Baku, Azerbaijan — The annual U.N. climate summit kicks off Monday with countries readying for tough talks on finance and trade, following a year of weather disasters that have emboldened developing countries in their demands for climate cash. Delegates gathering in Azerbaijan's capital of Baku are hoping to resolve the summit's top agenda item – a deal for up to $1 trillion in annual climate finance for developing countries. The summit's negotiating priorities, however, are competing for governments' resources and attention against economic concerns, wars in Ukraine and Gaza and last week's U.S. re-election of Donald Trump, a climate-change denier, as president of the world's biggest economy. COP29 host Azerbaijan will be tasked with keeping countries focused on agreeing to a new global finance target to replace the current $100 billion pledge expiring this year. The Caspian Sea nation, often proud of being home to the world's first oil wells, will also be under pressure to show progress from last year's COP28 pledge to transition away from fossil fuels. The country's oil and gas revenues accounted for 35% of its economy in 2023, down from 50% two years prior. The government says these revenues will continue to decline, to roughly 32% of its GDP this year and 22% by 2028. Before the summit talks can even begin, countries will need to agree on an agenda by consensus – including an 11th-hour proposal by China to bring trade disputes into the mix. The Chinese proposal - made on behalf of the fast-developing "BASIC" group of countries including Brazil, India and South Africa - asked for the summit to address "restrictive trade measures" such as the EU's carbon border tariffs going into effect in 2026. Those concerns have been compounded by Trump's campaign promise to impose 20% tariffs on all foreign goods – and 60% on Chinese goods. China's request showed it was flexing power following Trump's re-election, which signaled the United States' likely disengagement from global climate cooperation, said Li Shuo, director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Trump has called climate change a hoax and vowed to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the global treaty to reduce planet-warming emissions. The European Union, along with current U.S. President Joe Biden's administration, have been pressing China and Gulf oil nations to join the pool of climate finance donor countries. "If the EU wants to talk about climate finance with China, if it wants to talk NDCs, part of the conversation should be how to resolve our differences on trade and your tariffs," Shuo said. Extreme pressure With this year on track to be the hottest on record, experts noted that climate extremes were now challenging rich and poor countries alike – from flooding disasters in Africa, coastal Spain and the U.S. state of North Carolina, to drought gripping South America, Mexico and the U.S. West. Most countries are not prepared. "Election results don't alter the laws of physics," said Kaveh Guilanpour, vice president for international strategies at the nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. "Unless the world collectively steps up its efforts, the impacts of climate change will become increasingly severe and frequent and will be felt by an increasing number of people in all countries, including in the United States." Many in Baku were worried that a U.S. disengagement could lead other countries to backpedal on past climate pledges or to scale back future ambitions.

Clouds can trap heat or reflect it away from Earth, making their impact on global warming extraordinarily hard to predict. Now, new ways of studying them are lifting the fog

Particles of light can spend "negative time" passing through a cloud of extremely cold atoms – without breaking the laws of physics

Light can be directed and steered around bends using a method similar to the way clouds scatter photons, which could lead to advances in medical imaging, cooling systems and even nuclear reactors

Launching a million tonnes of moon dust around Earth could dim sunlight across our planet by 1.8 per cent. This would reduce the global temperature, but whether it would be worth the resources, and the risks involved in such a strategy, are unclear

Light can be directed and steered around bends using a method similar to the way clouds scatter photons, which could lead to advances in medical imaging, cooling systems and even nuclear reactors

Josh is having an Ys-y time. Anna Marie ranks all the slime families. Robert gets notified every time google kills a product. And Chris tells everyone to blink on cue.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 572: “Partly Cloudy Souls With a Chance of Roguelike” appeared first on RPGamer.

Kelley kabongs all the monsters. Anna Marie summersaults with her warhorse. And Chris learns that two times zero is still zero.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 636: “Cloud Is a Winter SOLDIER” appeared first on RPGamer.

Chris can't drink his coffee anymore. Kelley plays Sonic on Titan's tentacles. And Jason reminisces about the Ouya with Mads Middleton.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 683: “Tifa Pop-Pop, Barrett Pew-Pew, Cloud Cleave-Cleave” appeared first on RPGamer.

Using images captured by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft, researchers have created a cloud atlas of Mars, to better understand the climate of the Red Planet

It turns out microplastics have an effect on the weather and climate.

Cloud-based business management software (CRM, ERP) can revolutionise an SME.

The rare type of cloud, whose name is Latin for "roughness," was first observed in 2006 by an amateur cloudspotter in Iowa.

ONE of the world’s most spectacular clouds made a dramatic entrance for passengers on an Adelaide-bound jet.

Light can be directed and steered around bends using a method similar to the way clouds scatter photons, which could lead to advances in medical imaging, cooling systems and even nuclear reactors

One thing ive found myself doing lately now that im sorta 'well fuck that twitter shit' is i am rambling on a LOT more when i type stuff. This can be viewed as a good or bad thing. Maybe for me it's not a bad thing. It's a bit like working in a 4 panel comic format. You can do a lot with a four panel setup, almost the first entire chapter of MT is all 4 panel. It has its own kinda pacing, setup, delivery, variables, etc. But there are things i can...

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Shot from village Timila in Ranikhet Tehsil of Uttarakhand

Shot from village Timila in Ranikhet Tehsil of Uttarakhand

IWMI's Deputy Director General, Rachael McDonnell, spoke to NPR's Goats and Soda about fog harvesting, a traditional technique that is now being expanded.

The post How to harvest water from clouds of fog first appeared on International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

As the hotel industry becomes increasingly digital, payment facilitation is evolving into a critical area of focus. Hotels face numerous challenges, from managing payment timing to ensuring a seamless guest experience while balancing costs and risk. Hoteliers are increasingly optin to integrate a payments platform directly into the hotel’s Property Management System (PMS). By embedding payments within the PMS, hotels can streamline processes, reduce risk and improve guest satisfaction, offering a holistic solution to payment complexities.

HiFives, a leading provider of cloud based employee rewards management and recognition platform, today announced a collaborative cloud based service model that is helping global corporations transform their employee rewards programs,...

Vodafone Business Services (VBS), the enterprise arm of Vodafone India, on Thursday announced it has tied up with Google Cloud to offer G Suite to bring people together and help them work smarter.

Yeswanth Surampudi's expertise in data engineering has been transformative. His work building scalable pipelines, refining data processes, and managing cloud migrations highlights his proficiency in Big Data

Karthikeyan Anbalagan's insights emphasize that AI-powered cloud computing is poised to become an essential tool for businesses, driving digital transformation and opening up new possibilities in the ever-evolving technological landscape.

A team of founders who sold their last company to Amazon to build a new unit within AWS is setting out to reinvent the tricky business of backing up organizations’ cloud infrastructure. Now, Eon is coming out of stealth with a product, a set of customers, three rounds of funding totaling $127 million, and a […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Cybersecurity continues to command a lot of attention from enterprises looking for better protection from malicious hackers, and VCs want in on the action. In the latest example, TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that Upwind — a specialist in assessing and securing cloud infrastructure — is closing in on a $100 million round at a […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Enterprise spending on cloud services continues to go up, up, up — to the tune of $675 billion this year — thanks to organizations’ firm embrace of software-as-a-service, the popularity of distributed working, and the arrival of compute-intensive tech like AI. A startup called PointFive believes it has found a better way to get a […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

PwC today announced it was collaborating with a range of Australasian startups and emerging technology companies to deliver a purpose-built cloud platform that brings together some of the leading cloud solutions in the market today, all in one place.

Luxembourg-based SUSE has long offered various services around its various Linux- and cloud-centric infrastructure and security tools. Yet what the company didn’t really offer before was a more traditional SaaS product. That’s changing now with the early access launch of SUSE Cloud Observability, a fully managed observability platform designed for Rancher-managed multi-cloud Kubernetes clusters. Rancher, […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Albany : State University of New York Press, 2023.

The Accor group hotel beat lockdown blues with some smart pivots

Smith, Heather, 1968- author

How software-as-a-service thrives in India even amid a downturn in the country’s start-up ecosystem

Why do we eat what we eat when grey clouds appear on the horizon and that first rain drop hits the ground? SHONALI MUTHALALY has some answers. And hashtags.

Still ordering in, though lockdowns are over? You are not alone. As cloud kitchens juggle cuisines and experiment with new dishes from a single space, takeaway in Thiruvananthapuram gets more interesting every day

From gourmet food, and healthy bowls to vegetarian sushi and experimental cuisines, cloud kitchens in the city are offering intricate culinary experiences. We pick three of them and sample what they offer 

Twitter hosts some services on its server and houses others on the cloud platforms of Amazon and Google.

Stuck in a downpour? If you’re a social media addict, you probably have your phone out to get a clutch of Instagram-worthy pictures. Curious about how photographers view the world through their lenses, SHONALI MUTHALALY and PRIYADARSHINI PAITANDY ask a cross-section of them for their favourite pictures of Chennai on a rainy day. The central idea? It’s not all exasperating commutes, flooded roads and soggy shoes. Even in a traffic-clogged city, there’s plenty of romance when it rains

Our planned investment will contribute $23.3 billion to India’s GDP by 2030, and support approximately 1,31,700 full-time jobs annually at local businesses, says Chris Casey of AWS

Naga Lalitha has become visible as someone who is changing the face of technology for industry verticals like supply chain and manufacturing.

New York : Routledge, 1995.

Cloudflare CEO and Cofounder Matthew Prince speaks with WIRED's Megan Greenwell as part of WIRED25, WIRED's second annual conference in San Francisco.

Produced by WIRED Brand Lab for Accenture | Join Accenture's Senior Marketing Director, Cloud First Global Service Lead Kishore Durg, as he discusses sustainability & how innovation can create a more sustainable life for all. Durg presents his findings to a child, a college student, and an expert. By showcasing three different levels of thought, our goal at Accenture is to provide a clear, direct, and effective message to all audiences. Implementing sustainable business practices is no small feat, and our mission at Accenture is to help the next generation of intelligent young minds live.

Produced by WIRED Brand Lab for Accenture | Teresa Tung, Accenture’s Cloud First Chief Technologist, discusses the power of cloud technology and the potential for innovation. Businesses occasionally have problems that require innovative solutions, and cloud computing has opened up nearly endless possibilities for adaption, across all different areas of business. The everyday life of consumers has changed forever as more technology is introduced into mainstream markets, and your business deserves to be at the forefront of the new customer experience dimension. Watch as Teresa Tung discusses this vital topic with a child, college student, and finally an expert in the cloud computing field. Learn more about Cloud at: https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/cloud-computing-index