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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Ankara conveyed its expectation to see concrete steps from Sweden to fulfil anti-terrorism obligations under a deal clearing bids by the Nordic country and neighbouring Finland to join NATO.

In a joint news conference after a meeting in Ankara, Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he understood Turkey's fight against terrorism and vowed to fulfil security commitments the Nordic country made to get Ankara's backing for its entry into NATO.

"In our meeting, we have openly shared our expectations for concrete steps regarding the implementation of the provisions in the memorandum," Erdogan said.

Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO in May in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But Turkey, a NATO member, raised objections, citing security concerns related to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and other groups, and over the Nordic states' ban on arms exports.

"I want to reassure all Turks, Sweden will live up to all the obligations made to Turkey in countering the terrorist threat," Kristersson said.

The three countries signed a memorandum in June that lifted Turkey's veto while requiring Sweden and Finland to address its remaining concerns.

In September, following the memorandum, Sweden and Finland reversed a ban against exporting military equipment to Turkey, a move welcomed as a positive step by Erdogan. (Reuters)

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has distracted world governments from efforts to combat climate change, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video message played at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt on Tuesday.

"There can be no effective climate policy without the peace," he said, highlighting the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on global energy supplies, food prices and Ukraine's forests.

"This Russian war has brought about an energy crisis that has forced dozens of countries to resume coal-fired power generation in order to lower energy prices for their people ... to lower prices that are shockingly rising due to deliberate Russian actions."

"(It) brought an acute food crisis to the world, which hit worst those suffering the existing manifestations of climate change ... the Russian war destroyed 5 million acres of forests in Ukraine in less than six months," Zelenskiy said.

Ukraine is hosting an exhibition space this year for the first time at a U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. But unlike the other booths at COP27 that are festooned in colorful logos, flags and greenery, Ukraine's stood out for its bleakness - covered in gravely grey to symbolize the war at home.

In his video appearance, Zelenskiy wore a trademark green T-shirt and faced the video camera from behind a desk. He criticised world leaders for paying lip service to climate change without delivering real change. He did not name individual states.

"There are still many for whom climate change is just rhetoric or marketing ... but not real action," he said.

"They are the ones who hamper the implementation of climate goals, they are the ones in their offices who make fun of those who fight to save life on the planet, although in public they seem to support the work for the sake of nature."

"They are the ones who start wars of aggression when the planet cannot afford a single gunshot because it needs global joint action."

A GREENER FUTURE

Members of Ukraine's delegation to COP27 said they hoped their presence drew global attention to the climate and environmental consequences of Russia's February invasion.

"It's important to show the situation in Ukraine," said Svitlana Grynchuk, the country's deputy environment minister. "We also try to think about ... our climate-neutral and environmentally friendly future."

Grynchuk described renewable energy projects destroyed in the fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops, and offered a hopeful note on what's to come: "We have a lot of plans for rebuilding our country. It will be greener."

Ukraine's environment minister, Ruslan Strilets, is expected at COP27 next week.

The CEO of Ukraine's biggest private power producer DTEK, said at COP27 on Tuesday that half of his company's green energy capacity was now located in Russian occupied territory.

Overall, the country has "lost about 90% of wind capacity, which is on occupied territory, and about 30% of solar" in the fighting, Maxim Timchenko said.

He expressed concerned about the encroaching cold season, saying: "It will be one of the most difficult winters in the history of Ukraine. We should be realistic."

He said DTEK had managed to "quickly" restore a power station damaged in the fighting and reconnected it to the grid. "We do all preparations so that we will survive."

DTEK is a partial sponsor of Ukraine's exhibition center at COP27, where decorations included a tree trunk that delegates said had been scarred by shrapnel in the city of Irpyn.

At the entrance to the exhibition, an elaborate display showcased dozens of Ukrainian soil samples, meant to represent the potential of the country's fertile land.

Julia Guziy, with the Ukrainian non-profit Ecoclub, said she had taken a bus and multiple flights to get to COP27 in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

"It took us two days because we don't have flights out of Ukraine," she said.

Her group hoped to raise money for solar power plants at six Ukrainian hospitals, she said. (Reuters)

Promises by companies, banks and cities to achieve net-zero emissions often amount to little more than greenwashing, U.N. experts said in a report on Tuesday as they set out proposed new standards to harden net-zero claims.

The report, released at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt, is intended to draw a "red line" around false claims of progress in the fight against global warming that can confuse consumers, investors and policy makers.

At last year's climate negotiations in Glasgow, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed 17 experts to review the integrity of non-state net-zero commitments amid concerns about "a surplus of confusion and deficit of credibility" around corporate climate claims.

"Too many of these net-zero pledges are little more than empty slogans and hype", group chair and Canada's former environment minister, Catherine McKenna, said during a news conference launching the report.

"Bogus net-zero claims drive up the cost that ultimately everyone will pay," she said.

Regulators across the world are starting to set tougher rules around what activities can be deemed environmentally friendly, yet progress is patchy and campaigners and activists are increasingly turning to the courts to challenge weak claims.

On Tuesday, an official at Australia's corporate watchdog said it was investigating several companies over greenwashing, in which a company or group makes exaggerated claims over the environmental impact of their products or practices.

Last month, meanwhile, Britain's financial watchdog proposed new rules from 2024 for funds and their managers to prevent consumers being misled about their climate credentials.

An estimated 80% of global emissions are now covered by pledges that commit to reaching net-zero emissions.

The report set out a list of recommendations that companies and other non-state actors should follow to ensure their claims are credible. For example, a company cannot claim to be net-zero if it continues to build or invest in new fossil fuel infrastructure or deforestation.

The report also dismisses the use of cheap carbon credits to offset continued emissions as a viable net-zero strategy, and recommends companies, financial institutions, cities and regions focus on outright emissions and not carbon intensity - a measure of how much carbon is emitted per unit of output.

The report was "potentially very significant, depending on the traction it gets", said Eric Christian Pedersen, head of responsible investments at Nordea Asset Management.

"If this report becomes a legal standard against which one can measure if a net-zero commitment is bona fide or not, then it... can provide ammunition for the lawsuits and regulatory action which are sorely needed to make the absence of climate action more expensive at the individual company level."

The report "gives companies, investors, cities, regions - and by implication, countries - a clear statement of what 'good' looks like", said Thomas Hale, a global public policy researcher at Oxford University and co-leader of the Net Zero Tracker project which measures the effectiveness of such pledges.

"We need to be clear that most net-zero targets are not on track," he told Reuters, noting the tracker found that only half of companies with pledges have robust plans.

Teresa Anderson, global lead for climate justice at poverty-eradication non-profit ActionAid International, said corporations had "long hidden behind net-zero announcements and carbon offsetting initiatives, with very little intention of really doing the hard work of transforming and cutting emissions."

"These recommendations will aim to keep them in line and close any loopholes." (Reuters)

The hosts of the COP27 climate talks on Tuesday launched a global plan to help the world's poorest communities withstand the impacts of global warming.

Unveiling the Sharm-El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda, named after the Egyptian resort where the talks are being held, the plan sets out 30 goals to hit by the end of the decade to enhance the lives of 4 billion people.

The hope is that by setting targets across themes including food and agriculture, water and nature, and coastlines and oceans, the public and private sectors will work with common goals and accelerate adaptation to change.

Urgent targets highlighted by the COP27 Presidency include moving the world to more sustainable agriculture practices that could increase yields by 17% and cut emissions by 21%.

Other goals include protecting 3 billion people from catastrophic weather events by installing early warning systems to help them prepare; investing $4 billion into mangrove restoration, which protects against flooding; and expanding clean cooking options to 2.4 billion people to reduce indoor air pollution.

"The Sharm-El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda is a critical step at COP27," COP27 President and Egypt's Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry said in a statement

"The COP27 presidency has long articulated our commitment to bringing together state and non-state actors to progress on adaptation and resilience for the 4 billion people that live in the most climate vulnerable regions by 2030."

In total, the plan seeks to mobilise up to $300 billion a year from private and public investors. By contrast, the world's biggest multilateral development banks spent $17 billion on adaptation finance for poorer countries in 2021, a report by the lenders published last month showed.

The majority of climate finance goes towards mitigation efforts, such as reducing emissions, despite U.N. pleas that half of all funding should be channelled into helping vulnerable countries adapt.

Africa, hosting its first COP, receives just 3% of total climate finance globally and was being "short changed", Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, told a conference session on the theme of adaptation.

Among specific Africa-focused projects to be announced at COP27 that will help meet the adaptation targets are a plan to improve water resilience for 29 million people across 100 cities.

Going forward, the U.N. Climate Change High-Level Champions for COP27, which form a link between the hosts of the COP, other national governments and non-state actors such as companies, said they would continue to refine and expand the targets.

U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell said: "The Sharm el-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda firmly puts key human needs at its core, along with concrete, specific action on the ground to build resilience to climate change." (Reuters)