Decision announced at Cop30 climate conference signposts risks for Australia’s reliance on fossil fuel exports, analysts say
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The Australian government has been urged to prepare for a shift away from thermal coal exports and accelerate green industries after one of its main international customers signed up to close all coal-fired power plants by 2040.
South Korea, Australia’s third-biggest market for coal burned to generate electricity, announced at the Cop30 climate conference in Brazil that it was joining the “powering past coal alliance”, a group of about 60 nations and 120 sub-national governments, businesses and organisations committed to phasing out the fossil fuel.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/17/2025 - 09:00
11/17/2025 - 09:00
CEO of Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry calls Sussan Ley’s new policy ‘a bit of a plan not to have a plan’, echoing business scepticism
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Business and energy industry leaders have warned the Coalition that abandoning a net zero emissions target will not cut power bills, undermining the core promise of Sussan Ley’s signature new policy.
The chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), Andrew McKellar, dismissed the policy as a “bit of a plan not to have a plan”, as the Coalition’s traditional business allies distanced themselves from it.
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11/17/2025 - 08:38
More than half a million people gathered in Rizal Park in Manila on Sunday wearing white shirts and carrying signs reading 'transparency for a better democracy'. Concerns rose after the country's president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, published an internal audit into flood control projects in August that revealed significant irregularities. It showed that of almost $10bn in spending, thousands of projects were substandard, poorly documented or non-existent
‘There is so much corruption’: hundreds of thousands protest in Manila over missing flood funds
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Cop30: calls for new urgency to talks as studies show global warming may reach 2.5C – latest updates
11/17/2025 - 07:49
As the summit goes into its second week, complex issues remain with anxiety growing over conference outcomes
Colombia will host a first international conference on the phase out of fossil fuels in April next year, according to advocates of more ambitious action to eliminate the main source of the gases that are heating the planet.
The South American country, which has demonstrated strong climate leadership in recent years, is among a group of 17 nations that have joined the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative which held a press conference on its plans at Cop30 on Monday.
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11/17/2025 - 05:00
The search for a gingko-toothed beaked whale had taken five years, when a thieving albatross nearly ruined it all
It was an early morning in June 2024 and along the coast of Baja California in Mexico, scientists on the Pacific Storm research vessel were finishing their coffee and preparing for a long day searching for some of the most elusive creatures on the planet. Suddenly a call came from the bridge: “Whales! Starboard side!”
For the next few hours, what looked like a couple of juvenile beaked whales kept surfacing and disappearing until finally Robert Pitman, a now-retired researcher at Oregon State University, fired a small arrow from a modified crossbow at the back of one of them.
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11/17/2025 - 03:47
Castle Water says restructuring plans do not go far enough and extra funds will help resolve pollution crisis
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A bidder for Thames Water has said it would inject £1bn more into the struggling utility company than rival proposals if it gained control.
John Reynolds, the chief executive of the independent water retailer Castle Water, said the current plans under discussion with creditors to rebuild Thames Water’s finances did not go far enough and did not properly address its environmental crisis.
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11/17/2025 - 03:00
A new study suggests heatwaves will not revert back towards preindustrial conditions for at least 1,000 years after emissions target reached
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Heatwaves will become hotter, longer and more frequent the later net zero emissions is reached globally, new research suggests.
Scientists at the ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather and Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO, simulated how heatwaves would respond over the next 1,000 years, examining the differences for each five-year delay in reaching net zero between 2030 and 2060.
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11/17/2025 - 00:25
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11/17/2025 - 00:00
Analysis shows small hike in populations of insect-eating species after 2018 ruling, but full recovery may take decades
Insect-eating bird populations in France appear to be making a tentative recovery after a ban on bee-harming pesticides, according to the first study to examine how wildlife is returning in Europe.
Neonicotinoids are the world’s most common class of insecticides, widely used in agriculture and for flea control in pets. By 2022, four years after the European Union banned neonicotinoid use in fields, researchers observed that France’s population of insect-eating birds had increased by 2%-3%. These included blackbirds, blackcaps and chaffinches, which feed on insects as adults and as chicks.
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11/16/2025 - 14:14
Marina Silva says contentious plan would be ‘ethical answer’ to climate crisis but does not commit Brazil to it
Brazil’s environment minister, Marina Silva, has urged all countries to have the courage to address the need for a fossil fuel phaseout, calling the drawing up of a roadmap for it an “ethical” response to the climate crisis.
She emphasised, however, that the process would be voluntary for those governments that wished to participate, and “self-determined”.
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