Cop27: Alaa Abd el-Fattah breaks hunger strike; news groups around the world join call for climate justice – live

The sister of the jailed hunger striker Alaa Abd el-Fattah has confirmed her brother is alive and has broken his hunger strike.

Sanaa Seif, who spoke at Cop27 last week, tweeted that she had received a letter from her brother.

Seif posted a letter, purportedly written by Alaa, saying he would “explain everything” when his family visit is scheduled on Thursday.

Three days before India’s environment minister boarded a flight to Egypt for this year’s UN climate summit, Cop27, the country’s finance minister was busy with a new announcement.

“India needs greater investment in coal production,” said Nirmala Sitharaman at the Delhi launch of India’s biggest ever coalmine auction, where 141 new sites for coalmines will be sold off to the highest bidder.

At a time when the world’s future hinges on a dramatic global reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and global leaders are gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh to try to limit the impact of the climate crisis – with decarbonisation on the agenda – the Indian government is continuing on its biggest ever push for domestic coal production, even toying with the idea of producing so much it could become a future coal exporter.

This was the sixth, and largest, such auction the Indian government has held since 2020, when it privatised the coal industry. Two-thirds of the 968 sites that are allocated for mines, known as coal blocks, are on untouched land and many sit under India’s most ecologically rich and fragile forests, and rural areas populated by tribal communities that will be destroyed if the new projects go ahead.

“The worst part is that in order to open up more coal, the government is allowing mining in dense forested areas. Forests are sinks of carbon dioxide so if you are getting new coal to burn by chopping down forests, it’s a double whammy of environmental disaster,” said Sudiep Shrivastava, a lawyer who has fought back against new coal blocks.

Some good news from Cop27:

A coalition of countries will mobilise $20 billion (around £17bn) of public and private finance to help Indonesia shut coal power plants and bring forward the sector’s peak emissions date by seven years to 2030, the United States, Japan and partners have announced.

Indonesia is the world’s 5^th largest greenhouse gas emitter.

The Indonesia Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), more than a year in the making, “is probably the single largest climate finance transaction or partnership ever”, a US Treasury official told reporters.

Jake Schmidt, from the US non-profit NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), said:

This is a significant new step that will help Indonesia shift rapidly away from coal-fired energy to renewable power, and begin to align Indonesia’s electricity sector with the global goal to limit warming to 1.5C.

An 11-year-old Indian activist has accused the British climate minister Zac Goldsmith of having “run away” to dodge her questions about the release of jailed climate protester.

Licypriya Kangujam has been campaigning for years in India.

“When are you going to release the climate activists your government arrested for protesting against new oil and gas licences?” she asked Goldsmith.

Goldsmith starts to walk away but Kangujam pursues him before an aide stops her at a door.

Kangujam tweeted that Goldsmith said he had “no idea” in response to her question, although that is not audible in the footage.

Extinction Rebellion UK tweeted its thanks to Licypriya “for speaking up for those in prison in the UK”.

The organisation accused the aide of having “pushed” the 11-year-old.

Goldsmith responded to their tweet, accusing them of bullying the unnamed aide.

What to expect at Cop27 today:

Patrick Greenfield

It’s only Tuesday but the end of the climate summit is rapidly approaching. Governments are focused on the final political agreement that will come out of Egypt. Every word matters and as we saw at the end of Cop26 last year, arguments in the final few hours can come down to whether the text includes “phase out” or “phase down” in a particular clause. Ministers arrived over the weekend in anticipation of the final tussle over wording. The role of 1.5C, finance, and loss and damage are understood to be the key dividing points.

Carbon Brief’s senior policy editor Simon Evans has a useful thread on what we might expect from the first draft of the cover decision.

Urine-filled bottles raise concerns of unhygienic conditions at Cop

Patrick Greenfield

Concerns have been raised about unhygienic and dangerous conditions at the Cop27 site by workers, with urine-filled bottles left behind country pavilions and engineers warning that poor-quality wiring poses a fire risk.

In the first week of the climate summit, a wall collapsed and human waste was left in pavilion areas after a last-minute scramble to get the site ready, according to a worker who spoke to the Guardian.

A Guardian reporter has seen the bottles of urine in areas where engineers are working at Cop27 as well as several photos and videos of unhygienic conditions and potentially dangerous wiring that risk shocking workers or causing a fire.

“[A few days before Cop27], the building was not even close to being finished. There were probably three to five hundred workers here 24 hours a day. There was no plumbing or electricity. There were no bathrooms available. They had been using water bottles and containers behind the pavilions to use as toilets. There were people sleeping between walls,” a worker said.

“There’s still main areas that have bottles of urine, food, cigarette butts, people sleeping … The more important places have been cleared out, I think. Everything is being run with extension cables. There’s no grounding at all. We’ve had several items destroyed in power surges due to improper grounding.”

In many countries, it is illegal not to earth wires because not doing so can cause fires and electric shocks to humans or destroy equipment.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Egyptian Cop27 presidency have been contacted for comment.