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CNN International: Climate Deal Calls For Transition Away From Fossil Fuels; Torrential Rain Drenches Displaced Gazans; IDF: Nine Israeli Soldiers Killed In Single Incident In Gaza; Zelenskyy Fails To Convince U.S. Republicans On Ukraine Aid; House Set To Vote On Biden Impeachment Inquiry; Tesla Recalling Nearly All Cars To Fix Autopilot; Polish Lawmaker Douses Menorah With Fire Extinguisher; Argentina To Devalue Peso By Over 50 Percent In Emergency Move; Fears Of Conflict Over Disputed Essequibo Region; Turkish Club President Resigns After Attack. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired December 13, 2023 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:00:42]

MAX FOSTER, CNN HOST: Hello, and welcome to CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster in London. Just ahead, a historic deal or a drop in the ocean. What experts make of the COP climate deal that promises a transition away from fossil fuels.

Plus, misery in Gaza as heavy rains threaten to make life even harder for the enclaves 1.8 million displaced people. And then Ukraine walks away with, well, almost empty handed after President Zelenskyy fails to persuade U.S. Congress members to break its deadlock.

A historic deal has been reached at the COP28 climate conference that calls for transitioning away from fossil fuels blamed for global warming. Many country delegates celebrated the agreement as a significant step forward. But the deal reached earlier today in Dubai falls short of calling on the world to phase out oil, coal and gas altogether.

Instead, it presents a series of options for countries to reduce carbon pollution so as to achieve net zero by 2050. Many climate experts cautiously welcome the agreement, but point to weaknesses such as leaving the door open for fossil fuel expansion.

For more on this, let's bring in CNN's David McKenzie in Johannesburg. How historic actually is this?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Max, it depends on how this is executed, but certainly, it's a very big deal that fossil fuels got into this agreement, an agreement that nearly 200 countries had to unanimously sign off on. Well, if not unanimously, certainly by consensus.

Now, some of the key points of the deal is that it's looking for explicitly transitioning away from fossil fuels. It's asking for countries to get to net zero by 2050, or at least by 2050, tripling the renewable energy capacity by 2030, and to help poorer nations to adapt with climate finance. Now, some of the loopholes that experts say are important to pay attention to are things like carbon credits as well as carbon capture, which is seen as an expensive alternative to just transitioning away to renewable energy. The COP president said that there were negotiations well into the night, and he said that this is an important moment to recognize.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SULTAN AL JABER, MINISTER OF INDUSTRY AND ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY OF THE UAE: We have delivered a comprehensive response to the global stocktake and all other mandates. Together, we have confronted realities and we have set the world in the right direction. We have given it a robust action plan to keep 1.5 within reach.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKENZIE: Well, the climate action that is happening now, Max, is behind the curve. Countries really need to cut emissions far more deeply, emissions of those fossil fuels, to try and meet that 1.5 threshold agreed at the Paris agreement. This is also not a binding agreement. There's no mechanism to allow for policing of it. But there is hope from many of the delegates and even climate activists that just placing this directly on paper through consensus will accelerate the action of the world to try and combat this. Max?

FOSTER: David in Johannesburg, thank you.

We're going to go to Gaza now, where people driven from their homes and dealing with hunger and disease are facing a new problem and its rain. A torrential downpour has turned Gaza into a muddy mess. Thousands of homeless Gazans were forced to sleep in puddles on the ground.

Meanwhile, on the battlefield, nine Israeli soldiers were killed during an operation in northern Gaza. It's amongst Israel's largest single losses of soldiers since the ground campaign began. Let's bring in CNN's Alex Marquardt in Tel Aviv with the latest. I mean, these scenes of the mud. I mean, people can normally deal with it, but not when they're sleeping outside.

[08:05:00]

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, Max, it's the Middle East. It may be warm during the day, but it is certainly cold at night. And we just saw extraordinary levels of rainfall last night. Some of the hardest rainfall that I've ever seen and hail. And it was hard not to think or try to imagine how these hundreds of thousands of people are coping.

Humanitarian officials believe that almost the entire Gaza Strip has been displaced, 1.9 million people out of a total population of 2.2. So many of them have fled to the southern part of the Gaza Strip to get away from that fierce fighting. There is not nearly enough aid. And when we see those aid trucks coming in, we have seen Gazans swarming them because they are so desperate for food, for water, for medicine, for shelter.

Medical officials have warned that this is a breeding ground for epidemics. And then you just add this horrible weather into the mix as well. Those official shelters that are managed by the U.N. and other aid groups are bursting at the seams. So people are sleeping out in the streets, they're sleeping in whatever makeshift tents they can make. And then you have these flash floods and torrential downpours that just make the situation all the more miserable.

Max, you and I spoke yesterday when I was at the Kerem Shalom crossing and it really highlighted the fact that all of the aid is still coming in through Egypt. And that bottleneck there at the Rafah crossing is really limiting the amount of aid that can get in on top of the fact that there is such chaos on the other side.

So now we see the U.S. very publicly, the White House openly speaking directly to CNN, saying that Israel needs to open up that Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Israel to allow more aid to directly go into Gaza. Max?

FOSTER: And what happened with these IDF soldiers? What was the incident where, you know, those lives were lost?

MARQUARDT: Well, we're still getting details, but what is clear is this took place in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. So it really underscores the fact that there is still fierce fighting going on in northern Gaza, that Israel doesn't have full control there as they do focus on the south. There are two main pockets of resistance, as the IDF has called it, the Jabalia refugee camp and Shazia.

And the incident that you're referring to is one of the deadliest incidents that the IDF has experienced since this war began. Nine soldiers killed in a single incident. They are members of the famed Golani Brigade. One was a battalion commander, a young lieutenant colonel. There was an additional IDF soldier killed.

So on Tuesday, 10 were -- the fallen were numbered 10 overall. The IDF has lost some 115 soldiers. On the other side, the IDF says some 7,000 militants have been taken off the battlefield. And then one final figure, Max, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza says that since the war broke out on October 7th, some 18,400 Palestinians have lost their lives. Max?

FOSTER: Alex, thank you for that update.

An Israeli military incursion into West bank -- into the West bank is now in its second day. The Israeli military arrested dozens of people during an operation Tuesday in the West bank city of Jenin. Palestinians say seven people were killed in the operation. Israel says it was conducting counterterrorism activities and it used drones to strike people attacking the Israeli soldiers.

The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues on his mission to get more aid for Kyiv. He's just arrived in Oslo for a meeting with Nordic leaders. His visit coming ahead of a key European Council meeting that begins on Thursday. His pleas for more war funding from Washington may go unanswered. Congress is divided on an aid package with Republicans saying they'll only pass one if it's tied to U.S. border security changes. U.S. President Joe Biden says letting Ukraine run out of aid would be, quote, "the greatest Christmas gift for Vladimir Putin".

Natasha Bertrand joins us now from Washington, D.C. And when we look back on it, it was pretty hard for Zelenskyy to go into these meetings with certain Republicans and convince them because they were looking at domestic issues, not the international ones.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Exactly right. And I think Zelenskyy recognized that and he did not go into, of course, the domestic border issues that the Congress is grappling with at this point. But he understood, and lawmakers made clear to him that this is not personal, right? Many of the lawmakers who want to see these changes made on the border, they also support aid to Ukraine, but they're just not willing to budge at this point until concessions are made on border security.

And so, this was a really significant day because it is a pivotal moment for Ukraine funding. They are headed into a very harsh winter. The Russians have already begun to attack their coal infrastructure as they did last winter, leaving them without power, in many instances running water. And so this is going to be very tough.

[08:10:08]

And it comes as there has been a stalemate really between the Russians and the Ukrainians in terms of how the counteroffensive has been going. Largely, it has not succeeded. They have only taken back very small portions of land and territory from the Russians over the last several months, certainly not the amount that they had anticipated when they began training for this counteroffensive.

And so now, the president, President Biden, he has made clear to the Ukrainians that the U.S. is going to support them for as long as it can, which is a notable shift from what he said last year when Zelenskyy visited Washington, which is that the U.S. is going to support the Ukrainians for as long as it takes.

That really reflects the discord on Capitol Hill right now about this continued Ukraine funding. And it underscores just how delicate the moment actually is. Zelensky really made clear that if this funding is not provided, if the additional military equipment is not given to the Ukrainian troops, then Vladimir Putin will not stop at Ukraine.

And that is something that he really tried to underscore to lawmakers, is that American troops could be placed at risk if Putin decides to, for example, attack NATO territory. So all of this, of course, really remains to be seen how it's going to play out in the New Year. But for now, it does not seem like there is going to be any kind of solution to this in the near term. Max?

FOSTER: OK, Natasha, I appreciate that. Thank you. Coming up, dozens of countries have reached an historic climate deal in the COP28 summit. But will that be enough to end the use of fossil fuels in reality? We'll take a look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: We're just a few hours away from a possible showdown on Capitol Hill as the Republican House votes to formalize their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Democrats are calling the inquiry baseless. And at the same time, Biden's son Hunter has been subpoenaed to appear for a closed door deposition in Washington, D.C.

Lauren Fox joins us from Capitol Hill to explain this to the wider world who haven't kept up with the twists and turns in this story.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there is an expected vote tonight to move forward with formalizing an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Democrats pushing back, arguing that there is not evidence connecting the president directly to any of his son's foreign business dealings. Nor do they argue, is there any evidence that he did anything illegal or wrong.

And yet Republicans are arguing they need to take this step because they want to ensure they're getting all of the information that they are requesting from the White House and from the Biden family. They are also arguing that this doesn't necessarily mean ultimately they will move forward with impeaching President Joe Biden.

[08:15:03]

But you can expect that as this inquiry picks up, as there's more and more momentum in the base to move forward with impeachment, it's going to get harder and harder for Republican leaders to push back against those calls. We also know that today, the House Oversight and Judiciary committees had scheduled a deposition with the president's son, Hunter Biden.

We do not know if Hunter Biden will appear on Capitol Hill today. We do know he is in Washington, D.C. But our justice team reporting yesterday that Hunter's legal team was still talking through their best strategy for today's deposition. Hunter's lawyer had argued that he wanted this to take place in public. They did not want to have a closed door deposition because they were worried that Republicans would selectively leak pieces of their conversation rather than releasing it in full.

So that is where things stand today. We expect this vote on the impeachment inquiry, and we are waiting to see whether or not the president's son, Hunter Biden, will appear on Capitol Hill.

FOSTER: Lauren Fox, thank you so much for that.

Now, after two weeks of hard fought negotiations and some controversies, delegates from 200 countries at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai agreed for the very first time to start transitioning away from fossil fuels. COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber called the agreement historic. But the deal includes some vague language that some climate advocates say doesn't reflect the growing urgency of the climate crisis.

In fact, the deal doesn't require countries to phase out oil, coal and gas, but calls on countries to, quote, "contribute to reducing carbon pollution to achieve net zero by 2050". This comes at the end of the year, which scientists say is on track to become the hottest on record and is being defined by natural disasters across the globe. So will the new deal be enough to fight global warming?

Let's bring in our Chief Climate Change Correspondent, Bill Weir, who's the man to answer whether or not this indeed was historic. Bill?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Max, it is historic in that for the first time in almost 30 years, the words fossil fuels actually appear in the final language of this. And over almost 200 countries agreeing that they should be phased down, they should be contributed. But that phased down language was stripped away by OPEC countries like Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Kuwait, resisting an all-out drop of fossil fuels.

So instead, what we have is sort of a choose your own adventure for the countries of the world. Eight different options of things that they can do, including transitioning away from fossil fuels, accelerating this action by the middle of this century, by 2050, tripling renewable energies and doubling energy efficiency, phasing down unabated coal, ramping up carbon capture and bridge fuels.

So called methane gas is the way that is often referenced there, which is disappointing to many over 100 countries who say the end of methane needs to be imminent for any hope at containing global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

And as for finance, this is a real sticking one, Max. Imagine a country in Africa that has maybe a lot of fossil fuels and a lot of wind and sun and a lot of debt. They're pumping oil to service their debt with no money left over to transition to renewables. There was much hope that rich countries would be sort of encouraged to give more to those developing countries. There's no specific language on that.

FOSTER: In terms of any of other specifics within, you know, this agreement, was there anything that jumped out to you as something which was actually tangible?

WEIR: Well, like the pledge to triple renewables and double energy efficiency, that's kind of already happening just by market forces. The cheapest energy humanity has ever known now is onshore wind and solar, plus batteries. And so many states and countries around the world are already transitioning because it just makes the most sense economically right now.

So it's nice to see the world buying into that as well. But it isn't replacing the legacy fossil fuels nearly fast enough that the scientists say we must to preserve coral reefs and mountain ice and so many other ecosystems around the world. FOSTER: Bill Weir in New York, thank you so much for bringing us your thoughts on that historic agreement. We'll be right back.

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[08:21:30]

FOSTER: A stunning recall today from Tesla. Elon Musk's automaker is recalling almost every car. It's produced some 2 million vehicles in the U.S., so it can fix a problem with the autopilot. U.S. regulators say Tesla needs to ensure that drivers still pay attention whilst the autopilot is in use. They say mistakes by the Tesla autopilot have resulted in nearly a thousand crashes in the U.S., including multiple deaths.

There's outrage in Poland after a far-right lawmaker disrupted a Hanukkah celebration in parliament by using a fire extinguisher to put out candles on a large menorah. And then he took to the podium and described the Jewish holiday as, quote, "satanic". The parliament speaker excluded him from the session, saying there will be no tolerance for racism, xenophobia or antisemitism.

Argentina set to devalue the peso by more than 50 percent as part of emergency reforms to fight hyperinflation and boost its struggling economy. The conversion rate changes from 365 pesos to 800 per dollar, it was announced on Tuesday, along with cuts to public works, projects and energy subsidies.

The sweeping reforms come just days into the term of the new president, Javier Milei, who campaigned on a pledge to get rid of the peso and replace it with the dollar. The president said during his inauguration on Sunday the country will have to endure a period of hardship before it can move forward.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he'll sit down with the president of neighboring Guyana on Thursday to discuss a growing territorial dispute. Venezuela has proposed taking over a massive oil rich stretch of land inside Guyana, raising fears of conflict as Isa Soares reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICOLAS MADURO, VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT: (Speaking Foreign Language) Venezuela.

ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's an outlandish attempt at a land grab that has the world on edge. Long live the full map of Venezuela. This is President Nicolas Maduro revealing his new vision, a larger and more powerful Venezuela, which includes Essequibo, a lush and vast patch of land that makes up two-thirds of neighboring Guyana.

Maduro is now threatening to invade Guyana after an incendering referendum at home backed his bid to claim sovereignty over the territory. Let's publish and take to all the schools, high schools, and universities of the country the new map of Venezuela, he says.

Across the border, Guyana's president, Irfaan Ali, is ringing alarm bells.

IRFAAN ALI, GUYANESE PRESIDENT: This is a direct threat to Guyana's territorial integrity, sovereignty, and political independence.

SOARES (voice-over): Roughly the size of Florida, Essequibo has been a part of Guyana since 1899, when international arbitrators set the current borders. Venezuela has long sought to control the territory, and the discovery of more than 11 billion barrels of oil and gas off Guyana's coast by oil giant ExxonMobil in 2015, which put the country on track to become the world's highest per capita oil producer, has only emboldened Maduro.

Now he's escalating tensions even further, naming a major general as the head of the new Essequibo state and telling oil companies operating in the region, they have three months to pack up and leave.

[08:25:01]

This, as he orders Venezuela's national oil company to start exploring the area. Immediately, we'll proceed to give operating licenses for the exploration and exploitation of oil, gas and mines in all of Guyana's Essequibo, he says. It's a move out of President Putin's playbook. And the fear, Guyana's president tells me, is that Maduro feels empowered by the Russian leader's invasion of Ukraine.

ALI: We cannot allow a situation like Ukraine in this western hemisphere. We cannot allow the annexation of a territory in this western hemisphere.

SOARES (voice-over): Allies and neighbors too are taking note. Brazil's President Lula da Silva has ordered additional troops and armored vehicles to his northern border.

Something we don't need in South America's war. We don't need a war. We don't need conflict, he says. What we need is to build peace.

And longtime ally of the United States is conducting flight operations within Guyana while throwing its support for the country's sovereignty and robust security.

Isa Soares, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: The referee who was attacked following a football match in Turkey has been released from the hospital. Halil Umut Meler still has swelling in his eye but is in good spirits, according to his doctor. He was attacked by Faruk Koca, a Turkish club president, and two other individuals after a football match on Monday. Koca said he slapped the referee for his, quote, "wrong decisions and provocative behavior".

Koca was arrested and resigned from his role as president after the incident. And there'll be much more on that story in World Sport coming up with Amanda after the break.

Thank you for joining me here on CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster in London. World Sport is next.

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