Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Announcement comes ahead of visit to Cop31 climate conference with PM also set to face MPs at PMQs The national security of all countries is at risk from the climate crisis, as “science fiction” scenarios of widespread destruction are already coming true and economic shocks from fossil fuels are now the norm rather than the exception, Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, will warn at the Cop31 summit today. Fiona Harvey has the story. The CBI has issued a statement welcoming the PM’s offshore wind announcement. (See 8.55am.) This is from its chief executive, Rain Newton-Smith. The prime minister’s announcement of major investment in offshore wind is a powerful restatement of the UK’s clean energy ambitions and the economic opportunities they can unlock. Investment on this scale can attract further private capital, create skilled jobs and support growth in communities across the country. Continue reading...

As the IUCN global conservation body prepares to update its red list of endangered species, scientists explain why calculating the true toll of a pandemic is so hard It began with the brown skuas. The migratory seabirds had arrived on the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia in 2023, harbouring a deadly passenger. Within months, the southern elephant seals that had come ashore to breed became sick. Mothers and newborn pups were weak and trembling, with many struggling to breathe. What followed was a horrific mass casualty event, caused by the highly infectious avian influenza (H5N1). By 2025, more than 53,000 female elephant seals had died on South Georgia. That is especially alarming, scientists say, because the island is home to more than half of the global breeding population. Continue reading...

Colin McPherson has spent three decades working on Catching the Tide, his moving portrayal of fishers and an old way of life that is dying out Continue reading...

The transition to electric vehicles should be moving apace, but it is not. And why? Incompetence, expedience and cowardice This is how it works. An industry puts tremendous effort into resisting change: lobbying governments, mobilising the media, pouring money into junktanks. It argues that a transition would threaten jobs, or damage the national interest, or harm poor people, while what it really fears is the cost of retooling its plants or developing new protocols. Then, when the inevitable cliff edge approaches, it whines that change is coming too soon. For reasons beyond its control, it isn’t ready, so the government must delay its plans. This is what triggered the Dutch nitrate crisis, and the UK’s repeated “emergency” exemptions from the ban on a devastating class of pesticides. Now the same dynamic is driving the UK’s crisis over the transition to electric vehicles (EVs). The result is that, as the global climate summit, Cop31, begins, it looks as if our gift to the world will be a major, predictable and entirely avoidable increase in the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...