December 2023 – Page 776 – Safir News Agency

More Than 110 Countries To Join Plan To Triple Renewable Energy At COP28

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More Than 110 Countries To Join Plan To Triple Renewable Energy At COP28

The renewables pledge will be among several other energy-related announcements at COP28. (File)

Dubai:

A pledge to triple the world’s installed renewable energy by 2030 is poised to win support from more than 110 countries at the COP28 climate summit on Saturday, with some pushing to make the deal global by the end of the UN conference.

The European Union, United States and COP28 host the United Arab Emirates have been rallying support for the pledge as a means to the sharp drop in planet-warming emissions needed this decade to avoid unleashing more severe climate change.

“More than 110 countries have joined already,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the COP28 summit on Thursday of the renewables pledge. “I call now on all of us to include these targets in the final COP decision.”

Whether governments and companies will rally the huge investments needed to hit the goal is an open question. While deployment of renewables like solar and wind has been surging globally for years, rising costs, labour constraints and supply chain issues have forced project delays and cancellations in recent months, costing developers like Orsted and BP billions of dollars in writedowns.

Getting the deal into the final U.N. climate summit decision would also require consensus among the nearly 200 countries present. While China and India have signalled support for tripling global renewable energy by 2030, neither has confirmed it will back the overall pledge – which pairs the ramp-up in clean power with a reduction in fossil fuel use.

South Africa, Vietnam, Australia, Japan, Canada, Chile and Barbados are among the countries already on board, officials told Reuters.

The renewables pledge will be among several other energy-related announcements at COP28 on Saturday, including new measures and funding to combat methane emissions, agreements to cut coal use and the promotion of nuclear energy.

PHASE OUT?

A central decision facing nations at COP28 is whether to agree, for the first time, to gradually “phase out” global consumption of fossil fuels. Burning coal, oil and gas to produce energy is the main cause of climate change.

A draft of the renewable energy pledge, seen by Reuters, called for “the phase down of unabated coal power” and ending the financing of new coal-fired power plants.

Tripling clean sources like wind and solar and doubling energy savings would deliver 85% of the cuts in fossil fuel use needed this decade to meet global climate goals, according to an analysis by think-tank Ember.

The goals will add to pressure on wealthy nations and international financial institutions to unleash the massive investments needed to hit 11,000 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030 – in particular, by reducing the high cost of capital that has stymied renewable energy projects in Africa and other developing nations.

“The mismatch still exists between our potentiality and our limitations to attract investment,” said Najib Ahmed, a consultant at Somalia’s climate ministry.

Africa receives just 2% of global investments in renewable energy. Somalia has the highest onshore wind power potential of any African country, yet one of the lowest electrification rates in the continent, according to the International Energy Agency.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Middle East

‘Resistance won’t let Israel accomplish any of its objectives in Gaza’

admin Dec 2, 2023 0

A senior Hezbollah official says the Lebanese resistance fighters will never allow the occupying Israeli regime to attain its objectives in the Gaza Strip, stressing that resumption of Israeli attacks in the enclave comes on orders of the United States.

“The Gaza war has been an American onslaught ever since it broke out [on October 7]. All positions of US statesmen and developments unfolding on the ground attest to such a fact. Washington is not simply complicit in the Zionist occupiers’ aggression against Palestinians, but it is rather the key decision-maker of such atrocities,” Vice President of the Executive Council of Hezbollah Sheikh Ali Damoush said.

He made the remarks in a sermon to worshipers at the weekly Friday Prayers in the Lebanese capital city of Beirut.

He added that the occupying Israeli regime is nothing but a pawn in the hands of the US to advance its agendas in the West Asia region.

Damoush stressed that “Washington’s efforts to burnish its image before the world public opinion by pretending to avoid air strikes against civilians and providing aid supplies to Gaza will not fool anyone, and cannot help US officials duck responsibility in the ongoing carnage.”

World nations must openly and strongly express their opinions this time, and put pressure on Americans to stop this insane war, the high-ranking Hezbollah official said.

“Nowadays, everyone must take on their moral and humanitarian responsibility in the face of crimes being committed against civilians in Gaza. Resistance factions in Gaza and across the region will never allow Israel to achieve its objectives. The Axis of Resistance will also never allow the United States and Israel to have the upper hand in the region,” Sheikh Damoush said.

The top Hezbollah official emphasized that the resilience and steadfastness of Gazans rendered Israel unable to obtain any military gains in the first round of aggression, stating that the regime failed miserably in its ground incursion into Gaza.

The Zionist enemy had initially set goals for the war in Gaza, the most important of which were the destruction of Hamas resistance movement and release of captives, but it could not reach any of them, Sheikh Damoush highlighted.

“The Zionist regime, which failed to achieve any of its declared goals in the first seven weeks of the Gaza war, will likewise not reap anything this time, no matter how long the onslaught would last.

“The resistance front has not sustained any damage in its military structure, remains strong and capable, and continues its battles determinedly and mightily. The entire Axis of Resistance is standing by the side of Gazans, while the Israeli army is frustrated and has no confidence in achieving its goals,” the top Hezbollah official said.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements waged the surprise Operation al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

The Israeli aggression has so far killed more than 15,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.