The United States and China have agreed to resume a working group on climate cooperation and pledged a major ramp-up of renewable energy, the two sides announced Wednesday ahead of a leaders’ summit in San Francisco, as the world’s two largest polluters seek to overcome their geopolitical tensions to tackle the climate crisis.

The announcement came hours before US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are set to sit down on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit for their first talk in a year – a highly anticipated meeting aimed at stabilizing rocky relations.

Cooperation on climate change has long been seen as a rare bright spot in an otherwise difficult US-China relationship strained by tensions over trade, technology, human rights and geopolitics. But even that bright spot had dimmed over the past year, with Beijing cutting off climate talks with Washington in retaliation for a high-level US visit to Taiwan last summer.

The statement on Wednesday, released separately by the US State Department and China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, followed days of meetings between US climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua at the Sunnylands retreat in California earlier this month. The two envoys also met in Beijing for talks this summer.

The two sides decided to “operationalize” a suspended bilateral working group to “engage in dialogue and cooperation to accept concrete climate actions” in this decade, according to the statement. That working group was first proposed by Kerry and Xie in 2021 at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, but has been on hold since August last year.

The statement also vows a major ramp-up of renewable energy including wind, solar, and battery storage to help run each country’s massive power sector – specifically to take the place of planet-warming fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

China and the US committed to “sufficiently accelerate renewable energy deployment” in their economies until the end of 2030 to speed up “the substitution for coal, oil and gas.” They also pledged to support efforts to “triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030,” and said they plan to meaningfully reduce emissions from their power sector within this decade.

Both countries agreed to economy-wide reductions of all greenhouse gases in their international climate commitments for 2035, including carbon dioxide, methane, and hydrofluorocarbons. The agreement involves attempting to cut emissions in line with keeping global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius – a crucial threshold above which scientists say climate change effects such as heatwaves and droughts will become difficult for humans and entire ecosystems to adapt to.

The statement marks the first time China has officially stated its intent to control the release of all greenhouse gas emissions – not just carbon dioxide as outlined in its current climate goals, said a Chinese climate scholar in Beijing, who spoke on the condition of anominity as he did not obtain approval to speak to the media.

“Under the current political environment, both parties have tried their best to find some practical and feasible points that can be advanced. It is very pragmatic,” the scholar said.

Li Shuo, the director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said China’s pledge to set release targets for all greenhouse gas emissions was arguably the most notable point in the statement.

“Carbon dioxide is only one of the greenhouse gases. Non-carbon dioxide gases such as methane still account for a considerable share of China’s greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.

“If you don’t include them, you’re not actually covering a significant portion of the country’s entire emissions.”

China had previously committed to peaking its emissions “before 2030,” but has not specified exactly when it would do so. But there are signs that the country’s rapid buildout of wind and solar could be starting to displace coal; a Carbon Brief analysis released this week said China’s emissions could start to fall next year – and could portend a broader shift downward.

Still, even with the promises of a significant ramp-up of renewables, there were no explicit words from China on whether it would phase out or phase down its use of coal – the most polluting form of fossil fuel.

The Sunnylands statement also comes three weeks before the annual UN climate conference known as COP28, which is being held this year in Dubai. Other countries are frequently watching for signs of cooperation between the world’s two biggest emitters – which can set the tone and pace for the annual conference.

Li, at the Asia Society, said the Sunnylands statement was a “timely effort of aligning the US and China” ahead of COP28, as their engagement is “a precondition for meaningful global progress.”

But he said the challenging US-China relationship meant the climate agreement between them would only be “floor setting”, not “tone setting” – and COP 28 has its work cut out for it.

“The US-China talks will help stabilize the politics when countries meet in the UAE, but critical issues such as fossil fuel phase out still require much political efforts. China also needs to consider what further ambition can be brought to the COP. Stopping the approval of new coal power projects is a good next step,” he added.

Israel said its military launched a “targeted” operation against Hamas early Wednesday morning inside Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, where thousands of Palestinians are believed to be sheltering.

Conditions at the hospital, which has run out of fuel and is no longer considered operational, have deteriorated rapidly in recent days amid intense fighting, with doctors warning of a “catastrophic” situation for patients, staff and displaced people still inside.

In a statement posted online, the Israel Defense Forces said it had begun “a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa Hospital.”

Israeli soldiers, he said, were in the buildings “conducting search and interrogation operations with the young men amidst intense and violent gunfire inside the hospital.” He added that the Israeli army “is calling on the young men through megaphones to raise their hands, come out, and surrender themselves.”

Earlier, he said gunfire was exchanged across the hospital yard.

In its statement Wednesday, Israel again accused Hamas of continuing to use the large hospital complex for military purposes which, it claimed, “jeopardizes the hospital’s protected status under international law.”

Hamas and hospital officials have consistently rejected Israel’s claims that Hamas has built a command center under the hospital. Human rights bodies fiercely condemned Israel’s raid on Al-Shifa, as the World Health Organization and Palestinian health officials warned they have lost communication with staff inside the hospital.

The desperate situation at Al-Shifa hospital has triggered fresh international outcry over Israel’s assault on Gaza. International pressure on the Israeli government has also hardened in recent days amid accounts of dire circumstances at Gaza’s other fuel-starved hospitals, and severe shortages of food and water.

The United Nations’ Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said he was “appalled by report of military raids in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.”

“The protection of newborns, patients, medical staff and all civilians must override all other concerns. Hospitals are not battlegrounds,” Griffiths said on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

The Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also condemned Israel’s “storming” of Al-Shifa, calling it “a violation of international humanitarian law.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday repeated his calls for a ceasefire in Gaza “in the name of humanity.”

30-minute warning

“We were asked to stay clear of the windows and the balconies. We can hear the armored vehicles, they are very close to the entrance of the complex,” Dr. Khaled Abu Samra said.

Hundreds of staff and patients are still inside Al-Shifa, according to the most recent reports from the hospital, along with several thousand who have sought shelter from Israel’s air and ground offensive.

The Israeli statement said, “The IDF is conducting a ground operation in Gaza to defeat Hamas and rescue our hostages. Israel is at war with Hamas, not with the civilians in Gaza.”

A statement from Hamas blamed both Israel and the United States for the Israeli army raid on the hospital. By supporting what it called Israel’s “false narrative” – that Hamas was using Al-Shifa as a command and control base – it said the US had given Israel, “a green light … to commit more massacres against civilians.”

Hours before Israel’s raid, the White House and the Pentagon said that Hamas is storing weapons and operating a command center from the hospital.

The Pentagon said the US has newly declassified intelligence that claims to show that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad were using hospitals — including Al-Shifa — as a “way to conceal and support their military operations and hold hostages.”

Palestinian Health Minister Dr. Mai Al-Kaila said the Israeli army raid represents, “a new crime against humanity, medical staff, and patients” and could have “catastrophic consequences” for patients and medical staff.

Israel declared war on Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, and launched a “complete siege” of the enclave following Hamas’ terror attacks in Israel on October 7. An estimated 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’ attacks, and about 240 taken hostage, most of whom remain captive in Gaza.

Since then, the Israeli response has killed at least 11,180 Palestinians – including 4,609 children and 3,100 women – according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah, which draws on medical sources in Gaza.

Catastrophic conditions

Doctors and journalists have described catastrophic conditions inside Al-Shifa, including desperate efforts to keep premature babies alive and limited procedures taking place by candlelight.

Journalist Al Za’anoun said people inside the hospital “are starving, there is no food or drinkable water, we barely get tap water for one hour a day.”

He said dozens of corpses are set to be buried in a mass grave in the yard of the hospital complex, as relatives cannot leave to bury their loved ones.

Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera there are plans to bury more than 150 bodies, but he was worried the grave would not be large enough.

In recent days, 15 patients have died at Al-Shifa, among them six newborns, due to power outages and a shortage of medical supplies, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws its figures from the Hamas-controlled territory.

Premature babies were taken out of failed incubators and wrapped in foil on Monday in a desperate bid to keep them alive after oxygen supplies ran out. Images showed several newborn babies placed together on a bed.

Egyptian health minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar said Tuesday they are working to bring 36 newborns from Al-Shifa to Egypt, though such a transfer would be dangerous.

The World Health Organization has recorded at least 137 attacks on health facilities in Gaza, which it said resulted in 521 deaths and 686 injuries.

Other protected sites, like schools, civilian shelters, and United Nations facilities have already been damaged or destroyed in over a month of Israeli airstrikes. On Monday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugee announced that over 100 UN staffers had been killed in Gaza since fighting began – the most in the United Nation’s history.

This is a developing story and is being updated.

Britain’s controversial plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court Wednesday, dealing a potentially fatal blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship policy on migration and setting up an anticipated revolt from the right wing of his Conservative party.

The UK’s highest court ruled unanimously against the government, siding instead with a previous appeals court ruling that found the policy – which has been roundly condemned by humanitarian bodies – was not lawful.

Its ruling – which unambiguously dismantled the government’s appeal – scuppers an effort to fly asylum-seekers who arrive in the UK illegally to the east African nation. The plan was first announced in April 2022, but has been wrought with legal challenges and has failed to deport a single person.

The ruling is expected to lead to calls from the right of the Conservative Party to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a prospect that has loomed over the government for months and has caused deep rifts between left and right in Britain’s ruling party.

Judges found that Rwanda could not be considered a safe country to which to send asylum seekers, as the government has argued, because there was a risk that genuine refugees would be returned to the countries they had fled from.

“There are substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers would face a real risk of ill-treatment by reason of refoulement to their country of origin if they were removed to Rwanda,” they wrote in their judgment.

They found that Rwanda’s system for processing asylum claims, its poor human rights record, and its previous failure to comply with non-refoulement agreements meant that the UK government could not be sure asylum seekers would have their claims considered safely and properly.

Sunak said on Wednesday: “This was not the outcome we wanted, but we have spent the last few months planning for all eventualities and we remain completely committed to stopping the boats.”

He said the government will “now consider next steps.” Sunak may attempt to renegotiate a deal with Rwanda or another country, but those talks would be expected to be painstaking and subject to further legal scrutiny.

More immediately, Sunak must work to navigate the battle within the Conservative Party that has been brewing for months and is expected to erupt following Wednesday’s ruling.

The Supreme Court made clear that the ECHR is not the only convention against which it considered the policy, stating that other international treaties and UK legislation protect refugees and asylum seekers from being deported without guarantees over their safety.

But many on the right of his party have nonetheless been plotting a push to leave the ECHR if the court blocked the policy, a dramatic international withdrawal that moderates have strongly opposed.

The verdict was closely watched in London and across the world, with Britain’s plan considered a test of the viability of offshoring asylum processing.

It was celebrated by humanitarian groups that had long opposed the plan; Care4Calais, which supports refugees in the UK and France, said the judgment “should bring this shameful mark on the UK’s history to a close.”

And Medecins Sans Frontiers said the ruling was an “encouraging result.”

“The new Home Secretary now has a chance to abandon this pointlessly cruel approach, and focus instead on providing safe routes for those seeking sanctuary in the UK. This is the only realistic and humane way of reducing the numbers risking their lives in the Channel.”

A costly failure

Wednesday’s ruling was categorical in crushing the government’s policy on multiple fronts. But its impact will be felt for some time; the judgment reignites a debate about illegal migration as a British general election nears, as well as setting the stage for a bitter round of Conservative infighting.

The Rwanda plan was unveiled in response to a soaring number of perilous small boat crossings made by asylum seekers across the English Channel. The rate of crossings has risen rapidly in recent years, a trend Sunak has pledged to reverse.

Under the policy, some asylum seekers would be sent to Rwanda for their asylum claims to be processed. Successful claimants would then be allowed to remain in Rwanda, while those who were unsuccessful would be sent back to their countries of origin.

The court found that concerns about the Rwandan asylum processing system, and its human rights record, were serious enough to rule the policy illegal.

The scheme was unveiled by former Home Secretary Priti Patel and backed by her successor, Suella Braverman, who was fired from the post on Monday after a string of controversies.

But it has been a costly and public failure for three successive prime ministers. The UK has paid the Rwandan government £140 million ($177 million) for the proposal, the BBC reported.

No flights have taken place; the first scheduled flight to Rwanda was stopped at the 11th hour last year, following an intervention by the European Court of Human Rights, and months of legal challenges then stalled the program.

In a scathing letter to Sunak on Tuesday after her sacking, Braverman said the prime minister’s “magical thinking – believing that you can will your way through this without upsetting polite opinion – has meant you have failed to prepare any sort of credible ‘Plan B’” on illegal migration.

Braverman called Sunak “uncertain, weak, and lacking in the qualities of leadership that this country needs,” and criticized him for being unwilling to leave the ECHR to push the Rwanda plan through – drawing clear battle lines with the prime minister ahead of what could become a civil war within the party.

Natalie Elphicke, the Conservative MP for Dover where the vast majority of small boat crossings to England end their journey, said on Wednesday that the ruling “means the policy is effectively at an end. No planes will be leaving and we now need to move forward.”

But some in the party may push to keep alive the goal of offshoring the processing of asylum claims, whether with Rwanda or another country.

The number of undocumented people entering Europe, and then making their way to Britain, has spiraled this year due to conflict, global inequality and climate change, exacerbating a migrant crisis across the continent.

Opposing illegal migration has become a key pillar of the beleaguered Conservative Party’s pitch to voters, amid polls indicating it has lost support of the public and is heading towards a general election defeat next year.

Its key figures, including Sunak and Braverman, have been accused of using inflammatory language towards illegal migrants as part of a push for votes.

“Ministers knew about the weaknesses in this scheme from the start and yet they insisted on making it their flagship policy,” Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement on Wednesday.

“This damning judgment on his Rwanda policy, where he has already spent more than £140 million of taxpayers’ money, exposes Rishi Sunak’s failure to get any grip or have any serious plan to tackle dangerous boat crossings, which are undermining border security and putting lives at risk,” Cooper said.

A Zimbabwe opposition activist has been found dead after he was abducted on Saturday during a political campaign just outside Harare, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party said late on Monday, the second abduction in weeks of an opposition party member.

Tapfumaneyi Masaya was reportedly bundled into a vehicle by unknown men while campaigning for main opposition party CCC’s candidate ahead of by-elections on Dec. 9, the party said.

CCC spokesperson Promise Mkwananzi told Reuters on Tuesday that Masaya was tortured and dumped on the outskirts of Harare.

Masaya’s body was later moved to a mortuary at Parirenyatwa Hospital, about 5km from central Harare, where it was identified by CCC members who had been searching for him, Mkwananzi said.

Reuters could not independently verify the events.

Zimbabwe has a long history of forced disappearances and deaths of political activists dating back to the 80s. The opposition has often accused the ruling ZANU-PF party of torture and deaths of its activists.

Masaya’s abduction and killing comes barely two weeks after CCC lawmaker Takudzwa Ngadziore was abducted, tortured and dumped about 50km north of Harare by armed men. He survived the attack.

Police said on Monday an investigation had been launched after a body was discovered in the vicinity of where the CCC said Masaya was found, but that the victim’s identity was yet to be established.

Police spokesperson Paul Nyathi told Reuters on Tuesday that there were no further updates.

“We urge the police to do their work and ensure that all these abductors are promptly and effectively brought to justice,” said Mkwananzi.

Zimbabwe’s opposition parties have been calling for a fresh election since President Emmerson Mnangagwa secured a second term in August. CCC leader Nelson Chamisa described the vote as a “gigantic fraud,” while the ruling ZANU-PF party has denied the fraud claims.

A former Russian detective convicted for his role in orchestrating the 2006 assassination of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya has been pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin after being recruited to fight in Ukraine, his lawyer told state media TASS.

Sergey Khadzhikurbanov was sentenced to 20 years in prison for organizing the killing of Politkovskaya, a columnist for the investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta and one of the Kremlin’s fiercest critics, who was shot dead in Moscow on October 7, 2006 – Putin’s birthday.

Khadzhikurbanov’s lawyer, Alexey Mikhalchik, told TASS on Monday that his client had “signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense, subsequently receiving a pardon from President [Putin].”

Mikhalchik said after the completion of his initial contract with the Russian military, Khadzhikurbanov had continued to serve and currently holds a “leadership position” in one of the combat units after being offered a new contract.

Khadzhikurbanov, formerly a Moscow police officer, was sentenced in 2014 by a Moscow court for his role in Politkovskaya’s murder. Before being pardoned by Putin, his original prison term was due to conclude in 2034.

The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta’s editorial board and members of journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s family issued a joint statement Tuesday condemning Khadzhikurbanov’s release. “The state has long ceased to guard the law but uses this law according to its own perverted understanding. [It] hands down 25 years for beliefs and pardons murderers who are in demand by this state,” the statement reads.

“For us, this ‘pardoning’ is not proof of the killer’s atonement and repentance. This is a monstrous fact of injustice and arbitrariness, an outrage against the memory of a person killed for her beliefs and for performing her professional duty,” it added.

Russia has been recruiting ex-convicts as foot soldiers as it attempts to bolster its invasion of Ukraine, which has turned into a grueling war of attrition that has lasted more than 20 months.

The recruitment campaign began under Yevgeny Prigozhin, the notorious head of the private military company Wagner, who worked to enlist between 40,000 and 50,000 prisoners from jails across Russia over the first year of the war.

Prigozhin led an abortive mutiny in June, when he rallied his Wagner fighters to march on Moscow, sweeping nearly 1,000 kilometers in a day from near the border with Ukraine towards the Russian capital, before abruptly calling for his troops to stand down. Two months to the day after his attempted mutiny, Prigozhin was killed in a mysterious plane crash in August.

During a press conference last Friday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Russia’s practice of recruiting and pardoning convicts was ongoing. He said convicts could obtain a pardon even for “serious crimes” if they atone for them “with blood.”

Former convicts can “atone with blood on the battlefield, in assault brigades, under bullets, under shells,” Peskov told reporters, commenting on another case of a former convicted murderer who was pardoned by Putin.

The government of Belize will suspend diplomatic ties with Israel over its refusal to implement a ceasefire in Gaza, adding to the list of countries in the Western Hemisphere voicing anger over the Israeli government’s war conduct.

“The Government of Belize has repeatedly condemned the actions of the IDF in Gaza. We have appealed to Israel to implement an immediate ceasefire and to allow unimpeded access to humanitarian supplies into Gaza. Despite our requests, Israel has not stopped its violations of international humanitarian law nor allowed relief workers to alleviate the suffering of millions of Gazans,” the Belize statement said Tuesday. “Belize renews its call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, unimpeded access to humanitarian supplies into Gaza and the release of all hostages.”

The Central American nation has also withdrawn its accreditation for Israel’s ambassador there, and suspended its own diplomatic activities in Tel Aviv.

Belize follows several regional neighbors, including Colombia, Chile, and Bolivia, that have severed diplomatic ties or recalled ambassadors to Israel. A number of countries across the Middle East and Africa, including Turkey, Jordan, and South Africa, have also recalled ambassadors in recent weeks.

Israel declared war on Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, and launched a “complete siege” of the enclave following Hamas’ terror attacks in Israel on October 7. An estimated 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’ attacks, and 240 taken hostage, most of whom remain captive in Gaza.

Since then, Israeli attacks have killed at least 11,180 Palestinians – including 4,609 children and 3,100 women – according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah, which draws on medical sources in Gaza.

International pressure on the Israeli government has soared in recent days amid accounts of desperate circumstances at Gaza’s fuel-starved hospitals, and severe shortages of food and water. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday repeated his calls for a ceasefire in Gaza “in the name of humanity.”

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out a ceasefire without the release of hostages held by Hamas.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said Monday that the country has only a two to three week window until heavy international pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza began, telling journalists that that a few countries have privately urged Israel to strive for a ceasefire.

The climate crisis is carrying a mounting health toll that is set to put even more lives at risk without bold action to phase out planet-warming fossil fuels, a new report from more than 100 scientists and health practitioners found.

The annual Lancet Countdown report, released Tuesday, found that delaying climate action will lead to a nearly five-fold increase in heat-related deaths by 2050, underscoring that the health of humans around the world is “at the mercy of fossil fuels.”

Despite these growing health hazards and the costs of adapting to climate change soaring, authors say governments, banks and companies are still allowing the use of fossil fuels to expand and harm human health.

“Mortality is just the tip of the iceberg of the enormous burden that comes with heat,” she added.

If the world continues down this fossil fuel-dependent path, Romanello stressed that the cascading consequences could be catastrophic not only for human health but also the economy.

The planet has already warmed roughly 1.2 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era in the late 1800s. When the world is 2 degrees warmer, the report found countries will start to see a 50% increase in labor capacity loss because of exposure to extreme heat, which could lead to enormous economic losses and losses to livelihoods and wellbeing.

More than half a billion more people in the world will suffer food insecurity by mid-century, the report found, if the planet warms 2 degrees.

“The underlying message is that we need to pursue efforts urgently to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees, but that every fraction of a degree of temperature increase matters,” Romanello said.

But even today with a 1.2-degree increase, large parts of the globe have already witnessed a sinister cocktail of devastating impacts.

During Europe’s hottest summer on record in 2022, nearly 62,000 people have died of heat-related causes. That year, every person around the world on average was exposed to 86 days of health-threatening, scorching temperatures, 60% of which were twice as likely to happen by human-caused climate change, according to the report.

That trend persisted — if not, worsened — this summer, with vast swaths of the world experiencing firsthand how dangerous extreme heat can be. In the US, officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, reported that more than 579 people have died of heat-related illness this year, with over 50 deaths still under investigation, making 2023 the deadliest year for heat deaths since the county began tracking them in 2006.

Heat-related fatalities have risen dramatically in the US in recent years. In 2022, more than 1,700 deaths were due to heat-related causes, according to an analysis of data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — more than doubling over the past five years. And that data is likely an underestimate, experts say, because extreme heat exposure isn’t always well documented.

Rachel Licker, principal climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that managing the health risks of climate change isn’t a new experience for some, but for many, it was a “wakeup call to the new realities” the world will be facing if it continues to burn more fossil fuels.

Tuesday’s analysis found that many of these heat-related deaths could have been prevented if the planet hadn’t warmed as much as it did, particularly for the elderly, babies and the most vulnerable communities.

“For the first time this year, we have done an analysis to see what would have happened if temperatures hadn’t changed,” Romanello said. “And what this is showing us is that if temperatures hadn’t changed from the 90s, we would have seen less than a half this increase in heat-related mortality just by demographic changes.”

The world is rapidly approaching irreversible harm, the authors warn. And the only way to prevent that from escalating is to swiftly transition the global economy to net-zero by halting the burning of fossil fuels — not increasing them.

The report comes just weeks before the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, where world leaders will discuss how to protect public health amid a changing climate for the first time since the annual summit began more than two decades ago. Countries will also engage in critical negotiations on whether or not to phase out fossil fuels in the coming years.

“The expansion of oil and gas is undermining our health, our being, and our collective future,” Romanello said. “We absolutely need to call for fossil fuel phase-out. This will be quite a sticking point at this COP, and the health argument is what matters the most.”

Ever since he became British prime minister a little over a year ago, Rishi Sunak has tried to bring calm to the chaotic government he inherited.

His predecessor Liz Truss’ economic policies had caused the pound to fall to its lowest level against the dollar in decades. Inflation was in double digits. Interest rates were rising. And his governing Conservative Party was still struggling to recover from the turmoil of Boris Johnson’s premiership before Truss – which ended in scandal, public fury and dreadful poll ratings.

Despite his aim of steadying the ship, Sunak has struggled to tell a convincing story of exactly what his political personality is and to which brand of Conservatism he belongs.

That might all have changed on Monday when Sunak surprised the Westminster establishment by appointing former Prime Minister David Cameron as his new foreign secretary. He did so after sacking Suella Braverman – a firebrand from the right of the party who recently described pro-Palestinian demonstrations as “hate marches” and called homelessness a “lifestyle choice” – as home secretary.

Cameron, of course, is best known as the PM who called the in-out Brexit referendum of 2016. He was very much from the center of the Conservative Party and led the campaign to remain in the European Union. The UK’s subsequent shock decision to leave the EU led to Cameron’s resignation on the morning of the result and kick-started seven years of bitter, partisan politics among Conservatives over Brexit and, to some extent, the soul of the party.

Almost overnight, Cameron’s pro-green, pro-social reform, centrist liberal Conservatism was thrown out the window, leaving a massive space for people on the right, like Braverman, to shift the whole party in their direction.

Conventional wisdom had been that Sunak was too weak to sack Braverman, even though she had been speaking out on controversial issues for months and had, most believe, been laying the groundwork to replace Sunak should he lose the next election.

Many also believed that keeping Braverman in a key cabinet post was primarily about party management and appeasing the right of his party who privately suspected Sunak to be a closet liberal.

The appointment of Cameron and sacking of Braverman might suggest to those critics that Sunak is finally showing his true colours and throwing his lot in with the moderates – thereby distancing himself from the culture wars and tub thumping of Johnson, Truss and, indeed, Braverman.

Pulling his government back to the center might seem sensible, since the Conservatives’ poll numbers remain dire and the public at large seems tired of tumultuous politics.

But he will need to square it with his own party, which won’t be easy as Conservative MPs, members and voters remain divided into numerous factions.

Some love the populist, culture war politics of Johnson and think forcing him from office has already cost the Conservatives the next election. Others are low-tax libertarians. On the right of the party are a group who want a hard line to be taken on criminals and immigrants. And on the left of the party are the moderates, who think the public is sick of the Conservative psychodrama and want to return to mature government.

Sunak has to some extent tried to be all of these things over the past year, while also painting himself as an agent of change who isn’t defined by the past 13 years of Conservative government – in which he served as finance minister.

It was only last month he addressed the Conservative annual conference and criticized the past “30 years of a political system that incentivizes the easy decision, not the right one.”

In that speech, Sunak endorsed harsher sentences for criminals, defended a U-turn on the UK’s green transition, made dismissive comments about trans rights and gave a rousing endorsement of Braverman’s plans to have refugees deported to Rwanda – something British courts have prevented the government from doing. It’s a bit of a mystery how a shift to the center and Cameron fits into all this. He was, after all, one of the many previous leaders from whom Sunak has tried to distance himself.

Cameron comes with a lot of baggage.

First there is Brexit, which he, in the eyes of his critics, allowed to happen by calling the referendum, convincing his fellow world leaders that the remain side would win – then immediately quitting after losing. Many in British politics have not forgiven him for this.

More recently, he was caught up in a lobbying scandal in which he personally lobbied Sunak, then Johnson’s finance minister, to secure government funds to prevent a financial services company he worked for from collapsing during the Covid-19 pandemic. His requests were denied.

By some on the right of the party he is viewed as the enemy. Before becoming party leader in 2005 and PM in 2010, Cameron was a modernizer.

Shortly after becoming party leader in 2006, he gave a speech suggesting that young people who wore hoodies shouldn’t be feared, but shown more love. He was also pictured hugging huskies in a drive to prove his green credentials.

From 2010-2015 he governed in coalition with the centrist, pro-European Liberal Democrats. Many of his more right-wing MPs believed Cameron to be more at home with the Liberal Democrats than what they saw as real Conservatives.

The appointment will continue to raise more questions over the coming days as observers watch for any discernible changes in government policy or nods to a centrist pivot. It is hard to even know exactly how Sunak could do that – it was only last week his policy agenda, containing many right-wing positions, for the coming year was officially laid out in parliament. Similarly, it’s not as though Sunak was unequivocally of the right before this. He cannot pivot from one position to another when he hadn’t previously been convincingly one or the other.

But as the election, mostly likely to happen at some point next year, draws closer, maybe the finer points of governing don’t actually matter. Maybe this is more of a general vibe shift: bringing in a safe pair of hands to demonstrate stability to the voters while keeping harder-line policies in the manifesto to keep his Conservative critics off his back.

Whatever the truth behind Sunak’s unorthodox reshuffle of his top team, he doesn’t have long before it needs to start having an impact on his political fate. The next election is looming and his party is still a long, long way behind in the polls.

Mexico’s first openly non-binary magistrate and prominent LGBTQ activist Jesús Ociel Baena Saucedo was found dead at home in the central state of Aguascalientes on Monday.

A second person, who was identified as Baena’s romantic partner, was also found dead in the home where they both resided, according to authorities in Aguascalientes, the state nearly 500 kilometers (300 miles) northwest of the capital city.

Mexico’s Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez said the cause of death is so far unknown, while Aguascalientes’ Attorney General Jesús Figueroa said there is no evidence of foul play for the moment.

“The investigation is going to be done,” Rodríguez said during President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s daily press conference, also on Monday.

The prosecutor’s office said that preliminary findings indicate that no traces of blood were found outside the crime scene, that there was no damage found in the accessways to the home, and that they are ruling out the “presence of a third person” involved in the deaths. The office added that “one of the lifeless bodies found was holding a cutting instrument.”

Figueroa said the case would be investigated from a gender perspective because Baena identified as a non-binary person, though there was no mention of the deaths being potentially linked to a hate crime.

For a little over a year, Baena was a member of the central Mexican state of Aguascalientes’ Electoral Tribunal.

“I want to send the message that the LGBTQ population can access these spaces, that there is a possibility, that we have people with enough of a profile that with their own merits can access these spaces where decisions are made,” Baena said at the time.

While Latin America has made impressive progress on marriage equality over the decades, LGBTQ+ activists and gender minorities continue to suffer high levels of violence and discrimination from social and religious conservatives.

Same-sex marriage was made legal across all 32 states of Mexico after Tamaulipas became the last state that voted to authorize such unions in 2022.

Mexico’s Guadalajara city also co-hosted the Gay Games this month, alongside Hong Kong, marking a first for both continents to host the gender inclusive sporting event amidst opposition from conservative politicians.

In the latest clear evidence that the world remains wildly off track when it comes to tackling the climate crisis, the UN has found that even if countries enact all of their current climate pledges, planet-heating pollution in 2030 will still be 9% higher than it was in 2010.

This reveals a stark gap between the course nations are charting and what science says is needed to avert the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world needs to decrease emissions by 45% by the end of this decade compared to 2010 to meet the internationally-agreed ambition of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. An increase of 9% means that target is way off.

Scientists consider 1.5 degrees a key threshold beyond which climate change impacts — including more frequent and more severe heat waves, droughts and storms — will become hard for humans and ecosystems to adapt to.

The findings are from a report published Tuesday by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which every year analyzes individual national plans to slash emissions — called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — of the 195 countries signed up to the Paris Climate Agreement.

Despite a dramatic increase in dire warnings from climate scientists, emissions are still on the rise. This year’s NDC Synthesis report does, however, offer a tiny glimmer of hope. The findings show that the upward trend in emissions is at least starting to slow, and emissions could peak and start decreasing before the end of the decade.

Projections show that emissions in 2030 will be 2% lower than they were in 2019, and 3% lower than the estimated levels for 2025, according to the report.

That’s largely because some countries have recently boosted the ambition levels of their climate plans, which has translated to a fractional improvement on last year, when the UN found countries were on track to increase emissions by 11% by 2030 compared to 2010 — and the year before that, when the figure was 14%.

But these are all very much “baby steps,” said Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, in a statement.

UN Secretary General António Guterres said the report shows that “the world remains massively off track to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoiding the worst of climate catastrophe.”

“Global ambition stagnated over the past year and national climate plans are strikingly misaligned with the science,” he added in a statement. “As the reality of climate chaos pounds communities around the world — with ever fiercer floods, fires and droughts — the chasm between need and action is more menacing than ever.”

A second UN report also published Tuesday analyzed countries’ 2050 plans to reach net zero — where they decarbonize their economies as much as possible and remove any remaining planet-heating pollution from the atmosphere.

It found that if all long-term strategies were implemented on time, these countries’ emissions could be roughly 63% lower in 2050 compared to 2019. Although the report noted that many net zero targets remain uncertain and have long deadlines, postponing critical action into the future.

Tuesday’s findings follow the UN’s Global Stocktake report released in September, which also confirmed that governments are not moving fast enough to avoid catastrophic levels of warming. It warned there was “a rapidly narrowing window to raise ambition and implement existing commitments.”

Stiell said these findings should catalyze bolder action at the UN’s upcoming COP28 climate summit in Dubai. “Every fraction of a degree matters, but we are severely off track,” he said. “COP28 is our time to change that.”

At COP28, countries will complete the global stocktake exercise, where they assess progress on climate action. The process is intended to feed into the next round of more ambitious national climate action plans due to be submitted to the UN in 2025.