What Happens When You Put a Fossil Fuel Exec in Charge of Solving Climate Change

For a taste of the United Arab Emirates, try the cappuccino at Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace hotel. At around $25, it’s a quality cup of coffee, but the gold flakes that come sprinkled on top are its primary selling point. Every turn in the Palace, one of the most expensive hotels ever built, radiates opulence: marble from floor to ceiling, more than 1,000 crystal chandeliers, gold trim, and a choice of Michelin-starred restaurants on site.

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Just across the street is the source of the immense wealth that created this place, and transformed the UAE from a desolate patch of desert to a country with a higher GDP per capita (adjusted for purchasing power) than the U.S.: the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, or ADNOC. In contrast to the lavish hotel, the glass skyscraper is polished but efficient, the offices corporate, almost austere. Employees and visitors dress modestly, following the 13-page dress-code manual I received ahead of my visit.

I traveled to Abu Dhabi in late October, not to sip gilded cappuccinos, but to interview Sultan Al Jaber, the Ph.D. economist turned renewable-­energy executive turned ADNOC CEO, who is presiding over the U.N. climate conference to be held in Dubai in December. The conference, known as COP28, comes as, at the close of the hottest year on record, scientific consensus demands that we cut fossil-fuel use right now. At the same time, money continues to flow into fossil fuels; more than $1 trillion in new funding was invested this year alone, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Al Jaber, as the head of both COP28 and one of the world’s largest fossil-fuel companies, is tasked with reconciling those realities. Sitting in a meeting room at the Emirates Palace hotel dressed in the traditional white thobe and sneakers, he is both a target for criticism and a symbol of possibility. “A phasedown of fossil fuels is inevitable, it is essential,” he tells me. “We have to accept that.” At the same time, he says, the world is not ready to entirely kick oil and gas. “We need to get real,” he says. “We cannot unplug the world from the current energy system before we build a new energy system.”

Most years, the COP president plays a largely functionary role, shuttling between member countries to find common ground on wonky areas of climate policy. Al Jaber has taken a very different approach. He has extended an invitation to oil and gas companies and prioritized private-sector climate solutions. In Al Jaber’s view, the success of COP28, not to mention the broader efforts to fight climate change, hinges as much on embracing the private sector and shifting market conditions as it does on wonky negotiations. “There’s going to be a paradigm shift,” he says. “The political process needs to be well complemented with private capital and a business mindset.”

Success is far from assured. A “business mindset” doesn’t necessarily map well onto diplomatic negotiations between 200 countries. And companies—especially those in the oil and gas business—do not have a great track record of following through on climate commitments. Critics from Greta Thunberg to Al Gore say Al Jaber is just a stalking horse for the fossil-fuel industry’s continuing efforts to stall the global climate agenda. Al Jaber says he’s uniquely positioned to reconcile the many interests in the climate fight.

That debate will define the coming COP summit. We need to begin to phase out oil and gas while managing the ­continued dependence of our economic system on fossil fuels. Al Jaber’s not wrong that that requires cold-eyed realism, but no one knows where his version of realism will lead. In Abu Dhabi, I sat down with John Kerry, the former U.S. Secretary of State now serving as President Biden’s climate envoy. He has been supportive of Al Jaber from the beginning, but acknowledges the difficulties. “It may or may not work,” says Kerry. “Some might call it an experiment to have an oil-and-gas-­producing entity host COP. That’s the big question.”

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Looking out the window of the Bell 412 helicopter ferrying me out of Abu Dhabi, I get a glimpse of the classic vision of the Arabian Desert: a sea of wavy sand dunes stretching as far as the eye can see. Visible through the other window is a science-­fiction-like array of solar panels, covering an area larger than Manhattan. Tracing the border of the solar park, we descend to get a closer look at the nearly 900-ft. tower loaded with molten salt that absorbs and stores the energy from the 70,000 mirrors that surround it.

Al Jaber’s team arranged the ride to Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, among the world’s largest, to showcase the UAE’s climate work. As impressive as the solar farm is, I’m just as intrigued by the ride to the site. We lift off from a helipad in Abu Dhabi, getting a stunning, if brief, view of the skyscrapers that have emerged from the desert that 60 years ago was an impoverished community suffering from the decline of the pearl-diving trade. From there, we fly over the Persian Gulf, where I can spot some of the UAE’s offshore oil rigs in the distance, contributing to the nearly 3 million barrels of oil the country produces every day.

Read more: Why Renewables Are Key to COP28 Success

Al Jaber is at the center of this energy ecosystem. At age 50, the bespectacled executive runs ADNOC and serves as the chairman of Masdar, the state-owned company he co-founded that now operates renewable-­energy projects in over 40 countries. When we sit down, he addresses me warmly, and jumps right into his résumé. He was appointed to run ADNOC in 2016, he says, months after the world had inked the Paris Agreement, in part to “future-proof” the business amid the global transition away from fossil fuels. “They wanted a smart, progressive disruption,” he says.

Progressive is a relative term. Al Jaber hasn’t committed ADNOC to cutting its oil production, nor has he charted a path for it to become a renewables company. Instead, the company is investing more than $150 billion on growth projects, including expanding its crude-oil production capacity to 5 million barrels per day by 2030. A fraction of that money, $15 billion, is dedicated to reducing the emissions that oil extraction will generate. That said, it has led to some improvement: Offshore oil rigs now run on electricity, and digital tools allow the company to map areas where energy is wasted. And the company has begun building big-budget carbon-­capture projects.

As COP28 chief, he has called on other oil companies to come to Dubai with similar commitments to crack down on leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and to decarbonize their own operations. “If it wasn’t for what I’ve been able to do, and demonstrate to everybody in this industry, I wouldn’t be in a position to ­convince them,” he says. The conversations haven’t been easy, with some state-owned oil companies in particular resisting aggressive proposals.

Al Jaber describes his approach as “realism.” Oil is in high demand, and even in the most aggressive decarbonization scenarios, we will still need some supply by the middle of the century. He argues it’s best that whatever oil we use has the lowest carbon content available. That’s especially important in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, where oil is so cheap that it will likely remain in the global energy mix longer than oil from anywhere else.

Decarbonizing oil and gas is certainly insufficient, and some argue that it represents a fig leaf for the industry. The sector’s operations represent 15% of global energy-­related emissions, but the real problem is the product they’re selling. In September, a U.N. assessment stated that “phasing out all unabated fossil fuels” would be “indispensable” to keeping the Paris Agreement goals within reach.

So it’s unsurprising that the criticism of Al Jaber, as a leader of a fossil-fuel company, has been unrelenting. More than 100 members of the European Parliament and the U.S. Congress declared in May that Al Jaber had “severely jeopardized” the COP process and called on him to resign. This summer, Gore said in a TED talk that fossil-­fuel interests “have brazenly seized control of the COP process.” Of Al Jaber, Gore said, “He’s a nice guy. He’s a smart guy. But a conflict of interest is a conflict of interest.”

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To paraphrase Al Jaber, let’s get real for a minute. Is an oil and gas CEO from a petrostate the ideal candidate to lead a transition away from fossil fuels? The concerns are legitimate, to say the least. But to see Al Jaber as an agent for resurgent fossil-fuel companies misses the context. Since COVID-19, markets have revalued fossil fuels. The war in Ukraine led some climate champions to call for more oil drilling and gas infrastructure to combat Russia. President Biden’s signature climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, provides a lifeline to oil companies via subsidies for a range of industry-­friendly ­technologies like hydrogen, geothermal, and carbon dioxide removal. Of the latter, Occidental Petroleum CEO Vicki Hollub told an industry conference earlier this year, “This gives our industry a license to continue to operate for the 60, 70, 80 years that I think it’s going to be very much needed.”

Read more: Major Oil Deals Can’t Stop The Green Transition

The reality of a thriving oil industry at this critical juncture has thrust the climate movement into a search for new strategies to decarbonize. The activist group 350.org, which rose to prominence opposing oil pipelines, has shifted strategies “to unite around the banner of advancing solutions, not just fighting,” says executive director May Boeve. That means advocating for renewable energy, in hopes that will push fossil fuels out of the mix. A group of more than 130 corporations including the likes of Ikea and eBay signed on to a letter lobbying policy­makers “to phase out the use and production of fossil fuels,” an initiative that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago. “When you talk to the industry, they say, well, the demand is still there,” says María Mendiluce, the head of the We Mean Business Coalition, which organized the letter. “We’re mobilizing to show that actually demand is in decline.”

COP28 negotiators so far seem to agree on one part of this question: they’ve found common ground with a commitment to triple renewable-­energy capacity. But the talks over an agreement for countries to phase down fossil fuels have not found similar consensus.

Al Jaber recognizes the gap. His strategy to overcome it has characteristically focused on changing the economic math to make clean energy a better investment. He has tried to galvanize everyone from the utility industry to private finance, pushing to get money flowing. And he has given renewable-­energy companies a center-stage role and elevated their concerns, like permitting reform and redesigning power markets.

In a bit of symbolism, when he visited New York City for the U.N. General Assembly in September, he left the confines of midtown Manhattan, where ministers and government ­officials hole up for days, to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. “What’s good for the merchants is good for Dubai,” said Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, one of the UAE’s founding fathers. Al Jaber, it seems, is bringing the same approach to climate. On the road over the past year, he has met business leaders like Mike Bloomberg in addition to political leaders like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and religious leaders like Pope Francis.

For all his diplomacy, he does resent the personal criticism. “You asked me, is it fair? It is absolutely not fair,” he tells me, pausing to wave off aides telling him that we had run out of time. “My whole track record and my experience have been centered around ­sustainability, economic diversification, project management, and delivery.”

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A key question going into COP28 is whether other market players will come along. Two days after my interview with Al Jaber, I sat down with Kerry in the Palace’s cavernous lunch hall as climate and energy ministers from around the world milled about the room. Just as Kerry launched into his take on how inflation has affected climate action, we heard someone shouting, “John! John!”

It was Abdulaziz Bin Salman al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister and half-brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Kerry obliquely asked for confirmation that the kingdom was on board for some undisclosed part of the talks: “My good friend,” Kerry said, “you guaranteed us, correct?” Abdul­aziz replied, to laughter among those around us, “It depends…”

Behind the scenes it has been clear the Saudis are key to Al Jaber’s success or failure in reconciling the diverging needs of the climate crisis and the fossil-­fuel industry. The country has the world’s second largest oil reserves and has historically worked to protect its fossil-fuel economy in climate negotiations. “The extent to which there is any ambition depends on whether Saudi Aramco thinks it’s a good thing,” says one official with knowledge of the discussions among oil and gas companies, referring to the Saudi national oil company.

Big oil producers are not the only obstacle to broad agreement at COP28. The U.S. and Europe have historically resisted measures that might hold them liable for the costs of their emissions. India and China have historically resisted demands to phase out coal. In theory, the UAE is well positioned to bridge some of these gaps, thanks to good relations with nearly all players. “The time has come for us to capitalize on our expertise gained over the years, the relationships we’ve created,” says Al Jaber.

Read more: How the Inflation Reduction Act Has Reshaped the U.S.—and The World

The officials closest to talks largely view Al Jaber as a good-faith actor. “I believe that he’s fully committed,” says Maros Sefcovic, the official overseeing climate policy in the European Union. “They have an unimaginable challenge ahead of them,” says Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, “but our expectations are high.”

That doesn’t mean that COP28 will be a success. Al Jaber’s business-­minded approach has led to a series of confounding decisions. He cycled through PR firms. He has relied on McKinsey for guidance, despite the firm’s lack of expertise navigating delicate climate talks. And he spent months on a listening tour, which some say set back negotiations.

Upon returning home from Abu Dhabi, I reflected on the question being asked widely in the climate community: “Is he legit?” Despite all the awkwardness of his position, I find him to be consistent. Realism to Al Jaber means accepting that a move away from fossil fuels will happen only when the economics change. In the meantime, there’s profit for him to make in oil. For all our sake, let’s hope that changes soon.

—With reporting by Julia ­Zorthian

source https://time.com/6335225/sultan-al-jaber-cop28-interview/

Climate Change is Hitting Every Part of Americans’ Daily Lives, Major Report Warns

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Revved-up climate change now permeates Americans’ daily lives with harm that is “already far-reaching and worsening across every region of the United States,” a massive new government report says.

The National Climate Assessment, which comes out every four to five years, was released Tuesday with details that bring climate change’s impacts down to a local level.

Overall, it paints a picture of a country warming about 60% faster than the world as a whole, one that regularly gets smacked with costly weather disasters and faces even bigger problems in the future.

Since 1970, the Lower 48 states have warmed by 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) and Alaska has heated up by 4.2 degrees (2.3 degrees Celsius), compared to the global average of 1.7 degrees (0.9 degrees Celsius), the report said. But what people really feel is not the averages, but when weather is extreme.

With heat waves, drought, wildfire and heavy downpours, “we are seeing an acceleration of the impacts of climate change in the United States,” said study co-author Zeke Hausfather of the tech company Stripe and Berkeley Earth.

And that’s not healthy.

Climate change is “harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security,” the report said.

Compared to earlier national assessments, this year’s uses far stronger language and “unequivocally” blames the burning of coal, oil and gas for climate change.

Read more: How Psychology Can Help Fight Climate Change—And Climate Anxiety

The 37-chapter assessment includes an interactive atlas that zooms down to the county level. It finds that climate change is affecting people’s security, health and livelihoods in every corner of the country in different ways, with minority and Native American communities often disproportionately at risk.

In Alaska, which is warming two to three times faster than the global average, reduced snowpack, shrinking glaciers, thawing permafrost, acidifying oceans and disappearing sea ice have affected everything from the state’s growing season, to hunting and fishing, with projections raising questions about whether some Indigenous communities should be relocated.

The Southwest is experiencing more drought and extreme heat – including 31 consecutive days this summer when Phoenix’s daily high temperatures reached or exceeded 110 degrees – reducing water supplies and increasing wildfire risk.

Northeastern cities are seeing more extreme heat, flooding and poor air quality, as well as risks to infrastructure, while drought and floods exacerbated by climate change threaten farming and ecosystems in rural areas.

In the Midwest, both extreme drought and flooding threaten crops and animal production, which can affect the global food supply.

In the northern Great Plains, weather extremes like drought and flooding, as well as declining water resources, threaten an economy dependent largely on crops, cattle, energy production and recreation. Meanwhile, water shortages in parts of the southern Great Plains are projected to worsen, while high temperatures are expected to break records in all three states by midcentury.

In the Southeast, minority and Native American communities — who may live in areas with higher exposures to extreme heat, pollution and flooding — have fewer resources to prepare for or to escape the effects of climate change.

In the Northwest, hotter days and nights that don’t cool down much have resulted in drier streams and less snowpack, leading to increased risk of drought and wildfires. The climate disturbance has also brought damaging extreme rain.

Hawaii and other Pacific islands, as well as the U.S. Caribbean, are increasingly vulnerable to the extremes of drought and heavy rain as well as sea level rise and natural disaster as temperatures warm.

Brown University climate scientist Kim Cobb, who wasn’t part of the assessment team, said, “at the center of the report are people — across every region of the country – who have escalating risks associated with climate change as well as clear opportunities for win-win climate action.”

The United States will warm in the future about 40% more than the world as a total, the assessment said. The AP calculated, using others’ global projections, that would slate America to get about 3.8 degrees (2.1 degrees Celsius) hotter by the end of the century.

Hotter average temperatures means weather that is even more extreme.

“The news is not good, but it is also not surprising,” said University of Colorado’s Waleed Abdalati, a former NASA chief scientist who was not part of this report. “What we are seeing is a manifestation of changes that were anticipated over the last few decades.”

The 2,200-page report comes after five straight months when the globe set monthly and daily heat records. It comes as the U.S. has set a record with 25 different weather disasters this year that caused at least $1 billion in damage.

“Climate change is finally moving from an abstract future issue to a present, concrete, relevant issue. It’s happening right now,” said report lead author Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy and a professor at Texas Tech University. Five years ago, when the last assessment was issued, fewer people were experiencing climate change firsthand.

Surveys this year by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research show that.

In September, about 9 in 10 Americans (87%) said they’d experienced at least one extreme weather event in the past five years — drought, extreme heat, severe storms, wildfires or flooding. That was up from 79% who said that in April.

Hayhoe said there’s also a new emphasis in the assessment on marginalized communities.

“It is less a matter … of what hits where, but more what hits whom and how well those people can manage the impacts,” said University of Colorado’s Abdalati, whose saw much of his neighborhood destroyed in the 2021 Marshall wildfire.

Biden administration officials emphasize that all is not lost and the report details actions to reduce emissions and adapt to what’s coming.

Americans on every level of government are “stepping up to meet this moment,” said White House science adviser Arati Prabhakar. “All of these actions, taken together, give us hope because they tell us that we can do big things at the scale that’s required, at the scale that the climate actually notices.”

By cleaning up industry, how electricity is made and how transport is powered, climate change can be dramatically reduced. Hausfather said when emissions stops, warming stops, “so we can stop this acceleration if we as a society get our act together.”

But some scientists said parts of the assessment are too optimistic.

“The report’s rosy graphics and outlook obscure the dangers approaching,” Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson said. “We are not prepared for what’s coming.”

source https://time.com/6334843/national-climate-assessment-american-daily-lives-impacted/

Apart From EV Sales, World Is Failing To Keep Key Climate Goals on Track

The world is off track in its efforts to curb global warming in 41 of 42 important measurements and is even heading in the wrong direction in six crucial ways, a new international report calculates.

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The only bright spot is that global sales of electric passenger vehicles are now on track to match what’s needed — along with many other changes — to limit future warming to just another couple tenths of a degree, according to the State of Climate Action report released Tuesday by the World Resources Institute, Climate Action Tracker, the Bezos Earth Fund and others.

On the flip side, public money spent to create more fossil fuel use is going in the wrong direction and faster than it has in the past, said study co-author Kelly Levin, science and data director at the Bezos Earth Fund.

“This is not the time for tinkering around the edges, but it’s instead the time for radical decarbonization of all sectors of the economy,” Levin said.

“We are woefully off track and we are seeing the impact of inaction unfold around the world from extensive wildfire fires in Canada, heat-related deaths across the Mediterranean, record high temperatures in South Asia and so on,” she said.

Read more: Why Renewables Are Key to COP28 Success

Later this month, crucial international climate negotiations start in Dubai that include the first time world negotiators will do a global stocktake on how close society is to meeting its 2015 climate goals. In advance of the United Nations summit, numerous reports from experts are coming out assessing Earth’s progress or mostly the lack of it, including a United States national assessment with hundreds of indicators. Tuesday’s 42 indicators offers one of the grimmest report cards, detailing multiple failures of society.

The report looks at what’s needed in several sectors of the global economy — power, transportation, buildings, industry, finance and forestry — to fit in a world that limits warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times, the goal the world adopted at Paris in 2015. The globe has already warmed about 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the mid 19th century.

Six categories — the carbon intensity of global steel production, how many miles passenger cars drive, electric buses sold, loss of mangrove forests, amount of food waste and public financing of fossil fuel use — are going in the wrong direction, the report said.

“Fossil fuel consumption subsidies in particular reached an all-time high last year, over $1 trillion, driven by the war in Ukraine and the resulting energy price spikes,” said report co-author Joe Thwaites of the Natural Resources Defense Council environmental group.

Read more: We Need Geoengineering to Stop Out of Control Warming, Warns Climate Scientist James Hansen

Another six categories were considered “off track” but going in the right direction, which is the closest to being on track and better than the 24 measurements that are “well off track.” Those merely off track include zero-carbon electricity generation, electric vehicles as percentage of the fleet, two- and three-wheel electric vehicle sales, grazing animal meat production, reforestation and share of greenhouse gas emissions with mandatory corporate climate risk reporting requirements.

People should be worried that this report is one of “too little, too late,” said University of Arizona climate scientist Katharine Jacobs, who wasn’t part of the report but praised it for being so comprehensive.

“I am not shocked that at a global scale we are not meeting expectations for reducing emissions,” Jacobs said in an email. “We cannot ignore the fact that global commitments to (greenhouse gas) reductions are essentially unenforceable and that a number of major setbacks have taken a toll on our progress.”

When trying to change an economy, the key is to start with “low-hanging fruit, i.e., the sectors of the economy that are easiest to transition and give a big bang for your buck,” said Dartmouth climate scientist Justin Mankin, who isn’t part of the report. But he said the report shows “we’re really struggling to pick the low-hanging fruit.”

source https://time.com/6334834/world-failing-to-keep-climate-goals-on-track/

How War in the Middle East Got the British Home Secretary Fired

Suella Braverman, the controversial Home Secretary in British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s cabinet, was fired after making divisive comments about pro-Palestine protesters.

The Nov. 13 announcement came after Braverman wrote an article in the Times of London last week in which she claimed that police were “playing favorites” and not enforcing the law when it came to pro-Palestine protests in London and referred to protestors as “hate marchers.” Braverman reportedly denied a request from the office of the Prime Minister to tone down the article. She will be replaced by James Cleverly, who had been foreign secretary. Former Prime Minister David Cameron will now become foreign secretary.

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This isn’t the first time Braverman’s unfiltered way of speaking has gotten her in trouble. She has referred to the UK’s migrant crisis as “an invasion” and homelessness as a “life choice.” She was forced to resign from her position as Home Secretary once before in October 2022, when she was discovered to have shared confidential documents with a member of parliament. She was reinstated as Home Secretary just one week later when Sunak took over after then-Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned. 

The Home Secretary is one of the most senior and influential positions in British politics, responsible for ensuring the safety of British citizens and overseeing matters of national security, immigration, and law enforcement.

source https://time.com/6334442/suella-braverman-fired-home-secretary-palestine/

Secret Service Agents Protecting Biden’s Granddaughter Open Fire When 3 People Try to Break into SUV

WASHINGTON — Secret Service agents protecting President Joe Biden’s granddaughter opened fire after three people tried to break into an unmarked Secret Service vehicle in the nation’s capital, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

The agents, assigned to protect Naomi Biden, were out with her in the Georgetown neighborhood late Sunday night when they saw the three people breaking a window of the parked and unoccupied SUV, the official said. The official could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on Monday on the condition of anonymity.

One of the agents opened fire, but no one was struck by the gunfire, the Secret Service said in a statement. The three people were seen fleeing in a red car, and the Secret Service said it put out a regional bulletin to Metropolitan Police to be on the lookout for it.

Washington has seen a significant rise in the number of carjackings and car thefts this year. Police have reported more than 750 carjackings this year and more than 6,000 reports of stolen vehicles in the district. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas was carjacked near the Capitol last month by three armed assailants, who stole his car but didn’t physically harm him.

Violent crime in Washington has also been on the rise this year, up more than 40% compared with last year. In February, U.S. Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota was assaulted in her apartment building, suffering bruises while escaping serious injury.

source https://time.com/6334353/secret-service-agents-protecting-bidens-granddaughter-open-fire/

Former Prime Minister David Cameron Returns to U.K. Government as Foreign Secretary

LONDON—Former British Prime Minister David Cameron made a shock return to high office on Monday, becoming foreign secretary in a major shakeup of the Conservative government that also saw the firing of divisive Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

Cameron, who led the government between 2010 and 2016, was appointed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in a Cabinet shuffle in which he sacked Braverman, a divisive figure who drew anger for accusing police of being too lenient with pro-Palestinian protesters.

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She was replaced by James Cleverly, who had been foreign secretary.

Cameron’s appointment came as a surprise to seasoned politics watchers. It’s rare for a non-lawmaker to take a senior government post, and it has been decades since a former prime minister held a Cabinet job.

The government said Cameron will be appointed to Parliament’s unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords. The last foreign secretary to serve in the Lords, rather than the elected House of Commons, was Peter Carrington, who was part of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government in the 1980s.

It marks the return to government of a leader brought down by Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. Cameron called the 2016 EU membership referendum, confident the country would vote to stay in the bloc. He resigned the day after voters opted to leave.

Sunak was a strong backer of the winning “leave” side in the referendum.

Braverman’s exit was less surprising. Sunak had been under growing pressure to fire Braverman — a hard-liner popular with the authoritarian wing of the governing Conservative Party — from one of the most senior jobs in government, responsible for handling immigration and policing.

In a highly unusual attack on the police last week, Braverman said London’s police force was ignoring lawbreaking by “pro-Palestinian mobs.” She described demonstrators calling for a cease-fire in Gaza as “hate marchers.”

On Saturday, far-right protesters scuffled with police and tried to confront a large pro-Palestinian march by hundreds of thousands through the streets of London. Critics accused Braverman of helping to inflame tensions.

Last week Braverman wrote an article for the Times of London in which she said police “play favorites when it comes to protesters” and acted more leniently toward pro-Palestinian demonstrators and Black Lives Matter supporters than to right-wing protesters or soccer hooligans.

The article was not approved in advance by the prime minister’s office, as would usually be the case.

Braverman said Monday “it has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve as home secretary,” adding that she would “have more to say in due course.”

Braverman, a 43-year-old lawyer, has become a leader of the party’s populist wing by advocating ever-tougher curbs on migration and a war on human rights protections, liberal social values and what she has called the “tofu-eating wokerati.”

Last month she called migration a “hurricane” that would bring “millions more immigrants to these shores, uncontrolled and unmanageable.”

As home secretary Braverman championed the government’s stalled plan to send asylum-seekers who arrive in Britain in boats on a one-way trip to Rwanda. A U.K. Supreme Court ruling on whether the policy is legal is due on Wednesday.

Critics say Braverman has been building her profile to position herself for a party leadership contest that could come if the Conservatives lose power in an election expected next year. Opinion polls for months have put the party 15 to 20 points behind the opposition Labour Party.

source https://time.com/6334294/david-cameron-uk-foreign-secretary/

Everything Secretary of State Antony Blinken Has Said About the Israel-Hamas War

Following Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and Israel’s decision to launch an assault against Hamas in Gaza, global eyes have been on the U.S. to see the role Israel’s most powerful ally will play in the ongoing conflict.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been walking a diplomatic tightrope as Israel faces growing public pressure to call for a ceasefire. On Nov. 5, Blinken traveled to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The two politicians reportedly discussed how to ease civilian suffering in the Gaza Strip

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Hamas killed 1,200 people in its Oct. 7 attack, a death toll the Israeli government revised from around 1,400. Hamas is still reportedly holding more than 200 hostages. Meanwhile, Israeli bombing of Gaza over the past month has reportedly killed more than 11,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

As the conflict continues to escalate, here’s everything Blinken has said about the Israel-Hamas war.

Blinken condemns Hamas attacks

On the day of Hamas’ unprecedented assault against Israel, Blinken made his stance known in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

“We unequivocally condemn the appalling attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israel,” he wrote. “We stand in solidarity with the government and people of Israel and extend our condolences for the Israeli lives lost in these attacks.”

We unequivocally condemn the appalling attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israel. We stand in solidarity with the government and people of Israel and extend our condolences for the Israeli lives lost in these attacks.

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 7, 2023

Blinken tells Israel “we will always be there by your side”

Blinken expressed unconditional support for Israel during a visit on Oct. 12, less than a week after Hamas’ attack. In a statement given to reporters at Tel Aviv airport, he said “the United States has Israel’s back” every day.

The United States has Israel's back. We have their back today, we will have it tomorrow, and we will have it every day. And we will always stand — resolutely — against terrorism. pic.twitter.com/Bil3NgWEaw

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 11, 2023

At a joint press conference in Tel Aviv beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Blinken again pledged solidarity. “You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself. But as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to. We will always be there by your side,” Blinken said.

I am in Israel during this incredibly difficult moment for this nation and for the entire world. As Secretary of State, as a Jew, as a husband and a father, I understand on a personal level the harrowing echoes Hamas's massacres carry. pic.twitter.com/aY7MrAdK62

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 12, 2023

Blinken condemned the “heinous attacks” by Hamas and said the actions of the militant group bring to mind “the worst of ISIS.” The U.S. mourned “the loss of every innocent life,” he said, and urged Israeli restraint to protect civilians in Gaza. “It’s so important to take every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians.”

The message that I bring to Israel is this: You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself – but as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to. pic.twitter.com/YJ5ss92guI

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 12, 2023

Blinken envisions Palestinians realizing their legitimate right to self-determination

Blinken told the United Nations Security Council in New York City on Oct. 24 that the region faces two paths—one that led to death and destruction and the other to greater peace, with Palestinians “realizing their legitimate right to self-determination and a state of their own.”

“Nothing would be a greater victory of Hamas than allowing its brutality to send us down its path of terrorism and nihilism. We must not let it. Hamas does not get to choose for us,” he said. “The United States stands ready to work with anyone ready to forge a more peaceful and free future for the region.”

The only road to lasting peace and security in the region, the only way to break out of the horrific cycle of violence, is through two states for two peoples. pic.twitter.com/LwDdQE18O7

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 24, 2023

Blinken supports military aid for Israel

Blinken testified before Congress on Oct. 31 in support of the Biden administration’s $105 billion national security funding request that included $14 billion for Israel and $61 billion for Ukraine. Blinken argued in a Senate hearing that the two conflicts were connected. “In both Israel and Ukraine, democracies are fighting ruthless foes who are out to annihilate them,” he said.

Protesters opposed to military funding to Israel and interrupted Blinken’s remarks, with a group raising hands covered in a red substance to resemble blood. Blinken responded to the protesters, acknowledging their passion.

“All of us are committed to the protection of civilian life. All of us know the suffering that is taking place as we speak. All of us are determined to see it end,” he said. “But all of us know the imperative of standing up with our allies and partners when their security, when their democracies, are threatened. That’s what’s happening now. We stand resolutely with them even as we stand resolutely for the protection of innocent civilians.” 

Blinken says a two-state solution is the only path to peace

Blinken said in a press conference on Nov. 3 that the U.S. is committed to a two-state solution for Israeli and Palestinian states. 

“The best viable path, indeed the only path, is through a two-state solution,” he said. “The only way to end the cycle of violence once and for all.”

It is now, in this darkest moment, that we must fight hardest to preserve a path of stability, security, opportunity, integration, prosperity – and peace. Not tomorrow. Not after this war. Today. pic.twitter.com/7SpctnmMvg

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) November 3, 2023

Blinken says Palestinian “civilians should not suffer the consequences” for Hamas

Blinken said on Nov. 3 that Israel must conduct its war against Hamas in a “right and lawful” way.

“There are no partners for peace if they’re consumed by humanitarian catastrophes and alienated by any perceived indifference to their plight,” he said, adding that empathy is what binds us together as human beings. 

“I’ve seen images, too, of Palestinian children, young girls and boys, pulled from the wreckage of buildings. When I see that, when I look into their eyes, through the TV screen, I see my own children. How can we not?” he asked. 

Blinken accused Hamas of not caring for the welfare of the Palestinian people and using civilians as human shields, but added that “civilians should not suffer the consequences for its inhumanity and brutality.” 

"I've seen images of Palestinian children pulled from the wreckage… When I see that, I see my own children."

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says "we need to do more to protect Palestinian civilians" and they "should not suffer the consequences" for Hamas' brutality. pic.twitter.com/khoNsJqkNN

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) November 3, 2023

Blinken argues a ceasefire would give Hamas an advantage

Blinken said a ceasefire in Gaza would allow Hamas to regroup and carry out further attacks. He made the comments on Nov. 4 in Jordan after holding talks with Arab leaders, who called for an end to fighting and argued Israel’s actions go beyond self-defense.

Blinken responded that “it is important to reaffirm Israel’s right to defend itself, indeed its obligation to do so, and to take necessary steps so that Oct. 7 can never happen again, but it’s also very important the way Israel does that.” 

The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rebuffed calls from his counterparts in Egypt and Jordan for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, saying that a halt would allow Hamas to repeat its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. https://t.co/7tds2ilvgU pic.twitter.com/3YYsQtC2IZ

— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 4, 2023

Blinken says keeping conflict from spreading is a top priority

Speaking to reporters in Baghdad on Nov. 5, Blinken said a top priority of the U.S. and allies in the region is for the conflict to not spread beyond Israel and Gaza. 

“We also share the interest—and an interest that’s shared with virtually everyone in the region—to make sure that the conflict in Gaza doesn’t spread to other places, whether it’s here or elsewhere in the region,” Blinken said. “So everyone is looking to take the necessary steps, use their authority, use their influence to try to make sure that this stops and doesn’t happen.”

Blinken welcomes humanitarian pauses in Gaza fighting

Blinken said in a press conference in Iraq on Nov. 5 that every leader he met on his Middle East tour had welcomed humanitarian pauses to the fighting in Gaza, saying it would help them accomplish the common goals of freeing hostages and getting more aid to Palestinian civilians. 

On Nov. 9, the U.S. announced that Israel had agreed to four-hour daily humanitarian pauses. Blinken said a key potential advantageous outcome of the humanitarian pause was freeing hostages. Hamas has so far released two American and two Israeli hostages. “We are intensely focused” on bringing them home, Blinken said about the remaining hostages.

Blinken says Hamas can’t run Gaza, but Israel can’t occupy it either

Blinken addressed Gaza’s future at the end of a G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Japan on Nov. 8, saying Hamas can’t run Gaza and Israel can’t reoccupy it, although he said its troops may be there temporarily. “Gaza cannot… continue to be run by Hamas; that simply invites repetition of Oct. 7,” he said. However, he flagged that “it’s also clear that Israel cannot occupy Gaza.”

He reasoned: “The reality is that there may be a need for some transition period at the end of the conflict, but it is imperative that the Palestinian people be central to governance in Gaza and in the West Bank as well, and that, again, we don’t see a reoccupation. And what I’ve heard from Israeli leaders is that they have no intent to reoccupy Gaza and retake control of Gaza.”

Blinken said the U.S. vision involved “no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza—not now, not after the war.”

“[There should be] no use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks. No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza. We must also ensure no terrorist threats can emanate from the West Bank,” he said. 

The affirmative elements to get to a sustained peace must include a pathway to Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in states of their own, with equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity, and dignity. pic.twitter.com/xq9S4LJlCM

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) November 8, 2023

Blinken condemns Gaza death toll

Blinken lamented the rising death toll and said more must be done to protect Palestinian civilians on Nov. 10.

“Far too many Palestinians have been killed; far too many have suffered these past weeks,” Blinken was quoted as telling reporters in New Delhi as he wrapped up a trip to the Middle East and Asia. “We want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximize the assistance that gets to them.”

source https://time.com/6334125/secretary-of-state-antony-blinken-israel-hamas-war/