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COP28 Focuses on Protecting Health from Climate Risks

Participants walk next to COP28 flags in Expo City in Dubai (AFP)
Participants walk next to COP28 flags in Expo City in Dubai (AFP)
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COP28 Focuses on Protecting Health from Climate Risks

Participants walk next to COP28 flags in Expo City in Dubai (AFP)
Participants walk next to COP28 flags in Expo City in Dubai (AFP)

UN Climate Conference (COP28) focused on climate-related health issues, while discussions behind closed doors addressed vital other problems, such as the future of energy.

The UAE and several charities at the climate summit on Sunday offered $777 million in funding to eradicate neglected tropical diseases that are expected to worsen as temperatures rise.

COP28 President Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber said in a statement that climate-related factors "have become one of the greatest threats to human health in the 21st century."

The pledges made during the summit on Sunday, which focused on climate-related health risks, included $100 million from the UAE and another $100 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Others to announce funds for climate-related health issues included Belgium, Germany, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The World Bank launched a program to explore possible support measures for public health in developing countries where climate-related health risks are incredibly high.

The burden of tropical diseases will worsen as the world warms, along with other climate-driven health threats, including malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress.

More than 120 countries have signed a COP28 declaration acknowledging their responsibility to keep people safe amid global warming.

Climate change also increases the frequency of dangerous storms and more erratic rainfall.

In September, Storm Daniel killed more than 11,000 people in Libya, and last year's massive flooding in Pakistan fueled a 400 percent increase in malaria cases across the country, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Earlier on Sunday, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said scientists were working on new treatments for and prevention of mosquito-spread malaria as the rise in temperatures creates more hospitable habitat for the insects to breed.

"We have new tools at the lab level that decimate mosquito populations," said Gates, whose foundation supports public health research and projects for the developing world.

"These innovations give us a chance, at a reasonable cost, to make progress."

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke on Sunday, urging reform of the global insurance system as another key demand to keep people safe.

"Right now, insurance companies are pulling out of so many places; they're not insuring homes, they're not insuring businesses," Clinton said, addressing a panel on women and climate resiliency.

She continued, "People everywhere will be left out with no backup, no insurance for their business or home."

Meanwhile, Emirates News Agency (WAM) quoted a senior World Bank official saying that the bank had offered to host the Lost and Damage Fund.

Speaking to WAM, World Bank's Senior Managing Director (SMD) Axel van Trotsenburg said the agency will "work very closely with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) to create that fund."

Van Trotsenburg mentioned that countries face different challenges related to climate change.

"COP28 started with great announcements on the Loss and Damage Fund. It has been an extremely important decision and now needs to be set up."

He pointed out that small island countries with rising sea levels face different challenges than coastal regions. Therefore, solutions must be tailored to each country, but there is a global challenge.

"We need to be global. We need all countries to participate in this global challenge," van Trotsenburg noted, adding, "We need to ensure that we can keep the 1.5 degrees. So that means consequences for all of us."

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Business

Turkish Companies ‘Paying the Bill’ as Political Crisis Roils Economy

Cats watch as fishermen gather their catch at Besiktas neighborhood in Istanbul on March 28, 2024. (AFP)
Cats watch as fishermen gather their catch at Besiktas neighborhood in Istanbul on March 28, 2024. (AFP)
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Turkish Companies ‘Paying the Bill’ as Political Crisis Roils Economy

Cats watch as fishermen gather their catch at Besiktas neighborhood in Istanbul on March 28, 2024. (AFP)
Cats watch as fishermen gather their catch at Besiktas neighborhood in Istanbul on March 28, 2024. (AFP)

Turmoil unleashed by the arrest of Türkiye’s leading opposition figure last week has sent shockwaves through the private sector, forcing companies to rethink strategy and dig in for a period of uncertainty and potential economic instability.

The detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who leads long-serving President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in some polls, has provoked the largest anti-government protests in a decade, leading to mass arrests and international condemnation.

The move also sent the lira currency to a record low, fueling a sell-off of Turkish assets that has destabilized company balance sheets and driven up already high borrowing costs.

Company officials told Reuters that Turkish businesses across sectors were scrambling to reassess risk, with some already pausing planned investments and slashing budgets.

"The industrialists now have to pay the bill for a crisis they did not cause," said Seref Fayat, chairman of System Denim, which manufactures garments for leading Western brands and exports them to Europe and the United States.

Fayat, who also heads a garment industry lobby group, said his credit costs have spiked due to the market turmoil.

He had been drawing up budgets for a second-half expansion of his business in anticipation of an expected rebound in customer demand from Europe.

"We immediately shelved these plans following the latest developments," he said.

The lira has recovered somewhat after touching a record low of 42 to the dollar, but only after the central bank stepped in to prop up the currency.

And businesses worry more pain is on the way.

Expectations of declining inflation and lower interest rates following the adoption of an orthodox economic program that had promised Turks future relief after years of soaring prices and currency crashes, now seem in doubt.

In an unscheduled meeting last week, the central bank raised its overnight lending rate by two percentage points to 46%.

According to information provided to Reuters by bankers, short-term commercial loan interest rates have increased from an average of 42-43% to 52-53%, with some rates as high as 60%.

Morgan Stanley now forecasts any cuts to the central bank's policy rate will be shelved until June. And Goldman Sachs said it expected a hike in the policy rate by 350 basis points.

'EVERY COMPANY NEEDS A PLAN'

"The latest developments will affect companies' investment expenditures the most," Hakan Kara, a former central bank chief economist now on faculty at Bilkent University in Ankara, said on X, pointing out that investment had already been slowing.

"This will probably become even more apparent in the short-term."

The government has said the recent economic turmoil would be limited and temporary. But some company officials worry the crisis may only be beginning.

Elections are set for 2028 when Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for more than two decades, will reach his term limit.

Many, however, see the arrest of Imamoglu, who was jailed on Sunday pending trial for graft, as an early indication he could seek to remain in power, either through an early election or constitutional changes that would likely face public opposition.

Mehmet Buyukeksi, a board member at Ziylan, which operates in retail and real estate, said expectations of a more positive business outlook in Türkiye based on government efforts to right the economy as well as strengthening demand were now less certain.

Improvements, including lower borrowing costs, that he had been expecting to see in July, he is now pushing back to September, he said.

And there are other knock-on effects.

One company official said some firms were carrying out human resources risk assessments, worried that they could face blowback if their employees participate in protests or share political content on social media.

Some conglomerates are reevaluating their risks in terms of exchange rates, inflation, funding costs and are significantly increasing the likelihood of negative impacts in their assessments, the company official said.

And a mergers and acquisitions consultant said that, while some foreign firms might look past criticisms that the Turkish government's actions are growing increasingly undemocratic, few will pour investment into an economically fraught environment.

"Everyone will re-do their calculations and books," said Fikret Kaya, the general manager of plastics and industrial equipment manufacturer Kayalar.

"We have had to make monthly evaluations that we used to make quarterly. I think every company needs to make a plan."