The big emitters: which countries are holding back climate action and why?
The US has pulled out of the Paris agreement, under which the world's countries agreed to hold global temperature rises to 'well below' 2C above preindustrial levels while 'pursuing efforts' to limit heating to 1.5C.
Israel has bombed Iran, one of the global oil superpowers, while the EU, one of the champions of climate action, has been beset on multiple fronts by member states and parties that want the bloc to row back on emissions rules and environmental regulations.
So we thought it was a good time to take a look at the world's biggest emitting countries, and their plans – constructive or otherwise – for addressing their carbon emissions. Some are autocracies, some democracies tumbling towards rightwing populism, some are straining to hold together a consensus on climate action. We will be profiling each of the top 10 emitters – according to Global Carbon Budget – over the coming months, in the run-up to Cop30.
To kick off the series, the Guardian's environment editor, Fiona Harvey, has interviewed some of the world's leading thinkers about how to negotiate with autocracies. We have also done a deep dive on Russia, 'the canary in the coalmine', according to one source.
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In future weeks, we will cover South Korea, India, the United States, Germany, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan, and Indonesia – seeking a deeper understanding of how the pieces are going to fall in this crucial year for climate action.
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The Guardian
31 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Raging bulls: why Maga is pushing cow products on to America
The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy, claims that beef tallow is a healthier alternative to seed oils (even though the American Heart Association disagrees). Raw milk advocates are currently criticizing Kennedy, who has supported them in the past, to ease restrictions on the sale of their preferred dairy product nationwide. Meanwhile, cows have also infiltrated the ever trendy skincare market, with beef tallow present in moisturizers, lip balm, deodorant and personal lubricant. Though not every beef tallow evangelist or raw milk aficionado might consider themselves Republican, cows' connection to RFK's 'health' crusade is unavoidable. It appears that cows have won the position of Maga's favorite animal. It's not exactly a secret that Trump loves cows. Last year, when a child called into Fox & Friends to ask what his favorite farm animal was. 'I'll tell you what I love, I love cows, but if we go with Kamala, you won't have any cows any more,' he said, adding: 'I don't want to ruin this kid's day.' He made the bizarre talking point a part of his campaign stump speeches, telling crowds in North Carolina and Nevada that 'they want to do things like no more cows.' Now that he's in office, cows remain top of mind – or, at least, their byproducts do. 'Woo-woo has become moo-moo,' the Atlantic's Yasmin Tayag wrote this week, in an essay about Americans going 'all-in' on 'cow-based wellness'. 'When it comes to animal products, it seems [that Maga] promotes cows the most,' said Mark Kern, a professor of exercise and nutritional sciences at San Diego State University. 'They don't seem to say the same things for chicken or turkey.' Pigs could be a close runner-up, as lard, another animal fat, was also used regularly in cooking until the early 20th century – a bygone era Maga loves to romanticize. It doesn't hurt that cow mania follows the trend of tradwives taking up social media space, extolling the virtues of cooking, cleaning, child-rearing and homesteading. If Trump describes cities such as DC, Los Angeles and New York as fiery bastions of anarchy, then cows represent something entirely different: images of ruddy-cheeked children toting milk pails or Sydney Sweeney in a prairie dress. Of course, none of this is the fault of cows. 'Beef can be a very healthful food when eaten in moderation,' Kern said. 'I see value in it, but that doesn't mean we should eat it at the expense of seed oils.' The Maha (Make America Healthy Again) crowd's obsession with beef tallow is based on a 'misperception' that it is less refined than seed oils, Kern explained. 'You can't just get beef tallow from a cow,' he said. 'You have to render that fat, which is a refining process, too.' Though there are no known benefits of consuming beef tallow, some chain restaurants such as Steak 'n Shake and Sweetgreen have switched to using it in the wake of RFK's endorsement. Bart Hutchins is the chef of Butterworth's, a nouveau French restaurant in DC popular with the Maga cohort. Last month, Hutchins told Axios that his kitchen goes through 500 beef bones a week serving a roasted marrow that is Steve Bannon's 'go-to' order. (Marco Rubio and the Breitbart staff apparently love it, too.) Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion Bone marrow contains collagen, a protein that's long been a beauty buzzword associated with reported cosmetic benefits such as skin, hair and nail health. It is a common ingredient in pills and powders that promise youthful skin, though dermatologists say this has not been definitively proven by any studies. That does not stop rich people from loving it. 'If you describe something 'with collagen', it's poised to move for a certain economic class,' Hutchins said. Candice Ray, a 24-year-old dietician student who splits her time between Canada and Vermont, liked beef tallow before it was taken on as a Maha status symbol. She has slathered it on her face every night for two years, swearing it transformed her rough, bumpy complexion into a clear, clean glow. 'It's done wonders for me,' Ray said. 'My skin just looks more healthy.' To be fair, Ray – an influencer who shares 'nontoxic living' tips to her following of nearly 350,000 on Instagram – adheres to other medically dubious practices such as not washing her face. You might assume that if you cover your face in beef tallow and go to bed without washing it off, you will end up reeking of barnyard musk. Ray disagrees. 'I find it smells just slightly earthy,' she says. Ray is not exactly thrilled that Maga has taken up the cause of advancing beef tallow. 'My choice to use it is not political whatsoever,' she said. 'But when I tell people that I use beef tallow, they kind of look at me like, 'Oh, you're a natural-living girly.''
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Zelensky knows from bitter experience not to trust promises on security
Just like the summit meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin a few days previously, Monday's extended meetings between the US, Ukrainian and European leaders ended with all concerned claiming success – but major questions remain over what exactly was agreed. Sir Keir Starmer came away from the talks claiming there had been 'real progress' towards peace in Ukraine, with 'two material outcomes': the prospect of a direct meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, and of security guarantees to protect Ukraine. But on both of these issues, it is unclear how these outcomes match up with what Russia thinks is happening next. The notion of 'security guarantees' has caused deep confusion and extensive speculation since Trump envoy Steven Witkoff floated the idea of 'NATO-like' backing for Ukraine on Sunday. The fact that this would represent a stunning reversal of not just NATO but also US policy, combined with Witkoff's track record of a poor grasp of the key issues and misunderstanding what he has been told by the Russian side, should have set alarm bells ringing despite the excitable media reaction. Any realistic protection for Ukraine would thwart Putin's ambition to address what he calls 'the root causes of the crisis' – namely Ukraine's existence as a sovereign, independent nation able to determine its own future. And sure enough, Monday's meetings ended with no public clarity on what kind of backing for Ukraine was under discussion, making it impossible to tell if this amounts to meaningful protection or something that can be comfortably ignored by Moscow. Trump's comment that Russian acceptance of security guarantees for Ukraine was 'one of the key points that we need to consider' at the White House meetings could even be read as suggesting that no plans had yet been proposed, let alone endorsed by the Russian side. Possible support to Ukraine covers a vast range of different options, from promises on paper up to the physical presence of Western troops there in order to deter further Russian aggression. The former could prove as worthless as the 1994 Budapest Memorandum where Russia committed to respecting Ukrainian independence, sovereignty and borders, and to not using military force against it. In return Ukraine agreed to give up their nuclear weapons. The latter – putting soldiers on the ground – has until now been consistently ruled out by the United States, and by European states without American backing. Meanwhile Volodymyr Zelenskyy has referred to promises of arms purchases from the United States as part of a security package, although this just as much resembles part of a bidding war for Trump's favours in which Zelenskyy is competing with Putin. The confusion also extends to the prospect of any possible meeting between Putin and Zelensky. Despite Trump interrupting the meetings to keep the European leaders hanging for 40 minutes while he checked in with Putin, the pattern was repeated of the US and Russian sides coming out with completely different versions of what was agreed on any given issue. Trump promised a meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin, while Russia did not agree that this had been agreed. This too is unsurprising. Zelensky has always said he is ready to meet Putin; Putin, on the other hand, maintains that Zelensky is not a legitimate leader, and therefore declines to recognise him as a negotiating partner. In any case, it is far from clear that a meeting of this kind would make it any easier to end the war, given the complete incompatibility of the two sides' objectives – Ukraine's destruction, or its survival. For the leaders of five European states, of NATO and of the European Commission to be extracted from their schedules at zero notice and delivered across the Atlantic in a last-ditch effort to avoid disaster at the hands of Trump was an extraordinary spectacle. It suggested these leaders do genuinely believe that the future of Ukraine is vital to the future of Europe. But whether this dramatic intervention will be followed up with meaningful steps to enforce any possible peace settlement remains to be seen. Talk continues of a European 'coalition of the willing' to support peace in Ukraine. But the limits of European capacity to intervene were rammed home painfully in February, when Keir Starmer and others concluded that this would be impossible without US support. The requirement for action rather than words led to a painful realisation of the difference between a coalition of the willing and a coalition of the able. And despite firm advocacy for a ceasefire from the Europeans on Monday, Trump did not budge from Putin's position that the fighting must continue during negotiations on a settlement. Trump's determination to follow the Russian line showed through in his claim that he has "ended six wars without a ceasefire", which flatly contradicts his claims at the time the United States was attempting to bring about ceasefires between India and Pakistan, Iran and Israel, or Thailand and Cambodia. Rightly or wrongly, Putin still assesses that he can gain more by fighting on than by agreeing a ceasefire. And that brings up another key issue where it is not clear what, if anything, has been agreed: the "land swaps", Trumpspeak for Ukraine giving up territory and people in the Donbas region that Russia has been unable to conquer militarily, in exchange for saying that it will not attack further on other parts of the front line. Trump coming face to face with Putin triggered another reversal of his views on Ukraine, and a return to looking to Zelenskyy alone to end the war – in effect blaming the victim for resisting rather than the aggressor for attacking. European leaders intervened in an attempt to head off any US attempt to impose disastrous terms on Ukraine on behalf of Russia. The European effort was a carefully choreographed massaging of Trump's ego, in an attempt to compete with Putin's hypnotic hold. One after another, the Europeans repeated Trump's words back to him and praised him as the only person capable of breaking the deadlock and ending the war. The fact that it is Putin, not Trump, that can end the war at a moment's notice, and that the ceasefire they were arguing for was long treated as the worst-case outcome and a sellout to Moscow, were carefully overlooked. But the danger remains that Trump and those around him are seduced by Russia's framing of the war and by Putin's manipulation, leading Trump to grasp at the belief that 'he wants to make a deal with me'. Treating Russian territorial gains as an inevitable outcome is a Kremlin talking point, strongly endorsed by Trump. And describing Russian agreement to security guarantees for Ukraine as a major concession by Moscow is an extraordinary demonstration of mental capture. The United States has never previously sought or needed permission to protect its allies and partners against invasion. Volodymyr Zelensky ended the day appearing calm and confident, saying that 'no unacceptable decisions were made'. But still, the fundamentals of what has been agreed between Trump and Putin remain murky, and the risk remains of Trump concluding once again that the only obstacle to peace is Ukraine's inconvenient insistence on defending itself. European leaders have done their best to bring the situation back from the brink of disaster – but the coming days will show whether it was enough.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
‘I hear I'm not doing well': Trump hopes he can get into heaven and believes solving Ukraine war will get him there
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. Your support makes all the difference.
