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For Immediate Release
June, 15 2023, 10:40am EDT
Contact:
Sara Shaw, [email protected] (English)
Madeleine Race, [email protected], (Speaks English, Spanish, French)
Developed countries continue to shirk responsibility at Bonn climate talks, say Friends of the Earth International.
BONN, Germany
A fraught session of UN climate talks closes today, where developed countries blocked progress and backtracked on agreed commitments within the international climate process, leading to failures to agree even the agenda until the closing days. This fight over an agenda reveals deepening faultlines: developed countries led by the US and the EU are seeking to erase climate finance commitments, equity, and their responsibility for the climate crisis, and instead push action on developing countries without any accompanying finance or technology.
Work continued apace to cement a global carbon market under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. This will be a dangerous distraction that undermines the rapid and just transition away from fossil fuels, and the new, additional public finance owed by developed to developing countries.
“It is of grave concern that while rich countries have blocked discussions on climate finance and equity at every turn during these talks, carbon markets are quietly progressing. Big polluters must be delighted,” said Sara Shaw, climate justice & energy coordinator.
“Carbon markets have failed to date. There are no possible rules that can actually make the global carbon market work. Carbon markets are a distraction from real climate action and cause grave harm - preventing emissions reductions and climate finance, opening the door to dangerous new technologies like geoengineering, and threatening communities in the global South with land grabs and human rights violations,” continued Sara Shaw.
COP28 looks to be a huge fight between developed and developing countries.
Sara Shaw concluded, “As we look to COP28, it is obvious that developed countries will want to blame developing countries for lack of progress, for fighting over agendas. But agenda fights are a symptom of a deeper injustice. Developing countries are fighting for the climate finance that is not only their due, but which is required to ensure a just transition to a new renewable energy system for all.”
Friends of the Earth International is the world's largest grassroots environmental network, uniting 74 national member groups and some 5,000 local activist groups on every continent. With over 2 million members and supporters around the world, FOEI campaigns on today's most urgent environmental and social issues.
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As Subvariant Spreads, CDC Maintains Child Vaccine Guidance Despite RFK Announcement
Experts said the new guidance would likely prevent insurers from refusing to cover the vaccines, but some said mixed messages from the Trump administration could still lead to confusion.
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Amid reports of a new Covid-19 subvariant spreading in several U.S. states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday said updated guidance on receiving vaccines against the coronavirus that contradicted a controversial recent announcement from the nation's top health official.
The CDC's schedule for vaccines for children aged 6 months to 17 years retained the Covid-19 shot, advising parents and doctors to engage in "shared clinical decision-making" when determining if a child should be vaccinated—meaning children can receive the shots if their parents and physicians agree.
That guidance contradicts a statement from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. earlier this week. Kennedy claimed Tuesday that there was a "lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children" for Covid vaccines as he announced, alongside National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr. Martin Makary, that the shots would no longer be recommended for pregnant women or healthy children.
"Where the parent presents with a desire for their child to be vaccinated, children six months and older may receive Covid-19 vaccination, informed by the clinical judgment of a healthcare provider and personal preference and circumstances," the new guidelines read.
"At least how some clinicians perceive it is, 'You guys are the experts, and if you don't know what the right thing to do is, how are we supposed to have that conversation in a 10-minute office visit?'"
Kennedy's announcement earlier this week alarmed public health experts, as did an earlier statement that the vaccines would only be made available to people over age 65 and those with certain medical conditions.
Kennedy, who baselessly called the Covid-19 vaccine "the deadliest ever made" in 2021—when the shots were estimated to have saved 140,000 lives—said at the time that new clinical trials would be needed to see if the vaccines continued to provide protection to people under 65.
Sean O'Leary, the chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics' infectious disease committee, said the CDC's new guidance could still cause confusion among parents and doctors, compared to an across-the-board recommendation like those that exist for other childhood vaccines.
"At least how some clinicians perceive it is, 'You guys are the experts, and if you don't know what the right thing to do is, how are we supposed to have that conversation in a 10-minute office visit?'" O'Leary told The Washington Post.
But the new guidance could stop insurance companies from refusing to cover the shots, as experts were worried they might after Kennedy's earlier statements, and will preserve the shots' availability for about 38 million low-income children who rely on the Vaccines for Children program.
The out-of-pocket cost for a Covid vaccine at a CVS pharmacy—where some patients could opt to go if their doctors don't want to administer the vaccine—is $198.99.
Experts remained concerned on Friday about the CDC's approach to Covid vaccines for pregnant women; the agency said there is officially "no guidance" for people who are pregnant.
Public health experts have warned that research shows pregnant women's risk of death and hospitalization is heightened if they have a Covid infection, and that the illness raises the risk of stillbirth.
The CDC's new guidance—and Kennedy's push to pivot away from Covid vaccines for the general population—come as a new, highly transmissible Covid subvariant has been detected in states including California, Rhode Island, New York, and Washington.
The subvariant, NB.1.8.1, was first detected in January and has been spreading in Europe and Asia since then, with the World Health Organization saying there has been a "concurrent increase in cases and hospitalizations in some countries where NB.1.8.1 is widespread."
Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, an infectious disease expert at Stanford University, told The Los Angeles Times that NB.1.8.1 does not cause more severe illness, "but it is more transmissible, at least from what we’re seeing around the world and also from lab experiments."
Meanwhile, Kennedy's push to reduce the availability of vaccines is "kind of chilling," Dr. Peter Chin-Hong of the University of California, San Francisco, told the Times. "It's out of step with the system we've learned to trust and follow... Most people would agree that kids should be targeted for flu vaccines. It seems kind of weird to have Covid as an outlier in that respect."
O'Leary said in a statement that despite the Trump administration's recent statements, scientific data about the vaccines is clear.
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Friday's ruling is the second time this month that the Supreme Court has permitted the Trump administration to halt a program aimed at protecting immigrants who leave their home countries for humanitarian reasons. Earlier in May, the court issued an unsigned order allowing Trump to cancel Temporary Protected Status protections specifically extended to 350,000 Venezuelans immigrants while the legal case winds its way through lower courts.
The court's decision on Friday is a temporary order and litigation is still playing out, but it signals that a majority of the justices think the Trump administration is likely to prevail in the case, according to The New York Times.
"Respondents now face two unbearable options," according to Jackson's dissent. Jackson wrote that immigrants in the program could either chose to leave the U.S. and potentially confront dangers in their home countries, and other adverse outcomes, or "risk imminent removal at the hands of government agents, along with its serious attendant consequences."
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According to RDP research, "at least 46 former or current DOGE members have substantial and direct ties to Elon Musk."
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The visions of the two men, said RDP, "have been aligned from the start. Musk endorsed Vought's view of the unconstitutionality of the Impoundment Control Act and said that DOGE would work 'closely with [OMB].'"
Yesterday, Elon Musk claimed once again to be stepping back from DOGE. But does that mean that his lackeys are too? If Musk leaves government but his loyalists stay behind, what difference does that really make? 🧵
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— Revolving Door Project (@revolvingdoordc.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 6:28 AM
Vought co-authored the policy portion of Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for gutting the government and expanding executive power.
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