🌍 The first Africa Climate Summit

Hi there Intriguer. ErnieBot, China’s newly-launched response to ChatGPT, has already become the country’s most-downloaded free app, with over a million users on its first day. Intriguingly, the program asks users to “talk about something else” when uncomfortable topics arise.

Today’s briefing is a 4 min read:

• 🌱 The first-ever Africa Climate Summit is here.

• 🇰🇷 South Korea wants tourists to come back.

• ➕ Plus: Olaf’s new look, how the papers are covering the dismissal of Ukraine’s defence minister, and why Malaysians are tweeting about their former deputy prime minister.

⏱️ Around the world in sixty seconds

1. 🇵🇰 Pakistan: Protests against rising electricity costs have emerged across Pakistan. The country’s interim government says it must abide by the IMF bailout conditions agreed earlier this year, and warns it’s not in a position to offer relief to its citizens.

2. 🇮🇹 Italy: Saudi Arabia and Italy have signed several deals to boost investment, including in green hydrogen. Prime Minister Meloni has sought closer ties with the Gulf, lifting an embargo on arms sales to the UAE and Saudi Arabia earlier this year.

3. 🇻🇺 Vanuatu: Parliament has elected former prime minister Sato Kilman to again serve as leader, after a court upheld the ousting of his predecessor in a no-confidence vote. Kilman says he’ll “revisit” his country’s new security pact with Australia.

4. 🇧🇷 Brazil: The economy grew by more than expected in the second quarter of this year, as domestic demand and industry activity surged. President Lula again criticised the central bank’s high interest rates as a drag on growth after Friday’s GDP release.

5. 🇿🇦 South Africa: President Ramaphosa says an inquiry has found no evidence South Africa sold weapons to Russia, contrary to claims by the US ambassador in Pretoria. Instead, the president says the inquiry found the cargo ship in question was transporting Russian weapons to South Africa to fulfil an order from 2018.

🌱 Africa | Environment

Africa’s first climate summit kicks off

African leaders are in Nairobi this week to kick off the first-ever African Climate Summit, as the continent seeks to rally around a shared vision ahead of November’s COP28 climate summit in the UAE.

Africa’s interests in the topic are clear:

• 🌡️ The continent is disproportionately impacted by rising temperatures despite emitting only 2-3% of global emissions

• ⛏️ Many of the minerals needed for the energy transition (such as cobalt, lithium and copper) are found in Africa, and

• 🌍 Africa’s population is projected to nearly double to 2.5 billion people by 2050, with rising energy demand to match

So what exactly are Africa’s leaders discussing?

• 💰 Climate financing: They’re calling on rich countries to uphold their 2009 $100B per year green financing pledge, while exploring additional options (like carbon credit markets) to raise funds

• 🌾 Sustainable food systems: The agricultural sector accounts for 35% of Africa’s GDP, but it’ll need to grow significantly and sustainably to serve the continent’s growing population

• 💡 Electrification: Nearly 600 million folks on the continent lack access to electricity, limiting the impact of renewable energy

• 🌺 Biodiversity: Almost two thirds of Africa’s rural residents depend directly on natural ecosystems for their basic needs

Intrigue's take: International summits serve all kinds of purposes: among the photo ops, pageantry, and stressed-out diplomats (including us in a former life), these events help world leaders send messages to each other, their own citizens, investors, and the world at large.

And notwithstanding some of the challenges above, the core message from the summit co-host (Kenya’s president) seems to be this: Africa is a climate opportunity, not just a victim.

Also worth noting:

• In his opening address, Kenyan President William Ruto also said 92% of Kenya’s electricity comes from renewable sources.

• On day one of the summit, UAE investors committed to buying $450M of carbon credits from the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative, which was launched at Egypt's COP27 summit last year.

📰 How newspapers covered…

The replacement of Ukraine’s defence minister

Today’s newsletter is supported by: Neighbor

Earn money with your unused space.

Neighbor is a peer-to-peer storage marketplace that connects people needing storage with unused space in their area.

🇰🇷 South Korea | Geo-economics

South Korea wants tourists to come back

South Korea announced Monday (4 September) it’ll waive visa fees and move to add more direct flights from China to entice more Chinese tourists.

Tourism from China is a major source of income for South Korea. But in 2017, China banned tour groups from visiting South Korea in response to Seoul’s deployment of a US-made missile defence system.

And the ban’s impact was real. Within a year:

• 👪 The number of Chinese tourists visiting South Korea halved from eight to four million, and

• 📉 Seoul’s total tourism earnings fell from $17.1B to $13.3B.

But last month, China lifted the ban after six years. Now, South Korea is doing all it can to welcome those tourists back.

Intrigue’s take: South Korea was long spooked at the prospect of falling into the ‘middle income trap’ (where growth stagnates at a certain level).

It cruised into high-income status in 2017, but has remained focused on diversifying its economy to boost resilience. Tourism is a key part of that equation, but waiving visa fees might not be enough.

Also worth noting:

• Pre-COVID, Chinese tourists spent a combined $255B abroad each year, with group tours accounting for roughly 60% of that spend.

• Beijing also lifted its ban on group travel to countries like the US, UK, Australia and Germany last month. China lifted the ban on Russia back in January. Canada remains banned.

🎧 Today on Intrigue Outloud

Why does Erdogan have Putin’s ear?

➕ Extra Intrigue

Here’s what folks were tweeting about yesterday, Monday September 4th.

• 🇲🇦 People in Morocco were using “#Murder” after two French-Moroccan jetski tourists were killed by the Algerian Coastguard.

• 🇲🇾 Malaysians were tweeting about “Zahid,” after former deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid had dozens of graft charges against him dropped unexpectedly.

• 🇷🇴 “NATO” was trending in Romania after Ukraine claimed a Russian drone attack hit NATO-member Romania’s territory (a claim Bucharest has denied, while condemning the Russian attack).

🗳️ Poll time!

🐦 Tweet/X of the day

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz emerged with an eye patch yesterday (Monday) after falling during a weekend jog. He says he’s “looking forward to the memes.” We give him an A+ for good humour (and a pretty bad-ass new look).

Yesterday’s poll: How are you liking our 'Intrigue Top Picks'?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 😍 I love it! Here's why.. (51%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👎 Meh. Here's why... (4%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ ❓ Never heard of it (39%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (6%)

Your two cents:

• ✍️ “this 👌🏽 close to grabbing two friends' phones and registering them to this newsletter, no questions asked. the FOMO is real 😔”

• ❓ M.H: “Keen to learn more! Where do I find this?”
  [Hi! You’ll be able to access our Top Picks as a referral perk after sharing International Intrigue with two friends using your unique link (scroll back up just a tiny bit to find it!)]
  
  And thanks everyone for the love!