António Guterres issues warning at Davos, days after Donald Trump pulled US out of Paris climate agreement
Davos day two live – latest updates
The world’s addiction to fossil fuels is a “Frankenstein’s monster sparing nothing and no one”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, told leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
“Our fossil fuel addiction is a Frankenstein’s monster, sparing nothing and no one. All around us, we see clear signs that the monster has become master,” Guterres said in a speech days after 2024 was revealed to have been the hottest year on record and Donald Trump began his second term as US president by pulling the country out of the Paris climate agreement and pledging to “drill, baby, drill” for more oil and gas. The fossil fuel industry gave $75m (£60m) to Trump’s campaign.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
01/22/2025 - 05:54
01/22/2025 - 05:39
Experts say UK should stop biomass burning as electricity sector decarbonisation by 2030 can be achieved without it
The UK should stop burning wood to generate power because it is not needed to meet the government’s target of decarbonising the electricity sector by 2030, according to analysis.
Ed Miliband, the energy security and net zero secretary, is expected to make a decision soon on whether to allow billions of pounds in new public subsidies for biomass burning, despite fierce opposition from green groups.
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01/22/2025 - 03:05
Fifty-one sites in NSW have significant PFAS contamination requiring continued monitoring and remediation, EPA tells Senate inquiry
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Experts and water providers have called for a broad ban on so-called “forever chemicals” at a Senate inquiry into PFAS, warning of environmental harm and increasingly costly removal.
The Water Services Association of Australia’s executive director, Adam Lovell, said a ban should be imposed on PFAS in non-essential consumer products. “We need to reduce now, as much as possible, how much PFAS is in the environment.
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01/22/2025 - 01:00
Juan Guillermo Garcés had a brush with death while burning jungle for cattle pasture – now he runs a nature reserve in Colombia where more than 100 new species have been discovered
Words and photographs by Anastasia Austin and Douwe den Held
Juan Guillermo Garcés remembers coming face to face with death at age 17. Smoke filled the air, choking his lungs. The temperature rose and Garcés struggled to see through the haze. Panic set in as he watched monkeys, snakes, lizards and birds desperately trying to escape the flames surrounding them.
Garcés and his brother started the fire that nearly killed them to clear a large stretch of land. But when the wind suddenly changed direction, they found themselves locked in. The brothers survived, but the fire destroyed the little remaining patch of virgin forest on the family’s 2,500-hectare (6,200-acre) ranch, nestled along Colombia’s Magdalena River. Experiencing firsthand what the animals and plants endured was a turning point for Garcés.
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01/21/2025 - 22:00
New report says more than 30m hectares burned, 79% more than in 2023, after country saw worst drought on record
After enduring its worst drought on record in 2024, Brazil closed the year with another alarming milestone: between January and December, 30.86m hectares of wilderness burned – an area larger than Italy.
The figure published in a new report is 79% higher than in 2023 and the largest recorded by Fire Monitor since its launch in 2019 by MapBiomas, an initiative by NGOs, universities and technology companies that monitors Brazil’s biomes.
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01/21/2025 - 16:41
Climate negotiator André Aranha Corrêa do Lago given top job, bypassing Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva
Brazil has announced the top team for the next UN climate summit, which will be hosted in Belém this November, bypassing the country’s environment minister, Marina Silva, in favour of a veteran diplomat for the crucial role of president of the talks.
The experienced climate negotiator and secretary for climate, energy and environment, André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, will preside over the Cop30 summit, which is expected to draw scores of world leaders to Brazil – though not Donald Trump, who soon after his inauguration on Monday ordered the US’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.
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01/21/2025 - 13:50
Pollution aside, the problem with expanding Heathrow lies in the disruption and delay inevitable in such a complex project
Get ready for another season of that interminable saga, Heathrow’s third runway. There was a lull during the Covid pandemic when the airport’s owners, despite winning permission from the supreme court in 2020 to submit a planning application, cooled their jets while they waited for passenger numbers to recover. Now the whole thing is back, courtesy of Rachel Reeves. The chancellor is reported to be preparing to use a speech next week to declare support for a third runway at Heathrow alongside wider airport expansion in the south-east.
The best form of airport expansion is none at all, environmentalists (some of them in the cabinet) will argue, but it looks as if Reeves has dismissed those objections in the name of economic growth. A £1.1bn investment in Stansted, to enable it to grow its annual capacity from 29 million passengers to 43 million, was welcomed by the government last year.
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01/21/2025 - 08:56
Forecasters warn gusty conditions will return on Wednesday, marking end of break in fire-risk conditions
Southern California was bracing for more dangerous winds on Tuesday as new wildfires broke out across the region, which is continuing to grapple with the major fires that have ravaged Los Angeles communities.
Forecasters warned that strong winds would hit southern California for at least two more days. The winds had eased somewhat on Tuesday afternoon after peaking at 60mph (96km/h) in many areas, but gusty conditions will return on Wednesday, said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s office for Los Angeles.
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01/19/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 19 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00101-6
Offshore wind energy: assessing trace element inputs and the risks for co-location of aquaculture
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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