Breaking Waves: Ocean News

11/25/2025 - 00:00
It took some oblique wording, but Saudi Arabia made a last-minute decision to sign deal that marks departure for Cop Dawn was breaking over the Amazonian city of Belém on Saturday morning, but in the windowless conference room it could have been day or night. They had been stuck there for more than 12 hours, dozens of ministers representing 17 groups of countries, from the poorest on the planet to the richest, urged by the Brazilian hosts to accept a settlement cooked up the day before. Tempers were short, the air thick as the sweaty and exhausted delegates faced up to reality: there would not be a deal here in Brazil. The 30th UN climate conference would end in abject failure. Continue reading...
11/25/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 25 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00166-x Coral reefs span borders, so must solutions: transboundary conservation in complex political environments
11/24/2025 - 22:47
Labor is continuing talks with both sides and could be prepared to give more ground Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The fate of Labor’s nature laws hangs in the balance after new concessions to the Coalition and the Greens failed to immediately persuade either party to support them. But Labor is continuing talks with both sides and could be prepared to give more ground, as it desperately tries to land a deal to overhaul the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act before parliament rises for the year on Thursday night. Continue reading...
11/24/2025 - 17:56
It’s all in the timing See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here Continue reading...
11/24/2025 - 13:37
A fragile Cop30 consensus is a win. But only a real bargain between rich and poor nations can weather the climate shocks that are coming This year’s UN climate talks in Brazil’s Belém ended without a major breakthrough. The text of the final agreement lacked a deal to shift away from fossil fuels, delayed crucial finance and the “mutirão” decision contained no roadmap to halt and reverse deforestation. But the multilateral system at Cop30 held together at a point when its collapse felt close. This ought to be a warning: next year’s conference of the parties must strike a better bargain between the rich and poor world. Developing countries are far from united on some issues. Over rare earth minerals China sees any move as targeting its dominance, while Africa sees it as essential for governance. Elsewhere petrostates did not support Colombia’s call for a fossil fuel phase-out. Yet the global south broadly coheres around a simple principle: its nations must be equipped to survive a climate emergency they did not create. That means cash to build flood defences, make agricultural systems resilient, protect coastlines and rebuild after disasters strike. They also demand front-loaded finance to transition to clean, green economic growth. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
11/24/2025 - 11:32
Unimetals, which operates at 27 UK locations, files winding–up petition after failing to find a buyer Business live – latest updates More than 650 workers face the prospect of redundancy after the scrap metals group Unimetals filed for compulsory liquidation. The owners of Unimetals Recycling (UK) filed a winding-up petition for the business on Monday, after failing to find a buyer. Continue reading...
11/24/2025 - 09:00
A preening brush turkey, a wise cassowary and some hungry terns are among the winning and shortlisted photos in this year’s prize. They were chosen from thousands of entries across nine categories, including the special theme of diurnal raptors. Funds raised by the competition support bird conservation programs in Australia Continue reading...
11/24/2025 - 08:23
Firefighters call for long-term investment and say UK is dangerously underprepared as climate crisis worsens Wildfires have devastated more moorland, forests and fields in the UK this year than at any time since records began, putting huge pressure on the country’s fire service, figures show. The Global Wildfire Information System estimates that by November, wildfires had burned 47,026 hectares (116,204 acres) in 2025 in the UK – the largest area in any year since monitoring began in 2012, and more than double the area burned in the record-breaking summer of 2022. Continue reading...
11/24/2025 - 08:00
Hunger is part of American life. Even as a professional adult, it’s never too far from Dr Angie Morrill’s thoughts I asked my older sister why we sang the Patty Cake song so often as children: Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can! She replied simply: “Because we were hungry.” Her answer stayed with me, and I thought about some happy memories: mom making Toll House cookies while The Wizard of Oz played on television. Delivering baked goods to elders and friends in our Native urban community at Christmas; we are enrolled citizens in the Klamath Tribes, whose traditional homelands are in southern Oregon and northern California. Sharing food is a cultural value for Native people. Mom taught us to always offer food and drinks to our guests. It’s also important to have enough food to share. Continue reading...
11/24/2025 - 05:00
Blazes that smoulder in the permafrost, only to reignite, are extending fire season though winter, leaving vegetation struggling to recover In May 2023, a lightning strike hit the forest in Donnie Creek, British Columbia, and the trees started to burn. It was early in the year for a wildfire, but a dry autumn and warm spring had turned the forest into a tinderbox, and the flames spread rapidly. By mid-June, the fire had become one of largest in the province’s history, burning through an area of boreal forest nearly twice the size of central London. That year, more of Canada burned than ever before. The return of cold and snow at the close of the year typically signal the end of the wildfire season. But this time, the fire did not stop. Instead, it smouldered in the soil underground, insulated from the freezing conditions by the snowpack. The next spring, it reemerged as a “zombie fire” that continued to burn until August 2024. By then, more than 600,000 hectares (1.5m acres) had been destroyed. Continue reading...