The Debate

• Brazil's contradictions: Can COP30 summit host truly go green?

  When it came to the Amazon, his predecessor was all for "chop, baby, chop". An easy act to follow if you're hosting the world for a climate summit. Since the return of Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, deforestation has continued but drastically slowed in what's by far the world's largest rainforest. But by bringing the United Nations COP30 summit to the Amazonian city of Belem, Lula is also drawing attention to Brazil's broader track record on the environment. The South American powerhouse may boast of an electricity grid that's 90 percent powered by renewables, but last month it also approved drilling for offshore oil across from the mouth of the Amazon River. Lula is defiant, arguing it's all with an eye to financing green investment and funding social programmes for the poor. Is his a balanced approach or a sellout?

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• Radical change? Mamdani wins New York as voters turn on Trump across US

  One year after a presidential election where Donald Trump swept swing states and secured majorities in both houses of the US Congress, a first test has produced a radically different result. 34-year-old Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani has blown past establishment candidates for mayor of New York, unveiling his transition team this Wednesday. We ask about Mamdani's win and the highest turnout in the city's municipal elections in more than half a century.  Read moreProgressive Democrat Zohran Mamdani wins New York City mayoral race We also ask about wins for more moderate Democrats elsewhere in the US and whether Republicans should worry ahead of next year's Congressional midterms. Donald Trump attributes the setback in part to the fact that he wasn't on the ballot. The US president may have a point: since returning to office, he has monopolised the airwaves. How do the TikTok skills of Zohran Mamdani measure up to the politics of outrage coming from the far right? Will Trump double down on retribution? Will he send federal troops to more cities run by Democrats, including his native New York? More broadly, will democracy in America now grow more polarised, or will the centre eventually hold?

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• Shein takes Paris by storm: Does Chinese e-commerce giant threaten French fashion?

  Protesters are fuming at Chinese e-commerce giant Shein electing the French capital as its debut point for a physical in-shop presence. We ask about behemoths that churn out clothes faster than we can scroll, Shein's choice of the iconic Right Bank department store BHV for its launch and how a new controversy fuels the feeling that this global orgy of consumerism is out of control: Shein is removing from its platform child-like sex dolls that fly in the face of French and EU laws against paedo-pornography.  Shein's flooding of the market with ultra-fast fashion, often peddled by social media influencers, is just the latest iteration of an issue with globalisation's conveniences. Supporters say companies like Shein make style affordable to all, but critics see them an existential threat to humanity's craftsmanship, not to mention the environment. Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

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• Is Bill Gates right? Call to put climate resilience before rising temperatures

  Is too much effort devoted to the planet's warming and not enough to helping humans adapt to the new normal? The Microsoft co-founder-cum-billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates is turning the heat up on activists traveling to the COP30, the annual UN climate summit this year in the Brazilian Amazon city of Belem. We review the argument that the transition to cleaner energies is already bearing fruit, making the Paris Agreement projections of 2015 obsolete. Or, with coal and oil production still rising, is it too soon to take the foot off the gas of green investment? In an age of echo chambers and slashed public spending, critics have seized on Gates's remarks as proof, they say, that climate change is a hoax – or, as is the case in Europe, to renew calls to roll back environmental norms in the name of competitiveness. So, as insurance companies count the cost of rising sea levels, fiercer storms and deadlier fires, how to best invest in humanity's common future? Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente.

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• A truce on whose terms? Trump hails pause in trade war with China

  After launching a trade war with China, Donald Trump is now declaring a deal is at hand for a one-year truce. With nothing yet signed, we ask about the South Korean sit-down between the US president and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, promises of reduced tariffs and computer chip exports by the US, the easing of restrictions on rare earth minerals and a return to soybean imports by Beijing. We also ask about the choreography of a shorter-than-expected one hour-and-40-minute meeting in South Korea, followed by Trump's decision to skip the regional APEC summit that followed. The US president will instead return to the White House for a Halloween trick-or-treat ceremony. More broadly, will the United States remain committed to Asian allies, what with its troops permanently stationed in Japan and South Korea and its historic support for Taiwan and the Philippines? And is that compatible with hard-to-read great power bargaining? Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.

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