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European scientists warn of consequences for weather patterns, the global climate and marine life
Temperatures on the ocean surface have hit a record high, raising fears of another burst of extreme heat this summer.
On 21 June, temperatures outside the polar regions exceeded the extraordinary highs observed at the same time in 2023 and 2024, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Wednesday.
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Past and present leaders of wealthy nations such as UK and Germany have argued their actions are insignificant
On first hearing, it is a position that sounds reasonable. “When our share of global emissions is less than 1%,” Rishi Sunak argued when he was the UK prime minister in 2023, “how can it be right that British citizens are now being told to sacrifice even more than others?”
Sunak is not the only world leader to have cited such figures while delaying cuts to pollution. In 2019, Scott Morrison, Australia’s then prime minister, used his country’s 1.3% of global emissions to reject any suggestion Australia was not “doing our bit” on climate breakdown. In July, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, pointed to his country’s 2% share of global emissions while supporting loopholes in European climate targets. A few months later the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, followed suit, flagging the EU’s 6% share.
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The class politics of extreme heat are very real and very dangerous – but that doesn’t stop the billionaire press from peddling its agenda
Every time you think the idiocy has hit rock bottom, it discovers a new level. It turns out there’s an even deeper hole you can dig for yourself than climate-science denial: heat-stress denial. Across the billionaire press last week, columnists and leader writers minimised the health impacts of the heatwave, particularly in schools. Expect more of this next week, when temperatures are forecast to soar again.
An editorial in the Telegraph (which represents the newspaper’s view) titled “Hot weather alarmism treats the public like children” maintained that “unlike in the seventies, when people were largely trusted to look after themselves, officialdom now feels the need to lecture the public about the risks of hot weather at every opportunity”. Extreme heat warnings are issued and weather maps are “painted in an alarming red”. Outrageous! Instead of issuing warnings, the government should just trust people to “take the appropriate precautions”. We should all “learn to live” with it. Quite right too: whatever happened to the bulldog spirit of ignorance and needless death? Cricket, warm beer, excess mortality: these are the markers of national character.
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Study reveals extreme heat causes sharp drop with knock-on effect for pollination of food crops in following years
We know heatwaves have serious health consequences for humans, but what about other species? A study has shown they severely diminish bees’ fertility, with significant implications for the pollination of food crops in the following years.
Prof James Gilbert of the University of Hull his and colleagues simulated a three-day UK heatwave in the lab and measured its effect on solitary red mason bees, compared with those kept under control conditions of an ordinary summer.
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Charmouth, Dorset: On a busy beach day, I find bright green gutweed thriving by the river mouth. It’s resilient – and loves the nutrients found in sewage
Charmouth beach is always busy. Even on grey and stormy winter days, walkers and their dogs patrol the hissing waves, and fossil hunters pick over rubble newly fallen from the black cliffs.
With summer here and school holidays approaching, the sands are strewn with visitors and the car park packed with glittering windscreens. It’s a lovely place to swim, as long as you heed the council signs warning of E coli and keep away from the River Char and its immediate outflow, which is often contaminated.
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As the the shocking heatwave continues, our European environment correspondent Ajit Niranjan answered your questions about which countries have responded best, who is being held to account, and why people are surprised after decades of warnings
sloth_101 asks: Most reports still talk about this issue in terms of “records”? Technically, that might be correct but it feels like it’s missing the urgency of the matter. “Records” are meant to be broken. These records clearly are not. Isn’t there a better way to describe it? For example, how “climate change” is often replaced with “climate emergency” or “climate breakdown”?
Ajit:I had never thought about it like that before but I can see how it can be read that way. It is partly a limitation of the language and partly an issue of accuracy. Ideally, I would spell it out – “Germany has been hit by heat it has never seen before” – but, because we are talking about measurements since records began, rather than over a longer period of history. I prefer to speak of “record-breaking” heat. The urgency can still be conveyed by describing the damage that hot weather does to our bodies and stating the death toll, which comes to tens of thousands of people across Europe in a typical summer. Each year heat kills 10 ten times more people than murderers in Europe.
Ajit:So far there has been fairly little evidence of this happening. Far-right parties talk a lot about migrants and climate, but almost exclusively as separate issues. One recent exception is Switzerland, where a referendum this month on capping the country’s population at 10 million people linked the impact of migration on the Alpine nation’s natural resources, but the link here was more about environmental degradation than climate breakdown.
Some data suggests migrants tend to pollute about as much as the native-born population – flying more but driving less - so there is no obvious avenue by which they would hold foreigners responsible for increased temperatures. What seems more likely is that, as temperatures rise to intolerable levels in North Africa and the Middle East, increased migration to Europe will force far-right parties to confront the paradox that the migration they want to stop will be exacerbated by the fossil fuel pollution they support.
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Climate campaigners question choice of James Evans for role given past criticism of green energy projects
The appointment of a Reform UK member of the Senedd Cymru as the chair of a key Welsh environmental committee could “undermine the hard graft of ministerial scrutiny”, a green thinktank has warned.
James Evans, a former Conservative party MS who defected to Reform UK in January last year, has been appointed chair of the Welsh climate change, environment, sustainability and rural affairs committee.
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The elephant seal has been crushing fences, blocking traffic and bashing into parked cars, in what experts say is play-fighting behaviour
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Bollards, traffic cones, fences and LandCruisers stand little chance against a 1-tonne giant known as Neil the seal, now a local legend in southern Tasmania.
Neil – a five-year-old elephant seal – has once again taken up residence in Tasmanian towns. He’s bypassing barricades, crushing fences, lying on roads and bashing into at least one parked car.
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For months I’ve been trying to receive my FIT payment, which should be more than £1,000
I moved into my new house 14 months ago, and soon afterwards applied toScottishPower, with whom the solar panels are registered for a feed-in tariff (Fit), for transfer of ownership of the panels and the tariff.
After many emails back and forth, I got a response saying they had all the information required.
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The government’s requisition of a historic green space has ignited a fierce debate about air quality and heat stress in India’s scorching capital
For decades, the social highlight of winters in Delhi for the “beautiful people” was the polo season. A sprinkling of royalty and diplomats, impeccably groomed women in pearls and chiffon saris, along with wealthy industrialists sporting silk pocket squares used to gather to watch polo players compete under the mild, balmy sun.
They cheered on handsome players who, once the match was over, had children shrieking in delight as they put on a heart-stopping display of tent-pegging derring-do. Swish champagne lunches and other après-polo celebrations followed.
Continue reading...Despite affecting millions of women in the UK, PMOS is still under-diagnosed and inconsistently managed, say experts.
Dr Bill Kirkup says he resigned from a government-commissioned review into NHS maternity services over the omission.
An independent inquiry has found "unacceptable racism and discrimination" is affecting patient safety.
Doctors have been locked in a three-year dispute with the government, resulting in several rounds of strikes.
The Princess of Wales did the endurance event to raise awareness about "holistic healthcare" for cancer patients.
Demand is soaring beyond capacity, meaning children in England wait years for help with various conditions.
Cardiac arrests have gone up during very hot weather, and it's not just among the elderly and frail, experts are warning.
Experts say the cost of living, pandemic and boom in unhealthy food are behind the rise in cases.
Sitting for prolonged periods is associated with health complications – but you can counteract the risks of a sedentary life.
The immunotherpay can give children and adults three extra years before they need to use insulin.
Deep in the mountains of Palawan, Conservation International scientists are capturing what few people ever see: the secret lives of the Philippines’ rarest species.
At Maido — the Lima restaurant recently crowned the best in the world — one of the star dishes is paiche, a giant prehistoric river fish.Its journey to the table begins on a small family farm deep in Peru’s Amazon.
“Jane Goodall forever changed how people think about, interact with and care for the natural world,” said Daniela Raik, interim CEO of Conservation International.
Conservation International’s Neil Vora was selected for TIME’s Next 100 list — alongside other rising leaders reshaping culture, science and society.
Climate change is happening. And it’s placing the world’s reefs in peril. What can be done?
After decades of negotiation, the high seas treaty is finally reality. The historic agreement will pave the way to protect international waters which face numerous threats.
The Amazon rainforest, known for lush green canopies and an abundance of freshwater, is drying out — and deforestation is largely to blame.
The ocean is engine of all life on Earth, but human-driven climate change is pushing it past its limits. Here are five ways the ocean keeps our climate in check — and what can be done to help.
In a grueling and delicate dance, a team led by Conservation International removes a massive undersea killer.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. These pictures might be worth even more. An initiative featuring the work of some of the world’s best nature photographers raises money for environmental conservation.
