- Darvish tames Ohtani as Padres thrash Dodgers
- Asian markets track Wall St rally on jobs data
- Family affair as LeBron, Bronny James make Lakers bow
- Cancer, cardiovascular drugs tipped for Nobel as prize week opens
- As Great Salt Lake dries, Utah Republicans pardon Trump climate skepticism
- Amazon activist warns of 'critical situation' ahead of UN forum
- Mourners pay tribute to latest victims of deadly Channel crossing
- Tunisia incumbent Saied set to win presidential vote: exit polls
- Phillies win thriller to level Mets series
- Yu bags first PGA Tour win with playoff win
- PSG held by Nice to leave Monaco clear at top of Ligue 1
- AC Milan fall at Fiorentina after De Gea's penalty heroics
- Lewandowski treble for leaders Barca as Atletico held
- Fresh Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Sucic stunner earns Real Sociedad draw against Atletico
- PSG draw with Nice, fail to reclaim top spot in Ligue 1
- Gudmundsson downs AC Milan after De Gea's penalty heroics for Fiorentina
- 'Yes' vote prevails in Kazakhstan nuclear plant vote: TV
- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- Lewandowski hat-trick powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- 'Nothing gets in way of team,' says Celtics' MVP hopeful Tatum
- India maintain Pakistan stranglehold as Windies cruise at Women's T20 World Cup
- 'We will win!': Mozambique's ruling party confident at final vote rally
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
- Maresca hails Chelsea's 'fighting' spirit after draw with 10-man Forest
- New 'Joker' film, a dark musical, tops N.America box office
- Man Utd stalemate keeps Ten Hag in danger, Spurs rocked by Brighton
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Vikings hold off Jets in London to stay unbeaten
- Ahead of attack anniversary, Netanyahu says: 'We will win'
- West Indies cruise to T20 World Cup win over Scotland
- Arshdeep, Chakravarthy help India hammer Bangladesh in T20 opener
- Lewandowski's quickfire hat-trick powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Man Utd fire another blank in Aston Villa stalemate
- Lewandowski treble powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Russian activist killed on front line in Ukraine
- Openda strike briefly sends Leipzig top of Bundesliga
- Goal-shy Man Utd have to 'step up', says Ten Hag
- India bowl out Bangladesh for 127 in T20 opener
- Madueke rescues Chelsea in draw with 10-man Forest
- Beckett's belief rewarded as Bluestocking storms to Arc glory
- Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election
- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
'Weak tea': Climate scientists push back against COP28 cheer
A UN climate deal that approved a call to transition away from fossil fuels has been hailed as a major milestone and a cause for at least cautious optimism.
But many climate scientists said the joyful sentiments of world leaders did not accurately reflect the limited ambition of the agreement.
- 'Weak tea at best' -
Michael Mann, a climatologist and geophysicist at the University of Pennsylvania, criticized the vagueness of the fossil fuel statement, which has no firm, accountable boundaries for how much countries should do by when.
"The agreement to 'transition away from fossil fuels' was weak tea at best," he told AFP. "It's like promising your doctor that you will 'transition away from donuts' after being diagnosed with diabetes. The lack of an agreement to phase out fossil fuels was devastating."
Mann called for a substantial reform of the COP rules, for example permitting super-majorities to approve decisions over the objections of holdout petro states like Saudi Arabia, and barring oil executives such as COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber from presiding over future summits.
"Mend it, don't end it," he said. "We still need to continue with the COPs. They are our only multilateral framework for negotiating global climate policies.
"But the failure of COP28 to achieve any meaningful progress at a time when our window of opportunity to limit warming below catastrophic levels is closing, is a source of great concern."
- 'Death knell for 1.5C' -
"No doubt there will be lots of cheer and back-slapping... but the physics will not care," said Kevin Anderson, a professor of energy and climate change at the University of Manchester.
Humanity has between five and eight years of emissions at the current level before blowing through the "carbon budget" required to hold long term warming to the 1.5 degrees Celsius needed to avert the worst impacts of long term planetary heating, he said.
Even if emissions begin to go down in 2024, which is not a requirement of the text, we would need to have zero fossil fuel use globally by 2040, rather than the "fraudulent language of net zero by 2050" envisaged in the deal, said Anderson.
He described it as a "death knell" for 1.5C, with even the less ambitious target of 2C, which carries a significant risk for triggering dangerous tipping points in global climate systems, becoming more distant.
- 'Many will die' -
Friederike Otto, a climatologist and leader in the field of assessing the role of climate change on specific extreme weather events, was equally damning.
"It's hailed as a compromise, but we need to be very clear what has been compromised," said Otto, who lectures at The Grantham Institute for Climate Change. "The short-term financial interest of a few have again won over the health, lives and livelihoods of most people living on this planet."
"With every vague verb, every empty promise in the final text, millions more people will enter the frontline of climate change and many will die."
But Johan Rockstrom, a professor in environmental science who directs the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, argued that while the COP would not hold the world to 1.5C warming it was still a "pivotal land-mark."
"This agreement delivers on making it clear to all financial institutions, businesses and societies that we are now finally -- eight years behind the Paris schedule -- at the true "beginning of the end" of the fossil-fuel driven world economy," he said.
F.Bennett--AMWN