Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Piles of loo paper, a years worth of tinned goods and snake-proof boots. No wonder prepping has become a lifestyle choice Prepping – I’m coming round to it. I’ve had Prepare, the old government website that Oliver Dowden launched this spring, open on my laptop in a quivering tab for a while now, and this week I’ve been dipping in every now and then to remind myself of “how to prepare for an emergency”. How many bottles of water we may need, tweezers, a sage reminder about the fact of tinned meat. I’ve dabbled in prepping before, without really realising what I was doing. A fear in the early 2000s that Rimmel might stop making my favourite eyeliner led to me dashing to Boots to buy five. Which is fairly normal, I think? On the spectrum of normal? Sensible probably, when so many, as you’ll know, have brushes too fine or ink that disappears in rain. In the grip of lockdown, as supermarket deliveries were increasingly scarce, when I was blessed with a Tesco slot I would focus not on toilet paper or flour, but on treats. I’d stockpile the good biscuits, and, in my naivety, Biscoff spread. I remember there were very large gift bars of Galaxy chocolate on offer for a while, bars the size of a small dinghy which I would buy in bulk, nibbling away at the corners like a parasite. That was when we started decanting our pulses. Still, beside the microwave sits a proud wall of oversized Tupperware, carefully labelled in my six-year-old daughter’s handwriting: “spageti”, “green lenttles”, “ryce”. It felt good. I felt prepared, but for what, was unclear. Continue reading...

‘You not only know what we’re going to do but how we’re going to get there,’ PM tells voters Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Anthony Albanese says Australia will detail its 2035 emission reduction targets “sometime next year”, in comments that raise the prospect the government might delay committing to a next-phase target until after the federal election. Asked on ABC’s Insiders on Sunday whether his government could match the UK’s 2035 commitment to cut emissions by 81% on 1990 levels, the prime minister referred to Australia’s existing 2030 target. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

Oilfield services exec denies climate crisis and is expected to support Trump’s plan to maximize oil and gas production Donald Trump said on Saturday that Chris Wright, an oil and gas industry executive and a staunch defender of fossil fuel use, would be his pick to lead the US Department of Energy. Wright is the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, an oilfield services firm based in Denver, Colorado. He is expected to support Trump’s plan to maximize production of oil and gas and to seek ways to boost generation of electricity, demand for which is rising for the first time in decades. Continue reading...

Wealthy nations are yet to offer the hundreds of billions of dollars that economists say are needed to help the developing world cut emissions Leaders of the world’s biggest economies meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Monday must agree to provide the finance that the world’s poorest need to tackle the climate crisis or face “economic carnage”, the UN has warned. The G20 nations are about to gather in Brazil for two days of talks, while many of their ministers remain in Azerbaijan where crucial negotiations at the Cop29 climate crisis summit have stalled. Rich countries’ governments have not yet put forward the offers of hundreds of billions of dollars in financial aid that economists say are needed to help poorer countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of extreme weather. Continue reading...