Daily News Brief

November 7, 2022

Top of the Agenda

This year’s UN climate conference, the twenty-seventh Conference of the Parties (COP27), began yesterday with an agreement for negotiators to discuss compensating (The Guardian) poor and other vulnerable countries for the loss and damage caused by climate change. COP27 host Egypt plans to pressure wealthy countries to contribute more (NYT) to poor ones’ climate efforts. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry is set to unveil a plan in which businesses could offset their emissions with so-called carbon credits purchased from developing countries that have reduced their own emissions, the Financial Times reported. 

The conference comes at the end of a year marked by climate disasters around the world, including floods, heat waves, and droughts. The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization said the last eight years are on track to be the warmest on record. UN climate chief Simon Stiell said most countries have failed to make stronger commitments to prevent further warming, as they had pledged to do during last year’s conference.

Analysis

“Even the U.S. has backed down from its past obstructionist posture [against funding for loss and damage],” Grist’s Naveena Sadasivam and Emily Pontecorvo write. “Loss and damage advocates will be watching closely to see if the U.S.’s new posture is a real departure from its past positions or more of the same.”

“The war [in Ukraine], along with many other factors, has caused governments, corporations, and development finance institutions to pull back from climate finance at exactly the moment when such spending is needed most,” Tufts University’s Kelly Sims Gallagher writes for Foreign Affairs.

This In Brief lays out what to expect at COP27.

Pacific Rim

A Chinese health official said Beijing will maintain its  “dynamic zero-COVID” approach (Reuters), following speculation last week that the government would relax restrictions.

China/Japan: China opted out (Nikkei) of a joint display of maritime force with Japan and twelve other countries yesterday, but attended an Asian security forum in the Japanese city of Yokohama today.

South and Central Asia

Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar is expected to discuss the war in Ukraine (Indian Express) with Russian officials. The visit comes days before a Group of Twenty (G20) summit in Indonesia, which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to attend.

U.S./Central Asia: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Donald Lu began a trip (State Dept.) to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan yesterday. He will discuss Washington’s plan to provide the region with $25 million in funding for economic development.

Middle East and North Africa

An India-based hacker group targeted the email accounts of people who aimed to expose Qatari rights abuses in the run-up to the FIFA World Cup, according to a report by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Sunday Times. The hacker group was allegedly paid by private investigators with ties to the companies based in the City of London financial district. 

UAE: Masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 will be optional (Bloomberg) in most public places in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) beginning today, and residents will no longer need a digital health pass to enter public venues.

Sub-Saharan Africa

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who seized power in a coup one year ago, said the military has compiled its views (Reuters) on a draft constitution for the country.

For the Africa in Transition blog, CFR’s Michelle Gavin looks at the state of play in Sudan one year after the coup.

DRC/Uganda: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said his country’s air force destroyed a camp (Bloomberg) in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that was housing members of the Allied Democratic Forces, a group linked to the self-declared Islamic State.

Europe

The European Union (EU) filed a comment (FT) to the U.S. Treasury Department saying that the local content requirements in the Inflation Reduction Act—a sweeping tax, health, and climate bill passed earlier this year—violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules that prohibit discrimination against imports. The complaint said the act could lead to retaliation from EU countries.

CFR’s Alice C. Hill and Madeline Babin explain what the bill gets right and wrong on climate change.

U.S./Ukraine: White House officials are urging Ukraine to drop its demand that Russian President Putin be removed from power before peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow can begin, the Washington Post reported.

On the Why It Matters podcast, CFR President Richard Haass discusses how the war in Ukraine could end.

Americas

Haitian authorities engaged in weeks of talks (CNN) with gang leader Jimmy Chérizier before he agreed to relinquish control of the terminal in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Canada: Teachers and other education workers in the province of Ontario are striking (Globe and Mail) today in protest of legislation that prohibits their right to strike.

United States

The case could make enforcement (FT) by agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission more difficult.

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