United Kingdom

LONDON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday said he was cautious about rising cases of COVID in Europe, warning of gathering "storm clouds" of a new wave of coronavirus infections.

Britain has had much higher rates of COVID-19 than the rest of Western Europe since the summer when Johnson scrapped coronavirus restrictions in England.

However, rates in Britain are now coming down just as they are rising sharply in countries such as Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. Parts of Eastern Europe have also seen a sharp rise in cases.

LONDON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Britain and the European Union will intensify efforts next week to break their impasse over post-Brexit trade arrangements for Northern Ireland, as Brussels cautiously welcomed a change in tone from London.

After meeting with Britain's Brexit minister David Frost in London, EU negotiator Maros Sefcovic said the two sides would now seek to make headway on key issues such as customs checks and the movement of medicines into Northern Ireland.

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Negotiators at this year’s U.N. climate talks in Glasgow appeared to be backing away from a call to end all use of coal and phase out fossil fuel subsidies completely.

The latest draft proposal from the meeting’s chair released Friday calls on countries to accelerate “the phaseout of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels.”

A previous version Wednesday had called on countries to “accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuel.”

GLASGOW, Britain, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- China and the United States on Wednesday released the China-U.S. Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s here at the ongoing 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — The tightest of smiles on his face and the fabric of his traditional thobe swirling about him as he strides through a hallway at U.N. climate talks, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister expresses shock at repeated complaints that the world’s largest oil producer is working behind the scenes to sabotage negotiations.

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F) is “on life support” as U.N. climate talks enter their final days, but he added that “until the last moment, hope should be maintained.”

In an exclusive interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Guterres said the negotiations set to end Friday in Glasgow, Scotland, will “very probably” not yield the carbon-cutting pledges he has said are needed to keep the planet from warming beyond the 1.5-degree threshold.

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Governments are considering calling for a global end to coal use, according to a draft released Wednesday of the final document expected at the U.N. climate talks.

The early version of the document circulating at the negotiations in Glasgow, Scotland, also expresses “alarm and concern” about how much Earth has already warmed and urges countries to cut carbon dioxide emissions by about half by 2030. Pledges so far from governments don’t add up to that frequently stated goal.

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Prince Harry has sharply attacked the failure of social media companies to challenge hate online, revealing that he warned the chief executive of Twitter ahead of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots that the site was being used to stage political unrest.

Harry made the comments Tuesday in an online panel on misinformation in California. He said he made his concerns known via email to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey the day before the riot in Washington.

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — The United Nations climate summit in Glasgow has made “some serious toddler steps” toward cutting emissions but far from the giant leaps needed to limit global warming to internationally accepted goals, two new analyses and top officials said Tuesday.

And time is running out on the two weeks of negotiations.

The president of the climate talks, Alok Sharma, told high-level government ministers at the U.N. conference to reach out to their capitals and bosses soon to see if they can get more ambitious pledges because “we have only a few days left.”

GLASGOW, Nov 9 (Reuters) - New national pledges to tackle climate change this decade would lead to around 2.4 degrees Celsius of global warming this century, far above safe levels, analysts predict.

Climate Action Tracker (CAT) said on Tuesday that the promises by countries attending the U.N. summit in Glasgow to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 would still allow the Earth to heat up far beyond the United Nations target by 2100.