Breaking Waves: Ocean News

05/25/2026 - 23:00
Lack of Pfas regulations raised in parliament after Guardian revealed former Miteni plant bought by Indian company Protests over the production of cancer-linked Pfas chemicals have spread across India, after an investigation revealed that an Italian factory shut down due to an environmental scandal was bought by an Indian company and partly rebuilt. At the end of last year, the Guardian revealed that the former Miteni plant in Vicenza had been acquired by the Indian company Laxmi Organic Industries. The factory produced Pfas and was shut down in 2018 after being linked to one of Italy’s worst environmental contamination scandals. Continue reading...
05/25/2026 - 19:48
Mining giant’s backsliding on climate commitments due to ‘weakness’ of policy, Kate Chaney says Adam Morton: Big Mining gets a $4bn tax break to use fossil fuel. It’s a strange way to tackle emissions Read more from the BHP files investigation here Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Australia’s climate change minister, Chris Bowen, says he has made it “crystal clear” that he expects industrial polluters including BHP to reduce their onsite emissions after leaked documents revealed that the world’s biggest miner has backtracked on climate action. An exclusive investigation based on documents leaked to by the Guardian and the ABC show BHP has scrapped a project to significantly reduce global emissions, delayed vast renewables projects in the Pilbara and war-gamed options to push the electrification of its polluting diesel truck and train fleets into the next two decades. Continue reading...
05/25/2026 - 19:16
Australia now a top-three global player in batteries, and renewable energy met nearly half of the nation’s power in 2025 Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Energy bills for households and small businesses will fall by up to 10% from July across parts of the eastern states, as a new industry survey shows record levels of renewables and batteries in the power grid. Households in New South Wales and south-east Queensland on standing electricity plans – known as the “default market offer” – can expect prices to fall between 3.4% and 10.7% compared to last year, according to the Australian Energy Regulator’s final offer for 2026-27. Some could save up to $155 per year. While, South Australian households on a flat rate could expect an increase of 1.4%. Continue reading...
05/25/2026 - 17:06
Mercury in Spain also climbs to well above normal with weather event set to continue for several more days More than 350 French towns have recorded their highest-ever temperatures for May as France and the UK set national heat records amid an extreme early-summer heat event that could see the mercury rise to 40C in parts of Spain by the end of the week. The UK’s Met Office said the country’s all-time record for May was broken when a temperature of 34.8C was recorded at London’s Kew Gardens. Continue reading...
05/25/2026 - 15:47
Speaking at Hay festival as UK breaks May heat record, author says optimism is a ‘moral duty’ Pessimism is probably “a bigger problem than climate change”, said the novelist Ian McEwan on Monday afternoon, as temperatures broke May records in the UK. McEwan “constantly” hears people say that they don’t “expect their children to have as good a life as they did”, but suggested that optimism is a “moral duty”. Continue reading...
05/25/2026 - 11:34
The UK is experiencing record-breaking temperatures in an unprecedented May heatwave, while large parts of Europe are also facing blistering conditions. As the climate crisis makes extreme heat more likely, are we prepared? Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian reporter Helena Horton. Continue reading...
05/25/2026 - 07:00
Jay Morris denies experts’ claims that he violated ethics rules over land deals near the site of Meta’s Hyperion datacenter This story is from Floodlight, a non-profit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action For more than two years, John “Jay” Morris, a Louisiana state senator, helped pave the way for Meta to build one of the world’s largest datacenters, called Hyperion, in Richland Parish. Continue reading...
05/25/2026 - 06:00
The state saw 33 tornadoes last year and severe flooding as researchers say links to climate change are undeniable The tornado hit west Ann Arbor at 1.45am on 15 April, passing through Veterans Memorial park, where it knocked several mature oak trees and ripped up baseball field fences before setting its sights on a local ice rink. “It came up through the parking lot and, in that time, the pressure differential between the tornado and the air inside the rink collapsed the wall,” said Scott Spooner, a manager at Ann Arbor Parks and Recreation. Continue reading...
05/25/2026 - 05:30
Given the scale of its contribution to global heating, the world’s biggest miner has a duty to invest heavily in solutions that could have a global impact Revealed: the internal BHP memo that slammed the brakes on world’s biggest miner’s climate push Read more from the BHP files investigation here Sign up for Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here The revelation that BHP cancelled and delayed commitments to act on the climate crisis should be a wake-up call. It matters in its own right: millions of tonnes of additional heat-trapping pollution will go into the atmosphere, adding to climate harm and making Australia’s climate targets that much harder to reach. Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter Continue reading...
05/25/2026 - 05:30
The world’s biggest miner has halted or delayed projects to cut vast amounts of emissions and has quietly war-gamed options to stall major climate investments in its Western Australian iron ore operations into the next two decades, according to documents leaked to the Guardian and ABC’s Four Corners. In a statement, BHP said its progress towards net zero emissions was dependent on technological shifts in trucks, trains and dozers, which were not yet ready to be deployed. Revealed: the internal BHP memo that slammed the brakes on world’s biggest miner’s climate push Read more from the BHP files investigation here Continue reading...