Breaking Waves: Ocean News

In an extract from her new book, Still Waters & Wild Waves, the artist and illustrator Angela Harding documents the wildlife and landscapes of the Scottish islands Fair Isle and Shetland Words and images: Angela Harding Today the UK woke up to a day of excitement. A day of street parties, a national holiday, and celebrations for a new king. It was also day three of gale-force winds on Fair Isle, and it was the day my mother died. A brief phone call from her care home, then the aloneness. The phone call came as I stood outside the south lighthouse. I watched the tower-tall waves, Payne’s grey, reflecting the colour of the sky. Waves built by wide, powerful seas and a wild wind that rocked me back and forth on my heels. The news was expected; it was the logical conclusion for a fragile 92-year-old. Continue reading...

Simple measures could raise five times more money than poorer countries are asking for, research claims Rich countries could raise five times the money that poor countries are demanding in climate finance, through windfall taxes on fossil fuels, ending harmful subsidies and a wealth tax on billionaires, research has shown. Developing nations are asking for at least $1tn (£750bn) a year of public funds to help them cut greenhouse gases and cope with the impacts of extreme weather. Continue reading...

Former secretary of state accuses oil and gas companies of ‘business as usual’ at major climate summit in New York Countries are ignoring commitments they made less than a year ago to shift away from fossil fuels and to provide aid to those most vulnerable to the climate crisis, a host of leading figures have admitted during a gloomy start to a major climate summit in New York. Al Gore, the former US vice-president, and John Kerry, the former US secretary of state and climate envoy, have led the condemnation of the largest greenhouse gas emitters, led by China and the US, for failing to follow a UN pact signed in Dubai by nearly 200 countries in December to “transition away” from oil, coal and gas. Continue reading...

The new head of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty on Cop29 and why activism is not winning enough Top climate scientists have long warned that swiftly curbing fossil fuel production will be necessary to avert climate catastrophe. Yet international climate treaties have failed to include such commitments. Despite pressure from vulnerable nations and activists, in the agreement signed at international climate talks last year, world leaders failed to commit to a fossil fuel “phase-out”, instead calling for a “transition away” from coal, oil and gas. Its a longstanding problem: the 2015 Paris agreement does not even mention that fossil fuels are responsible for global heating. That paradox led climate-vulnerable nations and civil society groups to launch the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. First dreamed up following the Paris climate talks and officially launched in 2019, the proposed treaty would include concrete plans for the phase-out of fossil fuels, complementing the Paris agreement. It has been endorsed by 13 countries including Colombia and vulnerable island nations such as Vanuatu, as well as hundreds of elected officials, 118 cities and municipalities, and thousands of organizations. Inspired in part by the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which aimed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, the initiative calls on nations to agree to halt the expansion of coal, oil and gas. Continue reading...