Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Environmental groups urge government to keep tougher green targets despite industry claim they are unsustainable Carmakers sold a record number of electric cars in the UK last year, prompting environmental groups to urge the government to stick to tougher green targets even as the industry argues they are unsustainable. The number of new cars sold in the UK rose by 2.6% in 2024 to 1.95m, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) lobby group. Of those, 19.6% were electric, up from 16.5% a year earlier. Continue reading...

Factory closures highlight the turbulent shift to a green economy, exposing political challenges and the urgent need for a equitable move to net zero One of the biggest political battles of the future began to take shape in 2024, yet it did not centre on Westminster. Instead, try Grangemouth in central Scotland, Port Talbot in south Wales and Luton in the south of England. Their stories were not front-page staples, but each was of huge significance – locally, nationally and economically. Grangemouth is Scotland’s sole oil refinery, whose owners confirmed in September that it would shut, to be replaced by a terminal taking in imported fuel – with nearly 400 workers losing their jobs. In the last days of September, the only remaining blast furnace at Port Talbot was shut down, as part of a restructuring that will cost 2,800 employees their jobs. At the end of November, staff at Vauxhall in Luton were told the plant would shut, ending 120 years of the carmaker’s association with the town and putting between 1,100 and 2,000 jobs at risk. One result was two days of protests in the town a week before Christmas. 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...

Families Like Ours has become national talking point but some scientists say events depicted could not happen Featuring scenes of huge crowds boarding ferries, protest and desperation as six million Danes become climate refugees and life as they know it rapidly collapses, the new TV series by the Oscar-winning director Thomas Vinterberg is a potential “look into the future”, he says. Familier som vores (Families Like Ours) – a drama which depicts a flooded Denmark shut down and evacuated – has been viewed nearly 1m times and become a national talking point. At its premiere at the Venice international film festival, it evoked tears, shouts and a standing ovation, with one critic describing it as “grimly prophetic”. Continue reading...

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...