Opinion

As fighters from the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary closed in on government positions in the besieged Sudanese city of El-Fasher in October, a skeleton crew from the city’s last functioning hospital treated a surge of wounded in a makeshift emergency room.Shells pounded the area around Saudi Hospital, hitting civilians and combatants. It felt like “doomsday,” said one nurse. Her scrubs became soaked with blood as patients streamed in. Staff wrapped wounds and broken limbs in mosquito netting, having run out of gauze and tourniquets.“We had to jump over the dead bodies to get to the patients,” the nurse said. “We couldn’t bury them because the drones were overhead.”The next day — Oct 26 — shelling continued and RSF fighters entered the hospital, a witness said.On Oct 27, RSF fighters brought in Abdallah Yousif, a trader they had abducted on the road. Yousif told Reuters he saw bodies scattered throughout the compound — children, women, elderly people and patients who had been too sick to flee. He said he watched RSF fighters taking people from the hospital. Some were held for ransom, others killed.“They took the young men and killed them in the road,” Yousif said.The World Health Organisation reported that shelling of the Saudi Hospital killed one nurse and injured three other health workers on Oct 26. In a separate attack, on Oct 28, the WHO said, more than 460 patients and their companions were shot and killed there. Reuters was unable to confirm the date or death toll.Satellite imagery from Oct 28 reveals signs of mass killings at Saudi Hospital. The images show clusters of human-sized objects, according to an analysis by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. Later images show what appears to be bodies being burned — a violation of Islamic burial customs — with white oblong objects “visibly charred with black smoke emitting,” according to Yale researchers. AN INCREASINGLY REPORTED WAR TACTICThe October attacks on Saudi Hospital were a stark example of what doctors viewed as a systematic campaign by the RSF to dismantle El-Fasher’s healthcare system, part of a broader effort to drive civilians away and take over the besieged capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state.Under international humanitarian law, combatants who are incapacitated by sickness or injury are protected from attack, as are hospitals treating fighters.Violence against healthcare facilities and workers is an increasingly reported tactic in modern warfare. Worldwide, at least 12,944 incidents of conflict-related violence and obstruction affecting healthcare were recorded from early 2021 through late October 2025, according to Insecurity Insight, which collects data for a group of international non-governmental organisations called the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition.Reported incidents peaked at 3,891 in 2024, up from 3,217 in 2023, 2,315 in 2022 and 1,602 in 2021. Conflicts in Gaza, Myanmar, Sudan and Ukraine were among the main drivers. Insecurity Insight bases its tallies on news reports, accounts from nonprofit organisations and other publicly available information. It does not have complete details on every incident, and the quality of reporting varies from country to country.The data and interviews with more than a dozen doctors, aid workers and residents reveal a steady destruction and dismantling of healthcare capability in El-Fasher, the North Darfur capital, from the spring of 2024 and intensifying through the RSF takeover in October.Since war erupted in Sudan in April 2023, combatants have attacked, damaged or obstructed healthcare in North Darfur at least 130 times, the Insecurity Insight data show. The data list RSF as responsible for at least 71% of the incidents; the Sudanese Armed Forces 3%. Most remaining cases involved unknown actors or RSF-SAF fighting. At least 40 health workers have been killed, according to the data.In response to questions from Reuters a senior Sudanese army source said reports it attacked medical facilities are false. “The army was defending El-Fasher’s citizens before the RSF entered, and this is the army’s duty anywhere in Sudan,” the source said. ONE BY ONE, HOSPITALS CLOSEAttacks on healthcare intensified after the RSF besieged El-Fasher in April 2024. They ranged from looting and blocking of hospital supplies to shootings inside hospitals and artillery and drone strikes that forced facilities to close.One by one, the city lost its hospitals. On May 11, 2024, an SAF air strike landed about 50m from Babiker Nahar Children’s Hospital, collapsing the ICU roof and killing two children and a caregiver, according to the data and a report by the medical nonprofit Médecins Sans Frontières, which provided supplies and staff there. The hospital closed.In June 2024, surgeon Ezzeldin Asow was in the middle of a procedure at Southern Hospital when RSF artillery tore through the operating theatre, he told Reuters. The next day, he said, RSF soldiers raided the hospital and beat him. The hospital closed permanently, forcing his team to decamp to Saudi Hospital.RSF advances pushed the city’s residents from one shattered clinic to the next, residents told Reuters.“If the hospital gets hit, what will civilians do if they are injured?” Dr Asow said. “Those who can, leave.”Three doctors told Reuters the Saudi Hospital came under intensified attack after the facility became the last one standing more than a year ago. Incidents escalated from artillery strikes to drone attacks and, in recent months, near-daily bombardments.Health workers were chased by drones, seven medics and three other sources told Reuters. Driven into hiding, doctors performed surgeries in foxholes and homes. Medical staff resorted to treating people in makeshift networks — triaging in one building, operating in another, sending patients to recover in a third. Ambulances were destroyed, so people hauled the wounded by wheelbarrow or donkey cart, only to have drones follow them and bomb the clinics upon arrival, the seven medics told Reuters.“They bring the injured, and then the drone finishes them off at the door,” Dr Asow said. MASSACRE AT A MEDICAL CLINICInternational laws of war forbid targeting civilians or civilian facilities and extend heightened legal protection to hospitals and medical units. The attacks on healthcare in El-Fasher, given their repeated and frequent nature, are clear violations, said Tom Dannenbaum, a Stanford Law School professor. “It’s unambiguous that this requires war crimes investigations,” he said.Israa Mukhtar said RSF fighters cited the lack of adequate healthcare during an April attack that sent hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing Zamzam, the displaced persons camp where she lived in North Darfur. Mukhtar and other women were collecting water at a pump near the camp’s main health centre, run by aid group Relief International. RSF vehicles arrived and fighters spilled out.“Why are you still here?” she recalled one fighter asking. “If you get injured, what will you do?” After someone replied that the health centre was still open, the fighters drove toward the clinic. Minutes later, Mukhtar heard gunfire and screams.Around 11am that day, RSF soldiers arrived at the clinic, said a nurse who worked there. The soldiers forced five men from the clinic’s staff to lie on their backs, pointed guns at them and shot them, the nurse said. When Mahmoud Babiker, a doctor, tried to leave the trench where he and the nurse were hiding, RSF soldiers shot him. He collapsed onto the nurse. The fighters then moved to another trench where three more of her male colleagues were hiding. The nurse heard gunshots. When she looked, all three were dead.“They were like my brothers, all these men who died,” the nurse said. A total of nine staff were killed, including Babiker.RSF fighters looted rooms, taking phones, laptops, medicine, therapeutic biscuits for malnourished children and milk, the nurse said.“Then we thought we would also die,” the nurse said. But one fighter told her and the female coworker to leave. She walked out with her hands raised, her dress covered in blood.Former colleagues of the nurse and two other witnesses corroborated her account of the attack.Among the dead at the Relief International health centre were Mubarak Farid’s son Muhanad and his nephew and adopted son, Mohamed. Both worked as drivers for Relief International.Farid, who supplied vehicles to Relief International, said he learned of the killings that evening. At the scene, he said, he saw that Muhanad had a gash in his leg that exposed bone. One victim was shot in the mouth. Dr Babiker’s skull was shattered. Farid and three other men buried the dead in a single grave as missiles fell.“These doctors had nothing to do with war,” Farid said. “And my sons had nothing to do with it. They never carried a gun in their lives.” 

As the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches, the European Union has yet to take one of the most powerful steps that would make a real difference on the ground in Ukraine: use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine fight off Russia’s army. Doing so would go a long way towards securing Ukraine’s future – and Europe’s, too.This week, French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed that EU countries will finalise a solution for financial support of Ukraine in the coming days. As Russia continues to pummel Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure – homes, power generation and distribution systems, and heating and water systems – the need for financial support is great. Even if the war ends in 2026, and without considering the enormous costs of reconstruction, amounting to well over $500bn, Ukraine will need around $140bn in the next two years, in addition to other financing, owing to the war’s effects on its economy.Ukraine continues to resist valiantly, fighting the much bigger invader to a virtual standstill. Russian casualties (killed and wounded) exceed 1mn. Yet the loss of so many lives has gained Russia relatively little – devastated territories and populations, land laid waste by some of the fiercest fighting since World War II and now strewn with mines. Russia has failed to achieve any of its original strategic goals in launching the war.In February 2022, soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion, $300bn in Russian central bank assets (mostly interest-paying securities) were immobilised in Western financial institutions. In October 2024, the G7 countries established an Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) programme, providing loans to Ukraine financed by interest from those immobilised Russian assets. Under the ERA programme, about €30.9bn ($35.7bn) of the planned €45bn loan envelope has been disbursed so far.But what about the underlying assets immobilised in European jurisdictions? Many have matured into cash, which Euroclear – the Belgian financial institution that holds the lion’s share of the assets – has been placing in an account at the European Central Bank bearing very little interest.A recent EU Council meeting discussed using these assets to make a “Reparations Loan” to Ukraine, in the amount of €210bn, repayable only if Russia compensates Ukraine for the destruction it has caused. In practical terms, the only difference would be that Euroclear invests the cash in AAA-rated Commission bonds instead of AAA-rated ECB deposits. Russia could, in principle, reclaim ownership of these assets after it repays Ukraine, making the Reparations Loan temporary and reversible.As we previously argued, there is no risk of this being perceived as “confiscation.” None of the adverse effects that critics of immobilisation and the ERA programme predicted materialised. The euro is still second only to the dollar, and European financial institutions are a safe haven for investors across the world.While Russia has created the most serious security crisis in Europe since WWII’s end, trampling on international law and norms, its assets have been enjoying the protection of European institutions. But in any just world, one cannot have it both ways. One cannot attack Europe with GPS jamming, arson, sabotage, cyberwarfare, and disinformation campaigns – all orchestrated by Russian military intelligence – while enjoying the protection of European financial and legal institutions.If there ever were a time to tighten the screws on Russia, this is it. With oil and gas revenues down sharply, Russia is finding it harder and harder to pay for its meatgrinder war. Meanwhile, defence expenditures are rising, and high inflation is severely hurting Russian consumers.As a result of US secondary sanctions, India’s largest conglomerate halted Russian oil imports. Four major Chinese state oil companies have also signalled that they will refrain from buying Russian oil in the short term. China and India together account for about 85% of Russian oil sales, and a loss of these markets would have a severe impact on the Russian war effort. It is thus no surprise that Russia is rushing to force an end to the war on favourable terms.To share residual risk of the Reparations Loan, Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever has demanded guarantees from other EU states that Belgium will not be liable for any successful award to the Russian Federation. Thus, each member state is to guarantee a share of the loan (based on gross national income).De Wever’s concerns are ungrounded. Given the grave violations of the UN Charter and the scale of Russian war crimes, there is no path to a successful arbitration or award to Russia that Belgium would have to repay. The immobilisation happened because of EU law, and the European Council already limited the enforcement of any potential awards in 2014, in response to Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea.Even so, if loan guarantees from EU member states are what is required to clear this hurdle, they should be provided to the necessary extent. Since Belgium is not at risk, there is no risk for guarantee providers. Furthermore, European countries should terminate their bilateral investment treaties with Russia – something they should have done long ago. Russia has already effectively done this by taking over so many European companies.As many European leaders acknowledge, Europe (including the United Kingdom and Norway) must be able to defend itself. Providing a Reparations Loan to Ukraine is a forceful step in this direction that Europeans can take without American involvement.It would be morally wrong not to pursue this option. Russia is culpable for the carnage it has wrought in Ukraine. A reparations loan would bring a modicum of justice, although the amount represents only a small fraction of the damage to physical infrastructure Russia has caused, to say nothing of the harm caused to millions of Ukrainians. An entire generation will carry the trauma with them for the rest of their lives.The Reparations Loan is not only about justice. It is about survival. To defend Ukraine is to defend Europe. Europe must overcome its fear of exercising power if it is to withstand the clear, present, and deadly threat emanating from Moscow. – Project SyndicateJoseph E Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is a former chief economist of the World Bank, a former chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, University Professor at Columbia University, and the author, most recently, of The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society (W. W. Norton & Company, Allen Lane, 2024).Andrew Kosenko is Assistant Professor of Economics at the School of Management at Marist College. 

Today, there is a level of discord within the US Federal Reserve that has rarely been seen in modern history. Nearly all experienced market analysts agree that the coming Fed policy meetings could prove unusually divisive, owing to conflicting economic views, political sensitivities, and inherent biases. The tension is palpable and has led to wild fluctuations in what markets expect the Fed will do. But, while the media fixate on who will or won’t support interest-rate cuts, what matters is not simply that the Fed is deeply divided, but how to make it more effective.To answer this question, one must first understand the challenges the Fed is facing – beginning with insufficient data. Following the longest government shutdown in US history, the data the Fed is receiving are incomplete, uncertain, and subject to unusually large revisions. For a central bank that is highly data dependent, this is tantamount to flying blind.This lack of clarity about the US economy’s performance compounds the second challenge, arising from the Fed’s dual mandate of targeting price stability and maximum employment. Historically, policies that advanced one objective did not undermine the other. Today, however, these imperatives are pulling in opposite directions – and dividing Fed officials. While the “hawks” remain focused on price stability, pointing out that both core and headline inflation are running around one percentage point above the Fed’s target, the “doves” are becoming increasingly concerned about weakening labour-market indicators.Complicating this tug-of-war is the Fed’s third, implicit mandate – ensuring financial stability – which is complicated by bubble-like developments in some markets, with risk-taking and dubious funding practices on the rise. Coping with these challenges would be difficult in the best of times, but it is especially tough with the end of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s tenure looming. A “lame duck” Fed chair may find it harder to muster the authority necessary to unite a fractured board.Against this backdrop, whatever the Fed decides in the upcoming meetings will come with risks. There is no “safe” path. Given this, markets are now gripped by a profound sense of uncertainty. In less than a month, the likelihood of a December rate hike has swung from over 90% to under 30%, then back up to 90%. This level of volatility is highly unusual and points to an institutional failure: A Fed that values “forward policy guidance” in fostering stability and predictability is not sending credible and consistent signals. Given America’s position as an anchor of the global economic and financial order, the consequences are far-reaching.But if we stop here, we get only half the story – and the unhelpful half, at that. The harsh truth is that the appointment of a new chair will not solve the Fed’s problems. A robust “refresh and reform” programme is also needed.The Fed’s recent history is littered with missteps. Misguided analyses and flawed forecasting have led to wrong conclusions, including the assumption that the inflationary surge that emerged in 2021 would prove “transitory”, and to delayed action, which has left policymakers playing catch-up. Meanwhile, poor communication has muddied market outlooks, and allegations of financial malpractice have been brought against five Fed officials (though not all have been proven). These issues reflect a weak institutional culture, a lack of strategic vision, and intellectual stagnation, all of which have eroded the Fed’s credibility and fuelled escalating political threats to its independence.Addressing the Fed’s shortcomings could not be more urgent. We are on the brink of a transformational productivity boom, driven by innovations like AI, robotics, and life sciences. These technologies have the potential to increase the speed limit for non-inflationary growth, creating a promising scenario of high output without high prices. But they also raise the risk of new policy mistakes, especially if employment is decoupled from growth. In this new era, a strong economy may be accompanied by a weakening labour market.So far, Fed officials have shown insufficient curiosity about the coming transformation. “Sticking to their knitting” is more comfortable than confronting the complex forces that are reshaping the global economy. But complacency is a luxury monetary policymakers can no longer afford. The next Fed chair’s primary task must therefore be to shake the institution out of its structural inertia. It is time for the Fed to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.This will require a thorough review of Fed operations and the embrace of a more flexible, nuanced approach. Priorities must include determining the best way to set the inflation target amid high supply-side volatility, developing better intermediate policy tools, establishing structural defences against groupthink within the Fed Open Market Committee, increasing accountability, strengthening compliance culture, and improving forecasting capabilities.It is a daunting agenda. But challenging internally-led reforms are far preferable to the alternative: a Fed that continues to generate policy-induced volatility, faces intensifying political attacks, and fails to provide the stability and predictability needed for the US and global economies to prosper. – Project Syndicate•Mohamed A El-Erian, a former president of Queens’ College at the University of Cambridge, is Practice Professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is also Senior Global Fellow at the Lauder Institute. He is Chief Economic Adviser at Allianz, Chair of Gramercy Funds, the author of The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse (Random House, 2016), and co-author (with Gordon Brown, Michael Spence, and Reid Lidow) of Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World (Simon & Schuster, 2023). 

Hardly a day goes by without new headlines about how AI is poised to transform the economy. Even if claims that “AI is the new electricity” prove to be exaggerated, we should still prepare for deep change. One of the most powerful and reliable mechanisms for ensuring that AI benefits society is also one of the most familiar: taxation.What would an AI tax look like in practice? The most practical approach would be to target the key inputs and most tangible metrics of AI development: energy, chips, or compute time. The US already imposes a 15% fee on sales of specific AI chips to China, and though this is technically an export control, it shows how an AI input tax could work. Alternatively, others have suggested changing how we tax capital to account for AI-driven economic shifts. This would be an AI tax in spirit, but broader in form.The structure of any AI tax would depend on what governments want to achieve. But one thing is clear: the current debate is far more grounded and urgent than it was when Bill Gates raised the idea of a “robot tax” in 2017, echoed later by Bernie Sanders and others.Of course, some might ask why we should tax AI at all. The answer reflects two fundamentals about tax systems and how AI is changing the economy. First, many countries now tax human workers more heavily than their potential AI competitors in the labour market. In the case of the US, roughly 85% of federal revenue comes from taxing people and their work (through income and payroll taxes), while capital and corporate profits are taxed far less. Technologies like AI benefit from favourable treatment in the form of generous write-offs, low corporate rates, and carve-outs.Second, economists expect AI to increase the financial returns to capital relative to labour, even if it doesn’t cause unemployment. The most extreme version of this would entail AI agents that can design, replicate, and manage themselves – meaning that capital would be performing its own labour. Under current tax policies, such a shift would widen inequality and shrink government revenue as a share of GDP.An AI tax could help level the field between humans and machines. Earlier this year, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI might eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and push unemployment to 10-20% within five years. Whether such forecasts are borne out may depend partly on policy. Taxing labour more heavily than capital tilts the scales toward automation that replaces, rather than augments, human workers. At the very least, we shouldn’t let our tax system help put people out of work.Moreover, at a time when the fiscal outlook is darkening, an AI tax could protect public revenues from technology-induced shocks. If mass job losses or hiring slowdowns do occur, governments that rely on income and payroll taxes could face fiscal crises even if new AI-ready jobs emerge later.More optimistically, the right tax policies – combined with an AI-driven productivity boom – could help fix structural fiscal problems. Rich countries are already struggling to fund health care and pensions for aging populations, while poorer countries face an inverse challenge: educating and employing large young populations despite thin tax bases. AI-generated revenue could be part of the solution for both.Alternatively, revenue could be directed to AI-related causes. Hypothecated taxes, which send revenue back to the sector they come from – like the US gasoline tax that funds highways or the United Kingdom’s television fee that supports the BBC – underscore that the goal is to enhance the public benefits of the taxed technology. An AI tax could do the same: funding grid upgrades, education technology, worker training, open-source AI models, AI-safety research, or mental-health protections.An AI tax could also bolster unemployment insurance and retraining for displaced workers, or even advance broader AI policy goals. For example, it could discourage excess energy use, greenhouse-gas emissions, “AI slop,” or anticompetitive behaviour, or encourage new energy production and safer models.Taxing AI may sound politically far-fetched. Policymakers do not want to curb innovation or lose ground in the global AI race. But that reluctance may fade as public awareness matures. If “winning” in AI means having healthier people, happier kids, a more capable workforce, and stronger science – not just bigger models or richer companies – an AI tax could help deliver victory.Nor is such a tax likely to stifle innovation. AI is not a fragile startup industry. It is a 70-year-old technology that is now backed by the world’s largest corporations, with corporate investment exceeding $250bn in 2024 alone. An AI tax could be structured to ensure that it does not impede national security, market competition, or research.In any case, crises can change minds fast. If AI is blamed for mass unemployment or fiscal shocks, elected officials and policymakers across the political spectrum will want to act. Better to prepare good options now than improvise later.As OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in 2021, “The world will change so rapidly and drastically that an equally drastic change in policy will be needed to distribute this wealth and enable more people to pursue the life they want.” Altman was speculating about the development of even more advanced artificial general intelligence, but his point already applies: Policy needs to keep pace with technology and anticipate change.One way or another, AI will reshape our economies and societies. But the results are not predetermined. Whether we get a future where people and communities can thrive will come down to the policies we choose. Taxing AI is not about punishing innovation. It’s about ensuring that the rewards are shared and the risks managed in the public interest. The sooner we start that work, the better prepared we will be able to use AI to create the future we want. – Project Syndicate[The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and not of the institution he represents.]• Kevin O’Neil is Managing Director of New Frontiers at The Rockefeller Foundation. 

Decades-long coal-fired power purchase contracts are slowing the transition to cleaner energy sources in Asia, leading utilities to burn more coal even when wind and solar power are available, according to climate researchers and renewable energy advocates. Rising dependence on coal for power generation in countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam is a major obstacle to global efforts to combat climate change, exacerbated by stalled funding for renewable energy projects from rich countries.Southeast Asia has 50-100% of coal-fired power capacity locked in purchase agreements with about nine to 18 years left on average, according to data from the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), a coalition of governments, businesses and other organisations pushing for coal use to be phased out. Buyers in other major Asian economies, like China and India, also hold substantial long-term purchase agreements for coal-fired electricity, leading to underutilisation of wind and solar power in some cases, renewable energy experts say.“Many of these contracts are often ill-suited to the demands of a modern, renewables-integrated grid,” Julia Skorupska, head of secretariat at the PPCA told Reuters on the sidelines of the COP30 climate conference in Brazil.Southeast Asia’s dependence on coal has grown to about 45% of annual power generation from 35% over the last decade, even as the global share has slipped to around 34% from 39%, data from energy think-tank Ember showed.Clean energy adoption in the region has also lagged global averages, amounting to 26% of annual electricity output compared with 41% globally, the data showed.Long-term fossil fuel contracts guarantee steady income for coal plant owners and stable jobs for employees, making early retirement politically and economically unattractive, industry officials say.And when power grids break their coal purchase agreements, they expose themselves to financial penalties that vary depending on the nature of the contract and size of shortfalls.Even in China, where carbon dioxide emissions are on track to fall this year, extending an 18-month streak of flat or falling emissions due mainly to increased clean power generation, demand for coal remains high. Output from its coal and gas-fired power plants rose 7.3% annually in October, government data showed.“The concern is that we’re seeing a repeat of what happened at the end of last year when grid operators had contracted too much coal power under long-term contracts and decided to curtail solar and wind,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst of the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Major economies in the Asia-Pacific region including Japan, Australia and India have also reported increased curbs on renewable energy this year.China’s solar curtailment rates are projected to average more than 5% in 21 provinces over the next 10 years, up from just 10 provinces during January to August this year, according to consultancy Wood Mackenzie. Indian states, meanwhile, plan to sign new long-term contracts with coal-fired power generators despite the country’s efforts to expand clean energy capacity.Electricity retailers’ reliance on multi-decade contracts with coal-fired utilities amid growing renewable generation risks payment of substantial fixed charges and stranded coal assets, Ember and Climate Trends said in a joint report.“Distribution companies would need to redesign their resource planning and make power purchase contracts flexible,” said Shreya Jai, energy lead at Climate Trends and one of the authors of the report.  

Despite the ceasefire in Gaza, other conditions in US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan are not being met. Israeli attacks on Palestinians have continued, while the required aid of around 600 trucks per day has not materialised, owing to the Israeli blockade. As a result, Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe continues to unfold.Moreover, Israel has not complied with the International Court of Justice’s October 22 advisory opinion requiring the unhindered provision of humanitarian aid by the UN and its entities to civilians in the Gaza Strip. The famine that the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed in northern Gaza in August is spreading; more than a half-million people face starvation. The death toll – which has already surpassed 69,000, including at least 20,000 children – is set to rise.Such a ceasefire does not bring peace; it prolongs suffering. Worse, Trump’s 20-point plan calls for “technocratic governance” by external actors, another barrier to recovery – particularly when it comes to reconstructing Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure. Post-conflict recovery in Iraq, Bosnia, and Rwanda has shown that rebuilding health systems requires engaging and strengthening local institutions, rather than relying on outside experts.The sheer scale of institutional destruction in Gaza implies a far more formidable challenge than in other conflict-ridden territories. Consider that child mortality in Iraq more than doubled from 1984-89 to 1994-99, following damage to water and health infrastructure in the 1990-91 Gulf War, which was less ruinous in its effects. While UN sanctions compounded the damage in Iraq, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that Gaza faces a health “catastrophe” that will last for “generations to come”. Global engagement in Gaza must be motivated by solidarity, not charity. The Gaza Health Declaration, signed by more than 40 prominent Palestinian health professionals, recognises the “long histories of complacency, complicity, and collusion by many international humanitarian and development actors and donors”, and rightly calls for Palestinian sovereignty and agency to be at the centre of rebuilding efforts.In practice, that means placing Palestinians in leadership positions to guide the recovery of Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure at all stages, from design and planning to co-ordination and monitoring; ensuring that Palestinian organisations are the main administrators of health programmes; and refraining from establishing parallel systems that undermine national ones. It will also be important for the international community to provide flexible, long-term capital, rather than project-based funding that strips Palestinian institutions of their agency. Lastly, health sovereignty depends on political sovereignty, which will require ending Israel’s blockade and occupation.Palestinians have already proven themselves capable of leading recovery efforts. Despite more than 800 attacks on medical facilities and personnel in Gaza since the war began, which have left 94% of hospitals damaged or destroyed, the health system has demonstrated remarkable resilience. The Palestinian Medical Relief Society continues to provide mobile health clinics, nutrition centres, and community-based care in the territory, while the Gaza Health Ministry has coordinated service delivery, medical logistics, and workforce planning. Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli hospitals in Gaza City are operating at nearly 300% over capacity, with a constant influx of complex trauma injuries.The question is whether the international community will support Palestinian leadership or continue to undermine it. The WHO’s operational response and early recovery plan for Gaza offers useful starting points for addressing the population’s health needs. But success will depend on linking immediate lifesaving interventions with long-term efforts to strengthen institutions and local governance.Failure to do so would have serious consequences. In Bosnia, efforts to rebuild the health system faltered when donor-led projects eschewed local ownership. And in Iraq, the reconstruction of health infrastructure was not accompanied by measures to restore accountability, producing fragile institutions incapable of sustaining services.To avoid these pitfalls, emergency assistance in Gaza – including restoring access to fuel, water, and medical supplies – should be designed and implemented in ways that reinforce institutional credibility and stability. Only then can policymakers devise broader strategies to rebuild clinics and sanitation systems, expand vaccine coverage, and integrate psychosocial and gender-based-violence care into community health.Over time, predictable and locally governed health-service delivery will strengthen public trust in institutions, bolster the national health system’s legitimacy, and help create the conditions for peace, as occurred in Rwanda, where early health programs were tied to national systems.But unlike Rwanda’s nationally led health response following the 1994 genocide, Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza treats social services as an add-on to a political settlement. This is a mistake. As South Africa’s post-apartheid transition shows, and research on forging resilient social contracts corroborates, legitimacy erodes when services fail to materialise. Bread lines and clinic queues are political spaces where people decide whether the government is serving or subjugating them.The real measure of Gaza’s recovery is how effectively short-term relief builds enduring national institutions that allow Palestinians to regain dignity and disengage from militias. When hunger and humiliation persist under externally imposed systems, violence is sure to follow. Ensuring that a mother can feed her child, a clinic has power, and safe drinking water flows from taps is a foundation for the day after. Peace takes hold only when the capacity to provide for basic material needs is developed from within. – Project SyndicateTurnwait Michael is a postdoctoral researcher on demography and population health in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg.Erin McCandless is Professor of Politics and International Relations and Director of the Qatar-South Africa Center for Peace and Intercultural Dialogue in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg. 

Born of crisis but torn by years of tensions among its members, the Group of 20 major economies scored a rare victory last weekend for multilateralism after overcoming the boycott and objections of its most powerful member, the United States.South Africa, this year’s G20 president, rallied all but two member nations — the US and Argentina — to issue a declaration, ignoring Washington’s warnings and quelling questions about the G20’s future — at least for now. Many doubted Pretoria would secure a declaration, much less tackle issues such as helping poor nations cope with climate change and external debt.That success strengthened a body which for years was struggling to reach meaningful agreements — and highlighted the power of multilateralism when it seemed in retreat, researchers and delegates said. The outcome infuriated the United States, next year’s G20 host. The White House accused South Africa of weaponising its presidency to undermine the G20’s founding principles on unanimous consensus. It said US President Donald Trump would restore its “legitimacy” while hosting next year. The White House had no immediate comment when asked if it planned to disinvite South Africa from next year’s G20 events.The declaration’s final paragraph was carefully worded to commit to meeting in future G20 summits in Britain and South Korea, but only to “working together” under the US presidency, a South African delegate said. President Cyril Ramaphosa declined an American offer to hand over the rotating G20 presidency to a junior diplomat. That ceremony will now soon take place between equivalent diplomats. The summit had seemed hopelessly overshadowed by Trump’s boycott over false allegations that South Africa’s Black majority government mistreats its white minority.A South African delegate at the summit, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak, said Friday’s agreement on a draft caused a visible ripple of relief among negotiators.“News of the G20’s demise is greatly exaggerated,” said Josh Lipsky, the Atlantic Council’s international economics chair and ex-aide to former president Barack Obama.“In a crisis... it will be there — regardless of which leaders are present at any... summit,” he said. The declaration tackled issues such as climate and renewable energy that often divide G20 members. It proposed the first global panel to address inequality.“This is the first meeting of world leaders... which put the inequality emergency at the centre of the international agenda,” Nabil Ahmed, Senior Director of Economic Justice at international charity Oxfam, told Reuters.Faced with Trump’s ire, G20 leaders had a choice. Michael Bociurkiw of American think tank Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center felt they chose to stand up to him.“Leaders were getting fed up,” he said. “This could set a new approach to dealing with Donald Trump,” a view several delegates echoed. Saturday’s show of unity was aimed at supporting the hosts and decrying the United States’ refusal to engage in the G20’s first African summit, one said.Another said US actions brought together countries at odds with Trump, like India and South Africa, with others seeking to maintain good relations, like Britain and France.But with the United States taking up the mantle, there is a risk much of the work in Johannesburg could be undone. Washington is expected to narrow the G20’s focus during its presidency, which coincides with the United States’ 250th anniversary, to just the leaders’ summit and financial forum, jettisoning other working groups and ministers’ meetings on energy, health and the environment. “The United States looks forward to emphasising economic growth, deregulation, and energy abundance as key pillars of its 2026 G20 host year,” a spokesman for the US Treasury said. “ A back-to-basics approach at the G20 is long overdue.”The International Monetary Fund and World Bank are still invited, but Washington plans to exclude United Nations organisations, a source familiar with the plans said.Then again, it’s only for a year. At worst, said one delegate who also declined to be named, countries could “lay low” during the US presidency then resume work later.Despite the bitter differences, Washington’s G20 agenda overlaps with South Africa’s in key areas like development, economic growth and financial stability, notes Eric LeCompte, a UN adviser and executive director of non-profit Jubilee USA Network.“I think there is going to be carry-over in certain areas with the US taking the mantle,” he said. — Reuters 

Sitting in his lakeside villa in the Swiss city of Lucerne, Borger Borgenhaug misses his grandchildren and the smell of the Nordic sea on a clear summer night.The carpenter turned real-estate tycoon says that is the price he pays to escape Norway’s beefed-up wealth tax — an annual levy that has driven hundreds of millionaires abroad while underpinning one of the world’s most equal societies.“The political climate in Norway has become increasingly hostile to business owners,” Borgenhaug, who left in 2022, told Reuters.With a wealth tax dating back to 1892 and a culture of openness that allows citizens to view the tax returns of others, Norway has more experience than most in squeezing the rich. Its model offers lessons for countries debating similar moves, from Britain to France and Italy, or even a city like New York.The takeaway: a wealth tax will scare off some millionaires, but if set broadly enough, revenues can still be worth it.The tax was a defining issue in Norway’s election in September, which returned the Labour Party to power. The party had raised the levy and tightened exit rules during its previous term.Individuals pay 1% on net wealth between kr1.76mn and 20.7mn ($174,000-2mn) and, since 2022, 1.1% above that. Exactly 671,639 people — about 12% of the population — paid in 2023.Main homes enjoy a 75% discount on assessed value; shares and commercial property get 20%. Assets abroad are included, but debt is deductible.Leaving Norway triggers an exit tax of 37.8% on unrealised capital gains above kr3mn — such as notional gains on shares that have gone up in value but are yet to be sold. Loopholes that allowed emigrants to defer payment indefinitely were closed in 2024.The changes turned a trickle into a stream. Data from conservative think-tank Civita shows 261 residents with assets above kr10mn ($973,000) left in 2022 and 254 in 2023 — more than double the typical rate before the hike.Business magazine Kapital’s ranking of Norway’s 400 richest people shows 105 now live abroad or have transferred wealth to relatives who do. Some of their pictures hang on a “wall of shame” in the offices of the small, opposition Socialist Left party.Supporters argue the tax acts as a redistributive backstop in a country that scrapped inheritance tax in 2014 and ranks among the world’s wealthiest thanks to oil, shipping and fisheries.Norway funnels all proceeds from its oil and gas industry into a sovereign wealth fund and caps annual withdrawals at 3% of the fund’s value under a self-imposed fiscal rule.This means it needs to find other sources of revenue.“The wealth tax makes the overall personal tax system more progressive than income tax alone,” Deputy Finance Minister Ellen Reitan told Reuters.Revenue from it has climbed despite the exodus and now sits at 0.6% of GDP — not a trivial sum. For context, Britain’s Labour government is hunting for savings of a similar magnitude to help hit its fiscal targets.Research by Norway’s statistics office shows entrepreneurs have enough liquidity to pay, and that the burden falls overwhelmingly on the richest. Another study suggests the tax may spur investment in human capital.Norway remains among the world’s most equal countries and ranks high for ease of doing business.“These findings suggest that the wealth tax does not straightforwardly hinder firm-level investment or employment,” said Roberto Iacono, professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).A poll by the Response agency for the daily Aftenposten taken just before September’s election showed 39% of Norwegians wanted the wealth tax maintained or raised, while 23% wanted to see a reduction and 28% called for abolition.Norway’s Labour government wants a grand bargain on tax reform over the next two years, inviting all parties to the table. The catch? The wealth tax stays — in some shape or form.Critics say the model penalises domestic ownership and risks hollowing out Norway’s entrepreneurial base.“The wealth tax system makes it harder for companies to compete with the rest of the world,” said Knut-Erik Karlsen, who made his fortune in fish oil supplements and recently moved to Switzerland.Norway taxes capital gains, unlike Switzerland, and imposes higher levies on labour than the OECD average.Around 40% of emigrants are business owners, according to Princeton researcher Christine Blandhol, who estimates the latest tax changes will cut Norway’s output by 1.3% over the long run. Others find the tax hampers firms’ performance.A wealth levy is especially painful for startup founders, who pay on capital long before profits arrive.Are Traasdahl left Norway in 2000 to market Europe’s mobile technology in the US, later founding and selling several tech firms including the app now known as iHeartRadio.“There’s no chance I would have been able to build in Norway what I built in the United States,” he said.Norway has one of Europe’s lowest levels of venture capital as a share of GDP — at half that of Sweden’s and far behind the US, OECD data shows.Heirs often leave before taking control of shares. Laurence Odfjell, now in Singapore, says staying may have cost him control of his shipping group during the downturn that followed the global financial crisis of 2008.“I was not going to let our company sink on my watch due to not having the capital,” he said.So far, no new country is going down the Norwegian route.French lawmakers binned a headline-grabbing 2% levy on fortunes above €100mn, settling instead for a narrower charge on personal assets parked in holding companies - a measure forecast to raise barely €1bn.Across the Channel, Britain’s Labour government has ruled out a formal wealth tax but insists it will keep leaning on those “with the broadest shoulders”.Italy, for its part, remains allergic to inheritance hikes yet is quietly tightening its flat regime for wealthy foreigners.Meanwhile, millionaires are still voting with their feet. Norway is on track to shed another 150 this year — a sizeable outflow for a country of just 5.6mn — according to Henley & Partners, which advises wealthy clients on relocation, and New World Wealth, which draws on public sources including LinkedIn.Britain tops the global list with 16,500 expected departures after scrapping tax breaks for foreign residents. The UAE, US and Italy are among the biggest gainers.Norway’s social cohesion and oil wealth may make its model hard to copy. But economists say it shows that any such levy involves a trade-off with economic and political dimensions.“Not having a wealth tax leads to greater inequality, having one means less capital for startups,” NTNU’s professor Iacono said. “Politics needs to strike a balance.” — Reuters 

Two decades after globalisation fuelled a global economic boom, growth has shifted onto a more subdued path, where it is likely to remain for the foreseeable future. Beyond the immediate shock of fragmenting trade and investment ties – a result of rising geopolitical tensions, particularly between the United States and China – lie structural headwinds, including population aging, stagnant productivity, and the growing costs of inequality and natural disaster. These challenges strike at the heart of Asia’s growth model.Not only is fragmentation causing Asia’s export-oriented growth engine to sputter; rapid population aging is tightening the labour supply and compounding fiscal pressures across the region.The share of people aged 65 and above in Asia will nearly double by mid-century, from 9.8% in 2023 to 18.6% by 2050. Japan and South Korea are already “super-aged” societies, with more than 20% of the population aged 65 or older, and China’s population has begun to decline. India and some Southeast Asian economies still enjoy a demographic dividend, but that window is closing quickly.But demographics need not be destiny. Using new digital technologies – and, in particular, AI – Asia can invigorate productivity growth, ease labour shortages, and extend people’s working lives. After all, like electricity and the Internet, AI is a general-purpose technology with the potential to transform production, services, and innovation.But, while early evidence indicates that AI can improve worker productivity, enable the automation of a growing range of tasks, and spur the creation of new products and services, the technology’s broader macroeconomic impact remains uncertain. Some analyses suggest that AI could raise global productivity growth by 0.8-1.3 percentage points annually over the next decade, while others offer more conservative estimates.Moreover, gains from AI are likely to be concentrated among a few leading firms and sectors at first. Broader productivity gains often take time to emerge, and productivity might even decline in the short term, as firms bear the high costs of adoption, training, and integration – a pattern known as the “productivity J-curve.”As with previous technological revolutions, AI’s impact will ultimately depend on countries’ capacity to absorb and apply it effectively. For now, this capacity varies widely across Asia.According to the IMF’s AI Preparedness Index, advanced economies, such as Australia, Japan, and Singapore, rank above their peers elsewhere, based on indicators like digital infrastructure, economic integration, regulation, and labour-market policies.The region’s large emerging economies, including China, India, and Indonesia, also perform better than their peers. But low-income economies, like Bangladesh and Cambodia, are lagging.Given the speed and scale of the transition ahead, and the gathering growth headwinds, all Asian economies should be working to strengthen their ability to harness AI.To understand what must be done, it is worth revisiting the Nobel Prize-winning research of Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt, and Joel Mokyr. Aghion and Howitt formalised Joseph Schumpeter’s idea of creative destruction – the process by which new technologies replace old ones – while Mokyr, drawing on history, found that lasting progress also requires openness to new ideas and a commitment to scientific inquiry.Together, they show that sustained prosperity depends on continuous technological progress supported by an enabling culture and institutional framework.For Asian countries, the lesson is two-fold. First, they must foster the skills people need to make use of AI. Investment in digital literacy and STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) can help to prepare people for the transformation ahead, while lifelong-learning and reskilling programmes can smooth the adjustment for those already in the workforce. With AI enabling the automation of a growing range of routine and complex tasks, complementary technical, digital, and social skills are essential.Such programmes should be broadly accessible, and complemented by strengthened social-protection systems and structural reforms that reduce labour-market dualism, thereby ensuring that good, secure jobs remain widely available. Otherwise, job polarisation and income disparities could widen, and growth will become more imbalanced and less resilient.Beyond fostering the skills people need to make use of AI, Asian governments must make it possible for people to apply those skills creatively. This means investing in research and development, building reliable and broadly accessible digital infrastructure and secure data systems, and designing regulatory frameworks that ensure ethical AI use. Open competition, cross-border research collaboration, and greater access to finance for startups can then ensure that innovation is not confined to a few firms or countries. Such inclusion is vital: progress demands that new ideas and young firms have the tools and opportunities to challenge incumbents.The stakes are high. If AI adoption remains limited to a few frontier economies or sectors, technology gaps would widen, with far-reaching economic, social, and political consequences. But if Asia harnesses human creativity and AI tools effectively, it can build resilient, innovative, and inclusive economies capable of overcoming current challenges and unlocking new sources of growth. — Project Syndicate• Lee Jong-wha, Professor of Economics at Korea University, is a former chief economist at the Asian Development Bank and a former senior adviser for international economic affairs to the president of South Korea. 

Canada and Sweden have much in common. Both are democracies with constitutional monarchies. Both have open, export-oriented economies. Both have spent a century managing a great-power neighbour. And both are endowed with iron and base-metal resources, vast boreal forests, and abundant freshwater. (Even their strawberries, slow-grown under northern light, taste alike.) It makes sense, then, for them to sign a new strategic partnership on defence production, Arctic security, critical minerals, advanced manufacturing, and emerging technologies.But this agreement is about more than mutually beneficial co-operation. For Canada, it is a sorely needed hedge: a long-overdue attempt to reduce its dependence on the United States. And for Sweden, it is a power play: a way to consolidate its new role as a Nato ally. The agreement thus serves Canada’s need for insurance and Sweden’s bid for influence and market share.Few other advanced economies are as structurally reliant on a single neighbour as Canada. The United States buys most Canadian exports, supplies much of its technology, and dominates its defence procurement. For decades, this dependence felt safe. But after President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminium, forced a renegotiation of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and started talking about annexing Canada, dependence became an intolerable vulnerability.Sweden, meanwhile, is approaching the same problem from the opposite direction. After decades of non-alignment, it finally joined Nato following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It brings to the alliance a capable military, a sophisticated defence industry, and a political culture that treats preparedness as a civic duty.Its “total-defence” model (totalförsvar) integrates military and civilian readiness across society – from ensuring ample food and fuel stockpiles to maintaining plans for keeping hospitals, ports, and power grids running in a crisis. Sweden has spent a century designing machines that work in dark winters, deep forests, and icy seas – exactly the conditions that Canadian machine operators also contend with.The new partnership mirrors this complementarity, but it also exposes a disagreement about how tightly to lean on the US. Canada wants to end its reliance on a single supplier for essential military and industrial systems, because it is looking ahead to a world where it will be less exposed to US decisions. But Sweden wants to bind itself more closely to the US-backed system that Nato represents, because it recognises that geography and neutrality no longer guarantee security. Over time, these distinct views could pull in different directions.Both sides are focused on defence. Canada has defaulted to using US fighters (F-35As) and patrol aircraft (P-8As), because shared kit makes operations and maintenance easier. But it also concentrates risk. When one supplier dominates procurement, it also dominates negotiations. Sweden’s Gripen fighter, built for dispersed operations from rough northern bases, is one of the few serious non-US alternatives.To be sure, shifting even part of the Canadian fleet to a mixed Gripen/F-35 force would be politically and logistically difficult. The mere thought of it has already drawn fire, with retired Canadian officers warning that any reduction in F-35 purchases would weaken the force, while US commentators argue that a mixed fleet would be costlier, less interoperable with the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD), and weaker in an Arctic fight.But this might be a price worth paying. If Canada shifted even part of its procurement to Gripens and assembled aircraft in Canada with Swedish support, it would regain some industrial and strategic autonomy. Sweden, meanwhile, will have increased its weight within Nato. The only question is whether the US would view this as increased burden-sharing (something it purports to want) or a loss of its own industrial advantage.The next phase of great-power competition is being fought through supply chains and logistics – through battery metals, rare earths, telecom standards, and grid hardware. As Trump officials have apparently learned the hard way, China dominates too many of these links.Fortunately, Canada brings vast reserves of minerals, land, and energy, and Sweden has a strong record of translating engineering and manufacturing ideas into dependable machinery. Together, they can form a corridor from extraction to finished products, offering a hedge for Nato’s industrial base against shocks from a single supplier. For Canada, it is a way to avoid overreliance on US buyers and technology; for Sweden, it is another arena in which to bolster its Nato role.This corridor will have its limits, though. Canada and Sweden are both export powers, and in some markets, they are potential competitors. Both sell vehicles and parts abroad, both depend on forest products, and both want a foothold in the same green-technology and infrastructure niches. Sweden is subject to the European Union’s industrial and state-aid rules while Canada is bound up in North American supply chains. A northern production axis will have to work within those constraints.Still, the partnership allows Sweden to gain a North American foothold without going through Washington. It is deepening its industrial ties with another advanced economy, and assuming a bigger Arctic role with another Arctic country. Nato, too, is getting something it urgently needs: a northern flank that is more capable, more distributed, and less exposed to swings in US politics. At a time of growing fragility within the West, Canada and Sweden are offering a new model to restore resilience.Of course, both still ultimately depend on the US for security. Nato’s command structure, its long-range strike capability, and much of its logistics are American. NORAD is, and will remain, the backbone of North American air and missile defence. A Canadian-Swedish axis can thicken the non-US part of the system, but it cannot replace it. Moreover, Canada may still default to buying American, Sweden’s defence buildup may face political or fiscal constraints, and the US may block Swedish systems from finding their way into a core ally’s arsenal.The northern hedge is best understood as a modest, deliberate shift in how two middle powers organise their dependencies. Canada gains breathing room, and Sweden gains leverage in debates about the Arctic, burden-sharing, and how much of Nato’s future arsenal must be “Made in America.” At a time when “friendly” powers can feel unpredictable, middle powers can adjust with small, deliberate choices of their own. Keep an eye on larger US allies like France, Italy, and Spain, smaller ones like Finland and the Netherlands, rising ones like Poland, and formally neutral countries like Switzerland. All will be exploring new paths to influence and autonomy. — Project SyndicateCarla Norrlöf is Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. 

Despite the US government souring on the global climate agenda ahead of the COP30 summit, American companies did not shy away.A Reuters analysis of attendance lists shows there were 60 representatives of Fortune 100 companies at the Brazil event, compared with 50 at last year’s in Baku, Azerbaijan. Still others attended pre-conference events in Brazil’s finance hub Sao Paulo and in Rio de Janeiro.Tech firms including Microsoft and Google, energy company Occidental Petroleum, carmaker General Motors and lender Citigroup were among those represented on a provisional UN list of attendees of the official summit.“We’ve seen no discernible change in the engagement of US companies on climate policy over the course of this year. And that was certainly reflected in attendance levels,” said Andrew Wilson, deputy secretary-general for policy at the International Chamber of Commerce.“We are also seeing growing concern across industry about the growing costs of extreme weather events – underscoring the need for effective policy responses.”Executives said they didn’t think now was a good time to opt out of the climate conversation, with rising temperatures unleashing ever more threats to factories, supply chains and the bottom line.“We’re doing it because it’s good for the business. It helps create supply security,” said PepsiCo Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) Jim Andrew on the sidelines of the talks.“We need farmers to be successful, we need them to keep farming,” he added, given the company makes the bulk of its revenues from foods including Walkers Crisps and Quaker Oats.Darren Woods, the boss of top US oil company ExxonMobil was among the US executives, mayors and other sub-national leaders who attended the pre-COP events.All those players have an important role in the future of climate action, according to Lou Leonard, Inaugural Dean of Clark University’s School of Climate, Environment, and Society.Existing policies from federal and non-federal actors would lead to a 35% reduction in US emissions by 2035, a recent analysis led by the Center for Global Sustainability (CGS) at the University of Maryland showed.Much of that is being driven by companies.“Despite the headlines, the private sector continues to invest in and deploy clean energy,” said Gina McCarthy, former administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency and now Managing Co-Chair of ‘America Is All In’, a coalition of non-federal leaders.“Last year, clean energy jobs in the US expanded three times faster than the rest of the nation’s workforce.”The two-week-long COP30 conference also included many smaller US companies in sectors set to profit from the world’s shift to low-carbon energy, including in carbon markets.“Being here is about connecting globally,” said Brennan Spellacy, chief executive at carbon credits platform Patch, “Most of my meetings here are with English, French, and German sustainability leaders and CSOs.”President Trump has called climate change a hoax. But regardless of the US federal position, regulations are changing across the world to hasten the energy transition even though the final deal at COP30 disappointed some.“Irrespective of what’s coming out of the United States, in terms of rhetoric, the market is moving (and) policymakers are recognising the direction of travel,” said Jack Hurd, head of both the World Economic Forum’s Earth System Agenda and the Tropical Forest Alliance.More US companies are also disclosing their climate strategies despite the US dropping plans for a federal rule requiring it, although the quality of plans from companies across the globe remains low, data from disclosure platform CDP showed.Whether they were at the main event or not, the fact US companies appeared was significant, said Maria Mendiluce, CEO at the We Mean Business Coalition.“The US has a decisive role in global climate, energy and industrial policy, so sub-national leaders, non-state actors and businesses showing up at COP30 matters.”“Even when domestic politics are unsettled, the US shapes markets, capital flows and technology pathways. Its engagement signals to investors that the world’s largest economy understands the competitiveness, innovation, security and supply-chain stakes of the energy transition.” — Reuters 

When accountants at mid-tier firm Moore Kingston Smith began using artificial intelligence to speed up their work, profit margins jumped.Colleagues in another team running checks against corporate fraud created a report for customers in two hours, something that previously took two weeks.The rollout of AI is raising hopes that Britain’s economy can escape the productivity problem that has dogged it for two decades, even as slow growth pushes finance minister Rachel Reeves towards tax hikes in Wednesday’s budget.Economists say the dominance of services businesses in Britain’s private sector compared to other countries could mean higher rewards if it rapidly adopts AI in powerhouse sectors such as accountancy and finance.Ratings agency Moody’s said last Friday the UK could gain more than other countries from the advances in the technology.Becky Shields, MKS’ head of digital transformation, said AI was freeing staff from repetitive work and giving them more time to work with clients.“The large language models that underpin all of this technology are evolving all the time. They’re getting better and better with every iteration,” she said.Services make up 80% of Britain’s economy, the same as the United States — and account for a bigger share once services generally provided by the state are stripped out.MKS, with about 1,500 UK staff, is applying its platform based on Google’s Gemini 2.5 model to a growing range of work. Shields said it was still a learning process, but its positive impact was clear.A team that used AI four times more intensively than another group reported a profit margin 8 percentage points higher, she said.Rather than ask for proof of orders, invoices, bank statements and other documents for a sample of transactions, the team using AI let clients upload entire datasets which MKS was able to analyse automatically.Initial extra work is now paying off as the process can be applied more widely. The reduced paperwork helps clients who say they chose the firm for its AI adoption, Shields said.“You can do a lot with a little with how the technology currently sits,” she added, describing the cost of AI as “pennies in the pound” compared with other technology.For Britain’s economy — and struggling Prime Minister Keir Starmer — improving productivity is a major challenge.An expected downgrade by budget forecasters of the economy’s underlying growth potential, reflecting past disappointments, is set to blow a hole in the public finances, meaning Reeves is likely to increase taxes on Wednesday to reassure nervous bond investors that she can cut borrowing.As elsewhere, improvements in Britain’s productivity slowed after the 2007-08 global financial crisis, leading to almost 20 years of weak growth and frustration among voters.Feeble productivity gains account for half of Britain’s slowdown in pay growth since 2008, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a think tank.Starmer’s government is trying to streamline the planning system, modernise infrastructure and improve skills to raise productivity and get the economy firing again. It also hopes that AI can inject more efficiency into public services.“Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything,” Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said in 1990. Bart van Ark, head of the University of Manchester’s Productivity Institute, said that for Britain’s government “almost everything in the short run is productivity”.Britain has the highest inflation rate among the Group of Seven rich nations and too many people dropping out of the jobs market. Its business investment rate was the G7’s second-lowest in 2024, although comparable to that for the United States, which manages far better productivity.But AI could be a card up Britain’s sleeve.One of Reeves’ deputy ministers, Torsten Bell, who is helping to write her budget, argued in his 2024 book that Britain “can and should ride the services wave”.Bolstered by its expertise in financial and business services, law, education and architecture, Britain had a services trade surplus of $248bn in 2024, second only to the United States, World Trade Organisation figures show.British services exports accounted for just over 7% of the world’s total, again the second-highest after the USLess clear is the AI upside for British factories. They are struggling in the face of high energy, labour and raw materials costs, low public infrastructure investment and shifts in trading rules.Flooring materials maker Amtico, in England’s Midlands region, uses AI to plan production. But its next big investment decision is about expanding the use of robotics to offset some of Britain’s high costs for manufacturers.“I am looking to take my most labour-intensive processes and invest my way out of it,” Jonathan Duck, Amtico’s chief executive, said.Many firms are still smarting from a labour tax hike in Reeves’ first budget last year. Employers say Reeves would risk her growth agenda if she increases tax on them again.Analysts say it is too early to be sure about AI’s longer-term impact on economic growth as estimates range widely given the uncertainties about its real-world applications, but most agree it will not be immediate.Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, who sees AI as a potential game-changer, said last month it took around 40 years between Thomas Edison first wiring up a light bulb and the impact of electricity showing up in the productivity statistics.“We are still at the experimentation stage with AI, so investment and persistence is crucial,” Bailey said.The University of Manchester’s Van Ark sees AI adding 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points to annual growth in the coming years. That would help an economy growing by about 1.5% a year but will not spare the current government from tough budget choices.Paul Dales, chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said AI was likely to speed up growth in the mid-2030s, with Britain seeing more adoption than Europe’s other big economies due to its more hands-off approach to regulation and labour laws.Andrew Wishart, an economist at bank Berenberg, said improved productivity in higher-value corporate sectors offered signs that a broader change was already underway.“If we don’t have a sharp rise in taxes, I think we should see it in business earnings,” he said.Risks from the rise of AI include the possibility that its gains flow mostly to bigger firms with more funds to invest, potentially leading to a less competitive economy and aggravating Britain’s geographic imbalances.Some firms in highly regulated sectors, such as accountancy, worry that rule-makers will not keep pace with the technology.“The challenge for businesses is not getting a sense right now of what is and isn’t allowed,” Esther Mallowah, head of tech policy at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, said.Another big risk from a more automated future, its impact on the labour market, is becoming a little clearer.A survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development this month showed 17% of private sector employers expected to reduce headcount over the next 12 months as a result of AI. Only 6% planned an increase.At MKS, the number of graduates hired this year was cut. But Shields said the reduction was intended as a “short shock” to speed up the way staff adapt to AI.Hiring would probably return to normal after a year to ensure the human touch is not lost.“Our clients trust us to do more with their business whether it’s wanting more assistance or new services,” Shields said. “There is no expectation that will be a long-term trend.” — Reuters 

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing accounts for concerns from gender equality to worker rights to new ways to provide funding to charities working in poor countries.ESG envisages an investing principle that prioritises environmental and social issues, and corporate governance.The European Commission has unveiled a significant rewrite of its ESG rulebook for the investment industry, marking the latest step in a fundamental overhaul designed to help improve competitiveness in the bloc.In the proposal put forward on Thursday, the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) will no longer require asset managers to report the negative environmental or social impacts of their entire portfolio.Instead, so-called exclusion thresholds will be introduced as part of a revised range of ESG fund categories, including one dedicated to environmental and social transitions.“The current framework results in disclosures that are too long and complex, making it difficult for investors to understand and compare” products, the commission said. “The revised rules will be more retail friendly and usable for companies.”The recommendations, which are largely similar to a draft leaked earlier this month, follow years of complaints from investors and even some national regulators over the existing framework.Fund-disclosure categories have been criticised for being confusing, while the pressure placed on portfolio managers to collect a large number of data points was regularly slammed as unrealistic.The proposed changes, which still need approval from lawmakers and member states, represent an “earthquake” for the European Union’s financial industry, law firm Simmons & Simmons said in a comment based on the draft proposal.The commission is recommending fossil fuel companies with expansion plans be excluded from the two greenest of the three new ESG fund categories.The World Wildlife Fund called the recommendation a “welcome step,” but added that companies should be excluded entirely. Otherwise, “the climate credibility of the framework” is undermined, WWF said.The environmental part of ESG is now emerging the primary focus for investors ahead of social and governance-related issues, with the majority viewing “climate as a material investment factor.”“Mainly, the asset owners seem less concerned about what ESG is called versus how it is implemented across their global portfolios,” according to a Morningstar report in June.Asset owners also are increasingly concerned these days about rising geopolitical tensions caused by the Trump administration-led trade war, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and US-China relations.The result is many investors are “waiting for more clarity before making short-term portfolio moves,” according to Morningstar.Despite years devoted to trying to make ESG investing financially appealing, there still aren’t enough structures to encourage banks and asset managers to allocate capital in ways that will ultimately protect the planet and its inhabitants, scholars at the Centre for Sustainable Finance at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) has said in a study.ESG, which enjoyed a brief boom during the pandemic, has struggled to right itself as higher interest rates and supply-chain bottlenecks have hampered the progress of capital-intensive green infrastructure.As a result, the theme has rapidly lost investors, with Morningstar noting in April that ESG funds suffered their worst outflows on record in the first quarter.Europe has signalled it’s willing to accommodate international concerns about its ESG rules, as the bloc fields threats from the US.It follows a barrage of complaints targeting the EU’s corporate sustainability reporting and due diligence directives, known as CSRD and CSDDD. Though both directives are in the process of being wound back, they’re still set to apply to companies outside the bloc if they do business inside the EU.The commission’s latest proposal is part of a broader overhaul of the EU’s ESG framework to streamline regulations and cut costs for businesses.

When US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a one-year truce in their trade war, temporarily easing China’s strict export controls on rare earths and other critical minerals, a quiet sigh of relief swept through corporate headquarters from Paris to Warsaw. But the underlying structural reality has not changed: Because China controls global supplies – owing to its unrivalled extraction and processing capacity – Europe remains dangerously dependent.Europe imports nearly all the rare-earth magnets it uses in manufacturing electric vehicles, wind turbines, and defence systems, as well as the lithium, cobalt, and graphite that underpin battery production. With most of the refining of these materials occurring outside our borders, a temporary suspension of Chinese export restrictions merely buys us time.Since Europe will remain vulnerable for the foreseeable future, the only question is whether we will use this reprieve to prepare for what could be coming. When thinking about our own economic future, resilience – the ability to absorb shocks that would otherwise paralyse key industries – is what matters. Unless Europe accelerates diversification, builds domestic capacity, and institutionalises risk management, the next supply crunch will hit just as hard, if not harder.With the Critical Raw Materials Act, the European Union has set ambitious targets to extract 10%, process 40%, and recycle 25% of its consumption of these materials domestically. At the European Investment Bank (EIB), we are scaling up support for projects that strengthen the critical raw material chain – from exploration, extraction, and refining to recycling and innovation – both within and outside the EU. We are committing around €2bn ($2.3bn) per year to ensure that these materials are available to European industries reliably and over the long term.As a bank, we offer loans, equity-type financing for high-risk projects, and technical advisory resources for project sponsors. Our recent support for a copper recycling facility in Germany, lithium production in Finland, and a battery gigafactory in France shows what can be achieved when public and private investment pull in the same direction.While Europe pursues these ambitious targets and collaborative investments, the United States has opted for a more direct approach, with the US Department of Defense acquiring a significant share in MP Materials, which operates the country’s only rare earth mine. Backed by public funding and long-term purchase agreements, this move, too, is designed to secure domestic supply chains and reduce reliance on imports from China.US national security and industrial resilience are the main goals, and within this policy environment, major private-sector players like Apple are also committing to sourcing materials domestically. Nor is the US strategy limited to domestic action. The government is also taking steps to secure access to rare earths and other critical materials globally, such as by acquiring stakes in Canadian mining companies.The EU cannot afford to remain a bystander. But rather than competing in a subsidy race or relying on direct government ownership – which risks distorting markets and undermining the rules-based trading system that Europe still champions – the bloc should focus on building strategic alliances and partnerships. Resilience cannot be built in isolation.With an eye toward securing alternatives to a single dominant supplier and strengthening its position in global supply chains, the EU has long been engaging with countries that value responsible resource development practices and fair competition. It has already established strategic partnerships with 14 countries – including Canada, Chile, and Ukraine – each designed to foster cooperation on critical raw materials and support sustainable growth.Building on this broader EU effort, the EIB is complementing these initiatives through its own actions. Australia – a mining powerhouse – is a key partner in this regard. Following my recent visit, we signed a declaration signalling our intent to deepen co-operation on critical raw materials, paving the way for future joint initiatives that promote sustainable growth.Reliability and predictability are Europe’s strongest currencies when it comes to partnerships. These qualities underpin our alliances and can serve as the foundation for a coalition of likeminded countries that are committed to transparency and fair play. By sticking together, we can counteract market manipulation and ensure stable, reliable supplies.In the meantime, though, we need buffers. Strategic stockpiling and joint purchasing, as proposed in the European Commission’s ReSourceEU initiative, may not be silver bullets, but they do matter. Even if strategic reserves do not eliminate risk, they can cushion the impact of sudden supply shocks, and a common EU purchasing platform can strengthen bargaining power and reduce volatility. Bundling creates market power. Both ideas deserve more than discussion; they demand action.Circularity offers another layer of resilience. We now have technologies that can recover up to 95% of materials from end-of-life batteries, but scaling up their use requires additional investment and regulatory clarity. At the same time, research into substitutes for rare-earth magnets and cobalt-based chemistries should move from the margins to the mainstream.Europe must act quickly. That means the engagement of not only EU institutions but also member-state governments and industry, which can chip in with clear commitments, particularly through mechanisms such as offtake agreements and investments in all steps of the value chain. The EIB is, and will remain, a strong partner to all those taking up this challenge.If Europe is serious about strengthening competitiveness and reducing strategic dependencies, it must mobilise all the relevant public- and private-sector players. Only through collective action can we amplify our market power and build resilience. Yes, this will require investment. But the price will be dwarfed by the cost of being unprepared for the next shock. — Project Syndicate• Nicola Beer is Vice-President of the European Investment Bank.

In a long-awaited white paper, Britain’s Labour Party government has just proposed the most sweeping rethink of the country’s asylum system in a generation. In doing so, it joins the German Christian Democrats and the European Union more broadly in embracing a new, stricter position.Typically, attempts to deal with migration have moved through three distinct phases: denying the problem; mimicking far-right language and policies; and finally, adapting and finding ways to fight far-right forces on their own turf.When the Labour Party elected Keir Starmer as its leader in 2020, it was stuck in the first phase. It entered the second phase this summer, when Starmer warned that Britain risked becoming an “island of strangers.” By mimicking the populist Reform UK party’s language, however, Starmer was effectively saying: “Reform is right, but vote for us.”Perhaps having recognised the error, Labour may be moving into the third phase. For example, it has begun to attack Reform’s idea of abolishing migrants’ indefinite leave to remain (permanent residence) as a measure that would rip apart communities by deporting people who have lived in the country for decades, raised children, and played an integral part in society and the economy. While the Labour white paper does still have a foot in phase-two thinking, the party can move fully into phase three by emulating other centre-left parties that have successfully redefined the debate on migration.Consider Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s approach in Denmark. The media have focused on the shock value of immigration authorities ripping jewellery away from refugees as they enter the country. But the real lesson is how Frederiksen has shifted the terms of the debate: from a contest over who can be the cruellest to migrants to a competition over who can best maintain the Danish welfare state.Frederiksen’s genius lay in decoupling the debate on migration from the debate about race. She accepted that many of the refugees fleeing to Denmark have genuine asylum claims, and that the country has a duty to help them. But she also acknowledged that Denmark’s contributory welfare state could not sustain an uncontrolled influx of people who would be unable to contribute to its upkeep for many years. Thus, her response included tightening the country’s borders, providing financial aid to help refugees outside of Denmark, and doing more to integrate those already in the country.Similarly, under Magdalena Andersson’s leadership, the Swedish Social Democrats have focused on integration. Because Sweden took in the greatest number of asylum seekers per capita during the 2015 refugee crisis, its demographic makeup has changed more than that of any other European country (with the number of people with a foreign background increasing from 13% to 28% over the past 30 years). Following a surge in support for the far-right Sweden Democrats in the 2022 elections, the centre-right government has acted firmly to close the country’s borders, making Sweden one of the only developed countries to experience negative net migration.But it is the Social Democrats, now in the opposition, who have done the most to reframe the country’s immigration debate. Their spokesperson on the issue, Lawen Redar, sees border control and integration as two sides of the same coin. Every country has a right to decide who it allows in, she acknowledges; but the government also has a duty to ensure that everyone who is already in the country becomes a valued member of the community. Thus, the party’s strategy amounts to “secure borders, active integration, and no racism.”As a second-generation immigrant herself (with an Iranian-Kurdish mother and an Iraqi-Kurdish father), Redar has launched a movement to end the problem of “parallel societies,” ghettos of migrants who are excluded from the labour market and thus susceptible to criminality and poverty. Her solution is to make the Swedish language compulsory, to empower the state to decide where new immigrants live, and to reorient the education system toward making people feel Swedish “in their hearts” rather than just on paper. It is clear in her language how much Redar loves Sweden. By developing an inclusive patriotism, she has been able to reclaim the flag from the Sweden Democrats, who, like many far-right parties (and US Vice-President J D Vance), define national identity strictly in blood-and-soil terms.Back in Britain, the Starmer government seems to have determined, correctly, that voters will not care about any of its other policies unless it can show that it is serious about securing the borders and stopping the arrival of small boats on its shores. But unless it anchors its response in a broader, authentic centre-left strategy, its policies will look merely opportunistic.To be convincing, Starmer needs to combine his tough approach to borders with three other pillars. First, he can point out that border security requires international co-operation, not the isolationism that Reform advocates. That means working with the French to stop small boats, and using aid as a tool to facilitate returns when appropriate (a goal undercut by the government’s decision to slash development spending).Second, Labour should stress that patriotism isn’t about ethnic purity, but integration. That is how you instil a sense of pride in all the country’s inhabitants. This could mean finding ways to celebrate the national story; developing policies on language, housing, and education; and creating a path to citizenship for the 35% of National Health Service doctors and 25% of care workers who have a non-British nationality.Third, Labour’s immigration policy should help build an economy that works for its own workers. There must be legal pathways to migration for skilled workers like doctors, care workers, and computer engineers. But these must be coupled with labour-market protections, a minimum wage to ensure that new migration doesn’t drive down working-class earnings, and education and apprenticeships to give indigenous Britons the chance to fill already available jobs. Reform’s agenda offers none of this.The asylum debate should be seen not as a necessary evil, but as a political opportunity for a government, like Starmer’s, that is seeking direction. If done right, the issue offers a chance to go on the offensive and challenge Reform on its own turf. But doing it right requires the government to ensure that its newfound toughness serves a broader, authentically progressive agenda. — Project Syndicate Mark Leonard, Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict.

At the heart of the US shale industry in Texas, oil production is climbing. But you wouldn’t know that if you talked to Mark Waters, who owns a store that sells tools and safety equipment to oil firms.His small business, Tie Specialties, in Odessa, Texas, saw a 25% drop in oilfield sales over the last four to six months. Shelves are stacked with hand tools like wrenches, augers for digging holes, shovels, and other power tools. Peg boards show off hard hats, gloves, and various coloured overalls.“This is my sixth boom-bust. So I’ve been around it. I’d call it a slowdown, but everybody that I’ve talked to says the future is not very bright for the next couple of years,” said Waters, 65. US oil output has yet to register the full impact of the downturn. Waters and others who make their living around the oilfield are finding it more difficult to turn a profit as crude hovers around $60 a barrel, signalling bigger economic woes are on the way, Reuters interviews with 10 producers, service companies and residents around the Permian Basin show.The largest US oilfield has weathered previous downturns, but President Donald Trump’s policies have added to the slide in per-barrel profitability of US producers, already stifled by rising output from producer group Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and its allies (Opec+), as well as the biggest wave of consolidation in a generation.Economies of oilfield-dependent towns such as Midland and Odessa in West Texas are starting to show cracks, with local business owners seeing lower footfalls and sales.Waters is now banking on demand for electrical equipment from the building boom strong in data centres to offset the hit on the oilfield services side. He also owns a generator repair business, which is seeing a bump in business as companies avoid spending on new equipment. Evidence of the downturn is starting to appear in Midland’s skyline, as idled 100-foot rigs fill stockyards. Service firms are liquidating equipment. Top producers, including Chevron and ConocoPhillips, have laid off workers. Nationally, oil and gas production employment has dropped by 4,000 from January to July this year, the latest data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed. Roughly 370,000 Texans worked in oil and gas at the start of the year.While US output touched a record 13.9mn barrels per day (bpd) this month, are improvements in efficiency and technology mean producers are eking more oil out of fewer wells? Some analysts expect output to drop this year or next, as a result of the spending cuts. Any output growth in the next couple of years will likely come from deepwater offshore fields rather than the shale patch.The Permian rig count, a proxy for future output, has fallen by 52 to 252 at the end of October from a year earlier, the steepest decline since 2020, when Covid-19 slashed demand, data from energy analytics firm Enverus showed.“We’ve had dialogue with the administration letting them know that oil prices in the low to mid $50s make returns increasingly difficult for investment. This will eventually make current production levels unsustainable,” said Denzil West, CEO of Admiral Permian Resources, which produces about 25,000 bpd.Inflation and some of Trump’s trade tariffs have raised production costs for oil, which means oil companies need even higher prices to make money than they did in previous industry cycles.Drilling and completing a shale well costs about $10mn to $12mn, said Kirk Edwards, president of Texas-based producer Latigo Petroleum, 5% to 10% higher than last year.“The economics are completely upside down from where they were just in January. It’s more expensive to drill a well and you’re getting 20% less for your oil,” Edwards said. Companies need oil around $70 to maintain and grow production, executives said, but for over half the days since Trump became president, prices have settled under $65 a barrel as Opec and its allies ramp up output and as demand concerns persist. West Texas Intermediate crude, the main US benchmark used to price Permian Basin oil, It is forecast to average $51.26 in 2026, the US Energy Information Administration said this month.Surge Energy, one of the largest private producers in the Midland basin, will keep drilling at current prices, but at a slower clip, said CEO Linhua Guan. The company, which has run three rigs since 2021, dropped one in July, cutting capex by high single digits. Efficiency gains in the Permian, the largest US oilfield and the engine of US shale production, are getting harder to come by. Acreage with the best drilling economics is thinning, pushing producers into more expensive areas.“Investment returns at $55-60 per barrel are not what they were at the same price five years ago because the best wells have been drilled,” Admiral Permian’s West said.The company will evaluate necessary drilling, but potentially defer completing the wells if prices are in the $50 range. Return of investor equity will be the priority over increased capital deployment, West said.The pain is also hitting the oilfield services sector. Last month, Superior Energy Auctioneers liquidated equipment from Cleveland Lease Services’ contract well service division and Lone Star Directional Drilling.In one example, large trucks used to haul fracking trailers and equipment fetched about 30% less in August compared to April this year, a person familiar with the auction said.“There are more rigs than work,” said Terrel Hardin, president at King Well Service, which supplies workover rigs for maintaining existing production. About two to three of the company’s rigs were in use this year, versus four to five last year, he said.“These prices don’t pay the bills, and then everyone pulls back,” Hardin said. Top service provider SLB in October said it does not expect a significant near-term pickup in North American drilling. Rival Halliburton said it would idle equipment and cut costs. Both laid off staff this year.Midland’s unemployment rate rose by 0.5 percentage points to 3.6% in August, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, a level last seen in mid-2022 as the industry was recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic’s demand shock.“We got people coming in every day looking for a job,” Tie Specialties’ Waters said.Job losses are also starting to hit the local economy and small shops.Lines at DS Fabela’s Restaurant, a Mexican joint in Odessa frequented by oilfield workers, are thinning as people are let go, said manager Dulce Solis.When Yogashri Pradhan was laid off from the industry for a third time, she decided to launch IronLady Energy Advisors to consult on production data and reservoir engineering.“We’re seeing a lot more panic at $60 oil, and I think a lot of it has to do with the administration and the rhetoric of, oh, we could do it at cheaper prices,” said Pradhan, who was laid off by Chevron in June. — Reuters

Brazil insisted on hosting this year’s COP30 climate summit in the Amazonian city of Belem to put rainforests at the heart of negotiations on how to curb global warming.But as delegates from almost every country concluded tense talks under the rainforest’s humid heat, the outcome for trees and their guardians, though unprecedented, was bittersweet.Countries unlocked billions in new funds for forests, and a record number of Indigenous delegates took part in the conference.Still, even as the final agreement acknowledged that leaders were gathered at the heart of the rainforest, nations failed to agree on a plan to keep trees standing as they have repeatedly promised to do in recent summits, relying instead on a voluntary roadmap. “There was enormous expectation that we could leave with something more concrete,” said Carlos Rittl, director of public policy at the nonprofit Wildlife Conservation Society. But, he added, the final agreement didn’t provide the answers “that the Amazon asked for, and that the world expected.” The week in Belem opened with optimism. Germany pledged 1 billion euro to Brazil’s flagship Tropical Forests Forever Facility, the TFFF, which will support global conservation of endangered forests, boosting total contributions to nearly $7bn.But it closed on a sour note, with negotiators dropping a proposed roadmap to end deforestation from the final agreement, which would have required countries to show how they intend to meet the 2030 zero-deforestation pledge made two years ago at the Dubai climate summit.“This was supposed to be the Forest COP. I’m not sure if it is the Forest COP today,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, the head of the Panamanian delegation, hours after he learned the roadmap had been dropped.Tropical forests, which hold huge amounts of planet-warming carbon, have never been in higher danger of disappearing along with the thousands of communities and animal and plant species that inhabit them. Massive fires fuelled by climate change led global forest loss to smash records last year, even as farmland continued to expand over trees in developing countries that hold the biggest areas of pristine forests.Though global commitments on conservation have generally been left to the global biodiversity summit, historically a much less consequential forum, nature has been increasingly present in climate negotiations.“Climate change and the loss of biodiversity are two sides of the same coin,” said María Heloísa Rojas Corradi, Chile’s minister of environment.Tropical forests got more money in Belem than at any other climate summit. The Brazilian government still expects other countries, such as China and the United Arab Emirates, to announce contributions to the TFFF so it can reach $10bn by the end of the year. European countries also announced they were backing a $2.5bn initiative to help protect the Congo Basin rainforest.Having failed to get countries to agree on a roadmap to halt and reverse deforestation, Brazil’s COP30 presidency also put forward a voluntary roadmap, along with another one to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 president Andre Correa do Lago said in the final plenary. On the sidelines of the conference, different governments and companies also announced millions of dollars in new programs to make more forest-friendly beef, strengthen the supply chain of forest products, and more.“For all those reasons, I would call COP30 a success for forests,” said Frances Seymour, a senior policy advisor at Woodwell Climate Research Center. The so-called forest COP, she said, was also seen as a huge opportunity for Indigenous people to get a bigger seat at the table, partly because of their role in protecting threatened ecosystems like the Amazon. No climate summit had ever hosted so many Indigenous peoples. Some 3,000 leaders from countries around the world were present, said Toya Manchineri, who heads the Co-ordination of the Indigenous Organisations of the Brazilian Amazon.They had some victories that may also help keep forests standing.Brazil announced the demarcation of 10 new Indigenous lands, covering almost 1,000 square miles, at COP30. And about a fifth of the TFFF forest fund is set to go to Indigenous peoples protecting forests.Manchineri said he was disappointed that a proposal to include an item in the agenda to discuss formal recognition that the demarcation of Indigenous lands is a climate policy failed.“But the fact is that we get out of here, as an Indigenous movement from the Amazon, a lot stronger,” he said.  

In the final fractious hours of the UN climate summit in Brazil, when a deal to advance the world’s fight against global warming was slipping out of reach, COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago reminded them about the cost of failure. This was the first international climate conference since the administration of US President Donald Trump in January abandoned international co-operation on global warming, making it crucial for countries to land an accord that demonstrates unity.“Those who doubt that co-operation is the best way forward for climate are going to be absolutely delighted to see that we cannot reach an agreement between us,” he told the delegates. “So, we must reach an agreement.”In the end, representatives from nearly 200 nations landed a deal. But its contents, and the messy process that led to its adoption, say as much about the world’s divisions as its resolve to combat climate change together, according to observers, delegates and climate advocates.The final deal approved language that would triple the money for poorer countries to adapt to the worsening impacts of warming, but also shied away from mentioning the fossil fuels that cause it. Observers described it as everything from a win to a very bad joke.The two-week path to the final deal involved all the human drama associated with extreme fatigue, frustration and obstinance: Indigenous protesters charged the conference gates; Saudi Arabia threatened the deal’s collapse if its oil industry was targeted; Panama called the talks a clown show; and the closing ceremony was suspended for an hour as host Brazil tried to sort out objections.When it was all finally gavelled through on Saturday afternoon, Correa do Lago cried. The absence of the United States loomed over the talks. The world’s largest historic emitter and top economy declined to send a formal delegation as Trump declared global warming a hoax and efforts to combat it a competitive liability.EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra acknowledged the challenge of forging consensus without Washington at the table to help drive it. Under past administrations, the United States has partnered with the EU to drive ambition for a clean energy transition that could help the world slow warming.“A player of that magnitude... of course it is a major blow if such a partner is not showing up and not taking part,” he told reporters at the end of the summit.This year, the EU had pushed hard for language clarifying the world’s transition away from fossil fuels but ended up giving in to demands to keep it out.That outcome, along with limited efforts to protect forests, made scores of countries unhappy.“A Forest COP with no commitment on forests is a very bad joke. A climate decision that cannot even say fossil fuels is not neutrality, it is complicity. And what is happening here transcends incompetence,” said Panama’s COP negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey.Those frustrations spilled out in the final plenary session, where Latin American nations led a series of objections that forced the suspension of the closing ceremony, already a day past its scheduled end, by more than an hour. The deal delivered a key demand of developing nations by calling for a tripling of climate adaptation funds meant to help countries cope with the mounting impacts of a warming planet, such as rising seas, heat waves, and fierce storms.That was welcome news for some.“We managed to get a deal done. And so, I think from AOSIS’s perspective, this is a win,” Ilana Seid, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, told Reuters.“And it’s a win for multilateralism and it’s a chance that we can uphold the goals of the Paris Agreement, which are incredibly important to us,” she said, referring to the 2015 international deal to keep warming within 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Former US vice president Al Gore framed the outcome as “the floor — the bare minimum of what the world must do — not the ceiling that limits what is possible.”He noted that while oil producer states had blocked language on phasing out fossil fuels, Brazil’s COP30 presidency will lead an effort to develop such a roadmap, backed by more than 80 countries.“Ultimately, petrostates, the fossil fuel industry, and their allies are losing power,” Gore said. “They may be able to veto diplomatic language, but they can’t veto real-world action.”The endurance of international climate cooperation will be further tested in months ahead as Brazil leads efforts to draft the fossil fuel phase-out roadmap and mobilise the promised finance for developing nations.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani’s official visit to Rwanda offered one of the most quietly meaningful diplomatic moments of the year.A single image circulated widely: HH the Amir walking through the Rwandan wilderness with a camera in hand, observing wildlife with calm curiosity. It showed a leader close to people, grounded, and genuinely engaged with the world around him and it subtly reflected the kind of diplomacy Qatar increasingly represents.Rwanda’s progress over the past three decades is one of the most remarkable transformations on the African continent. From unimaginable tragedy, the country has built stability, economic growth, reconciliation, and a governance model now studied internationally.In many ways, Rwanda’s emphasis on planning, unity and long-term development mirrors the values that also guide Qatar’s own national trajectory, making the partnership between Doha and Kigali both natural and strategic. Qatar’s role in facilitating dialogue between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo further illustrates the country’s approach to foreign policy: patient, steady, respectful, and focused on lowering tensions rather than raising them.It is a diplomacy that stands out precisely because it avoids spectacle. His Highness the Amir’s visit also gains significance in the context of his broader regional outreach, including his stop in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and his participation in the G20 Summit in South Africa. Qatar and South Africa share positions on several global issues, particularly the Palestinian question, where Pretoria’s principled stance has drawn international attention.This alignment adds weight to Qatar’s growing partnerships across the continent. Taken together, these developments outline a clear direction: a foreign policy that moves fluidly between people, nature and high-level diplomacy, and a leadership style built on calm confidence and genuine respect.That photograph from the Rwandan forest was more than a striking moment; it captured the essence of a political philosophy that seeks peace through understanding and progress through partnership.

A Big Tech borrowing bonanza and signs of strain in private credit are spooking bond market lenders to the world’s top-rated businesses, in a trend that could jolt funding costs higher, hit corporate earnings and add stress to twitchy global markets.A cross-market rout sparked by AI over-investment nerves and what delayed US data might mean for monetary policy has pushed world stocks down 2.7% this month and knocked everything from cryptocurrency bitcoin to gold. But investment-grade bonds, which still offer borrowers the cheapest funding costs seen in decades, have been spared.Investors at groups managing more than $10tn of client assets combined, however, expressed concerns about IG debt pricing or said they were reducing exposure to top-rated bonds, with some also having sold out of or begun actively betting against the asset class.After JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon warned last month about “cockroaches” emerging in credit markets, tech giants began borrowing heavily to fund their rush to build AI data centres.Alternative asset manager Blue Owl sent waves of anxiety through the $3tn private credit market by moving to limit fund withdrawals, and IG debt was still not pricing enough risk, money managers said.“There’s fear in markets, and everyone’s looking for the next shoe to drop,” said Brian Kloss, portfolio manager at Brandywine Global in Philadelphia, a unit of Franklin Templeton, which runs $1.7tn of assets, and has an overall cautious stance on credit.That could well be IG debt, Kloss said, meaning he was “taking profits” on existing holdings.An ICE-BofA index tracking what top-rated US companies pay to borrow over governments is trading just 10 basis points (bps) above 27-year lows of 74 bps touched in early October. The equivalent so-called spread in Europe is around 84, up slightly from 75 in late October.Salman Ahmed, global head of macro and strategic asset allocation at Fidelity International, had a short position against IG debt because pricing was too rich and an economic downturn might bring a “proper blowout”.Because prices had far to fall, he added, IG credit offered the most “bang for buck” in terms of hedging strategies that would pay out if a sustained economic downturn took hold.Credit spreads are a leading indicator for economic growth and stock market performance because funding costs affect businesses’ profits, share prices and expansion plans.“There’s a feedback loop,” said John Stopford, head of multi-asset income at asset manager Ninety One, adding he had dropped his funds’ credit exposure to zero in recent weeks.Interest rates on newly issued bonds would get more expensive, he said, if cash drained out of private credit funds while an AI borrowing bonanza ramped up.“If the cost of borrowing goes up in private credit and there is lots of new issuance coming out, borrowers are going to have to pay up,” he said. “And if it’s more expensive for businesses to borrow they are going to make less money.”After $75bn of US investment grade debt issued by AI-focused Big Tech hit the market in September and October the cost of five-year credit default swaps insuring against tech group Oracle defaulting has risen 44% in a month to 87 bps, Refinitiv data showed.Meanwhile, investors have begun moving away from private debt funds as their lending standards come under scrutiny from regulators.David Furey, State Street Investment Management’s head of fixed income portfolio strategy, said the world’s fourth-biggest asset manager was staying invested in corporate credit for now but keeping a “close eye” for signs of US economic weakness. IG credit pricing, he cautioned, had “very little cushion baked in” for economic deterioration.Jonathan Manning, credit portfolio manager at Europe’s largest asset manager Amundi, said he was also “looking to lighten up a little bit” on IG credit because of high pricing and in case delayed US data such as closely-watched jobs reports increased volatility in a market that has traded calmly through selloffs so far.