Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Apart from effort to electrify, there were geopolitical tensions around climate science and the 1.5C goal at pre-Cop31 climate talks Electrifying the world – with electric vehicles, electric heating and cooling, and modernised heavy industry – could be the next biggest step towards phasing out fossil fuels, replacing the 80% of global energy that still comes from hydrocarbons. As using electrical energy is much more efficient than combustion, the move would save billions of dollars for consumers and businesses – global energy demand could be halved, according to one estimate. For decades, electrification has been a nerdish backwater of global climate action. But in the last two weeks, at preparatory talks in Bonn before the forthcoming UN Cop31 climate summit, the subject finally took centre stage. Continue reading...

Department for Transport analysis suggests tiny economic boost would be outweighed by up to £62.5bn in trade-offs The economic boost from a Heathrow third runway could be a tiny fraction of previous estimates, government analysis shows, while the overall trade-off from the bigger airport could set the UK back by as much as £62.5bn. As ministers promised to speed up expansion of the London airport in the name of economic growth, documents prepared by the Department for Transport said the runway was expected to boost GDP by only up to 0.05% – 90% less than the 0.5% previously stated. Continue reading...

Games in Miami and Monterrey were at heat level a players’ union had warned in the past should trigger delays Two of the first round of matches at the World Cup were played at a level of severe heat that a football players’ union has previously said should trigger the delay or postponement of games, a Guardian analysis has found. A further four games were played in cities with temperatures also beyond that level of heat, though conditions inside the stadiums were mitigated by air conditioning. Continue reading...

As datacenters’ connections to electric grids are held up, big tech is forced to throw money at producing its own power Datacenters are driving unprecedented growth in the US clean energy industry, paradoxically boosting a sector that was sputtering before the artificial intelligence boom even as AI’s rollout creates immense environmental challenges. However, observers caution that while the centers are propelling wind, solar, and other clean energy companies, datacenters remain a climate nightmare. Continue reading...