Flagship

COP29 deal in doubt

The COP29 climate talks went into their final day with attendees despondent over the prospect for a deal on the summit’s core priority: A financing package for developing nations. Negotiators have wrangled over the sum, how to raise the money, and who is even responsible for delivering it, with discussions threatening to extend into the weekend — or even collapse. Looming over the talks is the impending return to office of US President-elect Donald Trump, who has pledged to again withdraw from the Paris Agreement and erect tariffs, potentially raising the costs of the global green energy transition. Ultimately, the summit risks undermining progress made at last year’s COP, Semafor columnist Hadley Gamble argued.

China warns solar firms

Chinese authorities warned solar-panel firms to curb their brutal price war. Beijing is fearful of both undermining the domestic sector with relentless expansion, and of stoking geopolitical tensions with countries that have complained of cut-price Chinese manufacturing. Officials urged companies to limit projects designed simply to increase capacity, and instead called on them to focus on technological innovation and product quality, the South China Morning Post reported. They also tightened financing regulations in order to ensure new solar manufacturing projects were viable. China’s solar boom has slashed the cost of deploying renewable power at enormous scale, but drawn the ire of countries elsewhere who argue Beijing has used state subsidies to corner an industry necessary for the world’s green energy transition.

Germany’s slowing economy

Germany reported slower-than-expected economic growth, the latest challenge facing a country whose coalition government has collapsed. Germany — Europe’s biggest economy — barely avoided recession this year, battered by declining industrial production, the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the long run, its famed manufacturing sector faces challenges from Chinese rivals: “Germany’s old macro business model of cheap energy and easily accessible large export markets is no longer working,” an ING economist wrote. But with an election not expected until February, analysts are skeptical of any short-term policy changes to address the malaise. Germany’s chancellor staved off an internal party bid to unseat him, but is polling in the mid-teens.

US SEC chair to step down

The head of the US financial regulator said he would resign once President-elect Donald Trump takes office, ahead of what are expected to be major changes at top oversight agencies. Gary Gensler — who could have stayed in his post until 2026 — took an aggressive approach, in particular towards cryptocurrencies, including a lawsuit his Securities and Exchange Commission ultimately lost over the regulation of bitcoin exchange-traded funds. Trump’s SEC is widely expected to be friendlier towards the crypto sector, and his team is already considering names for other senior regulatory posts. “A word of warning to CEOs who white-knuckled their way through Trump’s tweets eight years ago,” Semafor’s business and finance editor wrote, “It’s going to be wilder this time.”

Lonely Britain’s hard choices

The UK, once conveniently placed between the European Union and the US, is now largely alone in the world, analysts warned. It left the EU in 2020, but the bloc’s economic power stops Britain from diverging too far. With the accession of US President-elect Donald Trump it now faces “stark strategic choices,” the Financial Times said, between Washington and Brussels: One analyst said that “The danger is we don’t keep anyone happy.” An FT columnist said that Britain once had “the best hand in the world” — inside the EU, with close trade ties to the US, and a friendly relationship with China. Now it is on the outs with all three, and its only realistic choice is to turn back to Europe.

Milei one year on: Success ‘no miracle’

Argentine President Javier Milei — elected a year ago to rescue an economy in freefall — made the case that his quasi-libertarian policies had set his country on a path to stability. Writing in The Economist, the self-described anarcho-capitalist said that Argentina “was teetering on the edge of a precipice” when he took office. Milei quickly slashed spending and eradicated money-printing as a source of government funds: Monthly inflation fell, the government is in surplus, and the economy is now stable. Some commentators foresaw “economic collapse” when Milei was elected, and the country’s poverty rate has reached 50%, but voters are largely still on side, Reuters reported. “It is no miracle,” Milei said, but simply “governing with macroeconomic prudence.”

Business psych’s fraud problems

An apparent case of high-profile data fraud has cast a shadow over the entire field of business psychology. Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School was accused of fabricating data, ironically in a paper about dishonesty. Business psychology is high-profile and lucrative: Starting salaries are double those of other psych departments. In The Atlantic, the science writer Daniel Engber reported that one of Gino’s colleagues then uncovered more fake data elsewhere. In a surprising twist, though, the investigating academic herself had some questionable results that she blamed on junior staff. Allegations of fraud in science are often ignored, one academic told Engber, because “institutions can be more concerned with their… reputation than finding out the truth.”

Russian weapon was new missile: Putin

The weapon that hit Ukraine on Thursday morning was a new hypersonic missile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. He said its use was a response to Kyiv’s deployment of US and UK cruise missiles to hit targets inside Russia, and that the intermediate-range ballistic missile could not be counteracted. Analysts told the BBC that the missile seemed to be longer-range than usual Russian ordnance but not an intercontinental missile as originally feared, and while it would likely not be militarily significant — Russia is thought to only possess a handful — it symbolizes Moscow’s willingness to escalate the conflict. The Ukrainian president called it “more proof that Russia has no interest in peace.”

Desalination costs plummet

The cost of water desalination has fallen by more than half since 2000, from $1.10 a cubic meter (220 gallons) to 50¢. Looking back 50 years the cost has fallen 90%, and the volume of water treated has nearly quadrupled from 2003, with 20,000 desalination plants now in operation worldwide. The falling costs are driven by improved technology — modern reverse-osmosis plants obviate the need to boil and distill seawater, reducing energy consumption. In the Middle East, where fresh water is often hard to find, “the megaprojects will only multiply,” Sherwood reported: A $900 million plant opened in Abu Dhabi this year, and a $1.5 billion, 1-million-square-foot plant will begin operations in Israel soon.

50 years since first interstellar message

The Arecibo signal, humanity’s first deliberate message to the stars, was sent 50 years ago this month. The astronomers Frank Drake and Carl Sagan chose the message — a sequence of binary numbers that, if decoded, represents a DNA double helix, a human figure, and our solar system. The signal, sent from Puerto Rico’s 1,000-foot-wide Arecibo telescope, is directed towards a star cluster toward the center of our galaxy, chosen because it is a big and relatively close target. The message will take another 22,150 years to reach the nearest stars in the cluster, and in that time those stars will have moved — scientists are still debating whether the signal will hit them, or sail into intergalactic space.

• Nicaragua’s Assembly is expected to approve President Daniel Ortega’s proposal to expand presidential powers.
• Romanians vote in the first round of a presidential election on Sunday.
• Mariachis celebrate Saint Cecilia, the patron of musicians, in Mexico.

The number of US citizens, equivalent to half the adult population, who are eligible for weight-loss drugs such as semaglutide, according to new research. Survey data showed that 129 million could be prescribed it for weight management, 35 million for diabetes, and 8.9 million for heart disease, with many being eligible for more than one reason. The researchers argued that if the drugs were available to all eligible patients it could have a large impact on “pharmaceutical spending and population health,” since the drugs help people lose weight much more effectively than diet and exercise. But as yet, the drugs remain expensive — perhaps $1,000 a month in the US — and many insurers do not cover them.

Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell, by Ann Powers. “Those in search of a standard-issue Joni Mitchell biography had best look elsewhere,” writes Pitchfork, calling this “document of obsession, written for obsessives” one of 2024’s best books on music. By weaving her own story into the narrative, Powers “demonstrates how Mitchell and her music can embed themselves in our lives.” Buy Traveling from your local bookstore.

An incoming president’s first 100 days are typically a time for fast movement on big bills, but Donald Trump might be in for a rougher experience next year, Semafor’s Kadia Goba reported.

That’s in part because of Republicans’ slim hold on the House, but the GOP may also face the troublesome task of funding the government for the rest of the fiscal year and raising the debt limit.