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Macron seeks ‘stronger mobilisation’ on climate

By AFP
December 13, 2017

PARIS: The heads of several of the world’s space agencies have proposed the creation of a climate observatory to pool acquired data and share it with scientists around the globe, according to a declaration adopted on Monday in Paris.

On the eve of the One Planet Summit organised in the French capital, the space agencies’ chiefs met to discuss climate monitoring from space, including such areas as greenhouse gases, water resource management and the use of satellites during natural disasters.

"Satellites are vital tools for studying and gaining new insights into climate change in order to mitigate its effects and help societies devise coping strategies," France’s National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), which hosted the talks, said in a statement.

It added that more than half of the 50 essential climate variables could be measured only from space. "The Paris Declaration we have just adopted proposes to set up a Space Climate Observatory that will act as a hub between space agencies and the international scientific community," the CNES president Jean-Yves Le Gall said after the meeting.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday called for stronger action in the fight against climate change, as he hosted world leaders for talks two years to the day since the Paris agreement.

"We are very far from the goal of the Paris agreement of limiting the rise in temperatures to below a two-degree threshold," he told Le Monde newspaper. "Without much stronger mobilisation, a jolt to our means of production and development, we will not succeed," he warned.

Macron’s comments came as leaders met in the French capital to discuss the trillions of dollars of investment in clean energy needed if the climate deal is to stay on track. Tuesday’s talks were overshadowed by US President Donald Trump’s decision in June to pull out of the pact, which had taken nearly 200 nations more than two decades to negotiate. Macron on Monday reminded Trump of his responsibility to history over his decision to quit the agreement, in an interview aired on CBS.

"I’m pretty sure that my friend President Trump will change his mind in the coming months or years," he added. In a related devellpment former US secretary of state John Kerry blasted the absence of the American government at a major climate change summit in Paris on Tuesday as a "disgrace". About 60 world leaders and hundreds of ministers, company bosses, and environmentalists gathered for the One Planet Summit called by French President Emmanuel Macron after Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the global climate accord.

Trump was not invited and the US federal government was represented by the second-highest diplomat in the American embassy in Paris, Brent Hardt, two years to the day since Kerry and then-president Barack Obama helped lead pain-staking diplomatic efforts to clinch the Paris accord. "It’s very disappointing, it’s worse than disappointing, it’s actually a disgrace when you consider the facts, the science, the common sense, all the work that’s been done," Kerry told AFP on the summit sidelines.

Al-Sanea seeks to end debt dispute

A detained Saudi billionaire who led the collapsed Saad Group is seeking to repay part of a multi-billion dollar debt to creditors under a deal that could allow his release, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The businessman, Maan al-Sanea, was detained in October in the kingdom’s Eastern Province for unpaid debts, and has since been in a civil detention centre in the city of Khobar, according to several sources.

Reemas Group, a financial consultancy hired by Saad Group, has outlined a proposed settlement covering $4 billion in debt. In an email sent by Reemas to creditors, of copy of which Reuters has obtained, it suggests that they would get more of their money back than under a court-enforced liquidation of the company, albeit over a longer period.

At the height of his success, al-Sanea held investments in a number of large companies, including a 3.1 percent stake in British-based bank HSBC bought in 2007. That year, when his net worth was estimated at over $10 billion, he was ranked by Forbes as one of the world’s 100 richest men.

But al-Sanea’s fortunes turned in 2009, when his business collapsed under heavy debts, unleashing a series of long-running legal disputes. Al-Sanea was detained a few weeks before Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched a crackdown on corruption in which dozens of Saudi princes and businessmen are being held.

However, there is no indication that al-Sanea’s case is linked with this campaign, as he was detained by the Saudi authorities for unpaid debts rather than alleged graft. Sources told Reuters that al-Sanea has access to a telephone to speak to his legal team and advisers, and has been trying to organise the debt settlement with the help of some members of his family.

A source at the Ministry of Justice in Riyadh said al-Sanea could be released if his debts with creditors are settled. Khobar General Court could not immediately be reached for comment. Reemas Group, which has branches in Khobar and Bahrain, said in the email that 34 financial institutions had obtained court judgments in the case worth 15.7 billion riyals ($4.19 billion). "We have contacted 90 percent either directly or via their local representative over the past few days.

They have welcomed the idea, and we are yet to receive their preliminary consent in order to proceed with the next step," said the email, which was sent to other creditors last month. Reemas said in the email that rather than auctioning off Saad Group’s assets under the liquidation process, they would be moved into a special purpose vehicle, with creditors owning the new company.

"The initiative would protect the (assets) from substantial reduction in value and enhance the debt coverage ratio to reach at least 20-25 percent," it said. Reemas Group did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Saad Group, once one of the largest business conglomerates in the Gulf, collapsed under the weight of its debts in 2009 along with the family-owned Saudi conglomerate Ahmad Algosaibi and Brothers (AHAB).

Since then, the two groups have been battling each other in the courts, with creditors seeking to recover billions of dollars. AHAB said it had yet to approached about the proposed debt settlement. "We are happy to engage in the dialogue and feel we should be included and if we’re not included we will pursue all avenues available to us," said Simon Charlton, AHAB’s chief restructuring officer and acting chief executive.

The debt settlement efforts, sources said, came after an entity established by the Supreme Judicial Council in Saudi Arabia, called the Joint Directorate of Enforcement at the General Court in Al-Khobar (JDEK), took over al-Sanea’s personal assets and began a liquidation process for Saad Group. The proposed settlement suggests creditors would recover the funds over a five-year period.