Contributing Writers

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is calling for phasing out fossil fuels but has alarmed many climate activists as Brazil moves to join the oil producer alliance OPEC+ as an observer state. Paula Vargas, director of the Brazil program at Amazon Watch, lays out Brazil’s environmental policy under Lula and Jair Bolsonaro’s legacy of impunity for those attacking environmental defenders.

Broadcasting from COP28 in Dubai, we speak with Jacob Johns, a Hopi and Akimel O’odham environmental defender who is leading the Indigenous Wisdom Keepers delegation at COP28. This is his first interview after surviving being shot in the chest by a far-right agitator in September.

At COP28 in Dubai, protests in solidarity with Palestine have faced severe restrictions. Asad Rehman, the lead spokesperson for the Climate Justice Coalition, joined with human rights groups at an unofficial media briefing to explain how climate summit officials have threatened to debadge participants for even wearing Palestinian colors or sporting visual depictions calling for a ceasefire. “This is probably the most restrictive we’ve seen,” Rehman said.

Scholar and policy analyst Jehad Abusalim remembers his friend Refaat Alareer, the acclaimed Palestinian academic and activist who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City earlier this week.

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza has killed the acclaimed Palestinian academic and activist Refaat Alareer, along with his brother, his sister and her four children. Alareer was just 44 years old. For more than 16 years, he worked as a professor of English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza and authored dozens of stories and poems about life under Israeli occupation in Gaza. “Whether it is my kids or any Palestinian kid or any Palestinian, no one is safe. No place is safe.

As Vladimir Putin arrives in Abu Dhabi but does not plan to attend the COP28 summit in Dubai, we speak with Vladimir Slivyak, co-chair for the leading Russian environmental organization Ecodefense, about the climate impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the renewed push at the summit to expand nuclear power.

Longtime Nigerian activist and poet Nnimmo Bassey joins us at COP28 in Dubai to discuss how “false climate solutions” like carbon trading markets are hurting efforts to reduce emissions and prevent catastrophic global heating. “People are making deals rather than talking about how to cut emissions at source,” says Bassey. “We’re seeing a sellout of the African continent.

As we broadcast from COP28 in Dubai, leading climate scientist Kevin Anderson lays out why he dismisses the annual climate talks as “grand events” that do little to actually curb emissions. “These COPs have become little more than a scam under which the oil companies and the other fossil fuel companies are hiding that nothing is being done,” says Anderson.

We speak with celebrated Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha for his first interview after he was jailed and beaten by Israeli forces, when he was detained at a checkpoint in Gaza while heading to Rafah with his family. He was rounded up with scores of other Palestinians. “I felt humiliated. I felt terrified and terrorized by this army because they were ordering us to do everything at gunpoint,” says Toha, now in Cairo.

As Vladimir Putin arrives in Abu Dhabi but does not plan to attend the COP28 summit in Dubai, we speak with Vladimir Slivyak, co-chair for the leading Russian environmental organization Ecodefense, about the climate impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the renewed push at the summit to expand nuclear power.

As Democracy Now! broadcasts from COP28 in Dubai, we look at how the United Arab Emirates is using its vast oil money to buy up the rights to land in many African countries in order to sell carbon credits to major polluters, a plan that critics characterize as a new form of colonialism.

Climate activist Harjeet Singh joins us for an update on the U.N. climate summit in Dubai, where fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber many countries’ delegations. “It is deeply, deeply problematic to see how fossil fuel lobbyists are taking over these climate talks,” he says, noting that climate activists’ fears of an industry takeover of the world’s foremost gathering for climate governance appear to have come true.

As Democracy Now! broadcasts from the U.N. climate summit, Amy Goodman attempts to question the oil CEO presiding over the talks. COP28 president and United Arab Emirates oil CEO Sultan Al Jaber is facing criticism over the record number of fossil fuel lobbyists in attendance at the summit, and recently claimed there is “no science” to back up calls to phase out fossil fuels in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

We go to Gaza for an update on Israel’s attack, which is now being described as one of the worst assaults on any civilian population in recent times. As Israeli tanks enter Khan Younis and the Palestinian death toll tops 16,000, we speak with Yousef Hammash.

The U.N. climate summit underway in Dubai marks the first time in nine years that representatives from Human Rights Watch have been allowed access to the United Arab Emirates. We speak with researcher Joey Shea about toxic pollution from UAE fossil fuels processing, and the state of political rights in the authoritarian country — especially for migrant workers who constitute 88% of the population but lack many labor protections under the kafala system.