Sunday, always the final day of the MSC, is traditionally when world leaders get a flair for the dramatic. On the last day of the conference in 2023, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas called on the European Union to jointly buy artillery ammunition for Ukraine. Later that day, the bloc’s foreign-policy chief, Josep Borrell, announced that the EU would make it happen.
But this time, as the 28 heads of government and state, 56 foreign ministers, 20 defense ministers, 36 spy chiefs, and hundreds of lawmakers from all over the world packed up and got ready to head home and the labyrinth of security checkpoints began to come down, it was a big announcement from Saturday that was still the talk of the town.
At a Ukrainian-themed lunch on Saturday afternoon, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen made a dramatic announcement: “We, Denmark, have decided to donate our entire artillery to Ukraine,” she said. “I am sorry, but the issue is not just about production. Europe still has military equipment. It has to be transferred to Ukraine.”Frederiksen’s declaration—and its implicit challenge to other European countries to step up their own efforts to aid Ukraine—consumed the last day of the conference and left attendees grappling with some existential questions: Are they prepared not just to help Ukraine but also to defend Europe from a possible Russian attack on a NATO country? Are democracies capable of standing up against the threat of territory-grabbing dictatorships like Russian President Vladimir Putin’s?
Readying for war. Frederiksen’s announcement follows weeks of talk, including in Denmark, about preparing Europe for more conflict. Denmark’s defense minister has suggested that Russia could rebuild its capabilities to attack NATO soil within three to five years. Some officials whom SitRep spoke to in Munich thought Russia might even be ready more quickly.
“We do not have any illusions that Russia will change,” Hanno Pevkur, Estonia’s defense minister, told SitRep on Saturday. “[Putin’s] goal is to show that the West is not functioning, that NATO is not functioning, that Article 5 is not functioning. That is his goal.”
The hysteria about a potential conflict with Russia has been crisscrossing Europe for weeks. Swedish defense chief Gen. Micael Byden’s warning in early January that all Swedes should mentally prepare for war—even though Sweden has been issuing pamphlets to citizens for years warning of all-out sabotage by a foreign power—went viral on TikTok and left the telephone lines of Sweden’s child protection group besieged by frightened children and teenagers.
India’s economy will become carbon neutral by the year 2070, the country’s prime minster has announced at the COP26 climate crisis summit in Glasgow. The target date is two decades beyond what scientists say is needed to avert catastrophic climate impacts. India is the last of the world’s major carbon polluters to announce a net-zero target, with China saying it would reach that goal in 2060, and the United States and the European Union aiming for 2050.
China's carbon emissions are vast and growing, dwarfing those of other countries. Experts agree that without big reductions in China's emissions, the world cannot win the fight against climate change. In 2020, China's President Xi Jinping said his country would aim for its emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for carbon neutrality before 2060. His statement has now been confirmed as China's official position ahead of the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow. But China has not said exactly how these goals will be achieved.
China's carbon emissions are vast and growing, dwarfing those of other countries. Experts agree that without big reductions in China's emissions, the world cannot win the fight against climate change. In 2020, China's President Xi Jinping said his country would aim for its emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for carbon neutrality before 2060. His statement has now been confirmed as China's official position ahead of the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow. But China has not said exactly how these goals will be achieved.
A crucial U.N. conference heard calls on its first day for the world's major economies to keep their promises of financial help to address the climate crisis, while big polluters India and Brazil made new commitments to cut emissions. World leaders, environmental experts and activists all pleaded for decisive action to halt the global warming which threatens the future of the planet at the start of the two-week COP26 summit in the Scottish city of Glasgow on Monday. The task facing negotiators was made even more daunting by the failure of the Group of 20 major industrial nations to agree ambitious new commitments at the weekend.