Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Ford denies having created ‘defeat devices’ in legal action on behalf of 1.6 million owners against five carmakers About a million Ford diesel cars were sold in the UK with serious defects in components supposed to curb toxic exhaust emissions, the high court has been told. The highly polluting vehicles were produced and sold between 2016 and 2018 after Ford’s engineers became aware of the issues, and many were never formally recalled or fixed, lawyers said. Continue reading...

The fossil-fuel era is drawing to a close, but at a pace far too slow for the planet’s good or a fair transition to a clean energy future The weather in Belém, wrote the Guardian’s environment editor, offers a convenient metaphor for the UN climate talks being held in the Brazilian city. Sunny mornings begin in blazing optimism before the Amazon’s clouds gather and the deluge begins. Cop30 has followed the same pattern. It opened with sunshine – an agenda agreed on day one. The storms were deferred for later “consultations” on climate finance, carbon border tariffs and the question of how to close the yawning gap between national climate pledges and the Paris agreement’s safe pathway. These await Cop30’s second week. They are likely to be more than mere squalls. The International Energy Agency confirmed last week that the fossil-fuel era is ending. Its annual report said the world will hit peak coal, oil and gas this decade and see declines thereafter. The economist Fadhel Kaboub, who advises developing nations on climate, argues this is not “because of political will, but because the economics of renewables is winning”. Africa, he says, can generate about 1,000 times the electricity it will need in 2040 – which could be exported. Globally, however, hydrocarbon use is easing far too slowly. The fight over money and a just transition matters at Cop30. 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...

Munduruku people demand to speak to Brazil’s president, saying they are never listened to Cop30: click here for full Guardian coverage of the climate talks in Brazil Protesters blockaded the main entrance to the Cop30 climate conference for several hours early on Friday morning, demanding to speak to Brazil’s president about the plight of the country’s Indigenous peoples. About 50 people from the Munduruku people in the Amazon basin blocked the entrance with some assistance from international green groups, watched by a huge phalanx of riot police, soldiers and military vehicles. Continue reading...

Plastic pellets attract algae and smell like food so can be eaten by birds, fish and dolphins, which can prove fatal Beads spreading on Sussex coast after ‘catastrophic’ spill, meeting told Millions of toxic plastic beads were spilled on to Camber Sands beach, in East Sussex, a few days ago, putting wildlife at risk in what the local MP called an “environmental catastrophe”. Southern Water, the local water company, has taken responsibility for the spill after a mechanical failure at one of its treatment plants, which caused the beads to be released. Continue reading...