Darth Perez strikes back: The Super League is going after Fifa and Uefa for their “monopoly” on football. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus are refusing to let their botched ambitions for a pan-European Super League die, and have launched legal proceedings against Fifa and Uefa that could “fundamentally reorganize” how the sport is run, the Financial Times reports in an exclusive, citing court filings. The clubs — along with nine other European teams — attempted to form the breakaway league earlier this year to rival the Uefa Champions League, only to have the plans seemingly fall apart within days following universal condemnation by fans, teams, and pundits alike.

What’s their argument? The three clubs are alleging that Fifa and Uefa’s control over football is tantamount to a monopoly, which prevents new competitions from being set up to rival the officially-recognized tournaments. They also claim that Uefa should not be able to both make returns from its international tournaments and act as the sport’s regulator. The case is heading to the European Court of Justice, which will now judge whether football’s governing bodies have abused their market power in contravention of European law.

Clubs vs. countries: Sixteen European countries have said they will weigh in against the rebel clubs to defend Uefa in the lawsuit and protect the current model of the game. The European Commission has also said it will intervene in the case.

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The COP26 summit hasn’t even begun and the probability of its success is already on shaky ground. With neither China nor Russia’s leaders — the world’s two biggest giant greenhouse gas emitters — attending, conference host UK PM Boris Johnson said the summit’s chances for success are “touch and go” and that negotiations will be “very, very tough” (watch, runtime: 1:02). While the US and India (two other major emitters) are expected to attend, several other voices will not be represented at the annual summit, including a third of the Pacific islands. The increased costs of attending the summit this year, along with covid-19 travel restrictions and other pandemic woes, are the main reasons behind the receding RSVP list.

Why are the stakes for this year’s iteration of the summit so high? Deemed “arguably the most important COP since 2015” by former climate chief Christiana Figueres, the COP26 has leaders, activists and economists the world over holding their breath largely due to the looming urgency of realizing the goals of the Paris Agreement in 2015, the most ambitious of which is limiting global warming to below 2°C, a figure that strays considerably far from projections based on current pledges, which indicate a number closer to 2.7°C. Rich countries have also been expected to empty their pockets of USD 100 bn annually in support of climate actions in developing nations, a matter around which they should announce plans during the summit. Closing the emissions gap and reaching a net zero pathway are among other time-sensitive issues to be discussed at the summit.

So what — or rather, who — will determine if the summit will be a success? UN Secretary General Antonio Gueterres places a bulk of the responsibility squarely on finance ministers’ shoulders, calling on them to urgently consider net zero goals, low-carbon economic recovery, and inclusion in their decisions for the coming weeks. Economists Jeffrey Sachs and Nicholas Stern also said tackling climate change requires rethinking economic growth in a framework that prioritizes “broader common goods” over consumption of the rich, and a more “resource-efficient, productive and healthier” future. Both maintain that taking actions towards fighting climate change, like reallocating investments to green technologies like solar and wind, or implementing carbon pricing and regulation, would not be deterrents to economic growth.

SOME GOOD NEWS- The pace of divestment from fossil fuels is picking up: Some 1,500 institutions with USD 39.2 tn of assets under management announced this year they’re planning to sell off their fossil fuel holdings, up from USD 52 bn across 181 institutions in 2014, according to a report from DivestInvest picked up by Bloomberg. Harvard University, Ford Foundation, the state of Maine, and Canada’s Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Quebec are all among those that made divestment pledges, even as energy stocks surge on the back of the energy crisis, leaving climate-conscious investors behind. DivestInvest is a network that works to influence investors to divest from fossil fuels and invest in climate solutions to support the transition to the zero-carbon economy.

Investors are also reporting positive financial outcomes from the move away from fossil fuel investments, with a recent report by BlackRock Inc. finding that investors reported “neutral to positive results” from divestment. The DivestInvest report indicates much of the same, saying that investors “cite the financial reality that climate change will make fossil fuels obsolete and a renewable energy future inevitable.”