Eric Usher, head of UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative at the organisation's Global Roundtable, 10 December 2024. (Geneva Solutions)

Wealthy nations refuse to foot the climate bill. Can a UN-private sector initiative help bridge the gap? Two weeks after climate talks in Baku ended with a new climate finance target that fell short of demands, a UN initiative working with private financial institutions convened in Geneva. Its role in shoring up the funding gap is expected to become more relevant than ever.

🇸🇾SYRIA’S POLITICAL FUTURE. One week after the toppling of the Assad regime, foreign powers are beginning to establish contact with Syria’s new leaders, with Turkey reopening its embassy in Damascus for the first time in 12 years. France is also sending a diplomatic mission tomorrow after over a decade of suspended relations.

The UN isn't waiting around either to begin work with the new leadership. The UN envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, arrived in Damascus yesterday, bringing his call for an inclusive political transition. He was expected to meet the authorities and civil society.

📖Read our last reporting: UN Syria envoy calls for ‘inclusive’ transition or else risk of new conflict

Just before the Assad regime was overthrown, Pedersen had called for urgent political talks in Geneva. Plans to bring any Syrian actors to Geneva seem to have been set aside for now as the UN official works out how to engage with this new power configuration.

Humanitarian needs. From the Syrian capital, the Norwegian diplomat called for increased humanitarian aid and for Western sanctions to be lifted to help speed up the reconstruction of Syria. Other aid groups have also been eager to expand their operations in Syria to provide aid but also help address the burden of decades of repression.

That includes the ICRC, which is working to help tens of thousands of families track their missing loved ones across Syria’s secretive detention network, recently mapped out by a UN investigative body.

Hurdles. However, the chaos and the lack of clear governance structure have made it difficult for the organisations to “identify channels” of communication, said Stephan Sakalian, ICRC head of delegation for Syria, speaking from Damascus.

🎣TRADE CORNER. Many hoped a trade deal to curb harmful subsidies to protect the world’s depleting fish populations would finally be struck this week. But they might have to wait another year after a gridlock pitting India and Indonesia against nearly all of the rest of World Trade Organization members persisted last week.

The chair of the talks, Iceland ambassador Einar Gunnarsson, pulled the issue from the agenda at the last minute: “Save for any last-minute solution, it seems to me that…the negotiations have reached a stalemate even though nearly all members can support the current text as a basis for conclusion.”

WTO members are holding the last General Council meeting of the year on Monday and Tuesday, where they will review progress in a number of ongoing negotiations.

The problem? India, which has been repeatedly accused of holding the talks hostage, has submitted several new proposals in recent months that would unravel much of the consensus around the current draft agreement on the table. The latest came as late as 5 December, with a proposal to calculate subsidies per fisher rather than as a total under the argument that its subsidies, though massive, are distributed among millions of small-scale fishermen.

“The balancing measures so strongly requested by a couple of members would clearly unbalance the text for a large group of members,” said Gunnarsson.

Megan Jungwiwattanaporn, officer at the Pew Charitable Trusts, expressed her disappointment at the decision: “These rules would have provided additional benefits to fishers in coastal communities whose livelihoods and food security are impacted by depleted fish stocks.”

– By Michelle Langrand

(Keystone/Salvatore Di Nolfi)

On Friday, activists from the Ukrainian feminist group Femen vandalised Geneva’s iconic Broken Chair, a symbol of the fight against landmines. The monument, which is in front of the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva, now bears the marks of a chainsaw and graffiti.

Supporters of the activists said on X that their actions were in protest of the “hypocrisy of the UN” for allowing Russia to remain in the Security Council in New York, despite its invasion of Ukraine. Four individuals were arrested following the incident, Léman Bleu reported. The Geneva-based NGO Handicap International, which commissioned the art piece, told the Swiss network it would file a complaint.