Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Louise Haigh is expected to agree to cut a target for EV sales by about a quarter In an interview with Sky News, Julia Lopez, who is serving as interim shadow business secretary while Claire Coutinho is on maternity leave, said that the Conservatives would like to get rid of the ZEV [zero emission vehicle] mandate entirely. She said that she did not think there was enough consumer demand for electric vehicles, and that there were not enough charging points. But she still welcomed reports that Labour will weaken the EV targets. “If Labour wants to be pragmatic and change some of those targets, that’s good,” she said. The switch to EVs has the potential to create greater emissions savings than any other energy transition policy, while providing drivers with vehicles that can be significantly cheaper to run. Yet again, this Labour government is heading in the wrong direction. Instead of pandering to corporate lobbying and stalling on the phase out of petrol and diesel vehicles, they should be boosting EV uptake through vehicle scrappage schemes and cheaper, more abundant and more reliable public charging infrastructure. Continue reading...

Increased heat will supercharge extreme weather events, warns UN agency as Cop31 climate summit begins Heat is accumulating in Earth’s systems at an accelerating rate, the UN’s weather agency has reported as the Cop31 climate change summit begins in Turkey, with 2026 on track to be one of the four warmest years on record. The imbalance between incoming energy from the sun and energy leaving Earth reached its highest level since monitoring began, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its State of the Global Climate update. Continue reading...

US government will have no official presence at UN’s annual climate summit, this year’s Cop31 held in Antalya, Turkey The US will be absent from key UN climate talks that start on Monday, a further sign of Donald Trump’s scornful dismissal of the climate crisis. But Democrats’ crushing win in the US midterm elections has delivered a timely shot of optimism to countries now looking beyond the Trump era of climate obstruction. For the second year in a row, there will be no official US government presence at the annual climate summit, this year known as Cop31 and held in Antalya, Turkey. While almost every other country in the world sends delegations to the talks, Trump has derided the climate crisis as a “hoax” and “bullshit” and triggered the withdrawal of the US from the entire international climate framework. Continue reading...

It’s 2126 and class is getting under way beneath the Earth’s remaining ocean Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints Continue reading...