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COP29 said it expected the scheme to reduce the cost of implementing countries' national climate plans by up to US$250 billion Photo: Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via AFP A new carbon credit trading deal reached in the final hours of COP29 has been criticised as a free pass for countries to slack off on efforts to reduce emissions at home. The deal, sealed at the annual UN climate talks nearly a decade after it was first put forward, will allow countries to buy carbon credits from others to bring down their own balance sheet. New Zealand had set its targets under the Paris Agreement on the assumption that it would be able to meet some of it through international cooperation - "so getting this up and running is really important", Compass Climate head Christina Hood said. "It's a tool, it's...

By Madeleine Rojahn for the ABC Specialist medical teams were winched to the site where the man was trapped. Photo: Supplied: Tasmania Department of Police, Fire & Emergency Management A 65-year-old Lithuanian man who had his left leg amputated at the knee during a rescue operation near Tasmania's remote south-west remains in a critical condition. The man, whose identity has not been disclosed, was part of an international group of 11 people embarking on a multi-day pack-rafting trip along Tasmania's remote Franklin River. Police said they believed the man's leg became trapped in a rock crevice on Friday afternoon while he was "scouting" the area on foot along the Franklin River's banks. He used a GPS-enabled device to call for help but remained trapped and partially submerged in...

By Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN The incident occurred in Atofonte, which is near Sicily's capital, Palermo. Photo: 123RF / kavalenkau The discovery of a severed horse head, and a cow quartered with its bloodied dead calf on top, have rattled a Sicilian town, with authorities treating the incident as a mafia threat. The dead animals were discovered on the property of a building contractor in the town of Altofonte, near Palermo, police told CNN. The gruesome scene was reminiscent of the 1972 film The Godfather where a character wakes up to find a decapitated head of a horse in his bed. The contractor, who is not being named to protect him during the ongoing investigation, told police that he had not received any threats prior to the discovery of the dead livestock, who were kept on an adja...

By Daria Tarasova-Markina, Lauren Kent, Nick Paton Walsh and Victoria Butenko, CNN Russia has fired around 60 North Korean KN-23 missiles at Ukraine this year. Photo: Korean Central News Agency / AFP Ukraine has been hit by a surge in Russian ballistic missile attacks, around a third of which used North Korean weapons that can only fly because they run on Western circuitry, obtained despite sanctions, according to Ukrainian military officials. Russia has fired around 60 North Korean KN-23 missiles at Ukraine this year, according to a Ukrainian defence official. That accounts for nearly one in three of the 194 ballistic missiles fired so far in 2024, a CNN tally of attacks publicly acknowledged by Ukraine's air force shows. August and September saw a spike in ballistic missile attacks...

By Kate Abnett, Valerie Volcovici and Karin Strohecker, Reuters Attendees walk past the COP29 logo during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, on 21 November 21, 2024. Photo: AFP Countries agreed on Sunday to an annual finance target of $300 billion (NZ$514b) to help poorer countries deal with impacts of climate change, with rich countries leading the payments, according to a hard fought deal clinched at the COP29 conference in Baku. The new goal is intended to replace developed countries' previous commitment to provide $100 billion (NZ$171b) per year in climate finance for poorer nations by 2020. That goal was met two years late, in 2022, and expires in 2025. The agreement was criticised by developing nations, who called it insufficient, but Unit...