4 h. ago Critical ocean circulation won’t entirely collapse because of climate crisis

Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a key engine of world’s weather patterns, is under threat of dangerous weakening

Events

4 h. ago Total collapse of vital Atlantic currents unlikely this century, study finds

Climate scientists caution, however, that even weakened currents would cause profound harm to humanityVital Atlantic Ocean currents are unlikely to completely collapse this century, according to a study, but scientists say a severe weakening remains probable and would still have disastrous impacts on billions of people.The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a system of currents that plays a crucial role in the global climate. The climate crisis is weakening the complex system, but determining if and when it will collapse is difficult. Continue reading...

Politics

8 h. ago US climate research agency braces for ‘efficiency’ cuts: ‘They will gut the work’

Workers at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fear crackdown will have global falloutThe Trump administration has set its sights on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency, with significant cuts and a political crackdown on climate science. As Trump takes aim at the agency, the impact is likely to be felt across the US and around the world.Noaa provides essential resources to the public and has helped make the US a scientific leader internationally. Operating 18 satellites and 15 research and survey ships, the agency’s scientists, engineers and policy experts issue forecasts relied on by aviation, agriculture and fishing industries; ocean floor mapping depended upon for shipping; advises on species protection, and increasingly precise and accurate modeling on what to expect as climate crisis unfolds. Continue reading...

Science

11 h. ago ‘Human activity on a massive scale’: a photo exhibition tackles the climate crisis

Photographs from across the globe capture the impact of people on the climate – and of the climate on peopleThe word anthropocene has been proposed to denote an ongoing epoch in which human activity is a primary driving force of geological change. Although the word has caught on like wildfire in a colloquial sense, it was ultimately rejected as a descriptive scientific term, not so much because it was inaccurate but because of disagreements over when exactly it would have started – 1945, marking the unlocking of nuclear power; 1610, which may be the first time human activity affected the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; 1964, when the so-called Great Acceleration may have begun – or some other date altogether?These questions point to deeper challenges in understanding just what the Anthropocene is: do we think of it in terms of nuclear fallout, the composition of the atmosphere, the size of the human population, or so many other worthy metrics? Hoping to help us better un...

Events

15 h. ago Nauru sells citizenship to help fund relocations as sea levels rise

A new ‘golden passport’ scheme aims to raise funds to relocate people inland as climate change raises sea levelsThe Pacific island nation of Nauru is selling citizenship to fund its retreat from rising seas, the country’s president, David Adeang, announced on Tuesday, opening a contentious “golden passport” scheme as climate financing runs dry.The low-lying island nation of 13,000 residents is planning a mass inland relocation as the human-caused climate crisis raises global sea levels, eating away at the country’s fertile coastal fringe. Continue reading...

Politics

27 h. ago ‘I felt nothing but disgust’: Tesla owners vent their anger at Elon Musk

The tycoon’s links with Donald Trump and Germany’s far-right AfD have slammed the brakes on sales and put the car’s owners in a spinTesla sales almost halve in Europe over Musk’s ties to TrumpWhen Mike Schwede first sat in a Tesla Roadster 15 years ago, he felt like it was a glimpse into the future. By 2016, he was the proud owner of a Tesla, revelling in the thumbs up he would get from other drivers as he whizzed along Europe’s highways in the electric vehicle.But of late the sheen of owning a Tesla has begun to wear off. For years the brand has been synonymous with Elon Musk and his stance against the climate crisis. Recently, Schwede watched aghast as the Tesla CEO poured hundreds of millions into backing Donald Trump as he made promises to ramp up domestic oil and gas production. Continue reading...

Politics

29 h. ago California faces worsening drought despite recent heavy rainstorms

Dry pattern seen among entire ‘lower basin’ of the Colorado River, including Arizona and desert cities such as Las VegasDramatic rainstorms earlier this month brought more than 6in of rain to the California mountains – a full month’s worth of rain in little more than a day – but the deluge wasn’t enough to reverse a worsening drought trend that is set to intensify further in the coming weeks and months.Along the iconic Pacific Coast highway in Malibu, where just weeks earlier flames leveled hundreds of oceanside homes, a Los Angeles firefighter was washed out to sea, and later rescued. Continue reading...

Events

55 h. ago German election shows how far green wave has receded in Europe

Result is further evidence that political conversation around the climate crisis has shiftedGerman election live – latest updatesIn the final days of an election campaign dominated by migration, the likely new chancellor of Europe’s biggest polluter sought to assure voters that its economy ministry would not be occupied by NGOs. Instead, conservative lead candidate Friedrich Merz posted on social media that it would be led by “someone who understands that economic policy is more than being a representative for heat pumps”.Climate action barely featured on the campaign trail before Germany’s federal elections on Sunday – except when right-leaning parties used it to swipe at the Greens. Merz’s jab was at the tamer end of attacks aimed at the Green party candidate, Robert Habeck, the economy and climate minister who pushed through an unpopular law to promote clean heating, but is a sign of how far the political conversation around climate action has shifted. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago Outcry as Trump withdraws support for research that mentions ‘climate’

US government stripping funds from domestic and overseas research amid warnings for health and public safetyThe Trump administration is stripping away support for scientific research in the US and overseas that contains a word it finds particularly inconvenient: “climate.”The US government is withdrawing grants and other support for research that even references the climate crisis, academics have said, amid Donald Trump’s blitzkrieg upon environmental regulations and clean-energy development. Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago The key global issue is not the clash of north and south: it’s who supports international law and who doesn’t | Jean

We say the defining question is this: do nations work for peace and order or embrace the notion of power by force?Jean-Noël Barrot is the foreign minister of FranceWe are being told that the world is divided between a “global north” and a “global south”. But what exactly is meant by that? An economic difference? Of the 20 leading global economies, several are in the south. In the south, some countries are many, many times richer than their neighbours. A climate difference? The climate crisis affects every country in the world, and especially small island states and the poorest countries. The 10 greatest emitters, if we go by CO2 emissions per inhabitant, are split between countries in the north and south.Are we talking about a migration difference? A huge number of migrations are between countries in the south. A political divide? In both the north and the south, there are those who support collective solutions, and conversely, those who support efforts to withdraw from global affai...

Society

6 d. ago ‘If not fire, we’ll be killed by hunger’: villagers continue to feel fallout from Bolivia’s worst wildfires

Residents battle food shortages and health issues after vast areas of forest and farmland burned last yearAs she walks away from the house where she raised her family, Isabel Surubí pauses to point at the bed of a stream, now covered with dry leaves, that once supplied her entire community. “The water used to come from here,” she says.In 2024, wildfires in Bolivia burned more than 10m hectares (about 39,000 sq miles) of forest, farmland and savannah – an area greater than the size of Portugal. After the fires, and the drought that preceded them, the spring feeding Surubí’s village of Los Ángeles in Bolivia’s tropical dry forest ran dry. Continue reading...

Events

6 d. ago The climate crisis is a cost of living issue for Australia. My generation will be the first to pay for it | Anjali Sharma

Politicians have divorced the issue of global heating from soaring prices – Australians must take bold action at the ballot boxI love chocolate. It’s a staple of my diet. I don’t like that, at the best of times, it takes up maybe a fifth of my grocery budget.I also don’t like that as a country, we’ve been all too quick to blame rising food prices on inflation. We’ve quickly made inflation a priority for our policymakers, while the cost of living is the key issue of the upcoming election.Anjali Sharma was the lead litigant in Sharma v environment minister, the landmark court case against the then federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, which called for a duty of care to protect children against the impacts of the climate crisis Continue reading...

Economics

8 d. ago Early warning system for climate tipping points given £81m kickstart

Ambitious UK project aims to forecast climate catastrophes using fleets of drones, cosmic ray detection, patterns of plankton blooms and moreAn ambitious attempt to develop an early warning system for climate tipping points will combine fleets of drones, cosmic ray detection and the patterns of plankton blooms with artificial intelligence and the most detailed computer models to date.The UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), which backs high-risk, high-reward projects, has awarded £81m to 27 teams. The quest is to find signals that forewarn of the greatest climate catastrophes the climate crisis could trigger. Tipping points occur when global temperature is pushed beyond a threshold, leading to unstoppable changes in the climate system. Continue reading...

Events

9 d. ago Scientists want to reintroduce WOLVES to the Scottish Highlands

The idea of unleashing a pack of wolves in the Scottish Highlands might sound like the start of a horror film. But scientists want it to become a reality - to help solve the climate crisis.

Politics