BERLIN: Australia is joining the “climate club” backed by the Group of Seven major economies to take more ambitious action in tackling global warming, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Monday.
The club was first proposed by Nobel Prize winner William Nordhaus as a way of getting countries to voluntarily set high targets for curbing climate change and then require trading partners to meet those same standards. Such moves are opposed by major emerging economies like China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gas.
“We’re very pleased to join the climate club because we are ambitious and we also see that this isn’t just the right thing to do by the environment, but this is also the right thing to do by jobs and by our economy,” Albanese said at a news conference in Berlin after meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who made the idea a key pillar of his G7 presidency last year.
“One thing we can do is to cooperate and learn off each other, because you can’t address climate change as just a national issue. It has to be by definition, a global response,” Albanese said.
Albanese’s government committed last year to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent by the end of the decade — almost double the previous target. In March, Parliament passed a law requiring Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas polluters reduce their emissions or pay for carbon credits.
Other countries that have joined the climate club include Argentina, Chile, Denmark, Indonesia, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore and Uruguay.
Australia joins G7-backed ‘climate club’ and promises to drive down greenhouse gas emissions
https://arab.news/r672g
Australia joins G7-backed ‘climate club’ and promises to drive down greenhouse gas emissions
Uganda army denies seizing opposition leader as vote result looms
- Election day was marred by significant technical problems after biometric machines
- There were also reports of violence against the opposition in other parts of the country
KAMPALA: Uganda’s army denied claims on Saturday that opposition leader Bobi Wine had been abducted from his home, as counting continued in an election marred by reports of at least 10 deaths amid an Internet blackout.
President Yoweri Museveni, 81, looked set to be declared winner and extend his 40-year rule later on Saturday, with a commanding lead against Wine, a former singer turned politician.
Wine said Friday that he was under house arrest, and his party later wrote on X that he had been “forcibly taken” by an army helicopter from his compound.
The army denied that claim.
“The rumors of his so-called arrest are baseless and unfounded,” army spokesman Chris Magezi told AFP.
“They are designed to incite his supporters into acts of violence,” he added.
AFP journalists said the situation was calm outside Wine’s residence early Saturday, but they were unable to contact members of the party due to continued communications interruptions.
A nearby stall-owner, 29-year-old Prince Jerard, said he heard a drone and helicopter at the home the previous night, with a heavy security presence.
“Many people have left (the area),” he said. “We have a lot of fear.”
With more than 80 percent of votes counted on Friday, Museveni was leading on 73.7 percent to Wine’s 22.7, the Electoral Commission said.
Final results were due around 1300 GMT on Saturday.
Wine, 43, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, has emerged as the main challenger to Museveni in recent years, styling himself the “ghetto president” after the slum areas where he grew up in the capital, Kampala.
He has accused the government of “massive ballot stuffing” and attacking several of his party officials under cover of the Internet blackout, which was imposed ahead of Thursday’s polls and remained in place on Saturday.
His claims could not be independently verified, but the United Nations rights office said last week that the elections were taking place in an environment marked by “widespread repression and intimidation” against the opposition.
- Reports of violence -
Analysts have long viewed the election as a formality.
Museveni, a former guerrilla fighter who seized power in 1986, has total control over the state and security apparatus, and has ruthlessly crushed any challenger during his rule.
Election day was marred by significant technical problems after biometric machines — used to confirm voters’ identities — malfunctioned and ballot papers were undelivered for several hours in many areas.
There were reports of violence against the opposition in other parts of the country.
Muwanga Kivumbi, member of parliament for Wine’s party in the Butambala area of central Uganda, told AFP’s Nairobi office by phone that security forces had killed 10 of his campaign agents after storming his home.
