Good morning.
Billions of dollars of promised to developing countries by the US, UK, Canada and Australia to aid carbon emission reduction plans and help make communities more resilient to more extreme weather have not yet been delivered.
The US provided only $7.6bn of a projected $40bn as part of the pledged $100bn, while some countries overdelivered on their promises but did so as part of loans rather than grants.
The assessment, reported a day after the Cop27 climate summit began in Egypt, will increase pressure on wealthy countries to make good on their commitment, with the global north overwhelming responsible for the enveloping ecological crisis.
“Basic justice demands that those most responsible for causing the climate crisis should financially support those who are suffering most on the frontline of climate change,” said the former president of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed. “Every year we see the storms get stronger and the waves get higher.”
Only Canada responded to requests for comment. A government spokesperson said it remained committed and would double its climate finance in order to overdeliver, despite appearing to so far have covered only a third.
“Hey, don’t ask us.” Billionaires should not be expected to make up for climate finance gaps caused by failures to uphold promises to less developed states, the head of the Bezos Earth Fund has said.
Republicans poised for sweeping gains in midterms despite Biden’s overtures
The Democratic party is scrambling to prevent the Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives in Tuesday’s midterms, as is now widely forecast, with the GOP also in with a shot of taking the Senate.
Joe Biden and Barack Obama are engaged in a last ditch bid to win voters, crisscrossing the country amid anger over inflation and a cost of living crisis denting households far and wide.
“Republicans are peaking at the right time,” said Brendan Buck, a former aide to Republican House speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner. “Democrats did a good job defying political gravity for a long time but it’s finally catching up to them. It feels like a healthy Republican majority in the House and, if I were a betting man, I would guess that Republicans pick up the one Senate seat that they need.”
Democrats are on the defensive. Even in places they thought were safe, like New York and Washington, while Biden’s low ratings continue to burden his party’s most vulnerable candidates.
Twitter will ban impersonators, Elon Musk says, as users flock to take his name
Twitter handles pretending to be other individuals or institutions without clearly demarcating themselves as parody accounts will be “permanently suspended”, Elon Musk has declared. It came after some celebrities changed their display names and tweeted as “Elon Musk”.
The company’s new chief executive tweeted last night: “Previously, we issued a warning before suspension but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning.”
“Any name change at all” would lead to the temporary loss of a verified checkmark, Musk said. Several accounts that had changed their name to Elon Musk or approximations of it promptly appeared to have been suspended or placed behind a warning sign.
Musk hits back over blue tick criticism. “You represent the problem: journalists who think they are the only source of legitimate information. That’s the big lie,” he tweeted.
In other news …
More than 200 climate activists were arrested in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, yesterday after storming Schiphol airport and blocking aircraft in a sit-down protest to demand less flights, more trains and a short-haul and private jet ban.
The deadliest year for the US-Mexico border leaves more than 800 people in its wake. The last fiscal year has been the most lethal on record for people trying to make unauthorized crossings of the heavily patrolled frontier.
Fears are mounting over the possible surveillance of delegates at Cop27 in Egypt, with cybersecurity experts warning that the official app requires access to a user’s location, photos and emails upon download.
The World Cup referee Facundo Tello brandished 10 red cards in Argentina’s Champions Trophy final after a Racing Club midfielder sparked a melee in front of the Boca Juniors fans with his match-winning goal celebration.
Stat of the day: past eight years were eight hottest ever, says UN
A report has laid bare the depth of the climate crisis. According to estimates, the global average temperature in 2022 will be about 1.15C above the pre-industrial average – meaning every year since 2016 has been one of the warmest on record.
“The messages in this report could barely be bleaker – all over our planet, records are being shattered as different parts of the climate system begin to break down,” Prof Mike Meredith, from the British Antarctic Survey, said. “The loss of ice is especially alarming as the impacts on people, societies and economies are huge. If this doesn’t focus the minds of the global leaders at Cop27, I don’t know what will.”
Don’t miss this: can collagen really turn back the clock?
“I initially thought it was just a scam,” Gary Goldenberg, an assistant clinical professor of dermatology, said of the collagen supplement boom. “Then we started researching it and there actually is some evidence that they can improve skin tone, texture and elasticity – which are the things that we lose as we get older.”
Research on athletes is showing promise. “There are some indications that collagen supplement may speed up recovery, compared with placebo, in overused tendons,” according to the scientist Christian Couppé, co-leading a trial in Denmark. “Some athletes have claimed that they improved from the intake of collagen.”
Climate check: ‘Cop conferences are a big game of let’s pretend’
“The fact that the meeting is held in Egypt, a full dictatorship where domestic climate activists have already been locked up, adds a special twist” to this year’s Cop talks, according to representatives of developing countries involved in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations.
“Apparently a location has been set aside in the desert, far away from Sharm el-Sheikh, where climate activists (though not including Greta, who has declined this year to show up) can march around in circles with their banners under the hot sun, a safe distance from any actual negotiators or media.”
Last thing: who is robbing Lebanon’s banks?
A slew of bank heists in Beirut over recent weeks have bizarrely seen people holding staff at gunpoint to demand access to their own money. The Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast reports how Lebanon’s banks became so dysfunctional they have been preventing customers from withdrawing their own money – causing some to take matters into their own hands in order to pay their bills.
The country has for years been encouraging investment from abroad with the promise of high interest rates – but war in neighbouring Syria and subsequently the Covid crisis have caused the whole financial system to tumble down after investors took flight.
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