Read the daily news to learn English

Caribbean reparations leaders in ‘historic’ first UK visit to press for justice

A delegation from the body leading the Caribbean’s slavery reparations movement will be in the UK next week for a “historic” first official visit to advocate for former British colonies. The Caricom Reparations Commission (CRC) will be meeting with UK parliamentarians, Caribbean diplomats, academics and civil society groups from 17 to 20 November. Organised in collaboration with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, the visit aims to strengthen strategic partnerships and increase public knowledge about the region’s colonial past and its reparations movements. “The Caricom Reparations Commission advocacy visit to the UK is historic, as it is the first of what we anticipate will be a series of engagements to raise consciousness and awareness, correct misconceptions about the reparations movement and build strategic partnerships to take this critical agenda to right historical wrongs forward,” Dr Hilary Brown, a member of the delegation and Caricom’s programme manager of culture and community development, said. Between the 15th and the 19th century, more than 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped, forcibly transported to the Americas and sold into slavery. Caribbean governments have been calling for recognition of the lasting legacy of colonialism and enslavement, and for reparative justice from former colonisers, including a full formal apology and forms of financial reparations. Prof Sir Hilary Beckles, the CRC chair who is leading the six-member delegation, said the visit would help to amplify and advance the Caribbean’s pursuit of reparatory justice. “The global reparations movement is entering a new wave of impact, visibility and mobilisation, and reparations advocacy grassroots, academics and progressive civil society organisations in Great Britain have a pivotal role to play in amplifying the gains and the message of enlightenment,” he said. He added: “The Caricom Reparations Commission is here to demonstrate solidarity and support as together we navigate Windrush and advance the just claim for reparatory justice.” The issue of reparations for transatlantic slavery has been heating up, dominating headlines during last year’s Commonwealth leaders’ summit when the British government ruled out paying reparations or issuing a formal apology for the UK’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. At the summit, Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, said the slave trade was abhorrent but countries should be “looking forward” and addressing current challenges such as climate change. The UK government, under pressure from Commonwealth leaders to engage in a “meaningful, truthful and respectful” conversation about Britain’s past, later opened the door to discussing non-financial reparations, such as restructuring financial institutions and providing debt relief for the UK’s role in the transatlantic enslavement. In March, a poll commissioned by the Repair Campaign, an independent movement supporting calls for reparations, found that most Britons were not aware of the scale and lasting legacy of Britain’s role in transatlantic slavery and colonialism. Among the 2,000 UK adults surveyed, 85% were unaware that Britain forcibly transported more than 3 million Africans to the Caribbean, 89% did not know that Britain enslaved people in the Caribbean for more than 300 years, 63% support a formal apology to Caribbean nations and descendants of enslaved people – up 4% from 2024, and 40% support financial reparations, also reflecting a 4% increase from the previous year Caribbean governments have been resolute in their pursuit of reparative justice, based on the CRC’s 10-point plan, which specifies forms of reparations such as a full formal apology and debt cancellation. The plan, the CRC said, has recently been revised to include emerging scientific and historical evidence, though they have not yet revealed the updated version. At their last summit in July, Caricom leaders backed a petition to King Charles from Jamaica on reparations. The petition asks Charles to use his authority to request legal advice from the judicial committee of the privy council, the final court of appeal for UK overseas territories and some Commonwealth countries, on whether the forced transport of Africans to Jamaica was lawful, if it constituted a crime against humanity, and whether Britain was under obligation to provide a remedy to Jamaica for slavery and its enduring consequences.

China sends coast guard to Senkaku islands amid row with Japan

China has sent its coast guard through the waters of the Senkaku islands and military drones past outlying Japanese territory as Beijing ramps up tensions over the Japanese prime minister’s remarks on Taiwan. On Sunday the Chinese coast guard said its ships made a “rights enforcement patrol” through the waters of the Senkaku, which are administered by Japan but also claimed by China as the Diaoyu islands. “China coast guard vessel 1307 formation conducted patrols within the territorial waters of the Diaoyu islands. This was a lawful patrol operation conducted by the China coast guard to uphold its rights and interests,” the statement said. China and Japan have repeatedly faced off around the islands but the latest activity comes amid an intensifying diplomatic spat after the Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, told parliament that if China attack democratically ruled Taiwan it could trigger a military response from Tokyo. That sparked an angry response from Beijing, which has signalled it expects a retraction from Takaichi. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and intends to annex it under what it terms “reunification”. It has not ruled out the use of force. Taiwan’s government and people overwhelmingly reject the prospect of Chinese rule – preferring to maintain the status quo without explicitly declaring themselves independent, but vowing to defend themselves if necessary. An attack or invasion by China would threaten to spiral into a regional or global conflict, potentially involving the US and other allies including Japan, which has territory just 110km (68 miles) from Taiwan. In Taiwan, the defence ministry said on Sunday morning that it had detected 30 Chinese military aircraft, seven navy ships and one “official” ship, which was likely the coast guard, operating around the island over the past 24 hours. Maps provided by the ministry showed up to three drones flying between Taiwan and the Japanese islands off its north-east coast, appearing to go particularly close to Yonaguni, the nearest island. Chinese military transits there are not rare, but infrequent, and Chinese military activity in Taiwan’s air defence identification zone generally has been low in recent weeks. Late on Saturday, the ministry said China had been carrying out another “joint combat patrol” to “harass the airspace and sea around us”. It added Taiwan had sent its own aircraft and ships to monitor the situation. Taiwan reports such Chinese patrols a couple of times a month as part of what Taipei says is an ongoing military pressure campaign. Japan has been facing mounting pressure from China since Takaichi made her remarks, with China’s consul general in Osaka prompting a formal protest from Tokyo by commenting that “the dirty head that sticks itself out must be cut off”. Beijing then summoned the Japanese ambassador for the first time in more than two years, and China’s defence ministry declared that any Japanese intervention would be doomed to fail. On Friday, China cautioned its citizens against travelling to Japan, prompting Tokyo to urge Beijing to take “appropriate measures”, though it did not elaborate. Three Chinese airlines said on Saturday that tickets to Japan could be refunded or changed for free. In another escalation, China’s government on Sunday urged its citizens to “carefully reconsider” studying in Japan, citing what it described as an unstable security environment, according to the Kyodo news agency. While the advice does not amount to a ban, a dramatic reduction in the number of Chinese students could have a negative impact on Japanese universities. A record 336,708 foreign nationals were studying in Japan last year, according to the Japan Student Services Organisation. They included more than 123,000 Chinese students – by far the single biggest group. Late on Saturday, a Chinese state media editorial accused Takaichi of staging a political stunt that was “not just dangerously provocative but fundamentally perverse”. “A conflict between Japan and China would not be a limited skirmish; it would likely draw in other powers, including the United States, and could quickly spiral into a large-scale conflict with unimaginable consequences.” The government of Taiwan says only its people can decide its future. Japanese leaders have previously avoided publicly mentioning Taiwan when discussing such scenarios, maintaining a “strategic ambiguity” also favoured by Tokyo’s main security ally, the US. However, China’s ruling Communist party says the unification of Taiwan with the People’s Republic of China is “inevitable”, and casts any opposition to it as escalatory. As it moves towards being capable of military annexation, China has also been escalating its non-military activity and its rhetoric towards Taiwan. The Japanese embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to a request for comment. With Reuters

How Britain replaced the US as Russia’s villain of choice

In recent years, Britain has become the villain of choice in Moscow’s eyes. It has been accused of plotting drone strikes on Russian airfields, blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline, directing “terrorist” raids inside Russia, and even abetting last year’s gruesome Islamic State concert attack in Moscow. This week, a new charge was added to the pile: Russian authorities claimed that British intelligence had tried and failed to lure Russian pilots into defecting to the west. “The FSB [Russia’s Federal Security Service] exposed all this in great detail,” Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, told reporters in Moscow, describing what he called a British-backed plot to lure a Russian pilot flying a Kinzhal missile-equipped jet to Romania, where, he claimed, it would be shot down by Nato forces. “I do not know how the British will wash themselves clean of it, although their ability to play the role of goose coming out of the shower is well known,” Lavrov added, using a Russian idiom that cast Britain as somehow always emerging spotless, despite its actions. London denies involvement in all these plots. As Moscow looks to rebuild ties with the Donald Trump administration, Britain has assumed the role once reserved for the US – the Kremlin’s chief adversary and favoured bogeyman in its propaganda war. “Russia regards itself as on a par with the United States,” said Capt John Foreman, the UK’s former defence attaché to Moscow. “Now they can’t criticise Trump directly, so who do you blame for your woes – for the losses in Ukraine, for a million casualties? You blame the closest thing, the British. It’s easy to portray us as the root of all Russia’s problems.” This year, Russia’s foreign intelligence service (SVR) said: “London today, like on the eve of both world wars, is acting as the main global warmonger”. It is a mantle Britain has worn on and off for more than two centuries, in Russia’s view. During the cold war, the US was known in KGB parlance as the “main enemy”, with Britain a distant second. Although rivalry and mutual spying between the two never went away, in the minds of the Kremlin the threat from Britain was very much a subplot to the main battle between Moscow and Washington. But rivalry between Russia and Britain has a long history, stretching back to the “Great Game” of the 19th century, when imperial Russia and Britain fought for influence in central Asia, where their empires came within 20 miles of one another in some places. There was a brief period when the empires were allies, but after the October Revolution of 1917, Britain again became the primary antagonist, seen by the Marxist Bolsheviks as the leading power representing the old capitalist and imperialist order. The US at this time was a mere afterthought; the early Soviet foreign intelligence service covered the country from its British department, “as it was an Anglo-Saxon country and because it did not bother us much anyway”, in the words of Georges Agabekov, an intelligence officer who later defected. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine, however, has brought relations to a new low. Although Britain’s budget and capabilities are much smaller than those of the US, the British have often been far more willing than their American counterparts to take risks and push boundaries when it comes to assisting Ukraine militarily and with intelligence sharing. “The Brits have been one step ahead from the very first days,” a Ukrainian intelligence source said. Boris Johnson was one of the first western leaders to visit Kyiv after the invasion, arriving in early April 2022 just 10 days after Russian forces had withdrawn from positions around the capital. It was February 2023 before Joe Biden made his own visit. US officials signed off on massive support for Ukraine, but they were wary of escalation, whereas Johnson frequently used bullish rhetoric about the defeat of Russia, which did not go unnoticed in Moscow. Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin, have repeatedly seized on claims that Johnson derailed a potential peace deal in the spring of 2022. In Moscow’s telling, Kyiv was ready to agree to terms early in the war but pulled out on British orders – a version of events rejected by President Volodomyr Zelenskyy but now embedded in Russian state media. “Pockets of anglophobia really do exist within the security services, among people like [Nikolai] Patrushev, [Alexander] Bortnikov and [Sergei] Naryshkin,” said Foreman, referring to three of Russia’s most powerful siloviki, members of the security establishment. Among Russia’s ruling elite, the once-innocuous term “Anglo-Saxons” has been reborn as shorthand for the Kremlin’s deepest anxieties about the west. In the official lexicon, it no longer denotes an ancient people but a geopolitical cabal, led this time by London and accused of plotting to contain, humiliate and ultimately dismantle Russia. The hostility has trickled down from the top. Russia’s television propagandists now compete to issue ever more lurid threats: one of Putin’s favoured hosts regularly boasts that Britain could be “sunk underwater” by Russia’s new nuclear torpedo. Public opinion has followed suit. According to a Levada Centre poll this summer, 49% of Russians name Britain as one of their country’s main enemies, second only to Germany. But this hatred appears to have gone largely unnoticed in Britain itself, Foreman said. “They care about us much more than we care about them,” he said. “It’s not a reciprocal relationship; the average Brit on the street has no idea this hate exists.” Adding to the confusion, Moscow’s messaging is often contradictory, depicting Britain as a fading colonial relic as well as as a power with outsized sway over world affairs. “Soviet leaders then, and Russian leaders now, pay the UK an inverted compliment in professing to believe that London is behind every conspiracy against them,” Michael Clarke, a visiting professor of defence studies at King’s College London, wrote in a recent issue of the British Army Review. “British intelligence remains a favourite bête noire for analysts in Russia,” he added. At the same time, as a recent paper by the New Eurasian Strategies Research thinktank put it, Britain is portrayed in Moscow “as a weakened power, a puppet of the United States, and a society in moral and social decay”. Britain is not alone in the Kremlin’s gallery of enemies. Since Trump’s election, Europe as a whole has joined the ranks – no longer the loyal Washington follower but, in Moscow’s telling, the real source of western aggression and instability. Still, the UK appears to occupy a special place. “They don’t like Europe, but they really hate the Brits, that’s the message that comes through when talking to the Russians,” said a senior European diplomat in Moscow, who requested anonymity to speak freely. What Britain’s enemy status means for actual Russian policy vis-a-vis the UK is hard to gauge. The UK is not unique in accusing Moscow of conducting a far-reaching hybrid campaign on its territory. Across Europe, intelligence services have blamed Moscow for sabotage, arson and disinformation operations, part of what they describe as a coordinated campaign against the continent. But diplomatically, Moscow appears uniquely unwilling to engage with London, even through private channels. The Financial Times reported this week that London has tried, without success, to establish a discreet line of communication, while the Kremlin has proved more receptive to Berlin and Paris. Pavel Baev, a research professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, suggested this may be because military support for Ukraine enjoys broad backing among the British public and across the political spectrum, whereas in other European countries it is more contested. “As a result,” Baev said, “Moscow is focusing more on Germany and France as potential channels for derailing European rearmament plans.” Clarke noted that Moscow’s hostility is sharpened by what it sees as Britain’s strategic vulnerability: a country aligned with Europe yet standing outside it, and increasingly isolated from it. “Moscow perceives that the UK isolated itself from its European partners in the Brexit process and will take some time to recover the political ground it lost among the major European powers,” he said. At the same time, Clarke wrote, Britain has struggled to maintain a renewed strategic partnership with the US, finding it difficult to sustain close ties under the Trump and Biden administrations. “So from Moscow’s perspective, the UK is more isolated than at any time since 1914, and can be picked off.”

Gen Z protests against Mexico president turn violent amid anger over mayor’s death

At least 120 people, mostly police officers, were injured as thousands marched through Mexico City to protest against the government of Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum. The demonstration on Saturday was organised by members of generation Z, but ended with strong backing from older supporters of opposition parties. “For many hours, this mobilisation proceeded and developed peacefully, until a group of hooded individuals began to commit acts of violence,” said Pablo Vázquez, the security chief for Mexico City. He reported that 100 police officers were injured, of whom 40 required hospital treatment for bruises and cuts, while 20 protesters were hurt. Sheinbaum, in power since October 2024, maintains approval ratings above 70% but has faced criticism of her security policy due to several high-profile murders. Many of the protesters held banners and wore hats saluting Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez, the mayor of Uruapan in Michoacan state who was assassinated on 1 November having led a crusade against drug trafficking gangs in his town. “He was killed because he was a man who was sending officers into the mountains to fight delinquents,” said 65-year-old real estate agent Rosa Maria Avila, who had travelled from Michoacan state. “He had the guts to confront them.” “We need more security,” said Andres Massa, a 29-year-old business consultant who carried the pirate skull flag that has become a global symbol of gen Z protests. Protesters gathered in front of the National Palace, where Sheinbaum lives and works, and knocked down some of the metal fences around the building. Police protecting the compound used teargas and fire extinguishers to contain the protesters, who were banging on the fences. “This is how you should have protected Carlos Manzo,” some of the protesters shouted at the security forces. Hundreds of young people threw projectiles at the police, who responded by deploying their shields and also threw objects at the protesters. In the days leading up to Saturday’s protest, Sheinbaum accused rightwing parties of trying to infiltrate the gen Z movement, and of using bots on social media to try to increase attendance. “It is a movement promoted from abroad against the government,” she said. With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press

Ukraine war briefing: Drones hit Russia’s Ryazan oil refinery

Ukraine’s army said on Saturday it struck a Russian oil refinery in the Ryazan region near Moscow, as “part of efforts to reduce the enemy’s ability to launch missile and bomb strikes”. Explosions and a large fire were observed at the site, said the military. Ryazan is located about 200km (125 miles) south-east of Moscow. Russian officials often do not admit such attacks have succeeded, and the Ryazan governor, Pavel Malkov, adopted the standard line that Ukrainian drones were shot down but debris happened to hit the target. “Falling debris caused a fire on the premises of one enterprise,” Malkov said. A wave of 25 Ukrainian drones attacked the region, Malkov said. Officials in southern Ukraine said four people were killed by Russian attacks on Saturday. Prosecutors in the Kherson region said “three civilians are known to have been killed” in the village of Myklitskyi and the city of Kherson. The governor of the Zaporizhzhia region, Ivan Federov, said a Russian attack killed one person. The US will not lift sanctions on Serbian oil company NIS unless Belgrade terminates the firm’s majority Russian ownership, Serbia’s energy minister said on Saturday, warning that her country faced “difficult” decisions. Washington sanctioned Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS) as part of its crackdown on the Russian energy sector. Analysts say Serbia is on the brink of a winter energy crisis with its lone oil refinery facing a potential shutdown. Serbia’s energy minister, Dubravka Đedović Handanović, said the US wanted a “complete change of Russian shareholders” to be negotiated by 13 February before lifting sanctions. NIS is 45% owned by Gazprom Neft, which has been targeted by US sanctions. Neft’s parent company, Gazprom, has transferred its own 11.3% stake in NIS to another Russian firm, Intelligence. The Serbian state holds nearly 30% of NIS, with the rest owned by minority shareholders. Handanović suggested the Serbian government was looking at a possible Russian takeover of NIS and would hold a special cabinet meeting about it on Sunday. Ukraine has recorded a threefold increase in the number of attacks on its railway system since July, according to a senior minister, as Moscow seeks to scupper one of Kyiv’s key logistical systems, Peter Beaumont writes. The rail network carries more than 63% of the country’s freight – including grain shipments – and 37% of passenger traffic, according to the state statistics service. Military assistance from foreign countries often arrives by train. Oleksii Kuleba, a deputy prime minister, said: “What we have seen in these escalating attacks is that they are going after trains, especially trying to kill the drivers.” Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced an overhaul of state-owned energy companies amid a corruption scandal. Anti-graft investigators allege around $100m has been embezzled. Zelenskyy has already ordered two ministers to resign over the alleged scheme and sanctioned a former business partner who was named as its mastermind. “Alongside a full audit of their financial activities, the management of these companies is to be renewed,” Zelenskyy said. The Ukrainian president called for a new supervisory board at Energoatom – the state nuclear company – “within a week” that would enable a “complete overhaul of the company’s management”. He also called for the quick appointment of a new head of hydropower generating company Ukrhydroenergo and other reforms for oil and gas giant Naftogaz and the main gas operator.

Trump pressures Thailand to recommit to Cambodia ceasefire with ‘threat of tariffs’

The US has put pressure on Thailand to recommit to a ceasefire with Cambodia, warning trade talks could be halted as Washington seeks to keep a Donald Trump-brokered truce agreement from falling apart. Earlier this week, Thailand said that it was suspending the ceasefire deal, accusing Cambodia of laying fresh landmines along the border, including one it said wounded a Thai soldier on patrol, who lost a foot in the explosion. Since then, one person has been killed and several others wounded by gunfire along the Thai-Cambodia frontier, leading to concerns of a new round of tit-for-tat fighting. On Saturday, Thai foreign ministry spokesperson Nikorndej Balankura told journalists that a letter from the Office of the US Trade Representative announcing the suspension of trade deal talks was received on Friday night. He quoted the letter as saying trade negotiations – which are addressing a US tariff of 19% – could resume once Thailand reaffirmed its commitment to carrying out the joint ceasefire declaration. However, another government spokesperson, Siripong Angkasakulkiat, said later on Saturday that the temporary suspension occurred before a call between Thai prime minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Trump late on Friday. “Tariff negotiations will continue and remain separate from border issues,” Siripong said. Addressing reporters on Air Force One as he flew to Florida on Friday, Trump suggested that he had used the “threat of tariffs” in calls with the south-east Asian leaders. The US president said, “I stopped a war just today through the use of tariffs, the threat of tariffs,” adding, “they’re doing great. I think they’re gonna be fine. Thai foreign ministry spokesperson Nikorndej said prime minister Anutin explained the matter to Trump on their call, “who expressed understanding regarding the issue”. Trump oversaw the signing of a ceasefire agreement, held in Malaysia this October, and has touted it as one of several deals around the world he says should win him the Nobel Peace prize. The worst fighting in a decade between Thai and Cambodian troops erupted in July, with gunfire, artillery and airstrikes leaving dozens of people killed and 300,000 displaced. Thailand and Cambodia have a longstanding border dispute that dates back to disagreements over colonial-era maps drawn up by the French. Ancient temples along the border are claimed by both sides. Reuters contributed to this report

Viktor Orbán begins ‘anti-war roadshow’ as Hungary gears up for 2026 elections

Hungary’s prime minister has kicked off a weeks-long “anti-war roadshow”, turning criticism of European support for Ukraine into an early campaign message before next year’s elections. Viktor Orbán’ is scheduled to stage an event in five cities before the end of the year, and started with an assembly on Saturday in the north-western city of Győr. “Those who want peace will join us,” the rightwing leader of the Fidesz party said in a Facebook post before the event. The series of rallies began a week after Orbán’s visit to Washington DC, where he met Donald Trump, who agreed to grant Hungary a one-year exemption from US sanctions on importing oil and gas from Russia. The agreement was seen as a boost for Orbán, who has been in power for 15 years, during uncertain economic times for the country. According to insiders, another of Orbán’s priorities for the trip was to persuade Trump to visit Hungary for a meeting with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, with whom Orbán has maintained ties, despite anger from other European governments. The Hungarian leader has repeatedly warned of the risks of an ever-spiralling war, and Orbán will be hoping the “anti-war” message can undercut his opposition before the elections, which are due to take place in April next year. But Péter Magyar, a former Fidesz insider whose Tisza party is now leading in some independent polls, had organised another event in Győr on the same day. “Fidesz is the party of war and hatred, while Tisza works for peace at home and around the world,” he said in a Facebook post. Orbán has positioned himself as the voice of reason against what he says is a failed EU-led campaign to arm Ukraine. But his detractors at home and in the EU believe that the rightwing politician is too close to Putin and have called him the Kremlin’s “Trojan horse” in the bloc. Last month, Orbán led a “peace march” in which he told thousands in the crowd that Hungary was “the only country in Europe standing up for peace”. Relations between Budapest and Kyiv have deteriorated over Hungary blocking steps towards Ukraine’s accession to the EU, as well as Orbán’s refusal to impose sanctions on Russia. The issue of Ukraine, which shares a border with Hungary, has regularly played into domestic politics. Pro-Fidesz media have accused Magyar of collaborating with the Ukrainian secret service, calling him “the Hungarian Zelenskyy”. This year, billboards have been erected in Hungary depicting a sinister-looking Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, alongside the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, with the caption: “They would take Ukraine in the EU. We would pay the price.” Vlada, a 23-year-old Ukrainian woman living in Hungary, said: “When families come here from the frontlines, where they’ve been under bombardment for years, these posters can trigger bad feelings again.” She asked only to use her first name to protect her identity and the people close to her, some of whom still live under Russian occupation in Ukraine. She fled to Hungary at the start of the invasion, and learned the language, but said she received anti-Ukrainian comments. “There are pro-peace governments, for example, Switzerland. They don’t send any weapons, but they help organise peace conferences, with reconstruction,” Vlada said. The topic of “peace” is expected to become a central narrative in Fidesz’s re-election campaign. Fidesz may try to “turn the election into a referendum on war and foreign policy”, said Dániel Róna, a political scientist and director of the independent 21 Research Centre. But Mátyás Bódi, an expert at the independent analytics group Electoral Geography, said the question was “whether that will be enough in the midst of a cost of living crisis”. Electoral Geography’s polling indicates a 7% lead for Tisza. After 15 years of Fidesz rule, Hungarians are struggling with inflation, a failing healthcare system, and deepening problems in education – areas where voters now trust Tisza more, Bódi noted, citing recent research from the independent pollster Policy Solutions. Orbán still holds an advantage on foreign policy, especially on peace and migration. “But we don’t see parties winning elections based on foreign policy,” Bódi said.

$170,000 a minute: why Saudi Arabia is the biggest blocker of climate action

Saudi Arabia vital statistics GDP per capita per annum: $35,230 (global average $14,210) Total annual tonnes CO2: 736m (seventh highest country) CO2 per capita: 22.13 metric tonnes (global average 4.7) Most recent NDC (carbon plan): 2021 Climate plans: critically insufficient Population: 36 million Can you imagine someone giving you $170,000 (£129,000)? What would you buy? Can you imagine getting another $170,000 one minute later? And the handouts then continuing every minute for years? If so, you have a feel for the colossal cash machine that is Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Aramco, the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas last year. That tidal wave of cash keeps the authoritarian kingdom afloat, as it lavishes money on fossil fuel subsidies for its citizens, soft power projects like the football World Cup and mind-boggling construction projects. But it is also why the drive for accelerating climate action, principally getting the world off fossil fuels, is seen as an existential threat to Saudi Arabia: its economy and even its ruling royal family. For decades, Saudi Arabia has fought harder than any other country to block and delay international climate action – a diplomatic “wrecking ball” saying that abandoning fossil fuels is a fantasy. Its opposition has continued in the run-up to the UN Cop30 climate summit in Brazil, yet the country is now also making a whirlwind switch to renewable power at home. In another contradiction, slowing climate action worsens the impacts on a desert kingdom that is extremely vulnerable to global heating and where its 36 million people already contend with conditions “at the verge of livability”. How can these contradictions be understood, and can countries desperate to fight a climate crisis that is already killing a person a minute outflank Saudi obstruction? “The Saudis are not crazy.” says Karim Elgendy, an expert on climate and energy in the Middle East. “But they don’t want to be a failed state.” The point of the spear Saudi Arabia almost killed the global UN climate treaty at birth three decades ago. Negotiations veteran Alden Meyer was in the room at the UN headquarters in New York as the gavel was about to come down on a treaty. “French diplomat Jean Ripert had to ignore the Saudis, and the Kuwaitis, vigorously waving their nameplates in the back of the room, trying to object to adoption of the treaty. He just ignored them and brought down the gavel.” “But that’s something you can only do if it’s a handful of countries,” he says. Since then, Saudi Arabia has taken care to mobilise the Arab group or other major players, and to great effect. “They’ve been the point of the spear in terms of organising the resistance,” says Meyer, at the climate thinktank E3G. An early and pivotal victory for Saudi Arabia and its oil-rich Opec allies was blocking the use of voting to take decisions in UN climate negotiations – voting is common in other UN bodies. Instead, consensus is needed for approval. “This impasse has never been overcome. It gives outsized influence to laggards, which suits Saudi Arabia very well,” a report by the Climate Social Science Network found, with the impasse since “crippling” the talks. Armed with an effective veto, Saudi Arabia has held back climate negotiations ever since by becoming master of the arcane and complicated procedural rules that govern the process, “seeking to ensure it achieves as little as possible, as slowly as possible”, the report said. More than a dozen obstruction tactics have been deployed, from disputing the agendas to claiming that strands of the talks have no mandate to discuss issues it dislikes – such as phasing out fossil fuels – to insisting action to help vulnerable countries adapt to global heating is linked to compensating oil-rich nations for lost sales. Delay is a key aim and, for example, Saudi Arabia strongly opposed any virtual negotiations when Covid shut down the world in 2020. “They are really good at it, absolutely masterful,” says Dr Joanna Depledge at the University of Cambridge. Saudi Arabia also deploys broader arguments: that the big historical emitters, such as the US, Russia and UK, bear the main responsibility for tackling climate change under the terms of the treaty, and that while it sells the oil, helping to fund its development, other nations actually burn it. The Saudi government did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian. ‘Water down, weaken, remove’ In recent years, Saudi climate obstruction has expanded from the climate talks to many international environmental meetings. A plan to cap the production of plastic, supported by more than 100 nations, collapsed in August after opposition by Saudi Arabia and allies, which had also blocked voting in those negotiations A landmark deal for a carbon tax on shipping was stymied in October after Saudi Arabia – backing voting on this occasion – called a successful vote for a postponement, amid bullying by the US. Even at a UN desertification summit hosted by Saudi Arabia itself in 2024, nations failed to agree on a response to drought because the hosts refused to allow any mention of climate in the agreement. This full-spectrum assault on climate action was memorably described by Meyer as a “wrecking ball” last year. “They definitely are still in that mode,” he says. Saudi Arabia has also consistently worked to weaken the influential reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which are signed off by governments, Meyer says, “systematically trying to water down, weaken and remove” mentions of, for example, “net zero”, despite Riyadh having a 2060 net zero target. One startling fact illustrates the success of Saudi obstructionism. It took 28 years of annual UN Cop negotiations for the first mention of fossil fuels in the decision, at the Cop28 summit in Dubai in 2023, sparking an immediate fightback by the Saudis that left that strand of the talks a “debacle”, according to Depledge. The Saudis claimed the agreed “transition away from fossil fuels” was just one option on an “à la carte menu”. Monopolising fossil fuels It’s hard to grasp the scale of what Saudi Arabia is seeking to protect. Aramco was the world’s biggest oil and gas producer in 2024 and the kingdom has the second biggest proven oil reserves in the world (after Venezuela). Its oil is simple to extract, and its ability to quickly ramp up or cut production gives it the greatest influence over the global oil market, which it uses as part of the Opec+ cartel of oil exporters to manipulate the price of oil. It costs just $2 to get a barrelful of oil out of the ground, Aramco’s chief executive, Amin Nasser, said in October, but that barrel has been selling for between $60 and $80 over the last year. The extraordinary profit margin meant that Aramco banked $250m of profit every day from 2016 to 2023, making it the world’s most profitable company over that period. “Saudi Arabia wants to prevent a strong global response to climate change because they see that as really threatening their economy, for reasons that are pretty damn obvious,” says Depledge. “Saudi Arabia depends on fossil exports for national survival [and] the regime regards the prospect of a green energy transition as an existential threat,” says historian Nils Gilman, writing recently in Foreign Policy. “The House of Saud uses its oil rents to finance both its domestic social order and its international influence.” For example, Saudi Arabia spent more on fossil fuel subsidies, keeping energy cheap for its subjects, than it did on its national health budget in 2023. “Its ambition is not to phase out fossil fuels, but to monopolise them as global supply tightens,” Gilman says, leaving Aramco as the last man standing. In 2024, Aramco had the largest near-term expansion plans for oil and gas production of any company in the world, 60% of which could not be burned in a 1.5C climate scenario. Aramco declined to comment. Saudi Arabia is also working to ensure it keeps a steady flow of customers, even as rich nations decarbonise. The Guardian reported in 2023 the revelation of an “oil demand sustainability programme”, a huge global investment plan to spur demand for its oil and gas in Africa and elsewhere. Critics said the plan was designed to get countries “hooked on its harmful products”, driving up the use of fossil fuel-powered cars, buses and planes. Saudi’s oil cash makes up 60% of its government budget, although that is down from 90% a decade ago, as it seeks to diversify its economy away from oil through its Vision 2030 plan. That is a trillion-dollar project – from the $500bn futuristic city Neom to a desert-defying but troubled ski resort for the 2029 Asian Winter Games – but it faces a problem. In order to balance its budget, Saudi Arabia needs an oil price of $96 a barrel, according to Bloomberg Economics. “The core aim of Vision 2030 is to cut oil dependence,” says Ziad Daoud, chief emerging markets economist at Bloomberg. Yet “the kingdom has become more reliant on oil”. ‘Saudi Arabia wants to be a green country’ Karim Elgendy, the head of the Carboun Institute, the Middle East’s first independent climate and energy thinktank, says the apparent contradictions in Saudi oil policy around oil can be unravelled by seeing the current strategy as a three-point plan. The kingdom has always wanted to maintain its oil income, he says: “But Saudi Arabia realised around [2021] or so that the momentum behind the [green] energy transition is now unstoppable. Since then, the strategy has changed and the approach is now more of a trident.” “The first element of it is slowing down the global transition,” he says. “The second is decarbonising internally. It has found out that new [electricity] capacity is generated much, much cheaper by solar and wind.” This decarbonisation is the role of the Saudi Green Initiative, which is pushing towards half of electricity capacity being renewable by 2030 and a “flourishing” electric vehicle industry. Usefully, it also slashes Saudi Arabia’s enormous use of oil domestically – the fourth biggest in the world – meaning billions of dollars worth of more oil for export. As transport expert Anvita Arora at the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (Kapsarc) put it in 2022: “If we keep consuming our own oil, we won’t have any oil left to sell.” “The third element,” says Elgendy, “is to export every barrel, every molecule, of oil as fast as possible to fund the very thing Saudi Arabia wants to be in the future: diversified and decarbonised.” In essence, it is a race: Saudi Arabia is trying to sell enough oil to fund its transition from a petrostate before the world stops buying. “Saudi Arabia wants to be a green country,” he says. “It wants to be a player in the climate economy that is currently being forged, but it can only do so with the money that it is currently making from fossil fuel sales.” “At the moment, it is a rentier economy and the transition period is where it’s most at risk,” Elgendy says. “The goal is to shorten that period as much as possible, to shorten the darkness.” The kingdom is also pushing the idea of a “carbon circular economy”, founded on the argument it often makes that oil is not the “devil” – it’s the emissions that are the climate danger. “They’ve been trying to play up carbon capture and storage (CCS), which could allow you to reduce emissions while continuing to use their product,” says Meyer. “But of course, the reality is that CCS is nowhere ready at scale to meet any substantial share of the emissions reductions needed.” Overall, Saudi Arabia’s national climate action is judged as “critically insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker, or at best “at the drawing board stage” by another analysis. ‘The verge of livability’ So what is the impact of global heating on the people in the desert kingdom itself? A Guardian analysis of more than a dozen recent scientific studies shows the climate crisis has already arrived and the outlook is daunting. “Saudi Arabia’s environmental parameters are already at the verge of livability,” a report by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust) and Kapsarc said in 2023. It is one of the hottest and most water-stressed countries on Earth. The report examined the consequences of a 3C hotter world for the kingdom – the world is on track to hit that by about 2100 – and found it would have “profound implications on the future viability of a sustainable and healthy society, and will likely manifest an existential crisis to Saudi Arabia”. But the country is already feeling the heat. The average temperature rose by 2.2C between 1979 and 2019, almost three times faster than the global rate, and even faster in Riyadh and Mecca, as the dry land of the Arabian peninsula was superheated by the climate crisis. The sun-scorched summers are worse – the temperature rose by 2.6C over those four decades. Saudi Arabia’s most important event – the hajj – has already been hit by extreme heat, with at least 1,300 Muslim pilgrims dying in a heatwave in 2024. The future could be much worse: the worst-case scenario for Saudi Arabia is apocalyptic: “ultra-extreme heatwaves” with temperatures up to 56C or higher and lasting several weeks, with summers an average 9C hotter. Even if carbon emissions are sharply cut and global temperature rise is limited to 2C, Saudi Arabia could have a 13-fold increase in heat-related death rates. This rises to a 63-fold increase in the worst-case scenario. Coastal cities such as Jeddah and Dammam face the additional risk of humid heat, which is even deadlier than dry heat, as it hinders cooling of the body through sweating. Drought is one of the biggest concerns, but too much water in the form of flash floods is already an increasing and deadly reality in Saudi Arabia, where more than 80% of people live in cities. “All major cities are vulnerable to flash floods,” said the Kaust-Kapsarc report. “Riyadh has witnessed more than 10 flood events in the past 30 years, which have claimed over 160 human lives and caused substantial socioeconomic losses.” Sea levels are inexorably rising and the UN chief, António Guterres, has pointed out the “grim irony” of this being set to overwhelm coastal oil terminals, including the ports of Ras Tanura and Yanbu, operated by Aramco and used to transport 98% of the country’s oil exports, worth $214bn in 2023. Saudi Arabia’s enormous wealth means it has options not available to poorer nations, such as air conditioning and desalination of seawater. But, if these continue to be powered by fossil fuels, they create a vicious circle. “The insatiable energy appetite of modern cities drives further pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, amplifying the very conditions we seek to safeguard against,” said the Kaust-Kapsarc report. “At some point, the question will be: can they adapt to the impacts of climate change when it’s physically threatening to go outside your house for any period of time?” says Meyer. Collateral damage The problem with Saudi Arabia’s delaying tactics is that they cause collateral damage. “Delaying a fossil fuel phaseout only spells more death and destruction across the planet,” says Nikki Reisch at the Center for International Environmental Law in the US. “While Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states pursue plans to wean themselves off the fossil fuels they push on the rest of the world, nobody can escape the climate impacts that their products unleash – including their own populations.” This week, Inger Andersen, head of the UN Environment Programme, said: “Every fraction of a degree avoided is crucial to reduce an escalation of the climate impacts that are harming all nations.” In the run-up to Cop30, it seems little has changed, with Saudi diplomats again reacting negatively to statements backing the “transition” away from fossil fuels agreed by all at Cop28 in 2023. In recent years, groups of nations determined to act have got together outside the UN process to push progress on, for example, renewables, coal and forests: “You have seen more efforts to do ‘coalitions of the willing’ that don’t require consensus decision-making,” says Meyer. “That’s harder for the Saudis to block.” Changing how UN climate summits themselves operate would be extremely difficult, but experts led by Depledge have suggested implementing voting based on a supermajority of seven-eighths of nations: “This would capture overwhelming support across the globe, while sidelining a tiny minority of obstructors.” One way to speed up the negotiations, they said, would be to sanction repeat procedural blockers, “just as delaying tactics in football can see offenders receive a yellow card”. They also argued that obstructionism should be taken into account when deciding who pays the money needed to help poorer countries recover from climate catastrophes: “Deliberate delay inside the UN climate talks is as bad as continuing to pump emissions into the atmosphere. Doing both – as Saudi Arabia does – is even worse.”