Donald Trump’s election is a triumph for the politics of the doomsday bunker, which is bad news for the world’s environment.

This is the idea that in an age of climate disruption, nature extinction and ever wider social inequality, the best chance of survival for those who can afford it is to construct a personal shelter, where they can keep the desperate masses at bay. It is survival of the richest.

Apocalyptic thinking like this may once have been the stuff of science fiction but it has been normalised by billionaires such as the Palantir founder, Peter Thiel, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and others who have been building underground bunkers or buying superyachts and private jets to whisk themselves away to remote islands.

Tech billionaires were instrumental in Trump’s victory, particularly the Tesla boss, Elon Musk, who poured millions into the campaign and used X as a loudspeaker, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, whose newspaper, the Washington Post, blocked its editorial staff from endorsing Kamala Harris.

Once you get into a bunker mindset, you become invested in apocalypse. Out goes any idea of looking for solutions to the cause of the world’s problems, and in comes the idea that you survive by amassing wealth and weapons, throwing up higher walls and asset-stripping the wasteland outside.

From the perspective of the global south, such thinking in the most powerful country on Earth is a disaster. Survival in the Amazon rainforest, where I live, or the African savannah or the flood plains of Asia depends on a stable climate, abundant nature and peaceful cooperation.

The first Trump administration diminished environmental protections. Trump 2 has the capacity to take this to a new level because there are fewer constraints. Voters have given Trump the authority of an emperor. This is cause for multiple alarms, not least a US exit from the global climate fight.

Polls suggest this was not high in the minds of most voters, and the climate and nature crisis barely featured in election debates and speeches. But the climate created the setting for Trump’s economy-first win: the devastating impacts of hurricanes such as Helene and Milton making the federal government seem impotent, droughts worldwide adding to food price inflation, and higher temperatures everywhere creating more stress and foreboding. Throughout the world, ever more extreme weather is sparking ever more extreme politics.

Those who think of the climate challenge solely in terms of an energy transition may be inclined to see Trump 2 as a mere four-year setback. After all, the world weathered his first term. They may believe the momentum for solar and wind is already unstoppable because these forms of power generation are now cheaper than fossil fuels. Others could ask what difference a change of president will make, given that the US under Joe Biden had already ramped up oil and gas output to record levels.

But this misses the bigger picture. Carbon Brief estimates that a Trump presidency will add 4bn tonnes to US emissions by 2030. Every extra tonne means higher temperatures, more floods, more droughts, more fires, higher food prices, more deaths and a greater risk of hitting catastrophic tipping points for ocean circulation, polar ice melt or forest die-off.

Nowhere will escape – though, as usual, the global south will suffer first and worst. This is home to the populations most vulnerable to deadly heatwaves and crop-crippling droughts. It is also where developing countries were last year promised hundreds of billions of dollars in “loss and damage” compensation payments for the climate catastrophes they have done the least to cause. If Trump goes ahead with his threat to pull the world’s richest country out of the Paris agreement and the entire UN climate process, it will become extremely difficult to persuade other wealthy nations to find this money. Environmental justice now looks a more distant prospect.

An already dire situation in regions such as the Amazon rainforest will deteriorate. Trump’s denials will not affect the physics of climate disruption, which is already drying up sections of some of the world’s once mightiest rivers such as the Solimões, Negro, Tapajós, Xingu and Madeira. But they will prolong and intensify the breakdown of this globally important ecosystem, which plays a vital role in the water cycle of South America.

Trump’s rhetoric and example will also embolden the extreme right across the world to reduce protections for nature and people. In Brazil, this will increase the likelihood of a resurgence of the forces that gathered around the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who encouraged invasions of the Amazon and oversaw a record level of deforestation. The former army captain has been banned from running for office until 2030 after attempting a Trump-esque insurrection in the wake of his 2022 election defeat, but his allies dominate Congress and will be keen to replicate their American idol’s example of overturning punishments. Money buys power. Power buys safety. That is the logic of the bunker.

This is not sustainable. Deal only with the consequences and the causes will grow worse. Those who reveal this truth, such as scientists and journalists, come under attack. This is particularly true in the field of climate. The authors of the far-right Project 2025 wishlist are encouraging Trump to break up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the world’s most important centres for climate research.

When bunkered minds also throw up walls against truth, they imply might is right. In a normal, stable world, this can be shaken off as the dangerous nonsense it is. But when old certainties about the climate start to wobble, so does everything else and frightened voters seek supposed “strongmen” leaders, such as India’s Narendra Modi, Argentina’s Javier Milei, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the growing cast of far-right figures who have emerged in Europe.

Their denialism has deadly consequences, as the world saw during the Covid crisis, and as Valencia learned when more than 200 people died in flash floods after the rightwing local authorities ignored warnings from meteorologists and voted down efforts to strengthen disaster preparations.

Those looking for positives must grasp at straws. The US retreat to the bunker may be a sign that two centuries of fossil-fuelled industrial expansion are coming to an end, that late-stage capitalism is showing its true rapaciousness, and that this will finally stir a shake-up of a status quo that was, in any case, failing to halt emissions, prevent biodiversity collapse and tackle horrendous inequality.

Those looking for alternatives point to China as the real winner of the US election because its model is proving more stable, more intelligent and more effective in transitioning away from fossil fuels. It has built up a world-leading renewables industry, achieved its 2030 climate goals six years early and is on course for emissions to peak as early as next year.

And of course, nobody should forget that almost half of US voters rejected Trump, Europe is pushing ahead with emissions reductions, South America has more progressive leaders promising changes, and many cities and companies have bold plans. Somewhere in this may be the basis for a new era of clean, cheap, peaceful energy, smart leadership and healthier relations with nature.

Maybe. But in Trump 2, the ancien regime of dirty fossil fuels now has a belligerent, newly empowered defender. The fight will be messy.

In the years ahead, the logic of the doomsday bunker threatens to become suffocating. And if we are not careful, this could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The best antidote may be to remember what we are surviving for, why it is worth fighting for every fraction of a degree, every tonne of carbon, and to prove life is so much better outside than in.

Donald Trump’s decision to nominate the far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general has sent shockwaves through Washington, including the president-elect’s own party.

Trump on Wednesday announced Gaetz as his pick to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer in the justice department, a role that directs the government’s legal positions on critical issues, including abortion, civil rights, and first amendment cases.

Republicans were puzzled over this nomination, expressing this move was not on their “bingo card”.

“I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general,” Republican senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, told NBC News. “We need to have a serious attorney general. And I’m looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card.”

A rightwing firebrand, Gaetz was a thorn in the side of his fellow Republican and former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, eventually leading the successful charge to oust McCarthy from his role.

He was investigated by the justice department in a sex-trafficking case, though the department ultimately declined to bring charges. And was under investigation by the House ethics committee amid allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and other alleged ethical breaches.

Gaetz has fiercely denied wrongdoing.

Amid consternation even within his own party, it’s unclear if Gaetz can win Senate approval.

Republican congressman Max Miller of Ohio told Axios that “Gaetz has a better shot at having dinner with Queen Elizabeth II than being confirmed by the Senate”.

Miller also told Politico that Gaetz is “a reckless pick” with “a zero percent shot”.

John Bolton, a former national security adviser, said Gaetz “must be the worst nomination for a cabinet position in American history”.

“Gaetz is not only totally incompetent for this job, he doesn’t have the character. He is a person of moral turpitude,” Bolton said in an interview with NBC News.

One anonymous House GOP member told Axios: “We wanted him out of the House … this isn’t what we were thinking.” Another remarked they were “stunned and disgusted”.

Democrats, too, were left astonished by the announcement. Vice-President Kamala Harris’s team said in a statement that Trump and Gaetz “will weaponize the DoJ to protect themselves and their allies”.

Congressman Ro Khanna of California argued that voters were not necessarily voting for these cabinet picks when they decided to elect Trump.

“People voted for Trump to have lower prices and a secure border. I don’t think they voted for the appointments that they’re getting,” Khanna told CBS News. “He is not moving to the center. He’s going to his Maga base, and we’ll see if he’s overreaching on the mandate he had from the American people.”

Kate Maeder, a California-based political strategist, said the announcement should not come as a surprise, but wondered whether Trump trusts Gaetz will make it through the confirmation process. “It’s not a surprise that Trump is rewarding his political loyalists,” Maeder told the Guardian. “It’s a shock to many that he’s considering Matt Gaetz for attorney general. But is this a serious pick? I don’t think so.”

“In this political climate, it’s definitely possible for Matt Gaetz to be confirmed,” she said. “But I think it’ll be difficult. Some of the more moderate Republican senators are already on record questioning this choice.”

In newly released audio, Charles Manson, the cult leader behind a string of killings during the late 1960s in California, admitted his involvement in additional killings that occurred prior to his assembly of the notorious Manson Family.

An audio recording in a teaser clip from Peacock’s latest docuseries Making Manson features Manson saying: “There’s a whole part of my life that nobody knows about.”

The cult leader, speaking on a phone call from prison, goes on to add: “I lived in Mexico for a while. I went to Acapulco, stole some cars. I just got involved in stuff over my head, man. Got involved in a couple of killings. I left my .357 Magnum in Mexico City, and I left some dead people on the beach.”

Quick Guide

A quick guide to Charles Manson

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Who was Charles Manson?

Charles Manson was one of the most notorious murderers of the 20th century. He led a cult known as the Manson Family in California, most of whom were disaffected young women. Some became killers under his messianic influence.

Murder from afar

Despite spending more than  40 years in prison for the murders of seven people in 1969, Manson did not carry out the killings. Instead he convinced members of his ‘family’ to murder. One of their victims was the actor Sharon Tate, who was married to Roman Polanski and was more than eight months’ pregnant when she was killed.

Celebrity friends

By the time of his trial in 1970, Manson had spent half of his life in correctional institutions for various crimes. He became a singer-songwriter before the Tate murders and got a break in the music industry when he met Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson, who let him crash at his home.

Helter Skelter

It is believed that Manson intended using the murders to incite an apocalyptic race war he called Helter Skelter, taking the name from the Beatles song.

Notorious by name

The killings and the seven-month trial that followed were the subjects of fevered news coverage in the US. Manson occupied a dark, persistent place in American culture, inspiring music, T-shirts and half the stage name of musician Marilyn Manson.

Photograph: Los Angeles Times

According to Peacock, the new three-part docuseries investigates 20 years’ worth of never-before-aired conversations in which Manson talks about his crimes, his upbringing and Family, a commune and cult led by Manson from the late 1960s to early 1970s. The cult leader did not commit the murders himself, preferring to persuade his followers to do it. The group murdered at least seven people in the late 1960s.

Manson and his followers were arrested in 1969. At his trial in 1970, Manson presented himself as a demonic force, showing up with a Nazi swastika he had carved into his forehead.

At a 2012 parole hearing, which was denied, Manson was quoted as having said to one of his prison psychologists: “I’m special. I’m not like the average inmate. I have spent my life in prison. I have put five people in the grave. I am a very dangerous man.”

Manson, who died from natural causes in November 2017, served more than 40 years in a prison in Corcoran, California, for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder over the deaths of seven people, including the actor Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of film director Roman Polanski.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Manson committed hundreds of rules violations while at the Corcoran state prison, including assault, repeated possession of a weapon and threatening staff. Officials said he has spat in guards’ faces, started fights, tried to cause a flood and set his mattress ablaze.

Describing the new docuseries which is scheduled to premiere next Tuesday, Peacock said: “Former ‘Family’ members listen to the exclusive conversations and are taken back to the time when they ‘would do anything for Charlie’.”

“Manson recounts the early crimes that led to the murder spree in the summer of 69, laying out an explanation of loyalty and brotherhood that pushes against the accepted motive: his desire to incite Helter Skelter,” Peacock added, referring to an apocalyptic vision embraced by Manson and his cult members.

Donald Trump has announced his intention to nominate Matt Gaetz, a hard-right congressman from Florida known for inflaming tensions within the House Republican conference, as attorney general.

Gaetz, a longtime Trump loyalist, gained attention last year after leading the successful charge to oust his fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy as House speaker. Gaetz and seven other House Republicans joined Democrats in voting to remove McCarthy last October, kicking off a weeks-long scramble to find a new speaker.

McCarthy held Gaetz personally responsible for his removal and even funded an unsuccessful primary challenge against his former colleague. McCarthy suggested Gaetz pushed for his ouster because of an ethics committee investigation into allegations that Gaetz paid for and engaged in sexual relations with an underage woman.

In February 2023, the justice department declined to bring charges of sex trafficking against Gaetz, who has denied wrongdoing since the allegations first came to light.

Even before McCarthy’s removal, Gaetz had cultivated a reputation as a rightwing firebrand who did not shy away from conflict with Democrats and fellow Republicans alike.

“Florida Man. Built for the Battle,” reads Gaetz’s bio on X, formerly Twitter.

Gaetz followed his father into politics more than two decades ago. After serving in the Florida statehouse, Gaetz was elected in 2016 to represent a ruby-red chunk of the Florida Panhandle.

Like Trump, to whom he is fiercely loyal, Gaetz is more interested in sparring with political foes than in the dry business of governance, according to his critics. On Capitol Hill, he has repeatedly disrupted House proceedings, including once barging into a secure facility where Democrats were holding a deposition hearing.

In 2018, he was condemned for inviting a Holocaust denier to Trump’s State of the Union address. A year later, he hired a speechwriter who had been fired by the Trump White House after speaking at a conference that attracts white nationalists.

Months after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Gaetz embarked on an “America First” tour with Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hard-right Georgia congresswoman, in which they amplified the former president’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election.

After House Republicans’ worse than expected performance in the 2022 midterms, Gaetz capitalized on his conference’s wafer-thin majority to extract promises of rule changes from McCarthy, who had to endure 15 rounds of voting before becoming speaker in January 2023. Nine months later, Gaetz used those rule changes to force McCarthy out of the speaker’s chair.

More recently, Gaetz has served as an adviser to Trump as the former president successfully sought a second term. According to ABC News, Gaetz helped Trump prepare for his September debate against Kamala Harris by peppering him with questions about his potential vulnerabilities, including Trump’s multiple criminal indictments and his shifting stance on abortion access.

As attorney general, Gaetz would have a powerful perch to prosecute Trump’s political enemies, as the president-elect has promised to do. Gaetz may also attempt to purge the justice department of many longtime staffers, after Trump spread baseless claims that the federal government had been “weaponized” against him.

But before Gaetz can take on the role, he will need the approval of the Senate, where he may face a chilly reception. With Senate Republicans’ 53-seat majority, Gaetz could still be confirmed, but some early warning signs appeared immediately after Trump’s announcement.

Susan Collins, a Republican senator of Maine, told reporters on Capitol Hill that she was “shocked” by the news.

“That shows why the advice and consent process [of Senate confirmation] is so important,” Collins said, per Politico. “And I’m sure that there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing.”

Donald Trump said he will nominate Florida congressman Matt Gaetz to be the US attorney general on Wednesday, tapping a far-right loyalist to one of the most powerful positions in US government.

Gaetz’s nomination is one of the most significant to date. As attorney general, he would be the country’s chief law enforcement officer and oversee the legal positions that the government takes on key issues, including abortion, civil rights laws, and first amendment issues. The president-elect has pledged to use the justice department to prosecute his political enemies and there is little doubt that Gaetz will help him fulfill that pledge.

First elected to Congress in 2016, Gaetz represents a ruby-red district in the Florida panhandle and has become known as one of Congress’s most showboating members. He reportedly sought a pardon from Trump over his efforts to overturn the election, and has embraced conspiracy theories about the attack on the US Capitol. Last year, he led a successful effort to oust fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy from the speakership, throwing his caucus into chaos.

Gaetz’s nomination comes a little over a year after the justice department decided not to charge him as part of a sex trafficking investigation that involved allegations he had sex with a 17-year-old girl. Joel Greenberg, a former friend and ally, pleaded guilty to sex trafficking and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Gaetz has denied the allegations.

He also faces investigation from the House ethics committee over allegations that he “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.” He has denied all wrondoing.

Meanwhile, Trump heaped praise on Gaetz.

“Matt is a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney, trained at the William & Mary College of Law, who has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice,” Trump said in a statement posted to his Truth Social media account.

He added: “Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System. Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.”

The nomination was immediately met with widespread criticism.

“This guy has been on the run from the law for quite some time now, so he’ll think he’s above it. He’ll be corrupt as hell,” said Olivia Troye, a former official in the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration who has become an outspoken critic of the former president.

Robert Weissman, the co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen said it was “hard to imagine a worse and more unqualified candidate” than Gaetz.

“As a member of Congress, Gaetz has demonstrated contempt for the rule of law, truth and decency. He is singularly unqualified to lead an agency that enforces civil rights laws and environmental protection statutes. Under Gaetz, we’d have every reason to expect an America where corporate criminals walk free but immigrants and people of color are harassed or rounded up with minimal pretext,” he said in a statement.

In January, Republicans will take control of the US Senate, which will vote on Gaetz’s confirmation. They appear headed towards holding at least 53 seats, which would give them enough votes to confirm the Florida congressman, even if a few Republican senators vote against him.

Gaetz also has a history of making derogatory and offensive remarks towards women. “Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb,” he said in 2022.

As a Florida lawmaker before he was in Congress, he opposed a revenge porn law, reportedly telling the bill’s sponsor that ex-lovers could do what they pleased with images their partners had shared with them.

“Are you not entertained?” said CNN political analyst and Trump ally Scott Jennings in the wake of the news.

Andrew Gumbel contributed reporting

The Oklahoma City police department is facing criticism following the release of body-camera footage that shows a police officer forcefully throwing an elderly man to the ground last month.

The city’s police department released body-camera footage last week from 27 October that shows a police officer violently arresting 71-year-old Lich Vu after pulling him over during a traffic stop. The officer has been identified as Joseph Gibson, according to USA Today.

Gibson pulled Vu over for an illegal U-turn on the NW 39th Expressway, according to police. In the initial minutes of the video, Vu, who is seated in his car with the door open and accompanied by his wife, can be seen communicating with Gibson amid an English language barrier.

“I didn’t U-turn,” he says.

Gibson then asks Vu to sign a citation for an improper U-turn, saying that it is not an admission of guilt but rather confirmation that Vu will take care of the ticket at a later date.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Vu replies, adding that another driver hit his car. “Me? Citation? She hit me and I got the citation?” he says. Shortly after, Vu gets out of the car and gestures to the road in an attempt to further explain the situation to Gibson. Gibson then says they are “done arguing about this”.

Vu replies, “I want to show you,” to which Gibson says, “We argue in court … If you don’t sign this, you go to jail.”

“I’m ready to go to jail,” Vu says. Gibson then says, “You’re ready to go to jail? Ridiculous.” He proceeds to head over to the other driver involved in the incident and issues her a ticket before returning to Vu.

The two men continue arguing and at one point, Vu appears to tap Gibson’s chest with the back of his hand. Vu then brings his index finger up to his mouth and says, “You shut up.” Gibson then grabs Vu’s arm and twists it before pinning him on to the ground. Separate surveillance footage from nearby businesses shows Vu’s head forcefully hitting the ground as Gibson places handcuffs on him.

KFOR reports that Vu, who has bone cancer, suffered from a brain bleed and had to undergo surgery. He has remained in the hospital since the incident and is “in and out of consciousness, but stable”, according to family members who spoke to the outlet.

Following the incident, Thuan Nguyen, president of the Vietnamese American Community of Oklahoma, called for Gibson to be terminated.

“We don’t want our police department nor our [district attorney] to take it lightly. We want justice to be served,” Nguyen told NBC, adding, “We are always the last to be heard … so no matter whether we’re the person that is at fault or not at fault, our statements are always last … And so in certain cases, that indicates implicit bias.”

In a statement on Facebook, the Oklahoma City police department said that “an investigation was immediately initiated and the officer was placed on administrative leave pending the conclusion of the investigation”.

“The Oklahoma City police department is dedicated to transparency and accountability. We want our community to know that this case is being thoroughly investigated, and the review process will take time to complete,” it added.

Mia Mottley, the climate-championing prime minister of Barbados, has invited Donald Trump to a face-to-face meeting where she would seek “common ground” and persuade him that climate action was in his own interests.

“Let us find a common purpose in saving the planet and saving livelihoods,” she told the Guardian at the UN’s Cop29 climate summit in Azerbaijan. “We are human beings and we have the capacity to meet face-to-face, in spite of our differences. We want humanity to survive. And the evidence [of the climate crisis] we are seeing almost weekly now.”

Only by personal meetings among world leaders can the massive changes needed on climate action be achieved, she believes. “President Trump has been very clear about the importance of that kind of face-to-face conversation in the things that he believes that he can solve as well.”

Mottley, the prime minister who took Barbados out of the Commonwealth realm to be a republic, has been an electrifying presence at recent UN climate summits since she took to the stage at Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021 with an impassioned speech demanding world leaders “try harder” to avoid passing a death sentence on her country. Since then, she has gained a global reputation as a formidable champion of the developing countries most affected by climate breakdown.

She has also led a movement among developing and some developed countries to change the global financial system to generate the funds needed to shift the world to a low-carbon economy.

The re-election of Trump has thrown a deep shadow over Cop29, which kicked off on Monday in Baku. Scores of world leaders flew in for the summit, but the heads of government of most of the world’s biggest economies stayed away.

Delegates fear Trump will withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, dismantle regulations and climate targets, and push forward with plans to “drill, baby, drill” for more fossil fuels. Scientists have warned that if he follows through on his campaign promises the world has little hope of limiting global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial temperatures.

Argentinian negotiators representing the government of climate science denier Javier Milei were ordered on Wednesday to withdraw from Cop29 after just three days, adding to concerns about the stability of the Paris agreement.

But Trump had shown a willingness to deal with crises before, Mottley noted. “I think that there are possibilities for discussion. The same warp speed that President Trump addressed the issue of vaccines and the development of a vaccine is the same warp speed that we want to encourage him and others to look at for decarbonising technology,” she said.

She also believes she could show Trump that the US would benefit economically from tackling the climate crisis.

For instance, she pointed to the flaring of methane from oil and gas production sites. Installing relatively simple equipment to catch and use the methane instead would be profitable, according to the International Energy Agency, which should appeal to Trump.

“Why would you want to flare gas and lose money, when you can use gas and earn money?” she asked.

She also pointed to climate migration. “If I can’t live because I can’t farm because I don’t have access to water, or floods are now coming with an intensity and a regularity that makes it impossible for me to sustain my way of life, I’m going to shift where I’m living from.

“Or if I have no ability to access insurance, and insurance is critical to my ability to get a loan, I’m going to have to move from where I’m operating. So the volume of climate migration hopefully will wake up those who have been slow to see that this must be a win-win.”

Mottley argued Trump would also find it hard to fully reverse the Inflation Reduction Act, which incentivises clean energy, because many formerly depressed areas around the US, including traditionally Republican-voting ones, had seen new jobs and industries spring up because of it.

“We’ve had four years of municipalities, states and the private sector all making significant investments [in a low-carbon economy] in the US,” she said. “You are unlikely to see a U-turn on everything in as bald a way as some people fear.”

Cop29 is focused on the issue of climate finance, with the aim of setting out a new global goal that would deliver at least $1tn a year to developing countries, to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate-driven extreme weather.

Developed countries, however, are likely to pledge as little as a third of that in public finance from their overseas aid budgets and through the World Bank and similar institutions.

Mottley recognises rich countries will not stump up enough cash from their own budgets, though she argues they ought to do far more than they are now pledging. She has a set of proposals, known as the Bridgetown agenda after the capital of Barbados, that would generate more than $1tn a year in climate finance.

First off are reforms to the World Bank that would help free up hundreds of billions more in cash, and make loans cheaper and easier to access for the poorest and most vulnerable countries. Mottley says these moves are already under way, and have been successful so far.

She also wants new sources of revenue, called “global solidarity levies” – ways of raising money, particularly from polluting activities, that can go towards climate finance. These include a compulsory levy on business and first class flights, with a voluntary charge on economy flights that passengers could choose to pay (“because the agency of individuals matters”); a charge on international shipping; a charge on fossil fuel extraction that could reap $210bn a year; and a 0.1% levy on financial transactions that would raise $480bn a year.

“The reality is that global public goods need dedicated sources of global financing. And if we were to extend the polluter-pays principle, then those who contribute to the problem should help carry some of the burden. And those who make profit egregiously should also leave a little something on the table,” she said. “This is the one issue for sure that binds us all, because without a planet there will be no life that we can sustain.”

Mottley also favours a wealth tax on billionaires, which has been proposed by Brazil. “When you took the [Covid] vaccine injection, you didn’t even feel it. The super wealthy, if asked to leave a little something on the table, will not feel it.”

It is beyond the scope of Cop29, or the UN, to impose such levies, and they do not form part of the formal discussions in Azerbaijan. However, a special taskforce including Barbados, France, Spain, Kenya and others – but not, so far, the UK – is working to bring the proposals to reality.

One vitally important action that she hopes Cop29 will take is to focus on methane. Emissions of this gas – which comes from fossil fuel exploration, agriculture and waste, and is many times more powerful than CO₂ in heating the planet – have been rising, but efforts to control them have so far had little impact.

“There needs to be a global methane agreement,” she said. Scientists have said that controlling methane could prevent 0.5C of heating in the short term. “It seems like it’s a no-brainer,” Mottley said.

A German energy firm has said that Donald Trump’s election victory has increased the risks of investing in offshore wind projects – but his return to the White House could help bolster Britain’s renewables sector, according to UK developer SSE.

Germany’s RWE has cut its spending plans and warned that, as a result of the US election, “the risks for offshore wind projects have increased”.

The company, which is behind a string of wind and solar projects, on Wednesday shaved €3bn from its spending plans for the next financial year to €7bn, down from €10bn in 2024. It will also delay its plans to invest €55bn in renewables before 2030.

Trump’s re-election last week sent a chill through the renewables sector, as investors dumped green energy stocks.

He has vowed to clamp down on Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which stands to inject about $433bn in grants, loans and tax incentives to healthcare, utilities and clean energy companies.

Separately, Alistair Phillips-Davies, the chief executive of Britain’s SSE, said a clean energy slowdown in the US could be “a real positive” for the UK even after Trump’s victory wiped billions from the market value of Europe’s largest renewable energy developers.

But Phillips-Davies told the Guardian that, while doubts surround the future of the US industry, the UK could seize the chance to secure a greater share of global supply chains and manufacturing opportunities.

“It’s not good news for US renewables but it could be helpful because it means the US will not be sucking up the global supply chain,” Phillips-Davies said.

Renewable developers have been forced to compete for supplies of products used for green projects in recent years as demand for new windfarms has taken off, raising concerns over project delays.

Siemens Energy, one of the world’s largest wind turbine makers, on Wednesday reported a net income of €1.3bn for its last financial year as it begins to emerge from a crisis in its wind turbine division which led to a historic loss of €4.6bn.

Phillips-Davies added that the UK could now get “ahead of the game” to secure its supply of materials and components and establish its own manufacturing capabilities. This would help the UK to deliver domestic projects at lower cost and increase exports to the rest of the world, he said.

It could prove to be “a real positive in terms of an industrial strategy story”, he added.

SSE, which is building the world’s biggest offshore windfarm in North Sea, was not directly affected by the sell-off in renewable shares as its focus is on the UK and Europe. It is planning to expand its portfolio into continental Europe.

Phillips-Davies used the company’s half-year financial results to announce his retirement as chief executive next year after 11 years in the role. SSE’s pre-tax profits climbed by 26.4% from last year’s half-year results to £714.5m, he said.

Michael Müller, the chief financial officer of RWE, which has multi-billion euro plans to develop windfarms in the US, said that its investment plans for the rest of the decade would “slip back” following the election result, and due to delays to Europe’s green hydrogen plans. “But we will have to wait and see how things develop in the future,” he added.

RWE reported earnings of €4bn in the first nine months of the year, down from €5.7bn in the same period in 2023 despite its growing renewable energy generation.

Its share price tumbled by more than 4% after the US election result, but its decision to take a more cautious approach to investment combined with a €1.5bn share buyback programme, helped its share price to climb back above pre-election levels on Wednesday.

Tancrede Fulop, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said: “The buy-back addresses investor demands from the substantial profits during the 2022-23 energy crisis, and management’s decision is supported by potential delays in US offshore wind projects and challenges in Europe’s hydrogen sector.”

• Location Burkina Faso

• Disaster Heatwave, 2024

Mariama, not her real name, is a Burkinabé musician who lives in Ouagadougou. During the heatwaves earlier this year she went into early labour, and lost her baby.

It was my first pregnancy. I had been trying to have a child since I was 26. Ten years now. Some doctors had told me it would be impossible to have children because of an operation on my fallopian tubes in 2018. In fact, I had stopped trying. But, voilà! The first month I thought I had my period, but it wasn’t, and by the second month, my pants didn’t fit anymore. So I went to the pharmacy to take a test. I couldn’t believe it – I was pregnant! I also went to the hospital to confirm it. I was two months along.

At that moment, I stopped everything and started taking care of myself. Everything was going well. My mother always said she wanted seven grandchildren, but since she said I was already too old, we agreed on just four! I followed all the gynaecological and medical visits at the Yalgado hospital. Up until six months, everything was fine. I had no problems, I could sleep, and I wasn’t in pain.

Then the heat came. At night, I’d wake up to get some air because I was so hot. I’d also take showers during the night. I’d wake up two or three times each night. When I woke up, I was exhausted, as if I hadn’t slept at all. Since it was my first pregnancy, I wasn’t sure if this was normal or not, so I assumed it was, even though I couldn’t sleep well due to the heat.

You feel suffocated at night, you can’t breathe well because on top of the heat, this year there was so much humidity. I even thought I had breathing problems, but doctors told me no, it was just the heat.

I was scared, because the doctors told me to stay in a cool place, but they didn’t understand my reality. What if there were power cuts? I had to wet a towel and lay it on my bed to lie down, and when it got warm, I’d go wet it again. So, I wasn’t sleeping well. I thought maybe the heat was because of the pregnancy, but the heat was real; it wasn’t just because I was pregnant.

During the day, it was infernal. My daily activities had to be done from 8-9am at the latest, or at night when the sun was down. But in the sun, it was unbearable– heavy, humid, and with my sinus issues, I couldn’t breathe. When it was heavy and dusty, I preferred to stay home.

It hurt a lot. My chest was swollen, and my back hurt. The heat made my back pain even worse, so it wasn’t good for me. I was always looking for a cool spot. I’d take showers, but it was so hot that when you came out, you felt even hotter because your fan was blowing hot air. The best thing was to aim the fan towards a corner to cool the air a bit. But it really wasn’t good; I felt nauseous, dizzy … mainly dizzy from the heat. That’s what was happening to me.

We’re in the Sahel, so we’re used to heat, but this year, people weren’t used to it anymore. I’ve never seen so many people sleeping outside or sitting by their doors. Before, there were power cuts, but never like this. It used to happen during the day; now it’s at night, too. In your neighbourhood, you feel safe because so many people are outside. Everyone’s out, everyone’s hot, nobody wants to go inside. They wait for the power to come back or to get so exhausted that they would finally go to sleep. Otherwise, it was impossible. Really.

About six months along, when I was at the market one day, I felt dizzy; I was so hot. I was walking, and at some point, I stopped because I felt a liquid running down my leg, and I thought, “Something’s wrong.” The next couple of days were a blur of pain and worry. I saw one doctor who told me that it wasn’t serious, and we’d see what was going on. I waited five hours to see him. He told me to get ultrasounds done. I had the first one, then a second, and they told me things were OK, that I had lost a little fluid, but there were natural ways to recover it.

I was sent to another hospital where they told me not to go home, that someone needed to see me. So I stayed there waiting in the car, lying down in the back. You can’t open the windows because of mosquitoes, so you have to sleep with the air conditioning, which uses up your fuel.

Finally, the next morning, they told me to go to another hospital. By the time I got there and someone saw me, the pain was so bad. They got me to lie down in a room. The pain was so bad that the doctor came, took my temperature, then brought a syringe with something in it. I asked, “What’s this for?” After the injection, I said, “I’m in even more pain, it’s contracting.” They didn’t say anything. Forty minutes later, the doctor came back and asked if I was still having contractions. I said yes, that it hurt. He explained that the drug they gave me was to help deliver the baby. I asked if my baby would survive and he said no.

In those two days of being passed around, nobody could explain to me what was going on. When they induced labour, I didn’t even know who I was. I had the impression that nobody saw me. I couldn’t even ask questions; my mouth wouldn’t react. They had just induced labour without me realising it … I didn’t know what to think. I felt defeated. I asked myself, ‘What did I do? Why is nobody looking at me?’ I thought, ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me I was going to lose my baby?’ And there they were, sitting there, doing nothing. No explanation, no details, nothing.

It was like a slap in the face, a shock. I felt defeated. You go to the hospital to die. The heat, the power cuts, there’s no equipment. The heat – nobody even wants to talk about it. It’s the first thing everyone will tell you. It was extremely hot. And then, there are the specialists. When you go into their office, it’s so cold you start shaking, and when you step back into the hallway, you feel like fainting.

In the room where I had to push and push, there were no mosquito nets. We were six or seven in one room. Here, you learn not to be ashamed. You scream, you push, you scream, you push, you scream, you push. My husband was outside, panicking as he heard my screams without knowing what was happening. It’s a plastic mattress. Either you bring your own sheet, or you give birth where so many women have already done so. When someone has to push, they send out the women’s companions, but we women face each other; the ones in front of you see everything.

There was no air conditioning, and the fans are on either side of the room. The first person who arrives takes the bed under the fan, and others take the second fan. All the others, we get nothing. There are six beds here and six across. It’s packed, and you’re pressed up against other women. It’s so hot. It was unbearable there because of the heat. Everyone was looking for air. When I was screaming, it was my mother who fanned me. But I didn’t even want anyone to touch me anymore. When anyone touched me, I’d scream. I didn’t want anything. It’s true that it’s over now, but I can’t go three nights without thinking about it. It still lingers within me.

It was after six hours of contractions that the baby came out. The nurse asked if I wanted to throw it in the trash or bury it, I swear you. I took the baby home, wrapped in the cloth I had bought for its birth, and we buried it at the father’s house.

How did you start living again? No one pushed me. Afterward, I heard other similar stories. Here, they often link pregnancy problems to something the woman has done or eaten, but I know that it was the effect of the heat and the stress, with 40 to 41 degrees (celsius) of heat, going back and forth between hospitals. This year, the heat was something very unusual. I didn’t know if it was climate change or what, but we experienced a strange kind of heat. Throughout the entire ordeal, I was asking God to help me. Only Him. I felt like I was going crazy. I felt better talking to a deity than to a human being. Most people tend to judge before understanding what’s happening.

A few weeks afterwards, we planted a guava tree. It was important to have a place to go, to gather oneself and be at peace. I threw myself completely into my activities; I looked for work. Working is a way to release it. But every time I watch a movie and see a woman who just gave birth, that feeling returns, and I feel awful: “Imagine, I could have too.”