Energy and net zero secretary lays out stark picture of how climate crisis and nature depletion is affecting UK
Climate activists will welcome Ed Miliband’s words but tough choices lie ahead
Ed Miliband has accused the Conservatives of being “anti-science” by abandoning a political consensus on net zero as he gave MPs a stark outline of how the climate crisis and nature depletion are already affecting the UK.
In the first of what is promised to be an annual “state of the climate” report, the energy and net zero secretary set out the findings of a Met Office-led study that detailed how the UK was already hotter and wetter, and faced a greater number of extreme weather events.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/14/2025 - 11:42
07/14/2025 - 10:05
Up to five areas could enter drought status and more hosepipe bans expected after three heatwaves and lack of rain
As many as five areas of England are expected to go into drought this summer after the hottest June since records began in 1884.
Three heatwaves, which tend to increase water consumption, combined with a lack of rain means that large swathes of England are heading towards drought status and the damage to the environment that entails.
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07/14/2025 - 10:05
Customs officials at Cologne Bonn airport tipped off by ‘noticeable smell’ that did not resemble confectionary
Arachnophobes beware: customs officials have released photos from a seizure of roughly 1,500 young tarantulas found inside plastic containers that were hidden in chocolate sponge cake boxes shipped to an airport in western Germany.
Customs officials said on Monday they had found the shipment at Cologne Bonn airport in a package that had arrived from Vietnam. A Cologne customs office spokesperson, Jens Ahland, said they had been tipped off by a “noticeable smell” that did not resemble the expected aroma of the 7kg (about 15lb) of the confectionery treats.
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07/14/2025 - 09:00
Household energy bills in some Republican-leaning states could rise by more than $600 every year, analysis of the so-called ‘big, beautiful bill’ finds
The cost of electricity is poised to surge across the US in the wake of Republican legislation that takes an axe to cheap renewable energy, with people in states who voted for Donald Trump last year to be hardest hit by the increase in bills.
As air conditioners crank up across the US during another sweltering summer amid an unfolding climate crisis, rising energy costs will become even more severe for households due to the reconciliation spending bill passed by Republicans in Congress and signed by Trump, who called it the “big, beautiful bill”, on 4 July.
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07/14/2025 - 06:49
Jane McCarthy, who has terminal cancer, withheld payments for three years in protest at Buckinghamshire council’s fossil fuel investments
A woman who withheld council tax payments for three years in protest at her local authority’s continued investment in fossil fuels fears losing her home.
Jane McCarthy, 74, said she decided on the protest after becoming increasingly fearful about the impact of climate breakdown on future generations, particularly when she learned about climate tipping points at a local meeting.
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07/14/2025 - 06:40
Restrictions to come into effect in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Wiltshire from 22 July
Thames Water has announced a hosepipe ban as a record dry spring and summer has severely reduced water supplies.
Households in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Wiltshire will be banned from using hosepipes to wash cars or water gardens from Tuesday 22 July.
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07/14/2025 - 06:00
The Fourth of July tragedy was described as something no one could have seen coming. But in ‘flash flood alley’, an eerily similar event 40 years ago holds important lessons
The rain was pouring down in Texas in the early morning hours of 17 July 1987. James Moore, a reporter for a local NBC news station, was stationed in Austin when his editors called and told him to grab his camera operator and head to Kerrville, a Hill Country town about 100 miles (160km) away. They had heard reports of flash flooding on the Guadalupe River.
“We just jumped in the car when it was still dark … we knew there were going to be problems based on how much rain there was,” Moore said. En route, he got another call over the radio that told him to head instead for the small hamlet of Comfort, just 15 miles from Kerrville.
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07/14/2025 - 00:00
Exclusive: Energy secretary’s ‘radical truth-telling’ comes as Reform plans net zero bonfire and Tories also ditch targets
‘Profound concern’ as scientists say extreme heat ‘now the norm’ in UK
Ed Miliband is to explicitly call out politicians who reject net zero policies for betraying future generations in an unprecedented update to parliament about the state of the climate crisis, which he is calling “an exercise in radical truth-telling”.
With Reform UK proposing to scrap all net zero measures and even questioning the science behind climate change, and the Conservatives ditching environmental targets, Miliband hopes to regain the initiative with a stark warning to MPs.
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07/13/2025 - 16:04
This blog is now closed
Pentagon wants to make Aukus work but some stakeholders have ‘serious concerns’, senior US defence official says
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Authorities are appealing for information after a ‘suspicious’ fire at a childcare centre in Sydney’s west in the early hours of Monday morning.
The ABC reports the blaze took place at a Play to Learn facility in Castle Hill. Another Play to Learn centre also caught fire in Sydney’s Turramurra on Friday. NSW police said:
About 1:30am today, emergency services were called to a business in Excelsior Avenue, Castle Hill, following reports of a fire. NSW Fire and Rescue are on scene and have extinguished the blaze. There has been minor damage caused to the building.
This level of experimentation with our endangered koalas is cruel, was a catastrophic failure and should not have happened. The control settings around this translocation experiment were obviously fundamentally flawed and I don’t think the public would find this level of experimentation with our endangered koalas at all acceptable.
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07/13/2025 - 14:12
Grand Canyon Lodge consumed by two wildfires that have burned more than 45,000 acres in area
The historic Grand Canyon Lodge on the monument’s North Rim has been destroyed by a fast-moving wildfire, the park said on Sunday. The blaze has forced officials to close access to that area for the season.
The Grand Canyon Lodge, the only lodging inside the park at the North Rim, was consumed by the flames, the park superintendent, Ed Keable, told park residents, staff and others in a meeting on Sunday morning. He said the visitor center, the gas station, a waste water treatment plant, an administrative building and some employee housing also were lost.
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