Vanuatu climate change minister says ICJ opinion gives Pacific island nations ‘much greater leverage’ in dealing with partners such as Australia
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Australia could face international legal action over its fossil fuel production and failure to rapidly cut emissions, Vanuatu’s climate minister says, after a potentially watershed declaration by the world’s top court.
An International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion published in The Hague on Wednesday found countries had a legal obligation to take measures to prevent climate change and aim to limit global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels, and that high-emitting countries that failed to act could be liable to pay restitution to low-emitting countries.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/24/2025 - 01:10
07/24/2025 - 00:00
In his new book, The Anthropocene Illusion, photographer Zed Nelson reflects on the surreal environments created as people destroy nature, yet crave connection to it
The Anthropocene is a new term used by scientists to describe our age. While scientific experts argue about the start date, many point to about 200 years ago, when the accelerated effects of human activity on the ecosphere were turbocharged by the Industrial Revolution. Our planet is said to have crossed into a new epoch: from the Holocene to the Anthropocene, the age of the human.
The strata of rock being created under our feet today will reveal the impact of human activity long after we are gone. Future geologists will find radioactive isotopes from nuclear-bomb tests, huge concentrations of plastics, the fallout from the burning of fossil fuels and vast deposits of cement used to build our cities. Meanwhile, a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the British Zoological Society shows an average decrease of 73% of wild animal populations on Earth over the past 50 years, as we push creatures and plants to extinction by removing their habitats.
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07/23/2025 - 23:01
Decision is a significant blow for MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coalmine expansion in Muswellbrook in the upper Hunter
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The New South Wales court of appeal has overturned the approval of the largest coalmine expansion in the state after a community environment group successfully argued the planning commission failed to consider the impact of all of the project’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The decision is a significant blow for MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coalmine expansion in Muswellbrook in the upper Hunter and one that climate advocates say could have wider implications for future fossil fuel project proposals in NSW.
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07/23/2025 - 18:02
Move expected to help negotiations with US for lower trade tariffs on exports, but Labor says decision was made after scientific assessment
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The Trump administration has claimed credit for Labor’s decision to lift restrictions on imports of US beef into Australia, saying non-scientific trade barriers had left American farmers “on the sidelines” for two decades.
The government confirmed on Thursday morning that the agriculture department would allow imports into Australia of meat processed in the US but grown in Mexico and Canada.
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07/22/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 23 July 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00143-4
Substantial gains and little downside from farming of Totoaba macdonaldi
07/18/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 19 July 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00148-z
Marine biodiversity change impacts relational values: expert survey shows policy mismatch
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | [email protected] +12077011069
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