Famously one of life’s only two certainties, “tax” has been chosen by the Japanese public as its word of the year, reflecting rising costs of living and much-discussed tax reforms in the world’s third-largest economy.

The kanji, or character, for tax topped an annual poll of more than 147,000 respondents by the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation, with the head priest of a Kyoto temple painting a giant calligraphy of the character at an unveiling ceremony on Tuesday.

The character was chosen because debates on tax hikes were held throughout the year, association officials said, according to public broadcaster NHK.

Much debate has taken place in the country on income tax cuts, a new invoice system and on tougher rules for a tax donation scheme, they added.

“Next year, there will also be whispers of a consumption tax hike, tobacco tax, corporate tax review and so on. There will be no shortage of topics related to taxation, so I picked this kanji,” said one survey respondent from Osaka.

It comes as inflation has reached as high as 4.3% in Japan over the past year, worsened by stagnant wages that have long plagued the East Asian nation. The inflation figures, which may appear modest to many countries, are seen as unusually high in Japan.

The Bank of Japan’s decision to keep interest rates low, which has driven the Japanese yen down, also caused costs of imports to surge, even though it was seen as an effective way to bring back tourists after the Covid pandemic.

“Prices are rising but wages are not keeping up,” said another survey respondent from Tokyo, explaining their pick.

Tax also topped the vote in 2014, when Japan raised consumption taxes.

This year, the runner-up was the kanji for “heat” – Japan was hit by a record heat wave this summer – while in third place was “war,” a perennial global headline maker.

Silently padding through the jungle, the tiger slinks between tree trunks and hanging vines, her stripes a seamless veil among the dappled shadows on the forest floor. Hard to spot for a human — harder still if you’re a deer — but not so difficult for artificial intelligence.

Developed by US-based NGO Resolve, TrailGuard AI is an innovative camera trap that is designed to detect specific species and transmit images of them instantly.

While the technology was originally developed to combat poaching — the camera’s first field-test was in a reserve in East Africa in 2018, where Resolve says it led to the arrest of 30 poachers — conservationists in India saw potential for its use in managing human-tiger conflict.

TrailGuard uses an advanced vision chip with embedded AI that can recognize up to 10 species — such as tigers, leopards, elephants and humans — and transmit the data in real-time to park rangers via cell phone signal or long-range radio. Because it only recognizes select species, it uses less energy than regular camera traps, so it can stay in the field for more than two years, rather than needing its battery changed every month.

AI of the tiger

Last year, TrailGuard AI deployed 12 cameras in a two-month trial in the Kanha–Pench corridor in Madhya Pradesh, known as India’s “tiger state.” The 3,150-square-kilometer (1,216-square-mile) landscape includes the Pench Tiger Reserve, the Kanha Tiger Reserve, and a forest corridor connecting the two, and is home to over 300 tigers, the largest population in central India. Tigers, which need extensive space to roam, can freely move between the two reserves, which helps the population flourish and aids genetic diversity.

But the tigers aren’t the only ones who live in the forest: it’s also home to around 600,000 people living in 715 villages scattered through the corridor, and there are 2.7 million people living within five-kilometers (3.1 miles) of the tiger conservation landscape – which can create conflict with the big cats.

One of the most common kinds of human-wildlife conflict is tigers killing livestock. For villagers, this can mean the loss of their livelihood, and can lead to “retaliation killings,” which can have a significant impact on the already endangered tiger population.

But TrailGuard AI’s instant transmission of information can protect these communities, says Piyush Yadav, a conservation technology fellow at Resolve. When the camera takes a photo of one of its target species, it sends the image — and information including the location, the time of detection, and the species detected — via email and instant messaging apps to forest rangers.

“We are able to create this early alert system with that real-time data, (so that) the villagers are aware that there is a tiger 300 meters away from their location,” says Yadav. “Based on that, they can react more effectively to this data.”

If a tiger is spotted near a village, forest rangers can then share this information with the community via Whatsapp or Telegram, giving people time to protect themselves and their livestock. In cases where an attack on livestock is unavoidable, the images are also evidence for villagers to claim compensation from the authorities, meaning payment can be processed faster.

This helps the community become more tolerant to living alongside an apex predator, says Himmat Singh Negi, the former director of Kanha Tiger Reserve.

“When we saw for the first time the kind of results, the output given by the technology, it was amazing,” says Negi. “Those who are directly working on the ground, they were really thrilled actually, and they could really save some of these situations where otherwise, something untoward might have taken place.”

There’s a growing need for technology that can ease human-wildlife conflict: globally, human populations around tiger conservation areas increased by 19.5 million people between 2000 and 2020, and in India, 35% of the tiger population lives permanently outside designated reserves.

“This is not only a camera, rather (it’s) a tool for management, because with the use of this technology you would be in a position to save the life of a human being and then the livestock thriving in those areas — and the tiger itself,” Negi adds.

Increasing accuracy

TrailGuard AI was tested in a second trial last year at a tiger reserve in Dudhwa, a 1,310-square-kilometer (560-square-mile) protected area with around 107 tigers roaming between three sanctuaries, where it led to the arrest of four poachers who entered the forest after dark, says Yadav.

The results of the trials at Kanha-Pench and Dudhwa, published in September in the peer-reviewed journal BioScience, found the cameras to have 98.8% accuracy, and marked the first time that an automatic, AI-enabled camera transmitted images of a wild tiger.

While trials have ended, forest staff continue to use the cameras and receive notifications daily.

In the past year, Resolve has upgraded the vision chip in the camera, which it says will increase the accuracy and run faster. The new cameras will be deployed in the Kanha-Pench and Dudhwa reserves in the next few months, as well as West Bengal state, where they will be used in a new trial to manage human-elephant conflict in the area.

The tech is being commercialized and scaled under a spinout company, Nightjar, which aims to produce its first run of 500 units by March 2024. According to Nightjar, it already has pre-orders from companies that manage wildlife habitats.

As apex predators, tigers are vital to maintaining the forest ecosystem, which in turn provides sustenance and livelihoods for hundreds of communities. Yadav hopes that TrailGuard will allow tigers and the local people to thrive in the area.

“The villagers are very well aware that tigers are essential for their own living, their own ecosystem, their children’s future,” says Yadav. “The whole point of the work we do is the coexistence factor — that both the species have to survive.”

Much of Poland’s 21st-century story has been shaped by a rivalry between two men. This week, the pendulum between them swung again.

Donald Tusk, a grandee of European politics who paved a Westward-looking path for the young democracy as prime minister from 2007 to 2014, completed a remarkable return to the seat of power when he was again sworn in as leader on Wednesday.

It followed a victory for Tusk over Law and Justice (PiS), the populist party led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who in the eight intervening years had undone much of Tusk’s vision, turning Poland into the troublemaker of Europe and orchestrating an authoritarian transformation of the country. PiS narrowly won the most seats but fell short of a parliamentary majority in the October vote, allowing a Tusk-led coalition to dump the party from office.

But the handover back to Tusk was not a tidy one. He waited two months as PiS scrambled in vain to find a coalition partner. Finally taking to the stage on Monday after winning parliament’s backing to become prime minister, Tusk thanked “all those who trusted in this new, wonderful Poland… and decided to make this historic change.”

The celebratory air was punctured, though, when Kaczynski stormed to the parliamentary podium and exclaimed to Tusk: “You are a German agent!” – a repeat of a months-long effort to paint his archnemesis as a puppet of the EU powerhouse.

It was a reminder, if any were needed, that resetting the EU’s fifth-largest nation from its populist course will be a tall order.

But if Tusk is successful in “dePiSifying” Poland, he will create a blueprint for Europe on how to remove the long-lasting effects of populist rule.

The excitement is palpable already; Tusk’s trips to Brussels since becoming Poland’s leader-in-waiting have had a celebratory air, and he was named by the Politico media company this month as “The Most Powerful Person in Europe.”

“He’s seen as a hope for Europe, in the sense that he showed it is possible to win against populists,” Buras said.

“In the current political context, that’s a very powerful message – one of the few optimistic messages that came from the European capitals in the last few years.”

A bold agenda to roll back PiS reforms

Tusk’s return to domestic politics was greeted in Poland “with relief in some corners, and disbelief and skepticism in others,” said Jacek Kucharczyk, the president of the Warsaw-based Institute of Public Affairs think tank.

“People didn’t believe that he could find the energy to make a difference.”

Instead, Tusk united a disparate opposition coalition and waged what he termed as a battle for Poland’s soul – a campaign message that intentionally chimed with US President Joe Biden’s effort to topple the world’s other influential Donald.

He had a “personal ambition” too, said Buras. “This rivalry, between him and Kaczynski, has lasted for a very long time,” he said. “He (wanted) to show Kaczynski that he’s the only politician who is able to win against him.”

Tusk won the latest battle, but Kaczynski’s party is already girding for a war over the future of the Polish state. Eight years of divisive reforms to Poland’s judiciary, public media, state-run companies and cultural institutions are deeply embedded; reversing them all, while also undoing a crackdown on rights for women and LGBTQ+ people, will take money, energy and savvy political maneuvering.

Tusk has promised to undo changes to Poland’s reproductive rights policy that essentially outlawed all abortions in the country. He has pledged support for civil partnerships for same-sex couples, too, and will hope to convince more conservative members of his coalition to back those changes.

But other parts of his agenda will be particularly complex. “PiS has many people in key positions in Poland’s structures,” Buras said. Legal and political experts have long decried many of the party’s changes as unconstitutional, but much of the program has been baked into Polish law and upheld by courts, so Tusk “will face a challenge,” he said, adding: “How to restore a rule of law system, without violating rule of law principles?”

Tusk must also learn to navigate Andrzej Duda, the PiS-aligned Polish president whose nominally symbolic role is expected to instead become a major hurdle for the new government.

Duda, whose party faces a tough presidential election in the first half of 2025, has the power of the veto and will be under pressure from the party that campaigns on his behalf to stifle Tusk’s accomplishments.

He “will most likely oppose any changes conducted through legislative means,” Kucharczyk predicted.

Tusk’s next major obstacle will be the courts, where PiS dramatically altered the system to give itself far greater control over appointing and removing judges.

So-called “neo-judges” – new judges appointed with the involvement of the National Council of the Judiciary, a body that PiS imbued with increased powers, to the chagrin of the EU – still sit on the country’s highest courts.

“The changes were made in breach of the constitution, and (Tusk’s) ruling coalition doesn’t have a sufficient majority to change the constitution,” said Jaroslaw Gwizdak, a former court president who quit his role in protest at PiS’ changes to the judiciary.

A vocal opposition

October’s election was greeted with a rare joy in Europe; the victory of Tusk, a titan of EU politics who led the European Council from 2014 to 2019, promised to usher in a new era of cooperation between Poland and the bloc.

It could also accelerate a shifting of the balance of power eastwards from Paris and Berlin.

Tusk promised on Monday that “Poland will regain its position as a leader in the European Union” during his tenure. He will be expected to secure the release of billions in funding that Brussels had blocked over Poland’s changes to the rule of law.

Warsaw will be expected to continue its role as a key advocate for Ukrainian aid, a priority Tusk outlined in his maiden speech Monday. That will make him a crucial ally of the Biden administration, which is facing a battle to keep funding flowing to Ukraine at home while trying to persuade Europe to keep up its commitments.

His warmth towards Brussels will meanwhile further isolate Hungary, the authoritarian member with whom PiS had united in spats with EU leadership.

But how much scope Tusk has to play statesman could be dictated by events at home.

He will face bitter opposition from PiS, a party that will remain a formidable force in politics, over his supposed subservience to Europe – a key battle line drawn during the election that has remained since. PiS is the largest single party in Poland’s parliament, and its nationalist talking points that promote Catholicism, Polish traditions and sovereignty still reverberate through the country’s media ecosystem.

“The opposition will be very strong,” said Buras, predicting that PiS and the far-right Confederation “will try to outcompete each other when it comes to anti-European rhetoric.”

Already, parting blows have been attempted. The former government’s panel on Russian influence – a much-derided body that critics said was created solely to criticize Tusk’s previous premiership during the campaign – recommended last month that Tusk be barred from office, PAP reported, a conclusion that was widely anticipated and generally ignored.

And whatever Tusk’s achievements, he will struggle to win the public narrative if he cannot reverse the transformations PiS made to state-owned media.

State-run networks like TVP have become essentially a government mouthpiece in recent years, in the vein of Hungary and even Russia, where the successes of the ruling party are touted ad nauseum.

TVP’s “distorted and openly partisan coverage” favored PiS during October’s election, according to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which monitored the vote.

Tusk pledged on the campaign trail to reset public television in just “24 hours,” an impossibly ambitious promise that may come back to haunt him.

In reality, reversing a conservative, nationalistic bent that has seeped through Poland’s airwaves will take time. Tusk will need to take on the PiS-created and dominated National Media Council, which was given oversight of Poland’s media sector by the former government.

“(Tusk) is a very ambitious politician,” Buras said, adding that few political agendas in the new year will be as complex as his.

But when making the calculation to return to Polish politics, Buras said, Tusk had “reason to believe that he’s the one who can rescue his own party, and also polish democracy.

“The jury is still out on how he manages to do that; there are lots of pitfalls and problems ahead of him.”

Mossad director David Barnea will not travel to the Qatari capital Doha, where previous talks on the release of hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza have taken place, the source said.

Israel’s Channel 13 first reported Wednesday that the Israeli war cabinet, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had called off the trip and that senior Israeli officials would not go to Qatar to restart negotiations.

Around 240 people, from infants to octogenarians, were taken hostage during Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7. Dozens have been freed but many more remain missing, presumed to be held by the Palestinian militant organization and other groups in Gaza, following the breakdown of a temporary truce last month.

The Israeli prime minister’s office believes 135 hostages remain in Gaza, 115 of whom are alive.

Formal negotiations have not resumed since hostage talks that had been taking place in Doha broke down earlier this month.

But Israel, the United States and Qatar have continued to discuss ways to try to jump start the discussions, multiple sources said. “We never stopped,” one source familiar with the talks said.

Families of some of the Israeli hostages were outraged by the decision to cancel Barnea’s trip and demanded answers. “We are fed up with the indifference and deadlock,” they said in a statement.

“The families were shocked by the report on the rejection of the Director of Mossad’s request to formulate an agreement for the release of the hostages,” the statement added. “This announcement comes in addition to the ignoring of the parents’ request to meet with the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister, which have not yet been answered.”

Barnea has been leading the hostage negotiations for Israel while his American counterpart, CIA Director Bill Burns, has done the same for the US.

Eight American citizens are believed to be among the hostages and the US has played a mediating role alongside Qatar, which has led engagement with Hamas.

On Wednesday, the families of the American hostages met with President Joe Biden in Washington. They also went to the CIA to meet with Burns, according to a family member. A US official confirmed the CIA meeting.

Qatar has relayed to Hamas new ideas to try to get more hostages out of Gaza, including a potential deal that would include the release of not just the remaining women hostages, but men as well, according to one source familiar with the efforts and a senior US official.

“There’s not an active negotiation, but there’s a real exploration of ideas for how to get this going,” the senior US official said.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the number of hostages that Israel believes are still alive in Gaza.

Thousands of years ago, a star in our galaxy violently exploded and created a glowing supernova remnant called Cassiopeia A that has intrigued scientists for decades.

Now, a new image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed the closest and most detailed look inside the exploded star, according to astronomers. Analyzing the image could help researchers better understand the processes that fuel these massive incendiary events.

The space observatory has also allowed astronomers to glimpse mysterious features that haven’t appeared in images taken of the remnant using telescopes like Hubble, Chandra or Spitzer or Webb’s other instruments.

The new image was shared on Monday by first lady Dr. Jill Biden as she debuted the first-ever digital White House Advent Calendar, which includes Webb’s new perspective of Cassiopeia A that seems to shine like a Christmas ornament.

“We’ve never had this kind of look at an exploded star before,” said astronomer Dan Milisavljevic, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Purdue University, in a statement. “Supernovae are primary drivers of cosmological evolution. The energies, their chemical abundances — there is so much that depends on our understanding of supernovae. This is the closest look we’ve had at a supernova in our galaxy.”

Swirls of gas and dust are all that remain of the star that went supernova 10,000 years ago. Cassiopeia A is located 11,000 light-years away in the Cassiopeia constellation. A light-year, equivalent to 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers), is how far a beam of light travels in one year.

The light from Cassiopeia A first reached Earth about 340 years ago. As the youngest known supernova remnant in our galaxy, the celestial object has been studied by a multitude of ground- and space-based telescopes. The remnant stretches for about 10 light-years across, or 60 trillion miles (96.6 trillion kilometers).

Insights from Cas A, as the remnant is also known, allow scientists to learn more about the life cycle of stars.

Seeing Cas A in a new light

Astronomers used Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera, called NIRCam, to see the supernova remnant at different wavelengths of light than those used in previous observations. The image shows unprecedented details of the interaction between the expanding shell of material created by the supernova as it collides with the gas released by the star prior to the explosion.

But the image looks completely different from one taken by Webb in April using the telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI. In each image, certain features stand out that are invisible in the other.

Webb observes the universe in wavelengths of infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. As scientists process Webb’s data, the light captured by the telescope is translated into a spectrum of colors visible to humans.

The new NIRCam image is dominated by orange and light pink flashes of color within the supernova remnant’s inner shell. The colors correspond to gaseous knots of elements shed by the star, including oxygen, argon, neon and sulfur. Mixed within the gas are dust and molecules. Eventually, all of these ingredients will combine to form new stars and planets.

Studying the remnant allows scientists to reconstruct what happened during the supernova.

“With NIRCam’s resolution, we can now see how the dying star absolutely shattered when it exploded, leaving filaments akin to tiny shards of glass behind,” Milisavljevic said. “It’s really unbelievable after all these years studying Cas A to now resolve those details, which are providing us with transformational insight into how this star exploded.”

Webb’s dual perspectives

When comparing the NIRCam image with the MIRI image taken in April, the new perspective seems less colorful. The bright swirls of orange and red from the April image look smokier through NIRCam’s eyes, showing where the shock wave from the supernova crashed into surrounding material.

The white light in the NIRCam image is due to synchrotron radiation, which is created when charged particles accelerate and travel around magnetic field lines.

A key feature missing from the NIRCam view is the “Green Monster” from the MIRI image, or a circle of green light in the remnant’s center, that has puzzled and challenged astronomers.

But new details can be seen in the near-infrared image that point to circular holes wreathed in white and purple, designating charged particles of debris that shape the gas shed by the star before it exploded.

Another new feature in the NIRCam image is a blob nicknamed Baby Cas A that can be seen in the bottom right corner, which looks like an offspring of the larger supernova remnant and is located 170 light-years behind Cassiopeia A.

Baby Cas A is actually a feature called a light echo, where the supernova’s light interacted with dust and caused it to heat up. The dust continues to glow as it cools over time.

“It’s staggering,” said Milisavljevic, who led a project team that contributed to the new image. “Some features have popped up that are completely new — that will change the way we think about stellar life cycles.”

Nearly 200 countries agreed to a new climate deal at the COP28 talks in Dubai on Wednesday, after two weeks of negotiations characterized by controversy and bitter divisions over the future of fossil fuels.

The decision has been called historic, with some experts declaring that it signals the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era. Others say it’s undermined by a “litany of loopholes.”

Here’s why the final agreement is dividing opinion.

What’s in the climate deal?

The agreement marks the first time the annual UN meeting has asked countries to move away from fossil fuels — the main driver of the climate crisis.

The text of the agreement “calls on” countries to “contribute” to global efforts to reduce carbon pollution. It lists a menu of actions they can take, including “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems … accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050.”

What the agreement doesn’t do is require a “phase-out” of fossil fuels. That ambitious language was supported by more than 100 countries, including the United States and European Union, but was fiercely opposed by fossil fuel states such as Saudi Arabia.

The agreement also calls for a tripling of renewable energy capacity and a doubling of energy efficiency, both by 2030.

Countries are also being asked to have detailed adaptation plans in place by 2025, to show how they intend to deal with the current and future impacts of the escalating climate crisis.

The agreement also acknowledges the need for trillions of dollars of funding to flow from rich countries to poorer, climate vulnerable ones, to help them adapt climate change and transition to renewable energy. But there are no requirements in the deal for wealthy countries to give more.

What are the loopholes?

The agreement contains a “litany of loopholes” which could “take us backward rather than forward,” Anne Rasmussen, the lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, said in a speech Wednesday.

Those loopholes refer to the option for countries to accelerate zero- and low-carbon technologies, including carbon capture and storage – a set of techniques that are still being developed with the aim of removing carbon pollution from the atmosphere.

Many scientists and other experts have said that carbon capture is unproven at scale and a distraction from policies to cut fossil fuel use, potentially giving license to polluters to carry on burning fossil fuels.

The International Energy Agency sees a limited role for carbon capture in energy-hungry sectors such as steelmaking, which can’t yet be effectively powered by renewables like wind and solar.

Another “loophole” that has angered some countries and climate experts is the agreement’s recognition of a continued role for “transitional fuels” — largely interpreted to mean methane gas, a planet-heating fossil fuel.

What are people saying about the agreement?

Several climate negotiators and international groups called the final text historic and significant, while also being careful to say it does not go far enough or fast enough to rein in the climate crisis.

“The message coming out of this COP is we are moving away from fossil fuels,” US climate envoy John Kerry told reporters at a Wednesday press conference. While he acknowledged the final agreement represented a compromise, he called it a success and a vindication of multilateralism.

“We’re not turning back,” he added.

Other observers noted the text gives leeway to fossil fuel producers.

The draft “sends a signal that the fossil industry’s days are numbered,” Teresa Anderson, global climate lead at ActionAid, said in a statement. But, she added, it still contains “offers several gifts to the greenwashers, with mentions of carbon capture and storage, so-called transition fuels, nuclear power and carbon markets.”

What else came out of COP28?

The first day of COP28 opened with a surprise agreement to adopt a climate damage fund that was the result of decades of hard-fought negotiations.

Many countries, including COP28 host country the UAE, have since made pledges totaling more than $700 million to help nations hit hardest by the climate crisis deal with its consequences.

More announcements on climate finance were made during the rest of the summit; the UAE pledged to create a $30 billion climate finance fund and put $250 million into it by the end of the decade.

During Vice President Kamala Harris’s visit to COP, the US pledged $3 billion towards the Green Climate Fund, the main finance vehicle to help developing nations adapt to the climate crisis and cut fossil fuel pollution.

Slashing emissions of methane, a powerful planet-warming gas, was also a sharp focus in the early days of the meeting. The US announced regulations to cut methane pollution from the nation’s huge oil and gas industry by nearly 80% through 2038.

And 50 major oil and gas companies, including Exxon and Saudi Aramco, signed a pledge to cut their methane emissions by the end of the decade, each committing to reduce their methane intensity by around 80% to 90% by 2030.

What comes next?

Now the deal is agreed, countries are required to update their national plans in 2025 to reduce emissions, detailing how much they’ll cut down on planet-warming pollution by 2035.

The US and China, the world’s two biggest emitters, have already jointly committed that their plans will cover all economy-wide climate pollution, and reduce emissions from non-CO2 gases such as methane and hydrofluorocarbons. That agreement marked a major commitment from China, in particular, which emits more carbon dioxide than the rest of the developed world combined.

Speaking Wednesday, Kerry said the two countries were actively encouraging the rest of the world’s nations to follow. But Kerry warned that more ambition was needed to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

“That’s our challenge. Speed it up; bring it to scale – bigger, faster,” Kerry said.

Attention will now move to next year’s summit. After a fraught selection process, Azerbaijan, another major oil and gas producing nation, was tapped to host the 2024 talks.

A new draft of the centerpiece agreement at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai makes an unprecedented mention of transitioning away from fossil fuels, in what some experts are welcoming as the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era.

But it does not call for the world to “phase out” coal, oil and gas — as more than 100 countries had hoped — and includes “loopholes” that would allow for their continued use, even beyond 2050.

The draft, which could continue to be debated, calls on countries to “contribute” collectively to global efforts to reduce climate pollution in a way that they see fit. It offers eight options, one of which is “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems … accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050.”

Countries could choose other options instead, including contributing to a global goal of tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency.

Climate advocates and policy experts welcomed the call to transition away from fossil fuels — the main driver of the climate crisis — saying it sends a signal to countries to make plans to wean off coal, oil and gas and recognizes this decade as critical for action.

The draft “sends a signal that the fossil industry’s days are numbered,” Teresa Anderson, global climate lead at ActionAid, said in a statement.

But Anderson pointed out several weaknesses in the draft, including references to accelerating growth in “removal technologies,” also known as carbon capture, which would allow for the continued use of fossil fuels if their carbon pollution was removed before entering the atmosphere. Many scientists have expressed concern that carbon capture is expensive, unproven at scale and a distraction from policies to cut fossil fuel use.

“The text has many loopholes and offers several gifts to the greenwashers, with mentions of carbon capture and storage, so-called transition fuels, nuclear power and carbon markets,” she said. “Overall, it maps a rocky road towards a fossil free future.”

The draft was published Wednesday morning local time, more than 12 hours after the summit’s deadline, as talks ran hours into overtime as countries negotiated language around fossil fuels and other sticking points. There will be widespread appetite to wrap up talks by the end of the day, which will require a vote on the draft in a plenary session that will be publicly available online.

What to do about the future of fossil fuels has been the most contentious issue at these talks. Some more ambitious nations and climate advocate had expressed anger and frustration an earlier draft dropped the call for a phase-out.

If the text is agreed by countries, it would represent a “significant moment,” Stephen Cornelius, WWF deputy global climate and energy lead, said in a statement.

“[But] this cannot be the benchmark by which we judge the outcome of this COP,” he said. “Countries must use these final hours to push for an even more ambitious text that is fully aligned with preventing the most devastating consequences of the climate crisis.”

The annual climate talks are often divisive and run into extra hours, but COP28 has been particularly fraught, with criticism that oil interests have derailed the process.

The fossil fuel industry was given record access to the conference, a recent analysis showed. COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber, who is presiding over the talks, also leads the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company as it undergoes a major expansion in oil and gas production. He has consistently rejected criticisms of a conflict of interest and pledged to hold a transparent process.

The secretary-general of the oil-producing group OPEC, Haitham Al Ghais, called on members and allies last week to “proactively reject” any language that targeted reducing fossil fuel use, telling members to support language that focuses on “emissions” instead.

Saudi Arabia and Iraq were among the countries that did not want reference to a phase-out of fossil fuels in the text, Catherine Abreu, the founder and executive director of the nonprofit group Destination Zero, told reporters in Dubai. Kuwait’s state news agency KUNA said the country’s delegation to COP28 was “reaffirming” its rejection of a phase-out as well.

The COP28 presidency has fended off criticism that the text had been too watered down. On Tuesday, it said it supported a “historic” deal that included some language on fossil fuels and aimed for “the highest ambition.”

“We are facing the most demanding COP agenda of all time,” said COP28 Director-General Ambassador Majid Al Suwaidi in a news conference.

This is a developing story and it has been updated.

Sky-gazers will soon have the chance to see dozens of meteors streaking across the sky as the yearly Geminid meteor shower reaches its crescendo.

The Geminds are set to peak, or show the most activity, at 2:27 p.m. ET Thursday, according to EarthSky. The best time to view the celestial display will be in the lead-up early that morning between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. in any time zone, said Robert Lunsford, fireball report coordinator for the American Meteor Society.

In an area with clear viewing conditions and no light interference from a full moon, NASA estimates that the Geminids could offer up to 120 visible meteors per hour, making it the strongest annual meteor shower, or “king of the meteor showers,” as Lunsford called it. During this year’s event, the moon will be 1% full Wednesday night heading into Thursday, according to the society, allowing the meteors to take center stage.

“It all depends on where you’re viewing from. If you’re in the middle of the desert, or on a mountaintop, it’s entirely possible (to see up to 120 meteors). If you’re in your backyard, no,” Lunsford said.

Realistically, a sky-gazer looking up from a backyard after midnight in an area away from light pollution would see an average rate of 60 meteors per hour, he added.

The meteor shower will be visible from anywhere in the world, but those in the Southern Hemisphere will have a shorter viewing period, Lunsford said. That’s because the constellation Gemini — which is the Geminids’ radiant, or area from which meteors appear to originate — will be lower in the sky and is expected to rise only after midnight.

The Geminids: What to expect

Earlier this year, using data from NASA’s ongoing Parker Solar Probe mission, astronomers had found that the Geminid meteors — which are made up of debris from an asteroid named 3200 Phaethon — were most likely created by a violent collision between the asteroid and another space rock or some kind of gaseous explosion, according to a June study published in The Planetary Science Journal. The meteor shower’s first recorded observation was captured in 1862.

Geminid meteors are known to be intensely bright and sometimes colored due to their chemical makeup. Some of these space rocks may have more calcium, sodium or nickel than others, so a meteor in this shower could appear to be orange or yellow, or even green, Lunsford said.

The Geminids have been spotted racing across the sky since November and have appeared to increase in number as Earth approaches the core of the 3200 Phaethon debris cloud. If viewing conditions are obscured by unfavorable weather, the shower will still have high rates a few days before and after the peak, Lunsford said.

“Grab yourself a lawn chair and find the darkest spot on your property and look about halfway up in the sky in a direction that’s avoiding trees or anything, so that you can see almost down to the horizon,” Lunsford said. “And just sit back and enjoy the show. You’ll see Geminid meteors shooting in all directions.”

The next and final major annual meteor shower of 2023 will be the Ursids, which will peak on the night of December 21 through the early morning hours of December 22, according to the American Meteor Society.

The world agreed to a new climate deal in Dubai on Wednesday at the COP28 summit after two weeks of painstaking talks, making an unprecedented call to transition away from fossil fuels, but using vague language that could allow some countries to take minimal action.

The gavel went down on the agreement, known as the Global Stocktake, in the morning after the talks were pushed into overtime by marathon negotiations between countries bitterly divided over the future role for oil, gas and coal.

COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber called the agreement “historic” in his speech before national delegates at the final session approving the agreement. “We have language on fossil fuels in our final agreement for the first time ever,” he said, adding that the deal represented “a paradigm shift that has the potential to redefine our economies.”

Some countries claimed the deal signaled the end of the fossil fuel era, but more ambitious nations and climate advocates said it was still far from sufficient to reflect the growing urgency of the climate crisis.

What the deal asks countries to do

“At long last the loud calls to end fossil fuels have landed on paper in black and white at this COP,” said Jean Su, the energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity, “but cavernous loopholes threaten to undermine this breakthrough moment.”

The agreement falls short of requiring the world to “phase-out” oil, coal and gas — which more than 100 countries and many climate groups had been calling for, language which was included in an earlier version of the draft.

Instead, the agreement “calls on” countries to “contribute” to global efforts to reduce carbon pollution in ways they see fit, offering several options, one of which is “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems … accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050.”

Key takeaways: What does the COP28 deal say?

COP28 has taken place at the end of a year defined by unprecedented global heat, which has driven deadly extreme weather, including record wildfires, deadly heat waves and catastrophic floods. This year is officially the hottest on record, due to a combination of human-caused global warming and El Niño, and next year is set to be hotter still.

The conference in Dubai has been marred by controversy and criticism that oil interests were influencing the talks.

The conference also saw deep divisions, with Saudi Arabia leading a group of oil-producing nations rejecting language on phasing out fossil fuels. On the other side, more ambitious parties, including the European Union and a group of island states, expressed anger over a previous draft with watered-down language on fossil fuels.

US climate envoy John Kerry said divisions nearly derailed the conference, as oil- and gas-producing nations pushed back on fossil fuel language.

“I think there were times in the last 48 hours where some of us thought this could fail,” Kerry told reporters Wednesday. But ultimately they “stepped up and said, ‘we want this to succeed.’”

Kerry called the deal a success and a vindication of multilateralism.

“All of us can find a paragraph or sentences, or sections, where we would have said it differently,” he said in an earlier speech after the deal was agreed. But, he added, “to have as strong a document as has been put together, I find is cause for optimism, cause for gratitude and cause for some significant congratulations to everybody here.”

He said that the agreement was “much stronger and clearer as a call on 1.5 than we have ever heard,” referring to the internally-agreed ambition to restrict global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a threshold beyond which scientists say humans and ecosystems will struggle to adapt.

“The message coming out of this COP is we are moving away from fossil fuels,” Kerry said. “We’re not turning back.”

Deal gives fossil fuel industry ‘escape routes’

Several parties expressed disappointment and concerns over how quickly Al Jaber struck his gavel and adopted the draft deal. Typically countries voice their support or objections and agreement follows a debate.

“It seems that you gavelled the decisions and the small island developing states were not in the room,” Anne Rasmussen, the lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), said to Al Jaber once they entered the room.

AOSIS, an intergovernmental organization of countries disproportionately at risk from the climate crisis, is one of the most powerful voices at the annual climate talks.

AOSIS was “exceptionally concerned” about the agreement, Rasmussen added. While the text contains “many good elements,” she said, “the course correction that is needed has not yet been secured” and “we see a litany of loopholes.”

“It is not enough for us to reference the science and then make agreements that ignore what the science is telling us we need to do,” she said in her speech which was met with a standing ovation from delegates.

Many climate experts, while cautiously welcoming the reference to fossil fuels in the agreement, point to serious weaknesses, including leaving the door open for fossil fuel expansion to continue.

Harjeet Singh, the head of global political strategy at nonprofit Climate Action Network International, said “after decades of evasion, COP28 finally cast a glaring spotlight on the real culprits of the climate crisis: fossil fuels. A long-overdue direction to move away from coal, oil, and gas has been set.”

But, he added, “the resolution is marred by loopholes that offer the fossil fuel industry numerous escape routes, relying on unproven, unsafe technologies.”

His reference is to the controversial technology known as carbon capture and storage — a set of techniques being developed to pull carbon pollution from polluting facilities such as power plants and from the air, and store it underground. The agreement calls for an acceleration of the technology.

Many scientists have expressed concern that carbon capture is unproven at scale, a distraction from policies to cut fossil fuel use and too expensive.

Some countries and experts were alarmed by the agreement’s recognition of a role for “transitional fuels” in the energy transition — largely interpreted to mean natural gas, a planet-heating fossil fuel.

“We want to raise the alarm that transition fuel will become permanent especially in developing countries,” said an Antigua and Barbuda delegate.

There was also criticism over a failure to ensure enough funding will flow to the poorest, most climate-vulnerable countries to help them adapt to the escalating impacts of the climate crisis and move their economies toward renewable energy.

COP28 started with an early success on finance. On the first day, countries formally adopted a loss and damage fund decades in the making, and have since made pledges of more than $700 million to help nations on the front lines of climate change.

But the summit agreement — while acknowledging developing countries need up to $387 billion a year to adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis and around $4.3 trillion is required each year up to 2030 to scale up renewable energy — includes no requirements for developed countries to give more.

Developing countries “still dependent on fossil fuels for energy, income, and jobs, are left without robust guarantees for adequate financial support,” Singh said.

Mohamed Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa, said in a statement the “transition” in this agreement “is not funded or fair.”

“We’re still missing enough finance to help developing countries decarbonise and there needs to be greater expectation on rich fossil fuel producers to phase out first,” Adow said.

Nine Israeli soldiers were killed in a single attack in northern Gaza on Tuesday, an incident that was among the deadliest for Israeli forces since the beginning of their ground operation on October 27.

The news sent shockwaves through Israel, where many are still grieving from the October 7 terror attack by Hamas. But analysts say it is unlikely the incident will weaken the support for the war among the Israeli public. The stakes, they say, are way too high.

According to the official count, 115 Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers have been killed in Gaza combat since the start of the invasion.

Eisin’s husband and three children are all currently serving in the IDF. “This doesn’t mean I want to sacrifice my children,” she said.

“No, it means that I don’t know how I can live here unless we destroy Hamas.”

Still, the attack on Tuesday hit Israelis hard, and not just because of the high number of dead.

“That combination, that it was a specific brigade that got a lot of the casualties and that it was a large amount of high-ranking officers, made it hurt a lot. We’re hurting today,” Eisin said.

“It’s always hard when soldiers are killed, but when it’s this level of command, it hits you in the gut. These are commanders that commanded hundreds of soldiers,” she added.

The incident brought home the unpredictable nature of the type of war Israel is currently waging in Gaza, Eisin said. The first phase of the operation was limited to aerial and artillery attacks, which caused a large number of Palestinian casualties, but kept Israeli soldiers safe because the IDF has air superiority over Gaza.

But once the IDF put boots on the ground, the balance shifted somewhat. According to the IDF, Hamas has spent a long time preparing for this war, building a vast tunnel system, setting up traps and defenses. This is likely one reason why this invasion has been deadlier for the IDF than its 2014 ground operation in Gaza, which lasted 51 days and left 67 Israeli soldiers dead.

“In urban warfare, the advantage is always on the defender, which is why Hamas built itself into the urban arena and created the subterranean arena underneath this specific urban area,” Eisen said, adding that in such cases, the attacking troops need to “create local advantages” to succeed. “Yesterday, it didn’t work,” she said.

The IDF said the unit involved in the incident on Tuesday was the Golani Brigade, an infantry unit that had been operating within the Shejaiya neighborhood in central eastern Gaza.

In a statement on Wednesday, the IDF said Hamas fighters “threw explosives at the soldiers and shot at them from inside a residential building in which underground terror infrastructure was also located.”

“Fighting and clearing [the] terror presence from this area is extremely risky and requires high level of bravery and determination,” Ziv said, explaining that the incident was particularly deadly because after the first infantry team encountered Hamas fighters and booby traps, other teams rushed in to respond.

“That rush was the main reason for the high number of casualties,” he said.

‘The world does not get it’

While the overwhelming majority of Israelis still support the Gaza operation, Ziv said there are some who are beginning to question the way the war is fought.

“Incidents like this are (prompting) calls to use more remote measures like air forces, instead of sending troops to fight face to face in those lethal urban areas,” he said.

Ziv and Eisin both said fighting on the ground would help to minimize civilian casualties compared to aerial bombardment.

“The (IDF) casualties yesterday did not have to happen if we had used an airplane,” Eisin asserted.

“But when an airplane brings down the building, if you don’t know exactly what’s on all of the different floors, and if you think there’s civilians there, that’s part of the discussion. It’s a dilemma,” she added.

The huge number of civilian deaths in Gaza has seiously tested international support for Israel, with even some of its closest allies calling for a humanitarian ceasefire.

Eisin said she sees a widening gap between the public opinion inside Israel and views of those outside the country.

“I absolutely feel that the world does not get it, they do not understand that we see this as an existential threat, that we can’t live here as long as Hamas’ military capabilities exist,” she said.