Breaking Waves: Ocean News

In today’s newsletter: As the world’s leaders gather in Brazil, the urgency of the climate crisis collides with political inertia. The Guardian’s journalists will be following all the stories from Belém Good morning. I was warned when I agreed to sit in on First Edition that sometimes your early Monday morning could get derailed by a big breaking news story. So imagine my face yesterday when it happened on my very first weekend, as the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, and the head of BBC News, Deborah Turness, both resigned. The decisions come in the wake of Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, describing the BBC as “100% fake news” over the way a speech by the US president was edited. A week of hostile rightwing media headlines – very clearly set out by Jamie Grierson in this piece – seems to have taken its toll at the top of the corporation. Culture secretary Lisa Nandy’s judgement will also no doubt be in the spotlight, having said, prior to his resignation, that she “retained confidence” in how Davie was handling the situation. Davie himself clearly didn’t agree. UK news | Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, and Deborah Turness, head of BBC News have resigned after a former adviser to the corporation accused it of “serious and systemic” bias in its coverage of issues including Donald Trump, Gaza and trans rights. Remembrance day | Veterans of the second world war were applauded as they arrived at the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph in Whitehall to honour those who have died in conflict. US news | More than 2,500 flights were cancelled as US transportation secretary Sean Duffy said flight reductions could reach 20% if the federal government shutdown persisted. The Philippines | More than a million people were evacuated from their homes in the Philippines and at least two people were killed as Typhoon Fung-wong – the second big storm to hit in the space of a few days – made landfall on the east coast. Business news | The Barclay family is set to lose control of another part of their former business empire with a US private equity firm taking control of online retailer the Very Group. Continue reading...

Fall reported by Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors as UN calls for accelerated action in buildings sector to meet global climate goals The growth in global demand for “green” office buildings has slowed after Donald Trump’s assault on environmental protection policies caused a slump in interest in the US, according to a survey of construction industry professionals. Building occupiers and investors across North America and South America expressed significantly lower growth in demand for green commercial buildings, a shift that “seems to be in response to a change in US policy focus”, according to a survey of members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics). Reported demand across the rest of the world also fell, albeit not as sharply. Continue reading...

Floods, storms and droughts have uprooted people across the globe as rising temperatures intensify conflict and hunger Climate-related disasters forcibly displaced 250 million people globally over the past decade, the equivalent of 70,000 people every day, according to a report by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR). Floods, storms, drought and extreme heat are among the weather conditions driving conflict and displacement, alongside slow-onset disasters such as desertification, rising sea levels and ecosystem destruction, which are threatening food and water security. Continue reading...

More than a third of Coalition voters believe temperatures will not rise at all, poll shows Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here About 40% of Australian women without kids say they are hesitant to have children because of climate change, a new survey suggests. The survey, on attitudes about the impacts of global heating, also found that half of Australians were very or extremely concerned about climate change and two in five believed the climate would be “much hotter” in 2050. Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter Continue reading...