Such a major agreement could boost the Egyptian economy, which is facing a dire foreign exchange crisis.
The United Arab Emirates is in advanced talks to purchase and develop a large piece of land on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast in a deal that could bolster the troubled economy of the North African nation.
An UAE consortium has been picked to work with Egyptian partners to develop the land in Ras el-Hekma, about 350km (217 miles) northwest of Cairo, an Egyptian official was quoted by CNBC Arabia on Wednesday as saying.
Hossam Heiba, the chief executive officer of the state-run General Authority for Investment and Free Zones, told the broadcaster that the initial estimate for the total project was $22bn and that an agreement was expected soon. He did not provide further details, nor name any companies or entities.
On Thursday, Egypt’s cabinet said the government was preparing to announce new projects that will “earn huge amounts of foreign currency” and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in an apparent reference to a multibillion-dollar development planned along the Mediterranean coast in an area of upscale luxury resorts.
The emirate of Abu Dhabi, one of seven in the UAE and the country’s capital, is involved in the project, according to unnamed people familiar with the talks quoted by US outlet Bloomberg, which also reported that Egypt may retain ownership of about 20 percent of the vast territory spanning 180 million square metres.
It said the minority stake would include a share for the Talaat Moustafa Group, a real estate developer, and some Egyptian state entities, adding that no final decision has been taken.
The major deal could strengthen ties between Egypt and the UAE, a chief backer of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi that has previously offered economic support in the form of investments or other assistance.
Egypt is dealing with its worst foreign exchange crisis in decades, having undergone several currency devaluations, and is expected to enact another one soon – its fourth since early 2022.
A foreign currency boost could also positively impact Egypt’s talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a major loan, that may bring in other partners and secure some $10bn in financing.
Egypt is due to repay heavy foreign debts this year and the IMF has been pushing it to sell state assets, make space for the private sector and allow its currency to trade flexibly.
An IMF team was in Egypt last month to negotiate the revival and possible expansion of a $3bn loan agreement which faltered soon after it was signed in December 2022.
Egypt, along with Qatar, is a key mediator in talks aimed at ending Israel’s war on Gaza, starting with another pause in hostilities and the exchange of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails for captives being held in the enclave.
An Emirati official tells the Financial Times that the Gulf country ‘does not take sides’ in war in Sudan.
The United Arab Emirates has denied arming the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in its war against the Sudanese army, the Financial Times has reported, after a leaked UN report said it had “credible” evidence that the Gulf country was providing military support to the paramilitary group.
According to the UN document, evidence suggest that the UAE had sent weapons to the RSF “several times per week” via Amdjarass in northern Chad.
The UAE “does not take sides in the current conflict,” an Emirati official on Wednesday told the British newspaper. The country had “consistently called for de-escalation, a sustainable ceasefire and the initiation of diplomatic dialogue” in Sudan, the source was cited as saying.
The UN report, which has not been published yet, was compiled by experts for the UN Security Council.
In a letter to the monitors, the UAE said 122 flights had delivered humanitarian aid to Amdjarass to help Sudanese fleeing the war.
Last week, a UAE official told Reuters that it extended an invitation to the UN monitors to visit a field hospital in Amdjarass “to learn firsthand about the humanitarian efforts undertaken by the UAE to help alleviate suffering caused by the current conflict”.
The RSF, led by Mohamad Hamdan Dagalo, has been engaged in a brutal war against the country’s army, headed by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, for more than nine months. The war has left about half of Sudan’s 49 million people in need of aid, and more than 7.5 million have fled their homes, according to the UN.
Dagalo controls most of Sudan’s western region Darfur and parts of the capital Khartoum. The RSF has recently also taken control of Wad Madani, one of Sudan’s major cities.
The paramilitary group has been accused, along with Arab armed groups, of killing up to 15,000 non-Arabs from the Masalit tribe in attacks that “may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity,” read the report.
The RSF has previously denied the accusations and said any of its soldiers found to be involved would face justice.
“The attacks were planned, coordinated, and executed by RSF and their allied Arab militias,” the sanctions monitors wrote in their annual report to the 15-member Security Council.
In December, the United States formally determined that warring parties in Sudan committed war crimes and that the RSF and allied militias had also committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
The UN report said that “complex financial networks established by RSF before and during the war enabled it to acquire weapons, pay salaries, fund media campaigns, lobby, and buy the support of other political and armed groups”.
It added that the paramilitary group used proceeds from its pre-war gold business to create a network of as many as 50 companies in several industries.
Since the war started “most of the gold, which was previously exported to UAE, was now smuggled to Egypt,” the monitors said.
The new firepower acquired by the RSF “had a massive impact on the balance of forces, both in Darfur and other regions of Sudan,” the report found.
Among the companies sanctioned were three controlled by the Sudanese army, including the Defense Industries System conglomerate, which Brussels said had estimated revenues of $2bn in 2020.
The other three companies sanctioned were involved in procuring military equipment for the RSF.
The war has left nearly half of Sudan’s 49 million people needing aid: More than 7.5 million people have fled their homes, making Sudan the biggest displacement crisis globally, and hunger is rising.
Al Wakrah, Qatar – It was a night to remember at Al Janoub Stadium – a night that belonged to Palestine irrespective of the result on the pitch.
The crowd’s noise, flags and numbers all were in the favour of the team that came into the match with an AFC Asian Cup 2023 loss to its name and a relentless war on its people.
The unrestrained show of love and support for the war-struck nation began before kick off, increased as the night wore on and quietened down only when the last set of fans had left the stadium’s at the end of Palestine’s Group C match against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Al Wakrah on Thursday night.
Chants of “Free, free Palestine” went up in a crescendo when the players walked out of the tunnel and onto the pitch. The Palestinian players acknowledged the crowd with waves and applause before gathering in a huddle.
“The players will feel a sense of responsibility tonight – they must be aware that they are carrying the hopes of a nation under war,” Mariana al-Hindi, a Palestinian resident of Qatar, told Al Jazeera ahead of kick off.
“They will want to put a smile on everyone’s face by doing well tonight,” she said as she approached the turnstiles with her husband and daughter.
“As Palestinians, we are happy to see out country represented and recognised at a big event, but at the same time, we are heartbroken about the situation in Gaza,” Abdullah, her husband, said.
Mariana al-Hindi, Abdullah, and their daughter outside the stadium [Hafsa Adil/Al Jazeera]
Once the match kicked off, the men in red were willed on by a roaring crowd.
Every touch of the ball by a Palestinian player was cheered and every time the UAE held possession the unabashedly partisan crowd loudly booed.
Palestine enjoyed some early possession but the UAE soon settled into a rhythm and began attacking the Palestinian goal. Their efforts bore fruit in the 23rd minute when Sultan Adil scored from a free header. The stadium fell silent for a moment until a small contingent of Emirati fans began singing.
Sultan Adil celebrates scoring for the UAE [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]
Not to be deterred, the rest of the crowd picked up again and urged the Palestinian team to push for a goal and when a Oday Dabbagh was hauled down in UAE’s box 12 minutes later, the crowd jumped up and pointed to the penalty spot.
The referee’s dismissal of the appeals was not taken well by the crowd, who willed him on to run a VAR check.
When a penalty was subsequently awarded to Palestine and Khalifa Al Hammadi was shown a red card, the stadium stood up to applaud the decision.
Tamer Sayem failed to convert from the spot and the first half ended with UAE still in the lead.
There was no let up in cheering during half-time, especially when the intro to the song Dammi Falastini blared from the PA.
The crowd was up on its dancing feet and singing along to the chorus – they were all Palestinian for one night.
Palestine fans at Al Janoub Stadium [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]
When play resumed, Palestine looked to take control of the proceedings with early pressure and it bore fruit as the UAE scored an own goal in the 48th minute.
Palestine didn’t care how the goal came – they ran around the pitch in delight. In the stands, it was pandemonium. Children jumped on the seats, women hugged each other and men let the tears flow when the ball went in.
“These players have been through a lot, all Palestinians have been through a lot, so this was a very special moment,” Yassine Abdullah, a Palestinian student, said moments after the goal.
“Everyone saw what hard work, inspiration and support did for Morocco at the World Cup – we are hoping this match can do the same for our team,” he said as Palestine pressed for a second goal.
“We could be the Morocco of this tournament.”
Palestine equalise through an own goal [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]
Despite their relentless attacks, the 10-man UAE team kept Palestine at bay and held on for a 1-1 draw.
At the full-time whistle, the Palestinian players walked around the pitch to applaud their supporters for the electric atmosphere that kept them going all the way until the end.
Assad Qusais, who watched the match with his family, said the men in red may have done just enough to keep some hope alive.
“It depends on they play against Hong Kong [in the last group match] but we could still make it as one of the best third-placed teams,” he said with a shrug.
Abdullah, who compared the support enjoyed by Palestine to the backing Morocco enjoyed at the World Cup, said he would love it if his team replicated a similar run.
The continental tournament and the match may not may not carry the weight of a World Cup, but the night meant the world to the passionate Palestinian supporters.
Thiruvananthapuram, India - As soon as you enter, walk to the right, then a little forward.
In the first or second aisle, you’ll see them immediately, prominently placed on the shelves: Tiger Balm and, next to it, Axe Oil — both from Singapore. And then, in the third or fourth aisle, Imperial Leather bath soap from Britain.
In Lulu Hypermarkets across the Gulf, these coveted products – muscle-relieving ointment and a bath bar with a well-known fragrance – are always positioned the same so shoppers can easily find them. Often, these three products are the only items people have travelled to the store to buy.
Indian-born businessman and billionaire MA Yusuff Ali is the chairman and managing director of LuLu Group International, which oversees 255 Lulus in 23 countries. The franchise has the tagline “The world comes to shop in Lulu,” but most consumers at his swanky Gulf stores are fellow South Asians – mainly low-paid migrant workers from his home state, Kerala, on India’s southern tip.
Of the nine million Indians living in Gulf Cooperation Council countries, people from Kerala form the biggest chunk — by far.
These workers tend to flock to Lulu just before they fly home on leave. Typically, they get 14 days of vacation annually. Sometimes this leave is saved up over two years so workers can spend a whole month at home. Stopping at Lulu before the journey back is a well-practised ritual, an event aimed at bringing joy to their loved ones, whom they’ve waited all year – or even two years – to see.
And that joy comes in the form of balm, oil and soap.
In this movie poster for Pathemari, a 2015 film that tells the hardships of a Keralite worker who migrated to Dubai on a pathemari (wooden boat) in the 1960s, South Indian film star Mammootty is shown with his character’s baggage at the airport [Facebook]
‘Huge money for people like me’
Migrant worker George Varghese has been driving cars for an Emirati family in Dubai for the past 28 years. His employer owns a limousine fleet service that counts the Bahraini royals; Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former wife, Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Ocheretnaya; Indian film star Shah Rukh Khan; and British-Indian millionaire Lakhsmi Mittal’s family among its clients.
Varghese, a Keralite who speaks multiple languages, has driven some of these dignitaries around Dubai while earning 2,200 UAE dirham ($600) a month – a little more than South Asian construction workers.
Workers will often spend 500 dirhams ($136) on shopping before flying home, which is “huge money for people like me”, Varghese says. A bar of Imperial Leather costs about 3 dirhams, a jar of Tiger Balm about 9 dirhams and Axe Oil is 10 dirhams.
Recently, Varghese handled the repatriation of a paralysed Indian man. When he purchased the man’s airline ticket, Varghese made a stop at a Lulu, picking up two Tiger Balms, three Axe Oils, and two bars of Imperial Leather soap. “Old habits die hard,” he says.
He packed the must-have items and a few chocolates in a brown carton and sent it to the man’s family as a gift.
Varghese, like other migrant workers, doesn’t bathe with the expensive Imperial Leather soap, which was first produced in 1930 in London and claims to have a scent created in the 18th century. Instead, he uses Radhas, an ayurvedic Kerala soap, which is always kept on the bottom shelves of Lulu – you have to bend over to find it.
He explains that the migrants often say, “We have never used Imperial Leather, but our families have.”
Not only is it essential for workers to purchase the desired products before travelling home, but the items must also be packaged in a specific way, Varghese explains. That means placing them in brown cartons secured with yellow plastic rope, then wrapping the boxes with tape. Names and flight details, written in permanent marker, must appear on the box.
It’s a ritual not to be deviated from, Varghese adds.
Brown cartons are a common sight on the baggage carousel at Thiruvananthapuram International Airport in Kerala [Rejimon Kuttappan/Al Jazeera]
Exotic gifts from afar
Kerala’s long history of migration, spurred by poverty and unemployment, has seen significant shifts in destinations throughout the 20th century.
Early migrants sought opportunities in Southeast Asia, but after oil was discovered in the Gulf, Keralites started to migrate there in search of “Arabi Ponnu” (“Arab Gold” in Malayalam, Kerala’s local language). And those who returned home from the Gulf started to bring back signature gifts for their families.
Items like Tiger Balm, Axe Oil and Imperial Leather soap bars — foreign-manufactured and then unavailable in local markets — became coveted symbols of success, so much so that today, when they are either available in India or can be shipped using global e-commerce firms, migrant workers from Kerala still buy them as gifts for their families.
[BELOW: We should translate the name of the song]
This custom has even found its way into popular culture, immortalised in the lyrics of the 1965 song Kadalinakkare Ponnore (Across the sea to the north) from the movie Chemmeen (The Prawns). The lines, “Those who cross the sea, those who go for unseen gold, when you return, what will you bring with your hands full?” playfully teased loved ones returning from their quests for “unseen gold” abroad.
What began as an expectation evolved into a cherished tradition, adding excitement and anticipation to family reunions.
The brown carton ritual
Manikantan Raju remembers the early days of the brown cartons.
It was started in the 1960s, he says, by a Keralite hotel owner in Dubai who helped migrants send packages home to their loved ones in India.
After losing his house in a fire in a southern Kerala village when he was 15, Raju joined many of his neighbours seeking new opportunities in far-flung corners of Southeast Asia. He then travelled to the shores of Oman’s Muscat coast in a wooden boat and found overland transport in a fruit truck to Dubai. There he landed at the Deluxe Hotel, where arriving migrants could stay and find work, and was hired to help build the Dubai Creek, a natural seawater inlet of the Gulf that runs southeast through the heart of Dubai.
When it came time for Raju to send items home for his mother and sisters, the hotel owner did all the purchasing, packaging and shipping arrangements, Raju explains. “Since many of us arrived in Dubai without a passport, the Deluxe Hotel owner would help us send brown cartons home as certain documents are needed to courier the boxes,” he adds.
The owner “meticulously packed” balm, oil, soap, stylish polyester dhotis [wraparounds for men], dates and the workers’ handwritten letters, Raju says. He can’t remember the exact brand names from that time, but he does recall buying Imperial Leather, Tiger Balm, Axe Oil and Nido (milk powder) to send home in the 1990s.
Brown cartons are drenched in the rain at Kozhikode, Kerala, the site of a crash of an Air India Express flight from Dubai on August 7, 2020 [Rejimon Kuttappan/Al Jazeera]
Varghese says not much has changed since. Of course, migrant workers now make their own purchases for their annual leaves, but those brown boxes, packed with care, are essential for the journey home.
Among the American Touristers and Skybags on the conveyor belts of any South Indian airport, especially in Kerala, “you will also see brown boxes with names and flight destinations written in bold font,” Varghese says.
And beside the baggage carousel, you’ll find Keralites waiting patiently for their precious boxes filled with carefully selected gifts. The brown boxes are symbols of love and connection and build a bridge between the two worlds of work and home, Varghese explains.
“They carry the dreams of a man working hard to provide for his family.”
Packing and unpacking: two celebrations
The night before a worker goes on annual leave is a celebration. There is a delicious feast, loud music and sometimes a few bottles of whiskey to mark the occasion.
Friends in the labour camp or shared apartment gather to help pack. One person skillfully arranges the contents in the boxes and wraps them in cello tape while another writes the traveller’s details on the boxes in permanent marker. There’s a weighing machine to make sure the contents remain under 30kg (66 pounds), the maximum weight for checked baggage on most budget airlines.
Meanwhile, two or three people prepare a feast of fiery Kerala chicken curry, which is paired with parotta (South Indian layered flour bread) bought from a nearby restaurant. The air is filled with mouthwatering aromas and songs.
One comrade agrees to remain sober. His job is to chauffeur his friend to the airport for the early morning flight. As the evening ends, the worker who is flying home takes one last look at his packed boxes, anticipating the response of his loved ones when they’re opened.
Like the ritual around packing the boxes, the unpacking is also a ceremony.
Surrounded by close relatives, the worker begins to untie the boxes, “cursing” his expert friend whose wrapping skills have rendered the box nearly unopenable.
After a flurry of rope cutting and tape removal, the gifts are taken out one by one: perfume bottles swaddled in clothes to protect them during transit, Nido milk powder cans, Tiger Balm for elderly relatives, colourful foil-wrapped chocolates for the children, Imperial Leather soap for the worker’s wife and mother.
And it’s over too soon. When the worker’s leave ends, his family gathers again. The empty cans are filled with grated coconut or dried fish, and his bags are packed with plantain and spiced plantain chips to be shared with roommates and friends back in the Gulf.
As the oil-rich Gulf countries continue to build gleaming skyscrapers and shining highways, those who service their economies — still very often from Kerala — aren’t going anywhere. Nor are the brown boxes of love on airport baggage carousels back in India.
When the new Maldives president, Mohamed Muizzu, stepped on a plane in late November for his first overseas visit since being sworn in barely a week earlier, he was breaking with a longstanding tradition in his country’s diplomatic practices.
Across party lines, Maldivian presidents have long made India their first port of call after being elected, in a reflection of the South Asian giant’s traditional influence on the idyllic Indian Ocean archipelago.
But Muizzu, who became president after a raucous and divisive anti-India campaign, chose to make his first official trip to Ankara, the capital of Turkey, showcasing an intent to diversify and reorient his country’s foreign policy.
At the heart of Muizzu’s efforts is a search for new friends at a time he has made it clear that he intends to pull away from India, according to analysts and sources within the Maldives.
It “symbolises a considerable reorientation in the Maldives’s foreign relations, moving away from the longstanding view of India as an essential ally and strategic partner in the Indian Ocean region and South Asia”, Mujib Alam, a professor in international relations at New Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia university, told Al Jazeera.
Soon after taking office, Muizzu doubled down on a campaign demand that India should withdraw troops from the Maldives. During the election campaign, his Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) had claimed that India had plans to use the military base that it was building on the island of Uthuruthilafalhu near Male to take over the country.
The party built on an “India out” campaign that has, in recent years, projected New Delhi as a hegemon keen to erode the country’s autonomy. India has rejected that suggestion: It has only 77 soldiers in the Maldives, and that includes those who operate two Dhruv helicopters and Dornier aircraft supplied by India to help reach people on distant islands of the archipelago needing medical assistance.
Maldivian opposition sources, who did not want to be named, claimed Muizzu understands that Indian troops do not really threaten the country’s sovereignty, but managed to touch a nationalist nerve in the nation for political and electoral dividends. His predecessor, Ibrahim Solih, was seen as particularly close to India. By contrast, Muizzu is viewed by many as closer to China: When he was mayor of Male, he oversaw key Beijing-funded infrastructure projects and promised stronger ties with the Chinese Communist Party if he became president.
Yet a visit to China as his first foreign trip could have risked upsetting ties with India — the Maldives’s closest neighbour and leading aid and assistance partner — too far. His choice of Turkey suggests a more nuanced message to India, according to analysts.
Signal to India
While India views China as a national security threat, its formal ties with Turkey are more steady — though increased scarred by tensions.
Turkey has criticised Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to abrogate Indian-administered Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status and has highlighted human rights violations in the region at the United Nations.
Against this backdrop, Muizzu’s visit to Turkey “would not be an easy track” for India to accept, said Anil Trigunayat, a former Indian diplomat who served as ambassador to Libya and Malta.
It is a pointed message to New Delhi, said Professor Alam. “It appears to be a deliberate stance in the context of India-Turkey tensions,” he said.
A Turkish official, who requested anonymity, suggested that Ankara had no interest in stoking tensions between India and the Maldives, but was looking after its own interests.
Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has looked to expand its geopolitical clout — playing a vital role in negotiations over the Russia-Ukraine war, among other issues — and South Asia has been no exception. In June, Turkey hosted Bangladesh’s president. Last month, Turkish Airlines resumed direct flights to Sri Lanka after a decade. In January 2022, then-Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu visited the Maldives and Sri Lanka.
During Muizzu’s visit to Ankara in November, the two countries signed a free trade agreement and committed to strengthening defence ties: Turkey has one of the world’s most advanced defence industries.
Turkey and the Maldives are increasingly also aligned on key geopolitical challenges — they have both strongly criticised Israel’s war on Gaza, while India has been more ambivalent, only recently joining calls for a ceasefire.
Yet, Muizzu’s Turkey visit is ultimately less about Ankara and more about distancing Male from New Delhi, said analysts. After his election but before he was sworn in, Muizzu visited the United Arab Emirates. Muizzu returned to the UAE for a second time, for the COP28 summit. In December, Maldives Vice President Hussain Muhammad Latheef visited China.
For India, this rift with the Maldives is a cause for anxiety — 50 percent of India’s external trade and 80 percent of its energy imports transit through Indian Ocean sea lanes. For Muizzu, the equation appears clear: If he wants India out, he needs others to come in. That, experts said, is what his trips are about.
There have been a total of 28 United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) on the climate crisis to date, but only the last one, convened earlier this month in the United Arab Emirates, has ever mentioned ending fossil fuels in its final agreement.
COP28 secured a commitment from nations to “transition away” from fossil fuels, however, it offered little more than its predecessors in the way of real solutions to the climate crisis. Delegates did not agree to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions enough (43 percent by 2030) to meet the targets set in the Paris Climate Agreement, and wealthy nations did not make any meaningful contributions to the Loss and Damage Fund established by COP27 to provide financial assistance to nations most vulnerable and impacted by the effects of climate change.
Germany, for example, has agreed to contribute a mere $100m to the fund – the same amount it spent building just 430 meters of the A100 highway in Berlin. This sum is, of course, nowhere near enough to meet the needs created due to climate change across the world. To put things in perspective, the 2022 flood disaster in Pakistan, which killed 1,739 people and displaced two million others, is believed to have cost the country $30-40bn.
Meanwhile, fossil fuel producers, who have been making record profits as a result of the war in Ukraine, are planning to expand their production with no consideration for the destruction and suffering caused by the climate crisis. Thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists attended the latest COP and tried to disguise their assault on our common future as sensible progress. Moreover, leaked documents revealed that COP28 president and UAE national oil company boss Sultan al-Jaber has planned to boost fossil fuel business in meetings at the climate summit.
Instead of putting social justice at the core of the negotiations, fossil fuel producers are pushing false solutions. Across Europe, companies are promoting carbon capture and storage (CCS) – capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) at emission sources, transporting and then storing or burying it in a suitable deep, underground location – as a way to continue consuming fossil fuels while addressing the climate crisis. However, CCS technologies are inefficient and costly, and there is little indication that they could be scaled up soon enough to make a difference. As such, they currently serve no purpose other than prolonging the burning of fossil fuels with all its destructive consequences, from gas leakages and oil spillages to collapsing mines.
False solutions like CCS make it possible for those in positions of power to close their eyes a little bit longer, to further delay change that is long overdue, and keep on destroying the planet. And in the process, they prevent real solutions from receiving public attention and funding.
CCS expansion can be found in the programme of the German Green Party; fossil fuel companies, such as the German corporation Wintershall, are pushing for it, and it was even mentioned in the final text of the COP28. Why? Well, to keep capitalism running, fossil fuels burning, and European GDP growing – at the cost of lives and livelihoods elsewhere.
Another corporate delay tactic is promoting even more markets for carbon offsets, nowadays called “nature-based solutions”. Carbon offset certificates do not even reduce emissions in 80 to 90 percent of the cases. Despite this, nations like Australia and the United Kingdom are already extending their carbon markets to nature, while the European Commission is planning for biodiversity credits and water pollution trading.
COP is a hoax and has become more and more corrupted over the years. The reality is – and everyone knows it – the only way forward is an end to fossil fuels, an end to corporate capture of politics and a far-reaching conversion of industry away from any fossil fuels. Some countries are already taking this path and creating alternatives by promoting the campaign for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. Twelve nations, more than 2,000 organisations and more than 600,000 people have endorsed this campaign. Those 12 nations are some of the ones most affected by climate breakdown.
In Europe, this treaty would mean no more investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure, a quicker end to the outdated technology of combustion engine cars, and the use of natural instead of industrially produced fertilisers for a change towards ecological agriculture. It is up to organisations and people from the global north to raise and create pressure on the streets to make our governments join.
The European Union, while clearly not interested in sharing its wealth, is nevertheless in an economic position to walk ahead much faster than the UN agreements. The EU at least implemented the Green Deal, one of the most progressive policy packages in the world – though it falsely aims to grow the economy by a green transition instead of moving towards sustainability. But lately, policy is turning from bad to worse. In the last few months, conservatives and the extreme right in Europe partnered to destroy some of the most important laws of the Green Deal: the nature restoration law and the sustainable use directive for reducing pesticide use. If this alliance is strengthened or gains a majority after the next parliamentary election in June, there is little hope for the EU institutions to keep moving towards an end to fossil fuels. As a candidate for the next EU parliament, such a far-right and conservative alliance is what worries me most. A lot will depend on people understanding the importance of EU decisions and turning out to vote.
What we know is that in the end, change does not come from the COP or the EU Commission. Change comes from below. In Europe, it comes from places like GKN at Campi Bisenzio in Italy, where workers are pushing for an ecological conversion of their abandoned automotive factory. It comes from trade unionists and climate activists in Germany, who have teamed up to support bus drivers in their struggle for better working conditions and more public transport investments. It comes from common resistance struggles of farmers and activists for fair communal use of water, like in France. From local resistance against LNG imports or fracking as in Rügen or Piombino.
We need to join forces against corporate takeover and the rise of the far-right. We have to build new collaborations for a fast-moving, bottom-up, people-oriented ecological transition. As Europeans, we have to abstain from false solutions offered at COP and join the lead of the Global South to end fossil fuels.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Carbon markets, a popular mechanism used by global businesses and countries to offset their emissions, have been on the table during negotiations at the United Nations COP28 Climate Change Conference.
In a year that has seen carbon markets under growing scrutiny due to reports of alleged scams revealing that only a handful of emissions were offset instead of the massive amounts projected, Indigenous communities at the conference which ended this week were eager to be heard on how these could work.
“Trees are not objects. They are our brothers,” Selvyn Pérez, a Maya K’iche’ leader from Guatemala explained at an event organised on the sidelines of official COP28 talks. “There are reasons why we safeguard trees. We don’t do it for money or to receive benefits, we do it because nature is our mother, and Mother Earth is calling. If everyone understood that human and environmental rights were at the centre of all action, this COP would be very different”, instead of the lack of concrete action in past years,” he said.
An estimated 370 million Indigenous peoples live on 20 percent of the Earth’s land, protecting 80 percent of the planet’s biodiversity. Yet, only 17 percent of the $270m in climate and conservation funding invested annually in Indigenous and local communities goes to projects led by the populations.
Several of the extreme climate events throughout the world in the past year have spurred a sense of urgency among Indigenous communities who are the first to be affected.
For instance, a drought that began a year earlier in the Peruvian Andes, hit hard months later further downstream elsewhere in the region in the Amazon basin, making rivers impassable to transport and killing wildlife amid rising temperatures.
Researchers had already warned that the Amazon basin was reaching dangerous tipping points, due to large-scale deforestation limiting humidity in the region and causing even greater deterioration of vegetation because of stressful climate conditions.
Many representatives from the region had joined a record number of Indigenous people from around the world — including Pérez – in Dubai to defend their role as guardians of the rainforests and other natural lands which act as significant carbon sinks, storing nearly half of the world’s terrestrial carbon.
Like many other Indigenous communities who had never fully recovered the rights to their land since colonial times, the president of the Utz’ Che’ Community Forestry Network of Guatemala said the struggle to have their voices and rights recognised has been a long one.
“We didn’t come here to the COP to negotiate but to demand,” he said.
Shadow carbon market
Some Indigenous people refer to the carbon credits as an extension of a colonial legacy that has sought to exploit and control resources in Indigenous lands [Paula Dupraz-Dobias/Al Jazeera]
Amid a booming market in emissions trading, which grew by 13.5 percent in 2022 to hit a record value of $909bn, Indigenous representatives have been trying to play catch-up and be more actively involved in schemes and their benefits.
Carbon markets are where credits are sold to countries and companies to help offset their carbon emissions. A draft proposal on how the mechanism can be regulated was under discussion between negotiators in Dubai after being submitted in November, a year later than expected.
Over the past year, multiple reports by media and nonprofit organisations shed light on how carbon markets – which may involve preserving natural areas from deforestation – have been providing false promises on their environmental value. Reports have also noted how offset buyers continue to emit despite the greening of their credentials, including with claims of reducing their carbon footprint.
Verra, a major carbon standard system, reportedly provided more than a billion credits, equivalent to a billion tonnes of carbon, of which 90 percent were said to be “phantom” or generally worthless and did not represent real carbon reductions. Verra disagrees with the allegations, saying they were “off track”.
The claims add questions to the general use of offsets, as many companies purchasing carbon credits, label their products as “carbon neutral”, giving customers the impression that they can continue to fly or purchase goods without contributing to the climate crisis.
In the Brazilian Amazon, carbon offset projects certified by Verra and bought by major global companies to fund forest protection were accused of being “scams” with little to show.
Elsewhere, in Colombia, information of a carbon credit sale, by national certifier ColCX, of an offsetting project in an Indigenous reservation failed to be shared with most of its inhabitants who should have been included as its beneficiaries.
Some Indigenous people have referred to the carbon credits as an extension of a colonial legacy that has sought to exploit and control resources in Indigenous lands.
Already threatened by rising deforestation due to illegal mining, logging and farming encroaching on their lands, which failed to be banned by leaders at an Amazon summit earlier this year, the region’s Indigenous communities are asking for more transparency in the schemes and, above all, involvement in project planning and implementation.
Finding solutions
Indigenous communities say the COP ‘must deliver’ on carbon reduction [Paula Dupraz-Dobias/Al Jazeera]
In Dubai, they have been meeting with other local communities and Indigenous organisations to learn from each other.
“We need a clear carbon definition and know who owns those carbon rights and how do we ensure the distribution of revenue sharing of the carbon credit,” said Dominik T-Johns, convener for the REDD+ Technical Working Group in Liberia.
The REDD+ system, established in 2009 within climate negotiations, encourages developing country governments to mitigate emissions through forest management.
In the West African country, recent laws have set aside protected areas and recognised local communities as customary-law land owners.
Mary Molokwu-Odozi, a REDD+ project manager working with Fauna and Flora, a conservation NGO, said that “securing land tenure for local communities dependent on the forests would mean more effective forest stewardship and the potential to maintain the resources they have for future generations as well to deal with external influences”.
Walter Quertehauri Dariquebe, the president of the Amarakaeri communal reserve in southeastern Peru, explained that its “co-management” with the government has been an unequal arrangement, with the state holding the purse strings and the community responsible for administering state plans.
“We are not leaving it at that,” the Indigenous leader told Al Jazeera.
In addition to strengthening their capacities as project executors, they recently penned an agreement that gives the community the role of authorised managers of the carbon credit rights. “Why? It’s to avoid the issues of carbon pirates, which have communities give up their rights not knowing at what price the credits are being sold,” he said.
The reserve is creating a board for the sale of carbon credits to be in direct contact with end buyers. But legislation is not yet in place, he added.
With two years to go before the COP30 is held in Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil, Indigenous climate activists are already stepping up their calls for talks where they speak as equals with governments.
At an event hosted by Sônia Guajajara, Brazil’s minister of Indigenous peoples and a former Indigenous activist, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, an Indigenous leader from Chad and previously co-director of the World Indigenous Peoples’ Initiative at three COP climate conferences, had a few tips to offer as communities prepare for the global event in 2025.
“We have to have a clear plan, work with all partners and deliver on direct access finance, with great numbers,” Oumarou Ibrahim said at an inaugural meeting of the International Indigenous Commission in Dubai. ”We must stand together and say this COP must deliver on carbon reductions.”
While latest COP28 draft text avoids phrase ‘phase out’, campaigners say it is an improvement on the last one.
A new draft text calling on the world to wean itself off planet-warming fossil fuels has been floated at the United Nations COP28 climate talks in Dubai after an outcry over an earlier proposal forced the summit to be extended.
After the previous draft drew fire for offering a list of options that “could” be taken to combat the dangerous heating of the planet, the new draft explicitly “calls on” all nations to contribute through a series of actions.
The actions include “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science,” it said.
“It is the first time that the world unites around such a clear text on the need to transition away from fossil fuels,” said Norway’s minister for climate and the environment, Espen Barth Eide. “It has been the elephant in the room – at last, we address it head-on. This is the outcome of extremely many conversations and intense diplomacy.”
Although the text did not include the words “phase out”, campaigners said the latest draft was better than the previous version.
“This draft is a sorely needed improvement from the last version, which rightly caused outrage,” said Stephen Cornelius, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)’s deputy global climate and energy lead. “The language on fossil fuels is much improved but still falls short of calling for the full phase-out of coal, oil and gas.”
Intensive negotiations continued well into the small hours of Wednesday morning after the conference presidency’s initial document angered many countries by avoiding decisive calls for action on fossil fuels, the major driver of global heating.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE)-led presidency presented delegates from nearly 200 nations with a new central document – called the global stocktake – just after sunrise.
It is the third version of the document to be presented in about two weeks and the word “oil” does not appear anywhere in the 21-page document. It mentions “fossil fuels” twice, but Alden Meyer, a veteran climate negotiations analyst at the European think tank E3G, said that if approved, it would be somewhat of a first mention of fossil fuels in the context of getting rid of them.
The conference in UAE, one of the world’s major oil producers, has faced criticism for close ties with fossil fuel interests from the start, especially after Sultan al-Jaber, who runs a state oil company, was appointed to preside over the negotiations.
The aim of the global stocktake is to help nations align their national climate plans with the 2015 Paris Agreement, which calls to limit warming to 1.5C (2.7F).
The world is already on its way to smashing the record for the hottest year, endangering human health and leading to ever more costly and deadly extreme weather.
Nations are expected to meet again after they have had a few hours to digest the new text. That meeting could either adopt the text or send it back to negotiators for more revisions.
Other documents presented early on Wednesday addressed, somewhat, the issues of money to help poorer nations adapt to global warming and emit less carbon, as well as how countries should adapt to a warming climate.
Many financial issues are supposed to be hammered out over the next two years at upcoming climate conferences in Azerbaijan and Brazil.
The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that developing nations need $194-366bn per year to help adapt to a warmer and wilder world.
“Overall, I think this is a stronger text than the prior versions we have seen,” said the UN Foundation’s senior adaptation adviser, Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio. “But it falls short in mobilising the financing needed to meet those targets.”
A flurry of shuttle diplomacy is under way at the UN-led negotiations in the UAE as countries fight over the wording of a potential deal.
The COP28 climate talks have gone into overtime as countries grapple over the wording of a potential agreement on the issue of fossil fuels.
There was a flurry of shuttle diplomacy as the UN-led conference extended past midday on Tuesday after nearly two weeks of speeches, demonstrations and negotiations with many countries criticising a draft text released on Monday for failing to call for the total phase-out of oil, gas and coal.
The COP28 director general for the United Arab Emirates, Majid Al Suwaidi, said the aim of the draft text was to “spark conversations”.
“The text we released was a starting point for discussions,” Al Suwaidi said at a news conference on Tuesday. “When we released it, we knew opinions were polarised, but what we didn’t know was where each country’s red lines were.”
Monday’s draft prompted negotiations that ran overnight into early Tuesday at the talks in Dubai.
German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan said the talks were in a “critical, critical phase”.
“There is a lot of shuttle diplomacy going on,” she said on X, formerly Twitter.
The draft text mentioned eight nonbinding options countries could take in cutting emissions, including reducing “both consumption and production of fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by, before, or around 2050″.
This is the first time a UN summit has mentioned reducing the use of all fossil fuels.
Too weak?
The draft text was criticised as too weak by countries that included Australia, Canada, Chile, Norway and the United States. They are among nearly 100 nations that want a complete phase-out of coal, oil and natural gas use.
Scientists say greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are the main cause of climate change. However, such fuels still produce nearly 80 percent of the world’s energy.
A new draft was supposed to be completed on Tuesday, but ongoing negotiations have prevented that from happening.
Deals at UN climate summits must be passed by consensus, and countries are then responsible for implementing them through their own national policies.
Different timeframes?
Countries in the Global South charge that richer countries should quit fossil fuels first because they have been using and producing them far longer.
“The transition should be premised on differentiated pathways to net zero and fossil fuel phase-down,” said Collins Nzovu, green economy minister for Zambia, which chairs the African group of countries in UN climate talks.
“We should also recognise the full right of Africa to exploit its natural resources sustainably,” he added.
Brazil is on board with forgoing fossil fuels but wants a deal that makes clear that rich and poor nations should do so on different timeframes, Environment Minister Marina Silva said.
OPEC countries, meanwhile, are the strongest resistors of a fossil fuel phase-out.
Sources told the Reuters news agency that the UAE’s COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber faced pressure from Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of OPEC, to drop any mention of fossil fuels in the final agreement.
‘Death sentence’
Meanwhile, participants from small island nations, which are among the countries hit hardest by rising sea levels, said they would not approve a deal akin to a “death warrant”.
“How do we go home and tell them the result? That the world has sold us out? ” Briana Fuean, a climate activist from Samoa, asked. “I can’t answer that. We are sitting in rooms being asked to negotiate our death sentence.”
Joseph Sikulu of Pacific Climate Warriors shed tears while talking about the draft text.
“We didn’t come here to sign our death sentence,” he said.
As world leaders gathered in Dubai for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), Israeli President Isaac Herzog and a delegation of two dozen Israeli officials were allowed to join them. That is despite the fact that Israel is not only committing genocide in Gaza, but also ecocide of devastating proportions.
COP28 is yet another venue Israel has used to greenwash its image and solidify its normalisation with Arab states. Indeed, Herzog met with a number of Arab leaders who have chosen to normalise relations with Israel and have pursued joint “green initiatives” with Israeli companies.
So-called environmentally friendly collaborative projects between Israel and Arab states constitute a form of eco-normalisation – the use of “environmentalism” to greenwash and normalise Israeli oppression and environmental injustice.
This effectively extends Israeli green colonialism – which has been devastating Palestine for decades – into the rest of the Arab world. Resisting it must be part of Arab solidarity and struggle in support of the Palestinian cause.
Water apartheid
One prominent example of eco-normalisation is a United Arab Emirates-backed Israeli-Jordanian deal to exchange desalinated water for energy.
In November 2021, Jordan, Israel and the UAE signed a declaration of intent for Project Green and Project Blue, jointly known as Project Prosperity. It envisioned the construction of a 600MW solar power plant by Masdar, a UAE state-owned renewable energy company, on Jordanian territory to sell electricity to Israel and the expansion of an Israeli water desalination programme to export 200 million cubic metres of water to Jordan.
The three countries intended to announce a concrete agreement on the implementation of the projects at the COP28 in the UAE, but ahead of the start of the conference, Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi said that his country would not sign anything due to the war in Gaza. However, there has been no official announcement about the full termination of the deal.
While the future of the project is uncertain at this time, it still has contributed to Israel’s eco-normalisation. It has helped support an image of the country as a green technology pioneer “assisting” its “underdeveloped” neighbours suffering from the consequences of climate change.
The project effectively covers up Israel’s responsibility for water scarcity in Jordan. Israel has been depleting its neighbour’s water resources by usurping control over the Jordan River and restricting access to the resources of the Yarmouk River. It controls double the water share it should be entitled to under the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention and refuses to abide by previous sharing arrangements.
Mekorot, the Israeli national water company, has played a leading role in depriving Jordan of its fair share of water. It has been diverting water from the Jordan River to Israeli communities, including ones in the Naqab desert, which is directly affecting water availability for Jordan.
It also has created a water supply network for the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, depriving the native Palestinian population of adequate access to water resources and effectively imposing water apartheid on them. It has been enabled to do so by the Israeli military occupation and its Military Order 158 of 1967, which declares that Israel has full control over all water resources in the occupied territories and none can be developed without its permission – which, of course, Palestinians almost never receive.
Despite the leading role it is playing in pushing Jordan and the occupied West Bank towards water scarcity, Mekorot has been touted internationally as a “pioneer” in water desalination technology. Its participation in water projects, especially in the Global South, has contributed to Israel’s greenwashing efforts.
Those would undoubtedly continue even as Israel triggers what is already shaping to be a water catastrophe in Gaza.
Even before the ongoing brutal war, the Gaza Strip was struggling with a major water crisis. It was estimated that 96 percent of the water in its aquifer was contaminated and unfit for human use. This was very much due to the fact that the siege Israel imposed on the Strip in 2007 had prevented proper water and wastewater management and treatment.
Since mid-October, even the few existing wastewater and desalination facilities have become inoperable as Israel has cut off electricity and fuel supplies. In addition, the Israeli bombardment has targeted water pipes and sewers throughout Gaza.
Experts in public health have raised concerns about the looming outbreak of infectious diseases, including waterborne diseases like cholera and typhoid. Israel’s plan to flood tunnels under Gaza with seawater may lead to the further contamination of underground water and soil, resulting in a water-related environmental and human disaster.
Green energy colonialism
The eco-normalisation of Israel has also extended into the energy sector.
A few months ahead of COP27, in August 2022, two Israeli companies, Enlight Renewable Energy (ENLT) and NewMed Energy, signed a memorandum of understanding to develop renewable energy projects in Jordan, Morocco, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain, as well as Saudi Arabia and Oman, which have not officially normalised relations with Israel.
Their plans include the development, construction and operation of wind and solar power plants and energy storage. These projects, of course, bolster the image of Israel as a hub for creative renewable energy technologies and help greenwash its image.
Both Enlight and NewMed have been involved in projects that reinforce the Israeli occupation and apartheid. Enlight has two wind farm projects in the occupied and annexed Golan Heights and is developing another wind energy project in the northern part of the Naqab desert and the southern part of the occupied West Bank, in partnership with several illegal Israeli settlements.
NewMed is a subsidiary of the Delek Group, which has been involved in gas exploration projects in disputed maritime areas, near Palestinian and Lebanese waters. It also owns a chain of petrol stations across illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights and supplies fuel to the Israeli occupation forces.
Of course, the native Palestinian and Syrian populations of these occupied territories do not benefit from Israeli energy projects and they are effectively denied sovereignty over their energy resources.
Palestinians inhabiting Area C have no access to the electricity grid in the area, which has been developed by Israel to serve Israeli illegal settlements. The Israeli authorities also refuse to issue them permits to set up solar panels, which could provide an alternative source of energy.
In Gaza, before the war, Palestinians lived with just a few hours of electricity per day due to the Israeli siege. As part of the complete blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip since October 7, Israel has totally cut off electricity from reaching Gaza and targeted alternative sources of energy like solar panels. Even the solar panel systems operating in hospitals such as al-Shifa have been bombed.
Israel’s exploitation of Palestinian resources to the detriment of the Palestinian people masked in the form of “green projects” is a perfect illustration of green energy colonialism.
Energy colonialism refers to companies and states plundering and exploiting the resources and land of impoverished countries and communities to generate energy for their own use and benefit.
As we have argued in our book Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region, renewable energy colonialism is an extension of the colonial relations of plunder and dispossession.
It effectively maintains the same political, economic and social structures that have generated inequality, impoverishment and dispossession in formerly and still colonised places and shifts the negative effects of energy production – including pollution – to these already marginalised communities.
Resisting eco-normalisation and colonialism
Eco-normalisation allows Israel to position itself in the energy and water sectors regionally and globally as a leader in innovation and green technologies, thereby reinforcing its political and diplomatic power.
With the exacerbating climate and energy crises, it will likely use the increasing reliance of other countries on its technology and energy and water resources as yet another tool to marginalise and sideline the Palestinian struggle.
Thus, there is an abiding connection between Israeli greenwashing, which is reinforced through eco-normalisation, and the consolidation of apartheid and settler colonialism in Palestine and the Golan Heights.
The dark tunnel that is Palestinians’ life under Israeli oppression is getting darker. Yet a glimpse of light can be seen that illuminates the Palestinians’ long path to liberation: that light is the increasing resistance of the Palestinian people, who refuse to be isolated, dehumanised and obliterated.
The struggle to topple Israel’s oppressive occupation and apartheid regime is also part of the wider struggle for self-determination and emancipation of dispossessed and marginalised peoples across the world. Colonial attempts to further isolate Palestine from the rest of the Arab world through eco-normalisation can be thwarted by the collectively enacted power of Arabs and other peoples.
To this end, social movements, environmental groups, trade unions, student associations and civil society organisations in the Arab region and beyond must intensify their protests against their governments until they end their normalisation ties with Israel. International grassroots movements should increase their support for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel and shine more light on the role Israeli “green technology” companies play in the colonisation of Palestine.
The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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