TMR

GAZA CITY / ISTANBUL — The Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip said Saturday that most of the 36 aid trucks Israel allowed to enter the enclave Friday were looted amid a security chaos deliberately started by Israel, reported Anadolu Ajansi (AA).

The Gaza Government Media Office accused Israel of pursuing a “policy of chaos and starvation” in Gaza, saying the trucks were subjected to looting and theft as part of a “systematic destruction plan” to condemn the territory’s residents to hunger.

Last week, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned that one-third of Gaza’s population had gone without food for several consecutive days due to the Israeli siege.

WFP estimates that one in four Palestinians in Gaza faces famine-like conditions, and 100,000 women and children are suffering from acute malnutrition.

Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza for 18 years, and since March 2, has sealed all border crossings, blocking the entry of humanitarian aid and worsening already dire conditions in the enclave.

Palestinian officials have said a minimum of 600 aid trucks are needed per day to meet the needs of the territory’s 2.4 million people.

The Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct 7, 2023, killing more than 60,300 Palestinians. The relentless bombardment has devastated the enclave and led to food shortages. — BERNAMA-ANADOLU

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A LANDMARK pledge made by countries less than two years ago to triple the world’s renewable capacity by 2030 already looks in danger of not being met, a new report finds.

Targets put forward by national governments for the rollout of technologies like wind and solar will bring global installations far short of what countries committed to at the United Nations COP28 summit in 2023, according to Ember, a climate think tank. The renewable goal was agreed in Dubai as part of a hard-fought deal to commit to a transition away from fossil fuel.

Ember calculated the world will hit just 7.4 terawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030, a little more than double the 3.4 terawatts installed in 2022, based on national targets. The world needs 11 terawatts in order to meet the tripling goal.

“There is a real disconnect between the sort of high level agreement to sign pledges at COP and then the reality of how electricity planning is done,” Katye Altieri, global electricity analyst at Ember, said. “National targets send policy signals to the market and I think countries have lost sight of that.”

The findings underscore the key issue facing international climate talks, and one that will likely dominate the COP30 summit in the Brazilian city of Belem this November: Countries are very good at talking the talk once a year, but bad at actually implementing the promises they’ve made.

Since Dubai in 2023, there are few signs the world is transitioning away from fossil fuels. Scaling up renewables was supposed to help tackle the demand-side of the equation: the more wind and solar can meet the world’s energy needs, the less countries will need to extract gas, oil and coal.

Ember’s research found only 22 countries have revised their renewable targets since Dubai, and most of those nations are in the European Union, which campaigned for the renewables pledge and have put new laws in place to achieve its objective to cut emissions by 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels.

Group-of-20 nations like China and South Africa are expected to still come forward with more ambitious climate targets this year, but others like Canada, Russia and Turkey have yet to do so, and probably won’t before the summit in Belem, according to Ember.

The US, which hasn’t put forward a 2030 renewable target, is very unlikely to do so. President Donald Trump is withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement and rolling back many of the clean energy programs put in place under Joe Biden, such as the Inflation Reduction Act.

Altieri noted China alone could make a sizeable difference in the global renewable goal, but it won’t be enough to make up for shortfalls elsewhere. 

Among some glimmers of good news: India hasn’t updated its ambition, but Delhi’s 2030 target of 500 gigawatts of fossil fuel-free energy is aligned with the tripling goal, the report found. Perhaps surprisingly, Saudi Arabia is also on track for meeting its share, too. 

Brazil’s COP30 summit comes 10 years after the Paris Agreement and is seen as the first that will herald a new age of climate diplomacy, one that will focus on implementing the promises made instead of writing the rules to do so. A few days before the conference, the UN will publish its synthesis of countries’ national climate plans and how far off the world currently is from the 1.5C goal. It will be up to Brazil to steer negotiators on the best way to close that gap, including by scaling up clean energy.

For Ember’s Altieri, it won’t take much to get the clean energy transition to snowball, but targets are needed to make sure that countries think about where they place renewables and the kind of infrastructure, like grids and battery storage, that’s needed to accompany it.

“It’s not about target setting for the sake of target setting,” she said. “The economics are there for every country in the world.” –BLOOMBERG

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CANADA’S decision to retaliate against US tariffs earlier this year appears to be driving a divergence in how President Donald Trump is dealing with America’s neighbors. 

Until this week, Canada and Mexico received similar treatment in White House trade actions. Each was subject to a 25% base tariff, with a large exemption for goods shipped under the North American free trade pact known as USMCA.

That changed on Thursday, when Trump granted Mexico a 90-day pause on tariff hikes while jacking up its tax on Canadian products to 35%. The administration said Canada’s higher rate was a response to fentanyl trafficking and its moves to hit back with counter-tariffs. 

The situation leaves Prime Minister Mark Carney with a political dilemma. On one hand, he won an election by promising a muscular approach to the trade war, saying the government would use tariffs to cause “maximum pain” in the US. His voters remember that, and some want him to punch back. 

Yet the retaliatory measures already undertaken failed to prevent further escalations. Instead, they appear to have emboldened Trump’s team to hit even harder.

US administration officials including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick frequently talk about how only two countries retaliated against Trump’s tariffs — the other was China. 

“Canada’s retaliatory trade measures against the United States further complicate bilateral efforts to address this escalating drug crisis,” the White House said in a fact sheet, referencing fentanyl. But Mexico is a much larger source of shipments of the drug into the US, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

Carney, an economist and former central banker, has also made it plain he believes retaliation can only go so far. In fact, his government has watered down Canada’s counter-tariffs with a number of exemptions, declined to increase them when the US lifted steel and aluminum tariffs to 50% and scrapped a tax on technology services at Trump’s request. 

Dominic LeBlanc, the Canadian minister in charge of trade talks, told Radio-Canada on Friday the government hasn’t made any decisions about further retaliation. 

But Carney is clearly reluctant to do so — which “reflects the reality that counter-tariffs are understood to be economically harmful to the country which imposes them,” said David Collins, a professor specializing in international trade at City St George’s, University of London.

The government’s priority is to keep the USMCA carve-out that dramatically lowers the real tax on Canadian goods. The effective US tariff rate on Canada is about 6.3%, according to Bank of Nova Scotia economists.  

“A more diplomatic approach is likely to bear more fruit with the Americans,” Collins said.

Retaliation Escalation

Canada imposed two rounds of counter-tariffs in March, when Justin Trudeau was in his final days as prime minister. The first placed 25% levies on about C$30 billion ($21.8 billion) of imports from the US that included food items, clothing and motorcycles. The second came when Trump put tariffs on steel and aluminum. 

Then, when Trump added tariffs to foreign automobiles, Carney essentially matched that move, imposing similar fees on US cars and trucks. 

But in mid-April, the government unveiled a series of exemptions for business inputs — goods imported for use in manufacturing and food packaging, as well as things needed for health care, public safety and security. Automakers such as General Motors Co. and Honda Motor Co. that make vehicles at Canadian plants were also made eligible for relief from import taxes.

The large majority of US products can still enter Canada tariff-free. US companies and other entities exported about $440 billion of goods and services to Canada last year — more than to any other nation.

For Canada, “the logic for escalation over cooperation is just weak,” said Oliver Lavelle, global macro strategist at Thiel Macro LLC. 

Mexico’s Way

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, in contrast, has never imposed counter-tariffs on the US.

Sheinbaum’s position is also supported by her high approval ratings, which have remained above 75% in most polls. “It’s worth saying: President Trump treats us with respect in all the calls we’ve had, and we do too,” she said during a news conference. “We may not agree, but the treatment is respectful.”

A statement issued late Thursday night by Carney’s office expressed disappointment in Trump’s tariff hike on Canada, but made no mention of retaliation. A spokesperson for Carney declined to comment further.

LeBlanc said he met with Lutnick on Tuesday night, and that Canadian officials held other meetings throughout the week, but a deal acceptable to both sides “was not yet visible.”

In his statement, Carney acknowledged that lumber, steel, aluminum and autos are still subject to US levies, and said his government “will act to protect Canadian jobs, invest in our industrial competitiveness, buy Canadian, and diversify its export markets.”

‘Jitters’

But while the USMCA exemption gives Canada some breathing room, the sectoral tariffs on steel and aluminum are still harmful and will affect economic growth if they’re in place for long, Collins said.

Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, said the idea that Canada is getting off lightly is “both overstated and potentially premature.”

Canadian industries are more reliant on US exports than their overseas competitors, and Trump could also chose to weaken the USMCA exemption at any time, he said in a note to investors. 

“We are still hopeful for a deal that relieves at least some of the pressure on base metal exporters,” Shenfeld said. “But whether any of this lasts will depend on Trump’s word, and we’ve seen how shaky that foundation can be, leaving jitters that could impact business capital spending and confidence ahead.” –BLOOMBERG

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OPEC+ has agreed in principle on another bumper oil production increase for September, according to a delegate, completing the revival of a halted supply tranche as the group moves to reclaim global market share. 

Saudi Arabia and its partners plan to ratify the addition of 548,000 barrels a day for next month when they hold a video conference on Sunday, the delegate said. The increase would complete the reversal of a 2.2 million-barrel cutback made by eight members in 2023, and includes an extra allowance being phased in by the United Arab Emirates. 

The latest hike caps a dramatic shift from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners from defending prices to opening the taps. Their pivot has cushioned oil and gasoline futures against geopolitical tensions and strong seasonal demand, offering some relief for drivers and a win for President Donald Trump, but could swell a global supply surplus anticipated later in the year. 

OPEC+ had already tentatively agreed at last month’s meeting to finish the 2.2 million-barrel revival. Traders may now shift focus to the next layer of halted output, which amounts to 1.66 million barrels, and is formally scheduled to remain offline until the end of 2026.

“With the anticipated sunsetting of the 2.2 million barrel-a-day voluntary cut, we expect the producers to hit the pause button while they assess market conditions and broader macro factors,” said Helima Croft, head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital LLC.

OPEC+ sent oil prices crashing to a four-year low in early April when it announced a sudden acceleration in its plan to unwind the current tranche of cuts, while markets were still reeling from Trump’s dramatic “Liberation Day” tariff announcements. The alliance has followed with a series of bumper monthly increases, and sped up even further in July. 

Crude prices have clawed back losses as demand strengthened over the summer, with Brent futures in London trading just below $70 a barrel on Friday — down 6.7% this year. However, analysts have warned the market faces a mounting surplus later this year, as supplies increase and slowing global growth weighs on demand. Benchmark retail gasoline prices in the US even edged lower last month. 

The decision comes against the backdrop of threats by Trump to target Russian oil exports by putting secondary tariffs on buyers of its supplies unless there is a swift ceasefire in the war in Ukraine. 

A disruption to Russian flows would threaten to drive up crude prices, and run counter to Trump’s repeated call for cheaper oil, as he pushes the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak made a rare visit to Riyadh on Thursday to discuss “cooperation between the countries” with Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman. The two countries have jointly led OPEC+ since its creation almost a decade ago. –BLOOMBERG

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