Breaking Waves: Ocean News

World Meteorological Organization report says record heat in 2024 was driven by climate crisis and intersected with extreme weather events Almost 40 million sq kilometres of ocean around south-east Asia and the Pacific – an area five times the size of Australia – was engulfed in a marine heatwave in 2024, a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report has revealed. WMO scientists said the record heat – on land and in the ocean – was mostly driven by the climate crisis and coincided with a string of extreme weather events, from deadly landslides in the Philippines to floods in Australia and rapid glacier loss in Indonesia. Continue reading...

Coalition that includes SoCalGas, country’s largest gas utility, has launched fierce campaign against transition away from gas-fired appliances This story is co-published with Floodlight. On a windy night in early January, Barbara Ishida, a second grade teacher, spotted the Eaton fire glowing in the hills behind her home in Altadena, California. Her mind turned to the deadly wildfires in Lahaina and Paradise and she thought, “Let’s get out – now.” Continue reading...

The legislation is a product of joined-up environmental thinking – aiming to create housing while preventing nature loss Nick Williams was an economic policy adviser to Keir Starmer between 2023 and 2025, having previously worked in HM Treasury In recent weeks, various nature groups and newspaper columnists have promoted claims that the government’s flagship planning and infrastructure bill is a “nature sellout”. The argument goes that the government is conspiring with malign developers to destroy irreplaceable habitats as a first resort. This sounds alarming, if only it were true. The truth is that our current framework for protecting habitats has been in place for decades but has failed to prevent nature loss. This is because we approach conservation in the least effective way possible, with tens of thousands of individual site-by-site protections. Ecological science is clear that this is outdated. Modern conservation strategies recognise the necessity of interconnectivity and scale for supporting complex ecosystems. Nick Williams was an economic policy adviser to Keir Starmer between 2023 and 2025, having previously worked in HM Treasury Continue reading...

Exclusive: National Fire Chiefs Council warns of pressures, with callouts up 20% in a decade as firefighter numbers fall Fire stations in England are “falling apart”, fire chiefs have warned, with funding plummeting by an estimated £1bn in the last decade as callouts have increased by a fifth. Fire and rescue must not become the “forgotten emergency service”, the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) urged, warning of mounting pressures that “risk undermining public and firefighter safety”, as it responds to more 999 calls with fewer firefighters. Continue reading...