South Africa launches a legal battle against Israel at the top court of the United Nations.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and forced most others from their homes.
Now, it is going to have to answer to charges of genocide in a court of law.
South Africa is launching a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – the United Nations’ highest legal body.
While a final ruling could be years away, the ICJ could make a provisional order for Israel to end its campaign in a matter of weeks.
So how significant would that be? And will it help bring an end to the conflict?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Ahmed Abofoul – an international lawyer and legal researcher at Al-Haq, a leading Palestinian human rights organisation
Chris Gunness – a former spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)
Adama Dieng – a former UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide and a special adviser to the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court
The Ukraine International Airlines plane was hit by two missiles Iran says were fired in error shortly after takeoff, killing 176 people.
Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Ukraine have filed a complaint with the United Nations civil aviation agency against Iran for shooting down a passenger plane in 2020, killing 176 people.
The four countries, which all had citizens on board the Ukraine International Airlines flight, accused Tehran of “using weapons against a civil aircraft in flight in breach of its international legal obligations”.
The Boeing 737-800 was shot down shortly after takeoff from Tehran on January 8, 2020, amid rising tensions with the United States following the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.
Three days later, Iran admitted that its Revolutionary Guard had fired two missiles at the plane, which was heading to Kyiv, by mistake.
The four countries said they opened “dispute settlement proceedings” with the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Montreal.
The move was “an important step in our commitment to ensuring that the families of the victims impacted by this tragedy get the justice they deserve”, said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who attended a memorial service in Ontario to mark the fourth anniversary of the disaster.
The countries have already filed a case with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, seeking reparations from Iran for the families of the victims.
They said Iran had “failed to conduct an impartial, transparent and fair criminal investigation and prosecution consistent with international law”.
In April last year, an Iranian court issued initial sentences for 10 unnamed people accused of involvement in the incident, including the operator of an air defence system.
Iran has also set compensation of $150,000 for each of the families of the victims and said in 2022 it had begun making the payments.
Tehran has rejected claims that it is not cooperating or being transparent and has accused the four governments of trying to “politicise” the issue.
It has filed its own case with the ICJ, accusing Canada of violating its “international obligations” by allowing people to seek civil damages against Tehran.
Mizoram, India – “Why are you screaming? You are a refugee,” a nurse told 26-year-old Jamie* as she struggled with an exceptionally painful childbirth at a hospital in India’s northeastern state of Mizoram.
A few hours later, amid her agony, Jamie’s baby Sophia was born – joining a growing group of other stateless babies born to Myanmar parents seeking refuge in Mizoram.
It has been two years since Jamie and her husband fled Myanmar after the 2021 military coup and arrived in Champhai, a bustling town in Mizoram, 320km (199 miles) from the Myanmar border.
Myanmar was no longer safe for the young couple, but life across the border has not been what they had hoped for.
“Sophia was not given a birth certificate. They say we need an Indian voter’s ID, something we cannot get since the country has also not given us a refugee ID,” Jamie says.
“So now Sophia is stateless. She was given vaccines and we can take her to the doctor but she doesn’t have a citizenship status. We have to go back to Myanmar and try to get it for her.”
Placing a gentle kiss on her daughter’s forehead, Jamie says all she hopes is for her two-month-old daughter to become a citizen of a country.
Historically, India has been a welcoming home to people across faiths fleeing persecution, from Parsis centuries ago, to Tibetans (from 1959), Bengalis from Bangladesh (in 1971), Afghans across three wars, Sri Lankan Tamils, people from Myanmar and also Africa. During the Holocaust, an estimated 5,000 persecuted Jews from Europe came to India and made it their home, at a time when the United States turned many from the community away.
But the country lacks a national refugee law and is also not a signatory to the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention – a protocol outlining the international standards of treating and protecting people seeking refuge.
This has left many people seeking asylum in India, in limbo.
Many families with children from Myanmar have sought refuge at camps in the village of Zokhawthar, Mizoram, India, near the Myanmar border [Priyanka Shankar/Al Jazeera]
Different rules
An hour’s drive away from Champhai, at a refugee camp in the picturesque Indian border village of Zokhawthar, which is separated from Myanmar by the Tiau river, 30-year-old Ruati also awaits a refugee card – an identity document that would give her access to food, education, healthcare and other facilities that either the host country or the United Nations provides.
She fled Myanmar in 2021 on a scooter with her family. After living in the refugee camp for more than two years, she yearns to work and earn a living. But there’s a problem.
“We want to work but cannot since India is not giving us a refugee card,” she says. “We’re surviving on food and other donations given to us by the state government and NGOs and groups in Mizoram like the Young Mizo Association.
“I used to live and work in China before 2021 and worked there cleaning houses. So for now, I have savings but it won’t last long. But using my savings, I have bought some snacks and drinks in the Myanmar market, and sell them in the camp to make more money.”
Hui Yin Chuah, research officer at the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) in Asia and the Pacific, says that refugee-related policies in India lack a comprehensive domestic legal framework, leading to an ad hoc approach to addressing these issues.
“Currently, a two-track mechanism is in place for asylum seekers: Sri Lankan and Tibetan refugees are registered under the Ministry of Home Affairs, while displaced individuals from other countries, including Afghanistan and Myanmar, must register with the UN’s refugee agency (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees),” Hui Yin Chuah says.
However, the UNHCR is not operational in Mizoram. Instead, the state government is issuing identity cards. That, however, does not let people use government services and requires refugees to give up their Myanmar citizenship, Ruati says, making it hard for her to return to her home country – something she yearns to do if the military government’s rule ends.
“The ambiguity (or lack thereof) of a refugee legislation also allows for manoeuvring, as seen in the case of states like Mizoram,” Hui Yin Chuah says.
People at refugee camps in the village of Zokhawthar, India, near the Myanmar border, are keen to get refugee identity documents [Priyanka Shankar/Al Jazeera]
Why hasn’t India signed the UN refugee convention?
In 1951, when the UN agreed on a refugee convention after the second world war, India was only newly independent and the trauma of the partition was still recent. The country’s prime minister at the time, Jawaharlal Nehru, refused to sign the convention, citing security concerns – a sentiment which continues.
The 1951 Refugee Convention was bolstered by a protocol in 1967 to ensure protection for refugees globally. Together, the two documents set the foundation for the UNHCR’s work by defining who a refugee is, what their rights are and how their rights should be protected from persecution.
Currently, 146 countries are party to the 1951 convention and 147 to the 1967 protocol.
Colin Gonsalves, human rights lawyer at the Supreme Court of India and the founder of the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) says that there have been regular discussions for years within India’s legal and human rights communities regarding India’s need to join the UN’s refugee convention. But the current BJP government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has no intention of joining it at all, he says.
“This is for the simple reason that they [the government] are anti-Muslim, racist and anti-minority. So these overtones make it impossible for any convention to be filed. The Congress government who were in power earlier were equally shortsighted,” Gonsalves says. “So no UN convention coupled with the lack of a national refugee law, has led to increased discrimination against refugees.”
Tibetans, starting with the Dalai Lama, who entered India in 1959, have received formal refugee status. Since 2014, the Modi government has given them voting rights. Tibetans have their own schooling system recognised by the government of India.
“On the other hand, the government has not agreed to protect the rights of the Rohingya from Myanmar, who are also fleeing religious persecution and continues to discriminate against them,” Gonsalves says. “Muslim Afghans also have a tough time in India compared to Hindu Afghans because of their religion.”
Highlighting how Parsis in India have been treated, Modi said: “Despite facing persecution elsewhere in the world, they have found a safe haven in India, living happily and prospering … That shows that the Indian society itself has no feeling of discrimination towards any religious minority.” India’s dwindling Parsi community – there are only about 50,000 left today – is among its most economically successful. The Tata, Wadia and the Mistry families are among India’s wealthiest.
Yet none of that helps more recent asylum seekers like Ruati. Legally, India is not bound to accept and recognise UNHCR-issued refugee IDs since it is not a signatory to the 1951 convention or the 1967 protocol, though “in general it respects the principle for holders of UNHCR documentation,” according to the UN agency.
“We continue to collaborate closely with the Government of India to address the essential needs of the most vulnerable refugees registered with UNHCR,” says Babar Baloch, UNHCR spokesperson for Asia.
But he adds that refugees and asylum seekers in India are unable to use social protection schemes due to the requirement of having an Aadhar card – a social and public welfare identity document in India. To get an Aadhar card, applicants need other government-issued identification documents.
“Without government-issued documentation, refugees and asylum seekers are unable to benefit from the government’s social protection programmes,” Baloch said.
Currently, the UNHCR operates in 11 locations across India including the capital, New Delhi, in the north, and Chennai in South India. However, in northeast India, where the UNHCR currently does not have access, state governments have shown a degree of support.
“In Zokhawthar and Champhai the state government gives us donation-based food and shelter because they say we come from the same tribe as the locals and share strong cultural ties. So they don’t consider us foreigners,” Ruati says. “But a refugee card will make us happier.”
Gonsalves notes that it is clear the Indian government has put restrictions in the UN’s way but adds that the UNHCR in India should “be a little bit more combative and assertive”.
“Once you get the refugee card, it opens doors for people seeking asylum. So the UN should put their foot down and tell the government that it is their mandate to function across the country and give refugee cards to everyone. It is a matter of brinkmanship for the UN agency.”
According to Baloch, “any asylum seeker, irrespective of their background, who wishes to register with UNHCR” can approach the agency for registration.
The village of Zokhawthar in Mizoram, India [at left] is separated from Myanmar by the Tiau river [Priyanka Shankar/Al Jazeera]
Because ‘we are Muslims’
Sabber Kyaw Min, founder and director of the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative, who also came to India seeking refuge from Rakhine state in Myanmar, has been issued a UNHCR refugee card in New Delhi. But he says it gives him no rights and discrimination continues.
“The conditions of our settlements are sordid. Women have no access to healthcare, our children are not allowed to go to schools in India, and even locals in the country keep attacking our homes,” he says.
He highlighted that the Indian government also threatens NGOs who try to support the Rohingya people.
“I think it has to do with the fact that we are Muslims. And because there is no refugee law, we cannot even fight for our rights and contest our cases against the government,” Sabber Kyaw Min adds.
Some 22,000 Rohingya are currently registered with the UNHCR, according to the UN’s Baloch.
India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has often taken a harsh stance towards them, with the home ministry also announcing last year that the Rohingya with UNHCR refugee cards in Delhi would be kept in detention centres and then deported since they are “illegal foreigners”, under the country’s Foreigner’s Act.
The country has already deported some Rohingya refugees to Myanmar according to rights groups. But currently plans for more deportations have been held up by the Supreme Court.
Is the Indian Constitution protecting refugees?
Gonsalves argues that the Indian Constitution does not allow the deportation of refugees.
“No refugee can be deported because our constitution protects not only citizens, but all those within the territory of India through Article 21, which obliges the state to protect the life and liberty of anyone within the territory. So the government is obliged to protect the lives of Rohingya,” Gonsalves says.
In 2019, the Modi government also passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which it said would fast-track citizenship to undocumented Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christian immigrants from countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. But Muslim refugees and asylum seekers were kept out, sparking protests across the country amid fears that India had adopted a religious criterion for citizenship.
“CAA provides a potential pathway to citizenship for refugees based on their religion and nationality, excluding Muslims and minorities from Myanmar,” the MMC’s Hui Yin Chuah says.
Yet even refugees eligible for fast-tracked citizenship have not benefitted so far. Now, recent reports suggest that the Indian government might start implementing the law before the parliamentary elections between March and May this year.
Will India get a refugee law ahead of its elections?
India heads to the polls this year, but Sabber Kyaw Min does not think campaigning leaders will address migration issues – a topic which is often contentious in the West and is in turn widely discussed by leaders, including in their election campaigns.
“What’s happening now in Myanmar is horrible. Until there is peace there, we can’t go back. India is a neighbouring country, and has a responsibility to give our community political support, and discuss migration issues with the UN and globally,” Sabber Kyaw Min said.
Gonsalves does not expect India to expel large numbers of refugees or leave them out at sea, as has happened in the West.
“In practice, the country’s treatment towards people seeking refuge is only harsh and not extreme since migrants are not being pushed back at sea like in the West,” he says.
But he also has few hopes that India will make lives easier for asylum seekers like Ruati.
“I also don’t expect the present or a new government to sign the UN refugee convention any time soon and introduce a refugee law,” he says.
“So our constitution and our courts will continue to step in, giving the kind of protection that the refugee convention gives.”
*Some names have been changed to protect identities.
Israel will not renew the visa of a United Nations staff member in the country and will also deny the visa request of another UN employee as the country yet again expresses its displeasure of the global body, which has criticised Israel’s targeting of civilians and hospitals during the Gaza war. An overwhelming majority of the more than 20,000 Palestinians killed are civilians.
“We will stop working with those who cooperate with the Hamas terrorist organization’s propaganda,” Eli Cohen, Israel’s minister of foreign affairs, posted on X on Monday.
“We will no longer remain silent in the face of the UN’s hypocrisy!” he said. Israel has accused the UN of being biased.
Cohen described the UN’s conduct as “a disgrace” since the war erupted on October 7 after Hamas carried out deadly attacks inside Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed. The UN has criticised Hamas for the October 7 attacks and repeatedly called for the release of the captives taken by the group.
UN officials have criticised Israel’s targeting of residential areas, schools and hospitals and its curbs on aid deliveries during a complete siege imposed on Gaza in the wake of the October 7 attacks. More than 100 journalists, about 270 medical personnel and at least 134 UN staff have been killed in Israeli strikes.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and decried the dire humanitarian crisis. The UN, aid groups and rights groups have warned that Palestinians are now facing hunger. The UN chief this month invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, a move aimed at formally warning the Security Council of a global threat posed by Israel’s war on Gaza.
The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly voted for a humanitarian ceasefire several times since the war began, but votes at the UN Security Council have been vetoed and stalled by Israel’s close ally the United States. It abstained in the vote on the latest resolution, allowing it to pass on Friday, but the measure has been criticised as “insufficient”.
The Israeli foreign minister accused the UN chief, the UN human rights commissioner and the UN Women agency of legitimising “war crimes and crimes against humanity”, publishing “unsubstantiated blood libels” and ignoring the “acts of rape committed against Israeli women” for two months.
But human rights organisations have also slammed Israel for its war tactics, calling it “collective punishment” of Gaza’s 2.3 million people. Media reports have also debunked Israeli claims that Hamas ran a command centre under al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, which was crippled by Israeli shelling. Israel has justified attacks on UN schools, universities and hospitals, saying they were used by Hamas, but it has provided no proof for its claims.
Israel at war with the UN?
The latest incident is only one in a series of instances of Israel clashing with the UN over the war in Gaza in ways that are uncommon for member states of the global body.
This month, Israel announced its decision to revoke the residence visa of Lynn Hastings, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, who left the country last week.
“Someone who did not condemn Hamas for the brutal massacre of 1,200 Israelis … but instead condemns Israel, a democratic country that protects its citizens, cannot serve in the UN and cannot enter Israel!” Cohen wrote on X.
Hastings had criticised Israeli restrictions on much-needed aid deliveries. “The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist,” she said on December 4.
“If possible, an even more hellish scenario is about to unfold, one in which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond,” she said, referring to the resumption of Israel’s bombardment on Gaza at the end of a one-week pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas.
On October 25, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, warned that his country would refuse visas to UN officials after Guterres criticised Israel for ordering civilians to evacuate from northern Gaza to southern Gaza and said Hamas’s attacks on Israel did “not happen in a vacuum”.
“I am shocked by the misrepresentations by some of my statement … as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas. This is false. It was the opposite,” Guterres said without mentioning Israel’s name.
Besides denying visas and accusing the UN chief of being unfit to run the agency, Cohen also said this month that he had instructed the Israeli mission to the UN to oppose the advancement of the annual budget of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The agency has repeatedly warned that aid work in Gaza is at a breaking point as the Israeli siege continues. Israel imposed a total siege in the wake of October 7 attacks, cutting off electricity, water and food. The Palestinian enclave has been called an “open air prison” due to Israel’s land, air and sea blockade imposed since 2007.
UNRWA has taken in about 1.2 million civilians – two-thirds of all displaced people in Gaza – in its shelters across the strip.
Since the war began, more than 100 UNRWA staff have been killed and over 40 of the agency’s buildings in Gaza have been damaged in Israeli strikes.
Last week, Cohen accused the agency of perpetuating “the conflict” and called on countries of the world to “stop years of turning a blind eye to the incitement to terrorism and Hamas’s cynical use of the agency’s facilities and the residents of the Gaza Strip as human shields.”
Israel has also repeatedly targeted Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, who has criticised Israel for violating international laws and occupying Palestinian territories. World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has also been attacked for what Israel said was publishing inaccurate reports. Israel has not provided proof for its claims.
In October, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Meirav Eilon Shahar, told reporters that her country had been “let down” by the global body, saying its agency chiefs had not done enough to condemn Hamas and growing anti-Semitism.
“We’ve shared information quite widely, and we do expect the international community and international organisations, including WHO but not only, to condemn Hamas for using these protected facilities [such as hospitals] for military use,” she said.
Guterres has reiterated that “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas.”
“And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
Rival groups commit to new ceasefire and engage in UN-led peace process to end the nine-year war, says UN special envoy for Yemen.
The warring sides in the long-running conflict in Yemen have committed to steps towards a ceasefire and engage in a United Nations-led peace process, according to the UN special envoy for Yemen.
The announcement by Hans Grundberg on Saturday marks the latest step to end a nine-year war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Following a series of meetings between the Saudi-backed Yemeni government and Iran-aligned Houthis in Saudi Arabia and Oman, a statement by Grundberg’s office said he “welcomes the parties’ commitment to a set of measures to implement a nationwide ceasefire, improve living conditions in Yemen, and engage in preparations for the resumption of an inclusive political process”.
The envoy “will now engage with the parties to establish a roadmap under UN auspices that includes these commitments and supports their implementation”, the statement said.
The plan, along with a ceasefire, will also include the two sides’ commitment to resume oil exports, pay all public sector salaries, open roads in Taiz and other parts of Yemen, and “further ease restrictions on Sanaa Airport and the Hodeidah port”, it added.
Yemen has been gripped with conflict since the Houthis took control of capital Sanaa in 2014, triggering a Saudi-led military intervention in support of the government forces the following year.
A UN-brokered ceasefire that took effect in April 2022 brought a sharp reduction in hostilities in the country of 30 million people. The truce expired in October last year, though fighting largely remains on hold.
In September, Houthi officials visited Riyadh for the first time since the war broke out. That followed a first round of Omani-mediated consultations between Riyadh and Sanaa.
The peace initiatives gained momentum after regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to re-establish ties in a deal brokered by China.
The UN envoy’s announcement also came amid a flurry of Houthi attacks on key shipping lanes in the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians under attack in the Gaza Strip for more than two months.
The US abstains on resolution that it lobbied to weaken over the course of several days, allowing it to pass.
The United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza, following several delays over the last week as the United States lobbied to weaken the language regarding calls for a ceasefire.
The resolution, which calls for steps “to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities”, passed on Friday with 13 votes in favour, none against, and the US and Russia abstaining.
The vote comes amid international calls to bring the months-long conflict to an end, as Israeli forces pummel Gaza with one of the most destructive campaigns in modern history and humanitarian conditions in the besieged strip reach critical levels.
Congolese authorities have long accused UN forces of failing to protect civilians from armed groups in the eastern DRC.
The United Nations Security Council has voted unanimously in favour of gradually phasing out its peacekeeping operations known as MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The 15-member body voted on Tuesday to draw down peacekeeping forces in the Central African nation about a year earlier than originally scheduled despite continued concerns over violence.
The decision was made as the DRC prepares for presidential and parliamentary elections on Wednesday, in which poverty and widespread insecurity are expected to be key issues for voters.
Numerous armed groups, including the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and M23, are active in provinces such as North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri in the eastern DRC, where civilians face violence and displacement.
Despite concerns over security, Congolese authorities have persistently called for the UN to scale down its presence in the country, saying it has failed to protect civilians from armed groups.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi, who is running for re-election, said in remarks at the UN General Assembly in September that he had called on his government to accelerate the withdrawal of MONUSCO’s 14,000 soldiers so it would commence by the end of the year.
UN forces operating in other African nations have faced similar criticism. In June, the UN voted to end a decade-old peacekeeping mission in Mali after calls to do so from the country’s military government.
Wednesday’s elections are seen as a crucial test for democracy in the DRC, where only one peaceful transition of power has occurred in 63 years.
Tshisekedi won the December 2018 presidential election, which was tainted by allegations of voting irregularities, and voters have expressed concerns that Wednesday’s vote could face similar issues or even an outbreak of violence.
It was supposed to be a matter of life or death. So the recent spectacle of COP28 delegates quibbling over the wording of a final agreement calling on countries to “transition away” from the fossil fuels causing climate chaos provoked widespread alarm.
Calling time on the status quo of using fossil fuels turned out to be the central battle within a fractious event that highlighted the might of an industry bent on survival for as long as possible. At long last, the main issue was being addressed. But was this progress?
As Doomsday predictions about the climate crisis mount and the UN chief, Antonio Guterres, warned that humanity has “opened the gates of hell” after record summer temperatures this year, the world appears stuck in an endless loop of missed targets and freak weather events.
Firefighters look on as a wildfire burns on Mount Parnitha, in Athens, Greece, August 24, 2023 [Nicolas Economou/Reuters]
The “final warning” came this year, when the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that the world could surpass the point of catastrophic warming in the next decade unless it immediately stops guzzling fossil fuels.
So why all the dithering? What’s standing in the way of making real progress in the fight against climate change? And does using paper straws really make a difference?
Should we even look to COPs for progress?
No, according to climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer. Back in 1988, he was one of the first climatologists to sound the alarm about climate change when he presented his research into how humans were heating the planet through the burning of fossil fuels to the US Senate.
The Nobel Prize-winning scientist’s work paved the way for the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. More than three decades later, he believes we are losing the race, having already been overtaken by extreme climate events that would not have happened had action been taken earlier.
“We’re playing catch-up now,” he said.
Oppenheimer said he doesn’t look to COPs for progress on reducing emissions – “That’s simply because the big emitting countries make commitments that they’re not going to meet.” But he added that he does believe the forum is valuable, helping to shine a light on issues, such as urgently needed finance for Global South countries at the sharp end of climate change.
A farm worker holds her son in her lap next to her temporary shelter after her family evacuated the flooded banks of the Yamuna River in New Delhi, India, on August 9, 2023 [Altaf Qadri/AP]
Breakthroughs like the 2015 Paris Agreement have been rare. The scientist argued that people should adjust their expectations. Change happens at home, rather than around a negotiating table in Dubai, he added. “People who are active and interested in solving the problem should turn their attention to their domestic politics wherever they live.
“The politics in every country is different. The interest groups are different. Their power and influence are different, both on the environmental side and on the fossil fuel side.
“The change required involves the entire energy system of most countries. You have to do it in a way that satisfies or at least neutralises the interest groups who oppose change and that’s not easy.”
How do ‘interest groups’ oppose change?
George Monbiot, a British writer and environmental campaigner, has given the matter a lot of thought over nearly four decades. He has identified a phenomenon he calls “the pollution paradox”. In a nutshell, the companies that have the greatest incentive to invest in politics are also the “dirtiest”. “Because if they don’t invest in politics, they get regulated out of existence,” he said.
The influence of the biggest polluters goes beyond direct political contributions. As Monbiot pointed out, they also need a “social licence to operate”, mainly provided through greenwashing initiatives that make it seem like they are offering a solution to climate change. Their narratives are pushed to voters through a “concierge class” of think tanks – or “junk tanks”, as he referred to them – marketeers and journalists.
Monbiot said he reserves special scorn for carbon capture and storage (CCS), a nascent technology for stashing carbon dioxide underground. While the industry has hailed CCS as a “silver bullet” solution, many scientists and experts have cast doubt on its effectiveness. “It’s a dead duck,” Monbiot said, and others have described it as a distraction to extend the life of the fossil fuel industry.
Climate campaigners criticised COP28 for providing a space for greenwashing, with industry using the forum to push CCS. In a sense, the event offered a glimpse into how the fossil fuels industry works. According to research conducted by Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO), a coalition of more than 450 international climate action groups, at least 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists were granted access to the conference whose president was the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates’s state oil company.
As COP28 appeared to demonstrate, the real decisions regarding the energy status quo are made in clusters, in side meetings or in the corridors. “Democracy is the problem capital is always trying to solve,” said Monbiot. In his view, individual states do not have the power to stand up to capital’s might. “The structures are still standing, the institutions are still there, there are still parliaments, but the power has migrated elsewhere.”
Is change possible within the current system?
plSo, how can these interest groups be, as Oppenheimer puts it, neutralised?
Companies invested in hydrocarbons don’t want the energy revolution to move fast, he said. “They’re sitting on piles of uncashed resources. They want to burn up those resources first. We can’t let that get in the way, but it’s not going to be easy.”
He said he has placed his faith in the energy revolution, which he believes is gaining traction around the world, kickstarting a slow process of transition in countries eyeing market share. China may still derive 70 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels, but it is also the world’s top supplier of renewable energy technologies.
Wind turbines along the coast of Pingtan in Southern China’s Fujian province, on August 6, 2022 [Ng Han Guan/AP]
Eager to get a slice of the pie, the US – which has continued to approve oil and gas drilling projects – is ploughing hundreds of billions in state subsidies over the coming decade into companies investing in renewable energy and low-carbon technologies.
Although it has been hailed as a tax credits bonanza for controversial CCS, the Inflation Reduction Act will also accelerate the development of a domestic supply chain for clean vehicles, helping the country hit its target of ensuring 50 percent of car sales are electric by 2030.
“It’s an interesting experiment,” said Oppenheimer. “What it will do is create embedded interests, make the renewable energy interest much larger,” he says. Actors come from across the country, covering a lot of political ground – “they’re not all progressives, a lot of them don’t even care about the climate, but they’re interested in making money on renewable energy and that’s fine. That’s going to engage people.”
The energy revolution will involve continued “focus and effort” from governments, moving technologies from experimentation to commercial phases faster and not being “intimidated” by the “politically powerful” forces opposing change, he said.
Is there hope?
Only if people act, said Monbiot.
“We have to directly confront power,” he said. “There’s no point in messing around at the margins of this. We have to recognise that we are facing a world-eating system and it is that system that has to change.”
He added that he believes big environmental NGOs have been institutionalised, shying away from radical change and opting instead for an ethos of “incrementalism”, pushing what he calls “micro-consumerist b*****ks”. “Incrementalism is a symptom of cowardice,” he said.
“They know in their heart of hearts that they’re not going to change things by getting consumers to change plastic straws for paper ones. But they don’t have the guts to say it.”
While he was more optimistic about market-based solutions, Oppenheimer remained downbeat on the prospects of playing catch-up while enduring threatening climate conditions. “We missed an opportunity decades ago to avoid seeing large-scale impacts of climate change that are hurting people and countries,” he said.
“We in the Global North have a moral obligation to help those much poorer countries in the Global South, who have contributed almost nothing to their problem – not only to recover from climate-related disasters, but to do better in the future by building resilience and adapting,” he said.
“It’s going to be a bit of a mess for some decades.”
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.”
The US and Israel were among the few votes against the non-binding resolution calling for an end to the fighting.
The 193-member United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in war-torn Gaza.
Tuesday’s resolution passed with 153 countries voting in favour, 23 abstaining and 10 countries voting against, including Israel and the United States. While the resolution is non-binding, it serves as an indicator of global opinion.
“We thank all those who supported the draft resolution that was just adopted by a huge majority,” Saudi Arabia’s UN ambassador Abdulaziz Alwasil said in remarks following the vote. “This reflects the international position to call for the enforcement of this resolution.”
The vote comes as international pressure builds on Israel to end its months-long assault on Gaza, where more than 18,000 Palestinians have been killed, the majority of them women and children. More than 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have also been displaced.
Relentless air strikes and an Israeli siege have created humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian territory that UN officials have called “hell on earth”. The Israeli military offensive has severely restricted access to food, fuel, water and electricity to the Gaza Strip.
Tuesday’s vote comes on the heels of a failed resolution in the UN Security Council (UNSC) on Friday, which likewise called for a humanitarian ceasefire.
The US vetoed the proposal, casting the sole dissenting vote and thereby dooming its passage. The United Kingdom, meanwhile, abstained. Unlike UNGA votes, UNSC resolutions have the power to be binding.
After Friday’s scuttled UNSC resolution, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres took the extraordinary step of invoking Article 99 of the UN Charter, which allows him to issue warnings about serious threats to international peace. The last time it was used was in 1971.
But the passage of the non-binding UNGA resolution on Tuesday likewise faced US opposition.
Both the US and Austria introduced amendments to the resolution to condemn the deadly Hamas attack on October 7, which marked the start of the current conflict.
Al Jazeera correspondent Kristen Saloomey said Arab countries saw these amendments as an effort to politicise the vote. They both failed to pass.
“What we’re hearing from many countries is that the credibility of the United Nations is on the line here, that respect for international law requires respect for humanitarian efforts,” Saloomey said.
Egyptian UN Ambassador Osama Abdelkhalek called the draft resolution “balanced and neutral”, noting that it called for the protection of civilians on both sides and the release of all captives.
Israel’s envoy Gilad Erdan railed against calls for a ceasefire, calling the UN a “moral stain” on humanity.
“Why don’t you hold the rapists and child murderers accountable?” he asked in a speech before the vote. “The time has come to put the blame where it belongs: on the shoulders of the Hamas monsters.”
The administration of US President Joe Biden has firmly supported Israel’s military campaign, arguing that it must be allowed to dismantle Hamas.
But as Israeli forces level entire neighbourhoods, including schools and hospitals, the US has found itself increasingly at odds with international opinion.
In remarks on Tuesday, however, Biden sharpened his criticism of the US ally, saying that Israel was losing international support due to “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza.
The US, which has strongly criticised Russia for similar actions in Ukraine, has been accused of employing a double standard on human rights.
“With each step, the US looks more isolated from the mainstream of UN opinion,” Richard Gowan, the UN director at the International Crisis Group, an NGO, told Reuters.
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