Azerbaijan's ecology minister has been named to lead the United Nations' annual climate talks later this year, prompting concern from some climate activists over his former ties to the state oil company in a major oil-producing nation. Mukhtar Babayev's appointment was announced on X by the United Arab Emirates, which hosted the climate talks that just ended in December, and confirmed Friday by the United Nations. Officials in Azerbaijan did not immediately respond to messages seeking to confirm the appointment.
Climate activists blocked part of the main highway around Amsterdam near the former headquarters of ING bank on Saturday to protest its financing of fossil fuels. Amsterdam Municipality said in a message on X, formerly Twitter, that traffic authorities closed part of the road and diverted traffic “to prevent a life-threatening situation." Earlier this year, the activist organization repeatedly blocked a highway leading into The Hague.
Climate protesters around the world and in the U.S. increased the frequency and intensity of disturbances at public events as they called for policies to curb global warming.
Climate change isn’t the threat its believers make it out to be. According to Mark Levin, it’s actually “a religion going back hundreds of thousands of years” in which followers “pray to the weather gods.” “The idea that we have any effect on this massive planet is a lie,” he adds. Not to me.