Breaking Waves: Ocean News

People around the world have contended with unprecedented weather events and their fatal effects caused by the climate catastrophe After the world’s hottest summer since records began in 1850, the death toll from extreme weather in 2026 is already in the high tens of thousands. That is a conservative estimate and is certain to rise much higher. As Cop31 continues and scientists warn that climate breakdown may be accelerating, the Guardian looks back at a year of droughts, fires and floods as a reminder that, unless the world takes urgent action to cut emissions, this disastrous year will be one of the best of the rest of our lives. Continue reading...

Kai Wright of the Guardian podcast Stateside will speak with author and environmentalist Bill McKibben – and we’d like to hear your questions Was the climate crisis one of your top political priorities during the midterm elections? We want to hear from you: what do you want political leaders to do about it in 2027? Democrats will control the House and Senate in the new year, and they have a long list of priorities ahead of them. But it remains to be seen just how much they will focus on one of the most pressing issues of our times: the climate crisis. The UN declared this summer that, despite some progress, it is now “unavoidable” that the globe will heat past the point that scientists say will threaten human health. Despite these terrifying predictions, the US remains absent from global efforts to limit the impacts of the climate crisis. Continue reading...

The environmental and economic dilemmas he faces are formidable but, with a bold plan, he could set an example for leaders around the world For politicians of the centre-left especially, it’s the great dilemma of the age. How do you do what everyone can see is essential to save the planet from boiling – even as your voters demand action to get the economy growing and to make life more affordable? Plenty of activists will tell you there’s no contradiction, that tackling the climate crisis makes economic as well as ecological sense and, in the long term, you know they’re right. But you don’t live in the long term. You’re running the government right now and facing several unavoidable, binary choices. Andy Burnham is a prime example. This week, he addressed the Cop summit in Antalya, promising “a new era of British leadership” in the struggle against global heating. It’s important to him to talk that way: his political strategy relies on shrinking the appeal of the Green party, whose electoral success earlier this year helped remove his predecessor. But talk only takes you so far. Eventually the words have to be matched by action. Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

António Guterres says climate action central to every aspect of UN’s work, as leaders depart Cop31 and talks go on Tackling the climate crisis is central to all of human life and must be at the forefront of global governance, the outgoing UN secretary general has said in an emotional farewell address at the Cop31 climate summit. “You cannot build peace on a burning planet,” António Guterres said at his final climate press conference as secretary general on Friday. “You cannot eradicate poverty when climate disasters keep throwing people back into it. You cannot promise young people a better future while destroying the natural systems on which that future depends.” Continue reading...