Hi, Brian Laira here.

Up next, Brian Lairor Weekend,

three of our favorite segments from the week,

packaged together for you to listen to on the weekend.

So enjoy, and I'll see you back on the radio Monday at 10 a.m.

on WNYC and WNYC, and now our Health and Climate Tuesday section of the show,

First climate, and then teaching science in school

in a politicized time. We'll do that one later with a call in for teachers on this day off from school,

plus somebody who wrote a book about teaching science, who used to be a New York City science teacher,

but the climate section first, The 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference

or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, that's a mouthful, opened in Brazil this week.

The meeting is more commonly known as COP 30, 30 because it marks the 30th anniversary of the

beginning of formal UN negotiations on climate change. But this year,

breaking a longstanding tradition, the U.S. will not play an active role in the talks. No

high-level White House officials are attending COP 30. And at least according to the Guardian,

some world leaders are breathing a sigh of relief. Last month in London, officials met to rubber stamp plants for a small levy on greenhouse

gas emissions caused by shipping.

U.S. representatives were accused of using bully-like behavior, the article says, to force

countries to drop the plan, issuing threats of higher fees for docking in American ports

and imposing visa restrictions for negotiators and their families.

Trump had called the proposal a global green new scam tax on shipping.

Well, sure enough, the pollution fee is now delayed at least for a year.

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