place after neither the center-left nor center-right candidates won a majority of votes in the first round. Polls suggest a close race. (Reuters)

Brazil: Police recommended that former President Jair Bolsonaro and thirty-six others be criminally charged for a plot for Bolsonaro to remain in power after his 2022 election loss. The former president has previously denied wrongdoing in the case and said in a post yesterday that he needed to look more closely at the allegations. (FT)

United States

Securities and Exchange Commission leader Gary Gensler will step down on January 20, 2025, he announced via social media. Gensler’s term is due to run until 2026 but administrators often depart when a new administration begins. Trump has said he would sack Gensler on “day one” after Gensler took action against crypto firms. (BBC)

Yesterday, CFR held a conversation on blockchain and its effects on democracy, finance, and national security.

Friday Editor’s Pick

The BBC catalogs how the disappearing island of Tuvalu is recreating itself in the metaverse by building a digital copy of everything, down to its trees.

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