Study finds rising seas could flood facilities handling waste, sewage, and oil and gas – and coastal states most at risk
More than 5,500 toxic sites nationwide could face coastal flooding by 2100 due to rising sea levels, according to new research.
The study, published on Thursday in Nature Communications and led by scientists at the University of California, warns that if heat-trapping pollution continues unabated, rising seas will flood a wide range of hazardous facilities including those handling sewage, toxic waste, oil and gas, as well as other industrial pollutants.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/20/2025 - 05:00
Researchers in British Columbia catch sea wolves in the act after placing camera to solve mystery of damaged traps
The clues read like something from mystery novel: crab traps, suspiciously hauled ashore by unseen hands, had been damaged by baffling teeth marks. The bait inside was missing.
The question for researchers in the remote corner of British Columbia was: whodunnit? As with many crimes of opportunity in the modern era, the culprit was unmasked by a remote camera.
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11/20/2025 - 04:00
Sussan Ley’s offer allows a clear path to pass laws to rewrite Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in final sitting week
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The Coalition has offered to help Labor rush through new nature laws if it agrees to gut environment protection, challenging Labor to side with business interests over green groups to implement the long-awaited changes.
Environmental lawyers are urging the government against further weakening already flawed laws at the “behest of industry”.
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11/20/2025 - 02:16
While the outcome is a let down for those who want Australia to do better on climate, Chris Bowen looks set to play a pivotal role in the UN talks
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Ouch. From one perspective, Australia’s long-running bid to host the Cop31 UN climate conference next year has ended in clear failure.
It campaigned for more than three years for the right to put on the world’s biggest climate summit and green trade fair, which would have brought tens of thousands of people to the South Australian capital of Adelaide next November.
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11/20/2025 - 00:00
Scientists discover thousands of sea creatures have made their homes amid the detritus of abandoned second world war munitions off the coast of Germany
In the brackish waters off the German coast lies a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and mines. Thrown off barges at the end of the second world war and forgotten about, thousands of munitions have become matted together over the years. They form a rusting carpet on the shallow, muddy seafloor of the Bay of Lübeck in the western tip of the Baltic Sea.
Over the decades, the Nazi arsenal was ignored and forgotten about. A growing number of tourists flocked to the sandy beaches and calm waters for jetskiing, kite surfing and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the weapons decayed.
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11/19/2025 - 20:38
Australia had been pushing to host climate conference next year with south Pacific nations, which are increasingly threatened by rising seas and climate-fuelled disasters
Papua New Guinea has voiced frustration after Australia ditched a bid to co-host next year’s UN climate talks with its Pacific island neighbours.
“We are all not happy. And disappointed it’s ended up like this,” foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko told Agence France-Presse after Australia ceded hosting rights to Turkey.
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11/19/2025 - 16:41
Fortnight-long event to be held in Antalya but Australian climate change minister Chris Bowen expected to lead the negotiations
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Turkey will host the Cop31 climate conference after the Australian government dropped its push to hold the event in Adelaide at the last moment despite having invested in a more than three-year campaign.
But Australia’s climate change minister, Chris Bowen, is expected to lead climate negotiations at the summit in Turkey’s Mediterranean resort city of Antalya in November 2026 under a compromise deal to resolve a standoff between the two countries.
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11/19/2025 - 11:43
Exclusive: André Corrêa do Lago says rise of clean energy must be acknowledged and rich countries need to do more
Cop30: click here for full Guardian coverage of climate talks in Brazil
Oil-producing countries need to acknowledge the rise of clean energy, and rich countries will have to provide more assurances on finance if the chasm between negotiating nations at Cop30 is to be bridged, the president of the summit has said.
André Corrêa do Lago, the veteran Brazilian climate diplomat in charge of the talks, said: “Developing countries are looking at developed countries as countries that could be much more generous in supporting them to be more sustainable. They could offer more finance, and technology.”
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11/19/2025 - 11:00
We want to hear about how these shifts showed up in your everyday lives this year
The climate crisis is reshaping our lives: extreme weather events are intensifying, extinctions are accelerating and the urgency for both adaptation and intervention only increase.
But there are also the smaller, more personal impacts. Perhaps it’s not being able to fish with your kids in the place where your childhood memories were made because the river has dried up. Maybe it’s not being able to gather around a campfire in the summer, due to wildfire risks and restrictions. It can be the loss of a favorite tree, a personal sacrifice you’ve made for the greater good, or a change you’ve observed through the seasons.
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11/19/2025 - 10:44
Governments across the continent have attacked green rules with increasing ferocity – all while professing their commitment to existing climate targets
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To little fanfare and few international headlines, Denmark just announced one of the world’s most ambitious climate targets.
The unusually wind-powered and cycle-friendly Nordic nation – whose ruling Social Democrats suffered a setback in elections on Tuesday – promised on Monday to cut planet-heating pollution by at least 82% by 2035 from 1990 levels. The goal inches past the UK’s landmark 81% target for that year and races ahead of the EU’s rather wide goal of 66.3% to 72.5%.
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