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Leaders welcome deal reached at UN climate summit as step forward but say ‘more ambition’ needed to tackle the crisis.

World leaders have put forward a draft text at the United Nations climate conference in Brazil that seeks to address the crisis, but the agreement does not include any mention of phasing out the fossil fuels driving climate change.

The text was published on Saturday after negotiations stretched through the night, well beyond the expected close of the two-week COP30 summit in the Brazilian city of Belem, amid deep divisions over the fossil fuel phase-out.

The draft, which must be approved by consensus by nearly 200 nations, pledges to review climate-related trade barriers and calls on developed nations to “at least triple” the money given to developing countries to help them withstand extreme weather events.

It also urges “all actors to work together to significantly accelerate and scale up climate action worldwide” with the aim of keeping the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) mark for global warming – an internationally agreed-upon target set under the Paris Agreement – “within reach”.

Wopke Hoekstra, the European Union’s climate commissioner, said the outcome was a step in the right direction, but the bloc would have liked more.

“We’re not going to hide the fact that we would have preferred to have more, to have more ambition on everything,” Hoekstra told reporters. “We should support it because at least it is going in the right direction,” he said.

France’s ecological transition minister, Monique Barbut, also said it was a “rather flat text” but Europeans would not oppose it because “there is nothing extraordinarily bad in it”.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla also said in a social media post that while the outcome “fell short of expectations”, COP30 demonstrated the importance of multilateralism to tackle global challenges such as climate change.

‘Needed a giant leap’

Countries had been divided on a number of issues in Belem, including a push to phase out fossil fuels – the largest drivers of the climate crisis – that drew opposition from oil-producing countries and nations that depend on oil, gas and coal.

Questions of climate finance also sparked heated debates, with developing nations demanding that richer countries bear a greater share of the financial burden.

But COP30 host Brazil had pushed for a show of unity, as the annual conference is largely viewed as a test of the world’s resolve to address a deepening crisis.

“We need to show society that we want this without imposing anything on anyone, without setting deadlines for each country to decide what it can do within its own time, within its own possibilities,” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said earlier this week.

Earlier on Saturday, COP30 President Andre Aranha Correa do Lago said the presidency would publish “roadmaps” on fossil fuels and forests as there had been no consensus on those issues at the talks.

Speaking to Al Jazeera before the draft text was released, Asad Rehman, chief executive director of Friends of the Earth, said richer countries “had to be dragged – really kicking and screaming – to the table” at COP30.

“They have tried to bully developing countries and have weakened the text … But I would say that, overall, from what we’re hearing, we will have taken a step forward,” Rehman said in an interview from Belem.

“This will be welcomed by the millions of people for whom these talks are a matter of life and death. However, in the scale of the crisis that we face, we of course needed a giant leap forward.”

In the weeks since federal investigators announced that the devastating Palisades fire was caused by a reignition of a smaller blaze, top Los Angeles Fire Department officials have insisted that they did everything they could to put out the earlier fire.

But The Times has obtained records that call into question the agency’s statements about how thoroughly firefighters mopped up the Jan. 1 Lachman fire in the days before it reignited.

In an interview last month, then-Interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva said that firefighters returned to the burn area on Jan. 3 — due to a report of smoke — and “cold-trailed” an additional time, meaning they used their hands to feel for heat and dug out hot spots.

“We went back over there again. We dug it all out again. We put ladders on it. We did everything that we could do — cold-trail again,” Villanueva told The Times on Oct. 8. “We did all of that.”

A dispatch log obtained by The Times, however, shows that firefighters arrived at the scene that day and quickly reported seeing no smoke. They then canceled the dispatch for another engine that was on the way, clearing the call within 34 minutes. The log does not mention cold trailing. It’s unclear if crews took any other actions during the call, because the LAFD has not answered questions about it.

The Times has made multiple requests for comment to LAFD spokesperson Capt. Erik Scott by email, text and in person, but the agency has refused to explain the discrepancy. Villanueva also did not respond to an emailed request for comment and an interview request.

The conflict between the LAFD’s statements and its own records is likely to intensify frustration and anger among Palisades fire victims over contradictory and incomplete information about what was done to protect their community. With the first anniversary approaching, gaps remain in what the LAFD has told the public about what it did to prepare for and respond to the fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

The LAFD’s after-action report on the Palisades fire makes only a cursory reference to the Lachman blaze. Missing from the 70-page document, released last month, are the report of smoke in the area on Jan. 3 and a battalion chief’s decision to pull firefighters out of the scene the day before, even though they warned him that there were signs of remaining hot spots.

The head of the board that oversees the LAFD has maintained that information about the firefighter warnings — or any examination of the Lachman fire — did not belong in the after-action report.

“The after-action review that was presented to the commission is exactly what we asked for,” Genethia Hudley Hayes, president of the Board of Fire Commissioners, said at the board’s meeting on Tuesday. She said the review was only supposed to cover the first 72 hours after the Palisades fire erupted.

“It is not an investigation,” she said. “It should not include things that the newspaper seems to feel like should be included.”

The after-action report detailed missteps in fire officials’ response to the Palisades fire, including major failures in deployment and communications, and made recommendations to prevent the issues from happening again.

Two former LAFD chief officers said the report also should have provided an examination of what might have gone wrong in the mop-up of the Lachman blaze, which investigators believe was deliberately set, as part of its “lessons learned” section.

“A good after-action report documents what happened before the incident,” said former LAFD Battalion Chief Rick Crawford, who retired from the agency last year and is now emergency and crisis management coordinator for the U.S. Capitol. “The after-action report should have gone back all the way to Dec. 31.”

Patrick Butler, a former assistant chief for the LAFD who has worked on several after-action teams, including for the federal government, agreed.

“If you limit an after-action to an artificial timeline, you’re not going to uncover everything you need to learn from,” said Butler, who is the Redondo Beach fire chief.

He noted that the reports shape training and operational improvements for the Fire Department.

“To exclude the Lachman fire from the report gives the appearance of a coverup of foundational facts,” Butler added. “It’s not a harmless oversight. The consequences can be significant and far-reaching.”

The Jan. 3 report of smoke at the Lachman burn area came in shortly before noon, according to a dispatch log of the incident. Firefighters from Fire Station 23 — one of two stations in the Palisades — arrived on the scene about 10 minutes after they were dispatched.

A couple minutes later, they reported “N/S,” or nothing showing, according to the log. A few minutes after that, they canceled the dispatch for an engine from Fire Station 69, the other Palisades station.

The last entry in the log was from 12:20 p.m., indicating that an L.A. County crew was working in the area.

The L.A. County Fire Department said in a statement that the crew was at the scene for less than 30 minutes conducting an “informal ‘lessons learned’ discussion of their actions from the night of the fire.”

“They did not gear up or perform any work while there and they did not see anything of note,” the statement said.

The L.A. County crew left the scene about 12:40 p.m.

The Times previously reported that firefighters were ordered to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area of the Lachman fire on Jan. 2, even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering and rocks remained hot to the touch. The paper reviewed text messages among three firefighters and a third party, sent in the weeks and months after the fire, in which they discussed the handling of the blaze.

LAFD officials also opted not to use thermal imaging technology to detect lingering hot spots. Despite warnings of extreme winds leading up to Jan. 7, they failed to pre-deploy any engines or firefighters to the burn area — or anywhere in the Palisades.

At least one battalion chief assigned to the LAFD’s risk management section has known for months that crews had complained about hot spots after the Lachman fire. But the department kept that information hidden from the public.

At the Tuesday fire commission meeting, newly appointed Fire Chief Jaime Moore — in an apparent reference to The Times reporting — slammed what he called media efforts to “smear” firefighters who battled the worst fire in city history.

“Something that’s been very frustrating for me as fire chief, and through this process, is to watch my friends in the media smear our name and the work that our firefighters did to combat one of the most intense fires, the Palisades, the wind-driven monstrosity that it was,” Moore, a 30-year LAFD veteran, said on his second day on the job.

He added: “The audacity for people to make comments and say that there’s text messages out there that say that we did not put the fire out, that we did not extinguish the fire. Yet I have yet to see any of those text messages.”

Moore made those remarks despite having been tasked by Mayor Karen Bass with conducting an investigation into The Times report about the LAFD’s response to the Lachman fire.

Bass had requested that Villanueva investigate, saying that “a full understanding … is essential to an accurate accounting of what occurred during the January wildfires.”

Critics have said it would be improper for the LAFD to investigate itself and called for an independent review.

Before the City Council confirmed his appointment as chief, Moore also had called for an outside organization to conduct the inquiry, describing the reports of the firefighters’ warnings on Jan. 2 as alarming.

On Tuesday, he said he would review the LAFD’s response to the Lachman fire.

“I will do as Mayor [Karen] Bass asked, and I will look into the Lachman fire, and we will look at how that was handled, and we will learn from it, and we’ll be better from it,” he said.

A Bass spokesperson said Wednesday that the mayor “has made clear to Chief Moore” that the investigation into the Lachman fire should be conducted by an independent entity.

The LAFD has not responded to a question about who will conduct the probe.

SACRAMENTO — Current and former members of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration were among the dozens of Sacramento insiders who received FBI letters in recent days notifying them that their phone calls, texts or other electronic communications had been intercepted as part of the federal corruption case tied to Dana Williamson and two other longtime Democratic operatives.

The notifications are routine in wiretap investigations once surveillance ends, but the letters set off a wave of panic across California’s political power structure. The letters are signed by Sacramento Field Office Special Agent in Charge Siddhartha Patel and began arriving in mailboxes from Sacramento to Washington, D.C., last week, according to copies of the communications shared with The Times.

The legal notifications, under the terms of the 1968 Federal Wiretap Act, are sent out routinely to people whose private communications have been captured on federal wiretaps.

A Newsom spokesperson said the governor’s office is aware that a limited number of the letters were sent to current and former members of the administration. The spokesperson said that the letters were expected given federal law requires parties to be notified. Newsom’s office said the governor did not receive a letter.

Newsom’s office said the governor is not involved in the case against Williamson. None of the charging documents released in the cases against the three aides mention Newsom.

Copies of the letters, which were provided to The Times by individuals who asked to remain anonymous, indicate the period of time the communications were intercepted ranged from May 2024 to the end of July of 2024.

“This letter does not necessarily mean you were the target of the investigation or that any criminal action will be taken against you,” Patel wrote in the letter. “Rather, the purpose of this letter is to notify you that some of your communications may have been intercepted during the course of the investigation.”

Williamson, known as one of California’s toughest political insiders who previously worked as chief of staff to Newsom, was arrested last week on federal charges that allege she siphoned $225,000 out of 2026 gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra’s dormant state campaign account. She also was accused of spending $1 million on luxury handbags and high-flying travel and illegally declaring them as business expenses on her tax returns.

According to the 23-count indictment, Williamson conspired with Becerra’s former chief deputy in the California attorney general’s office and ex-chief of staff Sean McCluskie, along with lobbyist Greg Campbell to bill Becerra’s dormant campaign account for bogus consulting services.

Williamson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The highly publicized indictment against Williamson was sprinkled with references to her phone calls and text messages, indicating that federal investigators were likely relying on wiretapping. But the letters informing a wide swath of political insiders, from lobbyists to other operatives, is causing widespread anxiety across the Capitol.

The exact number of letters sent by the FBI is unknown, but political insiders say they’ve heard dozens of people have received one.

“It sends a chill up your spine, and everybody is worried,” said Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio, who said he did not receive a letter. “They can’t remember what they said to whom, about what. It could be anything. I think most people think this could be the tip of the iceberg. They are very concerned about where all these roads might lead.”

For months, as victims pleaded for information, the Los Angeles Fire Department kept secret that its firefighters were ordered to stop mop-up operations on a small brushfire that continued to smolder and reignited days later into the massive Palisades fire.

At least one department official learned that a battalion chief had directed the firefighters to pack up their hoses and leave the scene of the Lachman fire Jan. 2, even though they complained that the ground was still smoking in places and rocks remained hot to the touch, according to a source who was briefed on the matter in June.

But the department did not include that finding, or any detailed examination of the reignition, in its after-action report on the Jan. 7 Palisades fire — or otherwise make the information public — despite victims demanding answers for months about how the blaze started and whether more could have been done to prevent it.

The report, which was released last month and intended to identify shortcomings in the LAFD’s preparedness and response, only briefly mentioned the prior blaze, even though its role in starting the Palisades fire was clear to firefighters. According to the report, on the morning of Jan. 7, an LAFD captain called Fire Station 23 — one of two stations in Pacific Palisades — to say that the Lachman fire had started up again.

Despite this, LAFD officials were emphatic early on that the Lachman fire was fully extinguished.

“We won’t leave a fire that has any hot spots,” Kristin Crowley, the fire chief at the time, said at a community meeting Jan. 16, after the Palisades fire killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

“That fire was dead out,” Chief Deputy Joe Everett said at the same meeting, adding that he was out of town but communicating with the incident commander. “If it is determined that was the cause, it would be a phenomenon.”

The Times reported late last month that a battalion chief had ordered firefighters to leave the scene of the Lachman fire the day after it broke out, rather than stay and make sure there were no hidden embers that could ignite a new fire, according to firefighter text exchanges. Mario Garcia, the battalion chief listed as being on duty the day that firefighters were ordered to leave the Lachman fire, said in an email that he was unable to comment due to “the ongoing investigation.”

Interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva declined to be interviewed or answer questions about when top LAFD officials learned of the firefighters’ complaints about leaving the scene. Mayor Karen Bass also declined an interview request and did not respond directly to a question about whether she was informed of the firefighters’ complaints before The Times report and, if so, when.

After The Times published the story on the texts, victims of the Palisades fire expressed outrage, while Bass directed Villanueva to launch an investigation into the matter. Critics of Bass’ administration have asked for an independent inquiry. A spokesperson said Thursday that Bass’ selection for permanent fire chief, Jaime Moore, will lead the investigation, not Villanueva. Moore’s appointment still must be confirmed by the L.A. City Council.

Meanwhile, a federal grand jury subpoena was served on the LAFD for firefighters’ communications, including text messages, about smoke or hot spots in the area of the Lachman fire, according to a memo distributed to firefighters last week.

The source, a high-ranking fire official who works for a different agency in the L.A. region, told The Times that another LAFD battalion chief, Nick Ferrari, informed him in June that the department had learned of the Lachman firefighters’ account of being ordered to leave the burn site. The official asked not to be identified by name or the agency he works for because of the sensitivity of the LAFD finding.

The Times reviewed written notes that the official made shortly after the conversation, documenting what Ferrari had said about the firefighters’ complaints.

Ferrari works in the department’s risk management section, according to his LAFD email profile. That section typically conducts internal reviews of incidents such as the Palisades fire for potential liability. He did not respond to interview requests and an emailed list of questions. It is not clear what, if anything, Ferrari did with the information he shared with the official about five months ago.

Federal investigators say the Lachman fire was deliberately set and had burned underground in a canyon root system until high winds rekindled it on Jan. 7. Last month, an investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives led to the arrest of former Pacific Palisades resident Jonathan Rinderknecht, who is accused of setting the Lachman fire shortly after midnight Jan. 1.

It is unclear from the internal LAFD memo whether the federal subpoena for firefighter texts is directly related to the case against Rinderknecht, who has pleaded not guilty.

In one text message reported last month in The Times, a firefighter who was at the Lachman scene Jan. 2 wrote that the battalion chief in charge had been told it was a “bad idea” to leave because of visible signs of smoldering terrain, which crews feared could start a new fire. “And the rest is history,” the firefighter wrote in recent weeks.

A second firefighter was told that tree stumps were still hot at the location when the crew packed up and left, according to the texts. And another firefighter said in texts last month that crew members were upset when directed to leave the scene, but that they could not ignore orders. That firefighter also wrote that he and his colleagues knew immediately that the Jan. 7 fire was a rekindle of the Jan. 1 blaze.

The firefighters’ accounts line up with a video recorded by a hiker above Skull Rock Trailhead about 11:30 a.m. Jan. 2 — almost 36 hours after the Lachman fire started — that shows smoke rising from the dirt. “It’s still smoldering,” the hiker says from behind the camera.

The LAFD previously said that officials did everything they could to ensure the Lachman fire was out.

In an interview with The Times last month, Villanueva — who came out of retirement to head the department in February, after Bass removed Crowley from the position — said that firefighters remained in the Lachman fire burn area for more than 36 hours and “cold-trailed” it, meaning they used their hands to feel for heat, dug out hot spots and chopped a line around the perimeter of the fire to ensure it was contained.

He said firefighters returned Jan. 3 for another round of cold-trailing after a report of smoke in the area, though the LAFD did not provide records that corroborated those actions.

Those documents are readily available for release, but the LAFD has required The Times to pursue them through an often lengthy process under the California Public Records Act. Bass’ office declined to order the LAFD to provide the records to the paper.

The Times in recent years has filed three lawsuits against the city for its failure to release documents under the records act. Two of the lawsuits involved alleged misconduct by LAFD employees, including accusations that a chief deputy appeared to be intoxicated while the department was battling a 2021 fire in the Palisades.

The now-retired chief deputy said he was off-duty at the time and did nothing wrong. The department took no action against him. A judge ordered the city to release the records in the case and pay The Times’ legal fees.

In the second case involving alleged misconduct, the city agreed to settle by producing the records and reimbursing the paper’s legal costs. In the third lawsuit, which is pending, The Times contends that the city has unlawfully deleted Bass’ text messages related to the Palisades fire.

Pringle is a former Times staff writer.

A federal grand jury subpoena has been served on the Los Angeles Fire Department for firefighters’ text messages and other communications about smoke or hot spots in the area of the Jan. 1 Lachman brushfire, which reignited six days later into the massive Palisades fire, according to an internal department memo.

The Times reported last week that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to pack up their hoses and leave the burn area the day after the Lachman fire, even though they complained that the ground was still smoldering and rocks were hot to the touch. In the memo, the department notified its employees of the subpoena, which it said was issued by the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

“The subpoena seeks any and all communications, including text messages, related to reports of fire, smoke, or hotspots received between” 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve and 10 a.m. on Jan. 7, said the memo, which was dated Tuesday.

A spokesperson with the U.S. attorney’s office declined to confirm that a subpoena was issued and otherwise did not comment. The memo did not include a copy of the subpoena.

The memo said the subpoena was issued in connection with an “ongoing criminal investigation” conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Last month, an ATF investigation led to the arrest of former Pacific Palisades resident Jonathan Rinderknecht, who was charged with deliberately setting the Jan. 1 fire shortly after midnight near a trailhead.

It is unclear from the memo whether the subpoena is directly related to the case against Rinderknecht, who has pleaded not guilty.

During the Rinderknecht investigation, ATF agents concluded that the fire smoldered and burned for days underground “within the root structure of dense vegetation,” until heavy winds caused it to spark the Palisades inferno, according to an affidavit attached to the criminal complaint against Rinderknecht.

The Palisades fire, the most destructive in the city’s history, killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes, businesses and other structures.

Last week, The Times cited text messages among firefighters in reporting that crews mopping up the Lachman fire had warned the battalion chief that remnants of the blaze were still smoldering.

The battalion chief listed as being on duty the day firefighters were ordered to leave the Lachman fire, Mario Garcia, has not responded to requests for comment.

In one text message, a firefighter who was at the scene on Jan. 2 wrote that the battalion chief had been told it was a “bad idea” to leave because of the visible signs of smoking terrain, which crews feared could start a new fire if left unprotected.

“And the rest is history,” the firefighter wrote in recent weeks.

A second firefighter was told that tree stumps were still hot at the location when the crew packed up and left, according to the texts. And a third firefighter said this month that crew members were upset when told to pack up and leave but that they could not ignore orders, according to the texts. The third firefighter also wrote that he and his colleagues knew immediately that the Palisades fire was a rekindle of the Jan. 1 blaze.

The Fire Department has not answered questions about the firefighter accounts in the text messages but has previously said that officials did everything they could to ensure that the Lachman fire was fully extinguished. The department has not provided dispatch records of all firefighting and mop-up activity before Jan. 7.

After The Times published the story, Mayor Karen Bass directed interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva to launch an investigation into the matter, while critics of her administration have asked for an independent inquiry.