Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Workers face being targets in what could be Environmental Protection Agency’s biggest upheaval since its founding After several years of recovery after the tumult of Donald Trump’s last administration, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now bracing itself for even deeper cuts to staff numbers and to work protecting Americans from pollution and the climate crisis as Trump prepares to return to the White House. When he was last president, Trump gutted more than 100 environmental rules and vowed to only leave a “little bit of the EPA” left “because you can’t destroy business”, prompting hundreds of agency staff to leave amid a firestorm of political interference and retaliation against civil servants. An even greater exodus is expected this time, with staff fearing they are frontline targets in what could be the biggest upheaval in the agency’s 50-year history. Continue reading...

UN’s top climate official warns ‘no country is immune’ from climate disaster as conference begins in Azerbaijan Businesses in the private sector must stump up cash for the developing world to invest in a low-carbon economy or face the consequences of climate breakdown, the president of the UN climate summit has said. Mukhtar Babayev, the environment minister of Azerbaijan, the host of this year’s climate conference, wrote in Monday’s Guardian: “The onus cannot fall entirely on government purses. Unleashing private finance for developing countries’ transition has long been an ambition of climate talks. Continue reading...

This live blog is closed UN climate chief Simon Stiell gave a moving speech at the Cop29 opening plenary on Monday, writes Dharna Noor, fossil fuels and climate reporter for Guardian US, who is reporting from Baku. “In tough times, up against difficult tasks, I don’t go in for hopes and dreams,” he said. “What inspires me is human ingenuity and determination. Our ability to get knocked down and to get up again over and over again, until we accomplish our goals.” Continue reading...

In today’s newsletter: As delegates gather for the world’s biggest climate conference, many are asking what the re-election of the man who thinks global heating is ‘a hoax’ will mean for the planet • Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First Edition Good morning. It is now “virtually certain” that 2024 will be the warmest year in recorded history. And just like 2023, the past 12 months have been characterised by extreme weather events – from cyclones in Australia to wildfires in Brazil to last month’s lethal floods in Spain – made more intense and more frequent by the climate crisis. US election | Donald Trump has been declared the winner in Arizona, completing the Republicans’ clean sweep of the so-called swing states and rubbing salt in Democrats’ wounds as it was announced that the president-elect is scheduled to meet with Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday to discuss the presidential handover. Trump reportedly spoke on the phone with Vladimir Putin on Thursday and discussed the war in Ukraine, telling the Russian ruler not to escalate the conflict and reminding him of “Washington’s sizeable military presence in Europe”. House of Lords | The Liberal Democrats will try to hijack the government’s bill to ban Lords from inheriting their seats in parliament this week in an attempt to force a vote on an entirely elected upper chamber. MPs are expected to vote overwhelmingly in favour of the Labour legislation but the Lib Dems want to go drastically further. Immigration and asylum| A Home Office artificial intelligence tool that proposes enforcement action against adult and child migrants could make it too easy for officials to rubberstamp automated life-changing decisions, campaigners have said. Health | The government is likely to offer a financial lifeline to the hospice sector amid fears end-of-life care providers are at risk of closure due to the double blow of the employers’ national insurance rise and higher wage bills, the Guardian understands. Nursing | Increasing numbers of UK-trained nurses are set to leave the profession in England within a decade of registering, in a trend that could jeopardise the government’s overhaul of healthcare, according to a union. Continue reading...