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CO2 emissions chart
Sherwood News

Tensions have risen at COP29 as the climate change cost climbs

Tom Jones, Claire Yubin Oh

Like the worst guests around the dinner table, nations at the COP29 climate summit keep arguing about who should foot the bill, as many world leaders look to increase eco spending goals to over $1 trillion each year going forward. 

Argentinian representatives withdrew completely from the summit yesterday, and the French Minister of Ecological Transition, Energy, Climate and Risk also pulled out after a damning speech on Wednesday from the president of the host nation, Azerbaijan. 

Burning issues

While tensions at the UN’s annual climate conference are nothing new, the prickly heat at this year’s COP summit feels slightly more intense, with some representatives — and many more experts beside — acknowledging the need for more funds to fight the global climate crisis. As the goal of keeping global warming at 1.5 degrees, set as part of the Paris Agreement in 2016, looks shaky by some measures, some notable climate experts have been questioning how fit for purpose the COP talks themselves actually are. 

The core issue remains a classic tragedy of the commons. The expensive and time-consuming change required to meaningfully curb emissions at the individual country-level can be negated by almost any nation and it’s not easy to get world leaders to agree on where the easiest progress can be made. China, for example, is the world’s biggest polluter in aggregate emissions. But once you adjust for population, it’s not even close to the top of the polluting tables. Indeed, while CO2 emissions per capita have ticked down from their previous peaks in nations like Russia, the UK, and the US, they’ve been steadily rising in fast-growing economies like China and India, according to figures from Our World in Data.

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Tom Jones

The most watched soccer match in US history got less than a third of the views the Super Bowl did

Between a top-spot finish in the group stage, a sweeping performance against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32, and the president’s controversial intervention, Monday evening’s USMNT game against Belgium had, to put it lightly, shaped up into a box-office clash.

And though the US players’ performance on the pitch might not have lived up to the high drama off it, American soccer fans certainly showed up. According to early estimates, the 4-1 defeat against Belgium was the most watched soccer telecast in US history, hauling some 40 million viewers on average across the coverage on Fox and Telemundo.

That may be a record tally in the US for the sport that much of the world calls some variant of “football” — besting the 36.2 million who tuned in to watch the team’s previous knock-out match — but it’s still peanuts in comparison to the sport that shares the same name in the States.

World cup viewers chart
Sherwood News
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Over 50% of Americans say climate change is a serious threat; only 10% think their compatriots feel the same

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The platform will plow more money into its ad offerings as it cements itself as a “trove of human intelligence.”

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45% of Americans say they’re not taking a summer vacation this year, mostly due to costs

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