You should know about these 3 conferences

Some Fridays we might drag you down the rabbit hole of China’s wild social media. Others we’ll tell you all about three wild conferences nobody’s talking about, like…

1. ☢️ Going nuclear

~191 countries are in New York from this week for the five-yearly review of the world’s treaty to curb nukes, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

A human unfamiliar with the 1970 NPT is a bit like a fish unfamiliar with water — it’s everywhere yet invisible, making our entire modern world possible via a grand bargain: those without nukes pledge not to seek them; those with nukes pledge to (eventually) ditch them.

But the last two NPT conferences (2015, 2022) collapsed, first essentially over Israel’s undeclared nukes, then over Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Reaching agreement this time around (talks run through May 22) somehow looks even tougher:

• Our spooked world is building new nukes faster than it dismantles old ones for the first time in nearly 40 years

• The last US-Russia nuclear treaty expired in February, meaning they now have zero binding limits on their strategic nukes for the first time since 1972, and

• Continued threats — whether Putin to Ukraine, Kim to South Korea, Xi to Taiwan, or even Trump to Iran — risk boosting the appeal of nukes as a deterrent, while…

• DC’s alliance-scepticism is fuelling doubts around US nuclear pledges, with “let’s get our own nukes” debates emerging among allies like Poland, Korea, and Japan.

And… as if that weren’t enough, this week’s 11th NPT review kicked off with a nomination that one of the event’s vice-presidents should be… Iran! You can imagine how that’s gone down with the US, which just went to war on the premise that maybe regimes pledging to erase entire countries shouldn’t have nukes?

Anyway, let’s move from one doomsday to another, with…

2. ⛽ Ditching diesel

Colombia’s major Santa Marta coal export hub just co-hosted (with the Netherlands) the world’s first ‘Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels’ conference this week.

After Dubai’s 2023 COP climate talks famously convinced the world to “transition away” from fossil fuels, Azerbaijan’s 2024 summit then made no progress, and Brazil’s 2025 text failed to mention fossil fuels at all!

So diplomats did what they always do in a deadlock: announce more talks. Involving 50 countries frustrated by COP’s failure (not the US, China, India, or Russia), this week’s Santa Marta was more about getting the process started, with hopes of drilling down into the specifics at next year's talks in Tuvalu.

Now, ready for a twist…?

3. 🤫 Silencing critics

Maybe the reason you didn’t hear about this last conference is because… it didn’t happen! Just days before the world’s biggest conference on digital human rights (RightsCon) was due to kick off in Lusaka, Zambian authorities cancelled it.

Why? Zambia’s statement is vague, but one theory is its increasingly heavy-handed leader (Hichilema) didn’t want a bunch of activists in town ahead of August’s elections.

But an intriguing second theory suggests Beijing might’ve had something to do with it:

• The conference agenda featured speakers from Taiwan (last year’s host, btw)

• It included a spicy panel on authoritarianism in China, and yet…

• Guess who actually bankrolled the conference venue? Ding, ding, ding! China. 

So throw in Zambia and China suddenly announcing a new China-funded cooperation agreement and… we’ll let you connect the dots.