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Russian nuclear submarine base hit by tsunami.

Waves triggered by 8.8 magnitude earthquake damaged base that houses Pacific Fleet

 Russia’s far east nuclear submarine base appears to have been damaged by
the tsunami that swept the country’s Pacific coast on Wednesday,
according to satellite imagery obtained by The Telegraph. The waves,
triggered by an 8.8 magnitude earthquake, hit the Rybachiy base in
Kamchatka peninsula, which houses most of the nuclear submarines in
Russia’s Pacific Fleet. A section of one pier has bent away from its
original position, possibly indicating that it was detached from its
moorings, images taken by the Umbra Space satellite on Thursday morning
have revealed.

It does not appear that a submarine was moored alongside at
the time of impact and experts said damage to the structure alone would
have little military significance. However, questions were raised about
whether the tsunami caused any further harm to the base, which was thought
to have been hit within 15 minutes of the earthquake.

 Telegraph 1st Aug 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/08/01/russian-nuclear-submarine-base-earthquake-satellite/

August 2, 2025 Posted by | climate change, Russia | Leave a comment

We’re having a heatwave -and nuclear power can’t cope.

Nuclear power ……….is a sitting technological duck when extreme temperatures strike.

    by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/07/27/were-having-a-heatwave/

And nuclear power can’t cope. Worse still, it’s actually a liability under ever more extreme climate conditions, write Karl Grossman and Harvey Wasserman

At the core of the latest attempted “renaissance” of nuclear power is the Big Lie that atomic reactors are an answer to global warming. In fact, they are significant sources of heat.

There are more than 400 nuclear power plants in the world today that fission atoms at 300 degrees Centigrade, (572 degrees Fahrenheit). More are under construction or proposed. As the International Atomic Energy Agency states, “water-cooled reactors offer heat up to 300 degrees Celsius. These types of reactors include pressurized water reactors (PWRs), boiling-water reactors (BWRs), pressurized heavy-water reactors, and light-water-cooled graphite-moderated reactors (LWGRs).”

Some heat is absorbed in the water—drawn from water bodies—used to cool these nuclear power plants and then returned, still with considerable heat, to rivers or seas.

The heatwave going on in recent weeks in Europe, in combination with this discharge of heated water from nuclear plants, has caused nuclear plants there to shut down.

Consider these headlines from recent days:

“France and Switzerland shut down nuclear power plants amid scorching heatwave,” was the July 3rd headline on Euronews. As the piece explained: “To cool down, nuclear power plants pump water from local rivers or the sea, which they then release back into water bodies at a high temperature. However, Europe’s ongoing heatwave means that the water pumped by nuclear sites is already very hot, impacting the ability of nuclear plants to use it to cool down. On top of this, nuclear sites run the risk of posing a dangerous threat to local biodiversity, by releasing water which is too hot into rivers and seas.”

A New York Times article, also dated July 3rd, related how in Europe, “operators shut down one of the two reactors at the Golfech nuclear power plant in southern France after forecasts that the Garonne River, from which it draws water and then discharges it after it is used in the plant as coolant, “could top…82 degrees Fahrenheit.” The Times continued: “The Beznau Nuclear Power Plant in Switzerland, built along the Aare River followed suit, shutting down one of its reactors on Tuesday and the other on Wednesday.”

It quoted its European program director, Pawel Czyzak, saying: “Heatwaves will not go away—they will only get more severe in the future…Luckily, there is no lack of sunshine during heatwaves. The biggest opportunity is to store solar electricity…”

“The French nuclear fleet has been impacted the most, with all but one of the 18 facilities experiencing some type of capacity reduction,” said the report.

It continued: “While heatwaves bring major changes, these are partially offset by the large volumes of solar energy available during daytime. In fact, June 2025 was the highest European Union solar electricity production month on record.” And this “kept the grid well-supplied during daytime hours.”

The Ember report also pointed out, “Solar power is one of the cheapest forms of electricity that Europe has.”

Nuclear power, beyond being subject to catastrophic accidents such as those that occurred at Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, extreme cost, substantial carbon emissions during the nuclear “lifecycle”—mining of uranium, milling it, enrichment of the uranium fuel and other operations—is a sitting technological duck when extreme temperatures strike.

Ember, an independent London-based global energy think tank, on July 4th issued a report headed: “Heat and power: Impacts of the 2025 heatwave in Europe.” It noted: “Heatwaves are becoming more frequent in Europe, putting electricity grids under severe stress.”

“Europe embraces its new reality with heatwaves: ‘They are no longer an exception,’” was the headline of a July 3rd El Mundo article. “Heatwaves in Southern Europe are becoming increasingly early and intense,” it reported.

It quoted Meto-France climatologist Christine Berne saying: “Heatwaves are no longer an exception. They are now more frequent, longer, and spread over larger geographical areas…The phenomenon is directly related to global warming, which is profoundly altering weather patterns, both in France and elsewhere.”

In California, a “bait and switch” to continue operation of the Diablo Canyon atomic reactors is super-heating the Pacific Ocean. In 2018, Pacific Gas & Electric was being forced to stop violating state and federal water protection laws with its massive heat emissions from the twin nuclear power plants. Facing the expensive requirement to build cooling towers, the company agreed to shut down Diablo in 2024 and 2025, ushering in a transition to cheaper, safer, cleaner, more reliable and more job-producing renewables. But in 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom killed the phase-out agreement he had signed as Lieutenant-Governor. So, Diablo still pours billions of gallons of irradiated super-heated water into the Pacific, joining the billions of gallons of irradiated liquid that are pouring in from the site of the Fukushima catastrophe.

In addition to that heat, all nukes emit radioactive fallout, including a radioactive form of carbon, Carbon 14, along with other lethal pollutants, while costing ratepayers up to 10 times more than solar, wind, geothermal and battery backup.

Solar energy, its cost having plummeted in recent years, is now 90 percent cheaper per watt than nuclear power. Further, its efficiency level — its efficiency in converting sunlight to electricity — has dramatically increased. Safe, clean, renewable energy sources — primarily in the form of solar panels and wind turbines — now account for more than 80 percent of the world’s new electric generating capacity.

What’s gone on in the last several weeks in Europe is no exception. The heat is on all over the globe. But there’s solar (and wind) power continuing to function well, while adding no heat, radiation or carbon of its own — unlike the planet’s hyper-lethal nuke reactors.

Meanwhile, the nuclear industry is pushing a new kind of reactor — a fusion reactor that would operate at an astronomical level of heat. It would utilize, instead of fission, the fusion of atoms — the process that happens on the sun, and notes the World Economic Forum: “Temperatures in excess of 150 million degrees Celsius — 10 times hotter than the center of the sun — re required for fusion to occur on Earth.”

“Unsurprisingly,” says the Geneva, Switzerland-based organization, “achieving and controlling these enormous temperatures is a substantial technological challenge. This usually requires using incredibly powerful magnets to contain a hot plasma, preventing it from touching and melting the sides of vessels. Fusion research reactors have achieved temperatures in excess of 300 million degrees Celsius.”

The World Economic Forum’s 2020 analysis is headed: “What is fusion energy, and what will it take for it to go mainstream?”

What does 150 million degrees Celsius convert to in Fahrenheit: 270 million degrees!

To fantasize that Earth-threatening global warming happening now and gaining in intensity can be dealt with by fission nuclear power plants operating at 572 degrees Fahrenheit or fusion nuclear power plants operating at 270 million degrees Fahrenheit is among the great follies in human history.

Harvey Wasserman wrote the books Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth and The Peoples Spiral of US History and co-convenes the Grassroots Emergency Election Protection Coalition . Karl Grossman is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power and Power Crazy. He the host of the nationally-aired TV program Enviro Close-Up with Karl Grossman.

July 29, 2025 Posted by | climate change | 1 Comment

Greenpeace hails Italian court ruling allowing climate case against energy company Eni to continue

 Italy’s highest court has ruled that a lawsuit brought by climate
activists against Italian energy company Eni and its government
shareholders can go ahead, in what Greenpeace said on Tuesday was a victory
for efforts to pursue climate justice in Italy.

In an ordinance released on
Monday, the Court of Cassation rejected the company’s motions to dismiss
the lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds and ordered the case to be heard on
its merits by a Rome tribunal. Eni said that it was greatly satisfied with
the decision, and said it expected that the Rome court would ultimately
“dismantle” the climate activists’ claims of responsibility.

 Yahoo News 22nd July 2025, https://uk.news.yahoo.com/greenpeace-hails-italy-court-ruling-130205151.html

July 29, 2025 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE | Leave a comment

‘Keeping us hooked on fossil fuels’: how can we negotiate with autocracies on the climate crisis?

 When it comes to the climate crisis, how do you negotiate with an
autocracy? It is the case today, and it is almost certain to remain so for
the dwindling number of years in which we can hope to stave off the worst
of climate breakdown, that the bulk of the world’s greenhouse gas
emissions come from countries that are not democratic. Add to that, many of
the major suppliers of oil and gas – the Gulf petrostates for instance,
plus Russia, Venezuela and a few others – are likewise authoritarian.
Their outsize impact puts autocratic nations in the spotlight when it comes
to global climate talks. How their governments decide to act will be
crucial to the planet’s future. But while democracies are subject to the
whims of electorates, which can often be unpredictable, autocratic nations
tend to be far more inscrutable. Take the small handful of the world’s
biggest fossil fuel companies, referred to as the “carbon majors”. They
hold our future in their hands, and of the top 20 with the biggest carbon
output globally, 16 are state-owned and were responsible for 52% of global
emissions in 2023.

 Guardian 18th July 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/18/climate-crisis-fossil-fuels-autocracies-authoritorian-countries

July 19, 2025 Posted by | climate change | Leave a comment

  Wildfires: Could this be the worst year ever? 

 The area of land burnt in Europe this year is significantly higher than the average, and Britain is at risk as well thanks to sustained high global temperatures. Even Britain,
a country with a climate not normally conducive to wildfires, is recording
record amounts of burnt land for this stage of the summer. These fires are
starting abnormally early, and appear to be more severe than previous
years. What is causing them, and could 2025 be the worst year yet?

 Times 13th July 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/uk/environment/article/wildfires-could-this-be-the-worst-year-ever-twnx25v7s

July 15, 2025 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE | Leave a comment

SIZEWELL C, RISING SEA LEVELS AND EDF’s SILENCE

 The dust has just about settled since Labour’s ‘golden nuclear
moment’ laid out by Rachel Reeves in her recent Spending Review. Plans
for the monstrous Sizewell C took another step forward, nudged along by the
offer of another £14.2 billion of taxpayers’ money, together with a
further £2.5 billion promised for Small Modular Reactors, and roughly the
same amount for fusion, the nuclear industry’s very own black hole.

So
loud were the fanfares, so overblown the hype, that the real story of that
week got lost. EDF’s deeply ingrained habits of secrecy and deceit were
– yet again – exposed to the harsh light of a Freedom of Information
request from the indefatigable Together Against Sizewell C (TASC). One of
the principal concerns that TASC has doggedly pursued over the last few
years is the vulnerability of Sizewell C being built on one of Europe’s
most rapidly eroding coastlines and its lack of resilience to the impacts
of climate change. The evidence regarding future sea level rise goes from
deeply worrying to totally terrifying – with the very real possibility of
at least a 1 metre rise – and possibly as much as 2 metres – by 2100.
Given that the spent fuel used at Sizewell C throughout its operating life
(around 4,000 tonnes) will need to be stored on site until at least 2160
this is clearly a matter of the greatest concern.

 Johnathon Porritt 7th July 2025, https://jonathonporritt.com/sizewell-c-flood-risk-and-edf-silence/

July 13, 2025 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

The Australia-Tuvalu climate migration treaty is a drop in the ocean

Australia has offered a lifeline to the people of Tuvalu, whose island is threatened by rising sea levels. But the deal comes with strings attached – and there will be millions more climate migrants in need of refuge by 2050

By New Scientist, 2 July 2025, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26635502-900-the-australia-tuvalu-climate-migration-treaty-is-a-drop-in-the-ocean/

A lifeline has been extended to the people of Tuvalu, a low-lying Pacific nation where rising sea levels are creating ever more problems. Each year, Australia will grant residency to 280 Tuvaluans. The agreement could see everyone currently living in Tuvalu move within just a few decades.

Effectively the world’s first climate migration agreement, the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union will also provide adaptation funds to help those who stay behind.

Is this a model for how climate migration can be managed in an orderly way, before disaster strikes? Far from it. To get this deal, Tuvalu must allow Australia a say in future security and defence matters. Few other countries are likely to agree to similar terms.

Tuvalu’s population is also very small. Taking in around 10,000 climate migrants would be inconsequential for a country of 28 million like Australia. Worldwide, it is estimated that between 25 million and 1 billion people might be forced to move by 2050 because of climate change and other environmental factors. Where will they go?

Many argue that the wealthy countries that emitted most of the carbon dioxide that is warming the planet have a moral duty to help people displaced by climate change. But these kinds of discussions have yet to be translated into the necessary legal recognition or acceptance of forced climate migrants. On the contrary, many higher-income nations seem to be becoming more hostile to migrants of any kind.

There has been a little progress in setting up “loss and damage” funds to compensate lower-income countries for the destruction caused by global warming. This could help limit the need for climate migration in the future – but the money promised so far is a fraction of what is required.

The most important thing nations should be doing is limiting future warming by cutting emissions – but globally these are still growing. Sadly, the Falepili Union is a drop in the ocean, not a turning of the tide.

July 13, 2025 Posted by | climate change, OCEANIA | Leave a comment

What Greenland’s Ancient Past Reveals about Its Fragile Future

 The collapse of the world’s second-largest ice sheet would drown cities
worldwide. Is that ice more vulnerable than we know?

Last year, Scientific American chief multimedia editor Jeffery DelViscio spent a month on the
Greenland ice sheet, reporting on the work of scientists taking ice and
rock cores from the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS) and the bedrock
underneath. This massive flow of ice drains ice into the ocean, and its
melt has been speeding up in the past decade.

Bedrock samples under ice
from an area in northwest Greenland indicate it was ice-free as recently as
about 7,000 years ago when global temperatures were only a few degrees
warmer than they are now. The sheet won’t melt all at once, of course,
but scientists are increasingly concerned by signs of accelerating
ice-sheet retreat. A recent report showed that it has been losing mass
every year for the past 27 years. Another study found that nearly every
Greenlandic glacier has thinned or retreated in the past few decades.

The NEGIS itself has extensively sped up and thinned over the past decade. If
the entire Greenland ice sheet melted, global sea levels would rise by
about 24 feet, inundating coastal cities, farmland and homes. “I have,
for the first time ever in my career, datasets that take my sleep away at
night,” says Joerg Schaefer, GreenDrill’s co-principal investigator.
“They are so direct and tell me this ice sheet is in so much trouble.”

 Scientific American 17th June 2025, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/greenlands-ice-sheet-collapse-could-be-closer-than-we-think/

July 12, 2025 Posted by | ARCTIC, climate change | Leave a comment

France and Switzerland shut down nuclear power plants amid scorching heatwave

By Euronews,  02/07/2025, https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-shut-down-nuclear-power-plants-amid-scorching-heatwave

To cool down, nuclear power plants pump water from local rivers or the sea, which they then release back into water bodies at a higher temperature. However, this process can threaten local biodiversity if water is released which is too hot.

Due to a scorching heatwave which has spread across Europe in recent days, a number of nuclear power plants in Switzerland and France have been forced to either reduce activity or shut down completely as extreme temperatures have prevented sites from relying on water from local rivers.

To cool down, nuclear power plants pump water from local rivers or the sea, which they then release back into water bodies at a higher temperature.

However, Europe’s ongoing heatwave means that the water pumped by nuclear sites is already very hot, impacting the ability of nuclear plants to use it to cool down. On top of this, nuclear sites run the risk of posing a dangerous threat to local biodiversity, by releasing water which is too hot into rivers and seas.

In light of the heat, Axpo – which operates the Beznau nuclear power plant in Switzerland – said it had shut down one of its reactors on Tuesday, adding that a second reactor was operating at limited capacity.

“Due to the high river water temperatures, Axpo has been increasingly reducing the output of the two reactor units at the Beznau nuclear power plant for days and reduced it to 50 per cent on Sunday,” said the operator.

The Beznau nuclear power plant’s reactors are located directly on the River Aare, where temperatures have reached 25 degrees Celsius in recent days, leading Axpo to curtail its activities to prevent “excessive warming of the already warm water” which could strain local biodiversity.

Although Switzerland has decided to phase out nuclear power by 2033, existing plants are able to continue to operate as long as they are safe.

Meanwhile, on Monday French electricity company EDF shut down the Golfech nuclear power plant, located in the southern department of Tarn-et-Garonne, amid extreme heat warnings in the region and concerns that the local river could heat up to 28 degrees, even without the inflow of heated cooling water.

France has a total of 57 active nuclear reactors in 18 power plants. According to EDF, the country obtains around 65% of its electricity from nuclear energy, which the government considers to be environmentally friendly.

Output has also been reduced at other sites, including at the Blayais nuclear power plant in western France, as well as the Bugey nuclear power plant in southern France, which could also be shut down, drawing their cooling water from the Gironde and Rhône rivers.

Although the production of nuclear power has had to be curtailed in light of extreme heat, the impact on France’s energy grid remains limited, despite the fact that more electricity is being used to cool buildings and run air conditioning systems.

Speaking to broadcaster FranceInfo, French grid operator RTE ensured that “all the nuclear power sites which are running are able to cover the needs of the French population. France produces more electricity than it consumes, as it currently exports electricity to neighbouring countries.”

July 4, 2025 Posted by | climate change, France, Switzerland | Leave a comment

EDF shuts down Golftech nuclear plant due to high river temperature

 French utility EDF said it shut down the No. 1 reactor at the Golftech
nuclear power plant in southwestern France late on Sunday, ahead of an
anticipated rise in the temperature of the Garonne river that supplies the
plant’s cooling water.

 Reuters 30th June 2025, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-shuts-down-golftech-nuclear-plant-due-high-river-temperature-2025-06-30/

July 4, 2025 Posted by | climate change, France | Leave a comment

UN expert urges criminalizing fossil fuel disinformation, banning lobbying

Rapporteur calls for defossilization of economies and urgent reparations to avert ‘catastrophic’ rights and climate harms.

Nina Lakhani Climate justice reporter, Mon 30 Jun 2025 , https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/30/un-expert-urges-criminalizing-fossil-fuel-disinformation-banning-lobbying

A leading UN expert is calling for criminal penalties against those peddling disinformation about the climate crisis and a total ban on fossil fuel industry lobbying and advertising, as part of a radical shake-up to safeguard human rights and curtail planetary catastrophe.

Elisa Morgera, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and climate change who presents her damning new report to the general assembly in Geneva on Monday, argues that the US, UK, Canada, Australia and other wealthy fossil fuel nations are legally obliged under international law to fully phase out oil, gas and coal by 2030 – and compensate communities for harms caused.

Fracking, oil sands and gas flaring should be banned, as should fossil fuel exploration, subsidies, investments and false tech solutions that will lock in future generations to polluting and increasingly costly oil, gas and coal.

“Despite overwhelming evidence of the interlinked, intergenerational, severe and widespread human rights impacts of the fossil fuel life cycle … these countries have and are still accruing enormous profits from fossil fuels, and are still not taking decisive action,” said Morgera, professor of global environmental law at the University of Strathclyde.

“These countries are responsible for not having prevented the widespread human rights harm arising from climate change and other planetary crises we are facing – biodiversity loss, plastic pollution and economic inequalities – caused by fossil fuels extraction, use and waste.”

Island nations, Indigenous and other vulnerable communities – who have benefited least from fossil fuels – now face the worst and compounding harms caused by the climate crisis and other environmental harms linked to their extraction, transport and use for energy, fuel, plastics and synthetic fertilizers.

The report points to a mountain of evidence on the severe, far-reaching and cumulative damage caused by the fossil fuel industry – oil, gas, coal, fertilizers and plastics – on almost every human right including the rights to life, self-determination, health, food, water, housing, education, information and livelihoods.

Morgera makes the case for the “defossilization” of our entire economies – in other words the eradication of fossil fuels from all sectors including politics, finance, food, media, tech and knowledge. The transition to clean energy is not enough to tackle the widespread and mounting harms caused by the fossil fuels, she argues.

In order to comply with existing international human rights law, states are obliged to inform their citizens about the widespread harms caused by fossil fuels and that phasing out oil, gas and coal is the most effective way to fight the climate crisis.

People also have the right to know how the industry – and its allies – has for 60 years systematically obstructed access to this knowledge and meaningful climate action by peddling disinformation and misinformation, attacks on climate scientists and activists, and by capturing democratic decision-making spaces including the annual UN climate negotiations.

“The fossil fuel playbook has undermined the protection of all human rights that are negatively impacted by climate change for over six decades,” said Morgera in the imperative of defossilizing our economies report.

States must ban fossil fuel ads and lobbying, criminalize greenwashing (misinformation and misrepresentation) by the fossil fuel industry, media and advertising firms, and enforce harsh penalties for attacks on climate advocates who are facing a rise in malicious lawsuits, online harassment and physical violence.

Communities across the world are facing growing threats from sea level rise, desertification, drought, melting glaciers, extreme heat, floods, and other climate-related impacts. This is on top of the deadly air pollution, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and forced displacement of Indigenous and rural peoples associated with every stage of the fossil fuel lifecycle.

Meanwhile, fossil fuel and petrochemical companies have benefited from huge profits, taxpayer subsidies, tax avoidance schemes and undue protection under international investment law – without ever reducing energy poverty and economic inequalities. In 2023, oil and gas companies globally earned $2.4tn, while coal companies pocketed $2.5tn, according to the report.

Removing fossil fuel subsidies, estimated to have topped $1.4tn for OECD members and 48 other countries in 2023, would alone reduce emissions by up to 10% by 2030.

Redirecting these subsidies would help wealthy fossil fuel-producing states fulfill their legal obligations to aid developing countries to phase out fossil fuels – and provide financial and other remedies for the widespread human rights violations and environmental damage they have caused – and continue to cause.

The compensation could also be funded by enforcing penalties for damages caused by fossil fuel companies, and cracking down on tax evasion and avoidance by the industry, as well as introducing wealth and windfall taxes. States could – and should – require the industry to finance climate adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage through climate superfunds or other mechanisms that are directly accessible to affected communities.

Land unjustly appropriated for fossil fuel operations should be cleaned up, remediated and returned to Indigenous communities, people of African descent and peasants, if they want it back, or they should be fairly compensated, Morgera argues.

The report lays out the human rights case for decisive and transformative political action to limit the pain and suffering from the climate crisis. The recommendations offer a glimpse at a world in which the basic rights of all people are prioritized above the profits and benefits enjoyed by a few, but will probably be dismissed by some as radical and untenable.

“Paradoxically what may seem radical or unrealistic – a transition to a renewable energy-based economy – is now cheaper and safer for our economics and a healthier option for our societies,” Morgera told the Guardian.

“The transition can also lead to significant savings of taxpayers’ money that is currently going into responding to climate change impacts, saving health costs, and also recouping lost tax revenue from fossil fuel companies. This could be the single most impactful health contribution we could ever make. The transition seems radical and unrealistic because fossil fuel companies have been so good at making it seem so.”

July 2, 2025 Posted by | climate change | Leave a comment

‘It looks more likely with each day we burn fossil fuels’: polar scientist on Antarctic tipping points

  Despite working on polar science for the British Antarctic Survey for 20 years, Louise Sime finds the magnitude of potential sea-level rise hard to comprehend. Up until 2016, the sea ice
in Antarctica seemed relatively stable. Then everything started to change.
At first, the decline was mostly in line with climate models.

But suddenly, in 2023, there was an enormous drop. About 2.5 million sq km of Antarctic
sea ice went missing relative to the average before 2023. The anomaly was
of such a magnitude that it’s quite hard for scientists to know what to
make of it. It has been described as a five sigma event.

The potential for Antarctica to increase global sea levels is scarier than for Greenland.
Right now, they’re both contributing similar amounts to sea-level rise,
but in future, it could be Greenland goes up a bit and then Antarctica goes
up catastrophically. Greenland has the potential to raise sea levels by
five or six metres, but we don’t expect this will come in the form of an
absolutely catastrophic, abrupt loss. Most of the ice in Greenland is not
below sea level so we can see what is happening and we expect it will melt
in a linear fashion.

By contrast, Antarctica has 80 metres of potential
sea-level rise. We don’t expect all of that, but it is harder to know
exactly what is happening.

 Guardian 27th June 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2025/jun/27/tipping-points-antarctica-arctic-sea-ice-polar-scientist

June 29, 2025 Posted by | ANTARCTICA, climate change | Leave a comment

Wreckers, money woes and mutirão: 10 things we learned about Cop30 from Bonn climate talks

 Key takeaways from two weeks of negotiations aimed at setting out stall
for November’s Cop30 in Brazil. Two weeks of negotiations on the climate
crisis have just concluded in Bonn in preparation for the Cop30 summit
taking place in Brazil this November.

What did we learn?

Limiting global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels is vital for a healthy planet,
but hopes of doing so are rapidly vanishing as greenhouse gas emissions
continue to rise, and temperatures soar.

The main task for Cop30 in Belém
this November is for every country to submit a national plan, required
under the 2015 Paris agreement, to cut carbon as far as necessary to hold
to the 1.5C limit. Few countries have submitted their plans, called
nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which set out a target on
emissions to 2035 and an indication of the measures that will be taken to
meet them.

They were due in February, but the US presidency of Donald
Trump, his vacillations over tariffs and the prospect of a global trade war
led many to adopt a “wait and see” approach. Military conflicts in
Ukraine, Gaza and Iran have further frightened governments and taken
attention away from the climate.

 Guardian 27th June 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/27/cop30-10-things-we-learned-from-bonn-climate-talks

June 29, 2025 Posted by | climate change | Leave a comment

UK schools and offices not equipped for impact of global heating, report warns

 The UK’s schools, care homes and offices are not equipped for the
effects of global heating and face lengthy heatwaves even in optimistic
scenarios, according to a groundbreaking report that calls for climate
resilience to be declared a national emergency.

The report by the UK Green
Building Council also predicts that towns including Peterborough and
Fairbourne will be uninhabitable by the end of the century because of
flooding.

Produced over two years, the roadmap sets out a blueprint for
action and warns that without the adaptation of millions of buildings,
there will be increased injury, health impacts, deaths and untold economic
damage. Five key threats are examined by the roadmap: overheating,
wildfires, flooding, drought and storms. Detailed thermodynamic modelling
on school buildings reveals that schools across London and the south-east
will face 10 weeks of extreme heat a year – defined as 28C and above –
in a low-warming scenario, defined as 2C above preindustrial levels. The
world is on track for 2.7C of heating.

 Guardian 26th June 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/26/uk-care-homes-schools-and-offices-not-equipped-to-deal-with-global-heating

June 28, 2025 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

As NATO Countries Pledge to Up Defense Spending, Will Food and Climate Security Have a Seat at the Table?

By Siena Cicarelli and Tom Ellison, https://climateandsecurity.org/2025/06/as-nato-countries-pledge-to-up-defense-spending-will-food-and-climate-security-have-a-seat-at-the-table/

This summer marks a critical juncture for European food and climate security. Before heading off on their summer holidays, leaders will attempt to navigate burgeoning crises in the Middle East, an unpredictable US government, growing defense needs, and an unstable global economy. 

Several key political decision points are unfolding this summer, starting with this week’s NATO Summit, where a number of member state leaders committed to a new defense and security spending target of 5 percent of GDP by 2035, which, if implemented by the target date, could entail roughly hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending. However, given that the text of the commitment changed from “all Allies” to just “Allies,” in the final hours of negotiations, commitments will likely vary by member state. Furthermore, given the current combination of budget deficits, national politics, and a collective shift towards “competitiveness,” the European Union risks falling prey to false dichotomies and short-termism, placing climate and food security priorities essential to sustainable security on the back burner in favor of “hard” security goals. While 1.5% GDP of the new spending target can come from non-defense resilience, infrastructure, and civil preparedness spending, food and climate security were not prominent at the NATO Summit.

There are some positive signs, however, that countries are considering climate resilience as a core part of their defense and security strategies. This includes an explicit climate security pledge in the recent EU-UK defense partnership announcement and reported plans from some NATO members, like Spain and Southern Mediterranean states, to use the 1.5% resilience carveout for disaster response and climate investments.

A key indicator of how Europe will prioritize and balance food security, climate resilience, and defense needs will be the next five-year EU budget, also known as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and updates to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – the initial proposals for which are expected to be released in mid-July. The CAP is a complex structure of subsidies and schemes related to farming, environmental protection, and rural development that aims to keep European farmers competitive, enhance food security, and protect biodiversity. It remains the EU’s second-largest budgetary line item at €387/$450 billion in the current MFF period (roughly 25% of the EU budget). The formation of the MFF is notoriously opaque, but initial reporting suggests a limited commitment from national governments to additional expenditures and a strong desire from the largest net contributors to allocate more to joint procurement and defense spending. This raises doubts about whether the bloc’s food security ambitions are feasible, or if policies will be fractured across EU member states in a so-called “27-speed” system. 

While the topline goals of the CAP are relatively clear, implementation remains a perennial political challenge for the European Union. In 2024, farmers’ protests spread across Europe over concerns about fuel subsidy reductions, safety net cuts, and environmental regulations in the CAP. The protests at times featured misinformation, threats to political leaders, and property damage, and were exploited by right wing extremists and Russian propagandists to build influence and stoke division. This year, Commissioners have tried to reassure farmers that direct subsidies (which are €291/$338 billion, about three-quarters of the CAP budget) will likely remain protected in the next MFF, but concerns about cuts to rural development and national-level programs have already set top farming groups on edge.

More broadly, Europe cannot afford to ignore food and climate risks amid new defense spending obligations. Staple crops that underpin European food security and local agricultural economies are endangered in the coming decades, even with robust adaptation. In 2024, the European Environment Agency’s European Climate Risk Assessment rated risks from extreme weather disruptions to crop production and climate-driven food price spikes as rising from “substantial” to “critical” over the next two decades. Recent studies have showcased that agricultural vulnerability – and potential losses – are EU-wide. While the risks are severe in southern European states like Spain and Italy, they don’t stop there. The Benelux states, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, as well as southern regions of the Nordics, also face unusually hot and dry conditions. Drought alone currently drives over 50% of agricultural climate risk and is expected to contribute heavily to the EIB-estimated 42-66% increase in annual average crop losses (from EUR 17.4 billion to 24.8-28.9 billion annually) over the next 25 years. When incorporating other agricultural outputs, such as livestock or aquaculture, estimated annual losses reach EUR 40+ billion by 2050. These losses have cascading effects outside of the food and agricultural sector, straining supply chains and potentially boosting prices for consumers across the bloc. 

With climate change contributing to rising food, energy, and insurance prices, demands for military disaster relief, and overseas instability risks and migration, turning a blind eye to these risks could intensify a vicious cycle of affordability crises and nativist politics that already constrain Europe’s security investments. Under-resourced or disorderly approaches to these challenges would hinder Europe’s resilience and security, with climate and economic shocks to food exacerbating divisions that could precipitate another round of protests and even political shifts in upcoming elections, undermining European unity.

The Center for Climate and Security (CCS) will be watching for how key issues play out as these challenges come into focus this summer and over the coming years, including:


  • How does the EU balance its commitments to the CAP and the MFF with the budgetary demands of the new NATO target?
  • To what extent are any reforms or substantial changes to the CAP structure done in consultations with producers, consumers and other stakeholders navigating the green transition, to insulate against green backlash or disinformation?
  • What role can food and climate security investments play in the 1.5% of GDP portion of the NATO spending target that includes non-defense resilience, infrastructure, and civil preparedness?

June 28, 2025 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE | Leave a comment

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