Day 12 of COP30: Today the climate summit comes to an end… or not. The Loss and Damage Fund, created three years ago to support communities most affected by rising global temperatures, had planned to raise $790 million but to date has not even reached $400 million. An image: The evacuation caused by the fire that broke out in the pavilion of the East African Community in the Blue Zone, where climate negotiations are taking place. Although the closing session of COP30 is scheduled for this Friday, everything seems to indicate that negotiations will continue, even over the weekend, before an agreement that satisfies all parties can be signed, as has happened in previous summits. The fire that suspended the climate forum for several hours on Thursday afternoon has further delayed talks, although much of them continued remotely; while the Brazilian presidency wanted to finish the work today, the general impression among delegations is that it will extend at least until Saturday, barring any surprises. One topic: A circular and low-carbon economy can generate 100 million jobs by 2030, according to Moustapha Kamal Gueye, Director of the Just Transition Department of the International Labour Organization. It is an important figure, considering that one of the main concerns of the countries most linked to polluting industries is what to do with their workers if those industries are to disappear or, at least, be radically transformed. «We don't want trees in a forest without people», Gueye has emphasized, because «sustainability has to be a vehicle for human well-being»: this implies that the ecological transition requires «recycling and upgrading workers' skills». A report: UN Women has presented its 'Monitoring on Gender Equality and Policies', a tool developed with the Kaschak Institute that works as a scoring table with fifty indicators covering everything from health to unpaid tasks, and is focused on assessing the integration of gender equality into climate action in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). A statement: The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has insisted on calling for will and flexibility from the delegations participating in the climate summit to achieve a global agreement that he still sees as possible on time and in form because, he has made it clear: «no delegation will leave here with everything they want». A character: «We are falling into a hole and we feel powerless», has expressed with simple and blunt Peruvian Saúl Lliuya, who lives in the Andean town of Huaraz, threatened by the melting of a glacier that could overflow the lagoon that collects its waters. An electrical fault seems to be the origin of the incident, in which firefighters intervened and managed to control the flames quickly. No serious injuries were reported, although about twenty people had to be treated for smoke inhalation or anxiety attacks.
