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A senior EU official has said he expects the US "not to interfere" in global climate negotiations in Brazil next week, citing aggressive behavior at last month’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) meetings in London. At those talks, US officials reportedly intimidated diplomats from Africa and the so-called Small Island States, warning some they might lose US transit rights or face entry restrictions for themselves and their families if they did not help block the UN-backed Net Zero Framework for shipping. The official said they were unaware whether commission staff had been targeted directly. “We have no indication our colleagues were...

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — When summer heat comes to the Arara neighborhood in northern Rio, it lingers, baking the red brick and concrete that make up many of the buildings long after the sun has gone down. Luis Cassiano, who’s lived here more than 30 years, says he’s getting worried as heat waves become more frequent and fierce. In poor areas such as Arara, those who can afford air conditioning — Cassiano is one — can’t always count on it because of frequent power outages on an overloaded system. “The sun in the summer nowadays is scary,” Cassiano said....

PORTLAND, Ore. - Researchers at Oregon State University are sounding the alarm in a new report on climate change. The year 2024 was the hottest on record, or at least in the last 124,000 years, according to a new report from an OSU-led international coalition of scientists. “Without effective strategies, we will rapidly encounter escalating risks that threaten to overwhelm systems of peace, governance, and public and ecosystem health,” said co-lead author William Ripple, a professor of ecology at Oregon State University. “In short, we’ll be on the fast track to climate-driven chaos, a dangerous trajectory for humanity,” he said....

All nations of the world had homework this year: submit new-and-improved plans to fight climate change. But the plans they handed in “have barely moved the needle” on reducing Earth’s future warming, a new United Nations report finds. And a good chunk of that progress is counteracted by the United States’ withdrawal from the effort, the report adds. The newest climate-fighting plans — mandated every five years by the 2015 Paris Agreement — shaves about three-tenths of a degree Celsius (nearly six-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) off a warming future compared with the projections a year ago. Meanwhile, the Trump...

Officials have said the prospects of EU environment ministers agreeing ambitious targets to reduce carbon emissions by 2040 will go down to the wire when they gather for an emergency meeting in Brussels. Member states have been tasked with agreeing on a 2040 target at today’s meeting so that they could in turn agree on an interim target for 2035, which the EU would then bring to the United Nations COP30 summit in Brazil on Thursday. However, officials have said securing an agreement will be “challenging”. The European Commission had proposed a target of cutting carbon emissions by 90% by...

This year's pivotal UN climate summit in Brazil faces a tidal wave of fake news and disinformation that aims to deflate any unified front on a rapid energy transition away from fossil fuels. COP30 comes at a time when US president Donald Trump, the leader of the world's largest historical carbon polluter, has launched an unprecedented assault on climate and renewable energy programs. Meanwhile, the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition (CAAD), a global climate watchdog, is asking media and Big Tech to screen "harmful false content" about climate for their audiences, and to be transparent about the source of any...

You’re paying for them, in the name of climate aid. A £52m road through the Amazon jungle is being built using British aid that is intended to help the climate, The Telegraph can reveal. The road in Guyana goes nowhere other than a tiny village and has long been criticised by environmentalists, though it is celebrated by the oil industry. It is just one among hundreds of schemes funded by taxpayers through the International Climate Finance initiative (ICF). Few will have heard of the ICF outside Westminster circles. It is the result of the Government’s determination to push a green...

Cities and towns around the world could be plunged underwater in just 275 years, a new study has warned. Scientists from Sorbonne University in Paris predict that up to 59 per cent of Antarctica's ice shelves could collapse by 2300. If this happens, it will result in up to 10 metres (32ft) of irreversible global sea–level rise. Here in the UK, Hull, Glasgow, and Bristol would be submerged, while over in the US, people living in Houston, New Orleans, and Miami would be forced to move inland. This might sound like something from the latest science fiction blockbuster. However, the...

Hurricane Melissa – the most powerful storm in Jamaica's history – was made four times more likely by climate change, according to a study. The catastrophic category 5 hurricane struck the island on Tuesday, bringing sustained winds that peaked at 185mph, flash floods and landslides. Now, experts have warned that our over–reliance on oil, gas and coal increased both the likelihood and intensity of the storm. Looking ahead, hurricanes like this will only get worse unless global warming is urgently curbed, they added. 'Man–made climate change clearly made Hurricane Melissa stronger and more destructive,' Professor Ralf Toumi, director of the...

As the climate changes, Chicago and the Great Lakes are sometimes referred to as a "climate haven," an area that will be sheltered from some of the worst impacts. Far from Gulf Coast hurricanes and California wildfires, Chicagoland seems like a safe place to be in a warming world. But is it? "There's really no place in the world that is truly a climate haven. It's more a matter of picking your poison," said climate researcher Dr. Kirstina Dahl. "My top concerns would probably be increased flood risk." Heavy rain is now 10% heavier than it was in 1970. Just...

It has become a tired adage, but nonetheless true. The world’s poorest countries will suffer the most from climate change despite being least responsible for it. Leaders in the Caribbean and from vulnerable island states around the world have been repeating this for years. And they have been asking the world’s rich countries, whose greenhouse gas emissions over generations have fueled warmer seas and bigger storms, to help them prepare. With Hurricane Melissa scouring Jamaica with vicious intensity before setting its sights on Cuba and the Bahamas, it is likely that many of the affected countries will once again be...

Industries and individuals around the world burned record amounts of oil, gas and coal last year, releasing more greenhouse gases than ever before, a group of leading scientists said in a new report, warning that humanity is hurtling toward “climate chaos.” “The planet’s vital signs are flashing red,” the scientists wrote in their annual report on the state of the climate. “The window to prevent the worst outcomes is rapidly closing.” “The climate crisis has reached a really dangerous stage,” said William Ripple, the report’s co-lead author and a professor. Other scientists who helped write the report said the Trump...

Why are people panicking about the weather? Climate doomer Bill Gates thinks everyone should just calm down. He believes “climate change” is a serious problem but it won’t be the end of humanity as we know it, a 17-page memo released Tuesday by the billionaire reveals. Gates now thinks scientific innovation will curb any threats — real and perceived — to the planet’s climate and it’s instead time for a “strategic pivot” away from focusing on limiting rising temperatures to fighting poverty and preventing disease. The 70-year-old said in the memo the world’s primary goal should now work to prevent...

Climate deniers use scientific aesthetics to reinforce and legitimize their message. At the same time, their main opponents, the climate activists, are portrayed as emotional and irrational. This has been demonstrated by researchers from the Universities of Gothenburg and Amsterdam, who have studied how climate deniers communicate online. "Disinformation is not just about incorrect facts, but about how these facts look and feel. In today's digital media landscape, messages are spread through images, memes and visual narratives that influence us in an instant, before we even have time to think. By understanding the aesthetic logic behind climate denial, we can...

Climate change is reducing the chances of runners breaking marathon records, new research claims. The study, external by US-based non-profit organisation Climate Central said rising temperatures "have made record-breaking runs in some races nearly impossible". It also predicted that optimal running conditions - which it defines as 4C for men and 10C for women - will be less likely in 86% of 221 global marathons by 2045. Former women's world record holder Catherine Ndereba said: "Climate change has altered the marathon. "Dehydration is a real risk, and simple miscalculations can end a race before it begins. Every step now carries...

Gov. Tina Kotek wants Oregon to go full force on harnessing the potential of forests, farms, wetlands and waterways to reduce emissions, preserve wildlife habitat and help communities withstand the threat of climate change. That’s the focus of a sweeping executive order Kotek issued on Thursday to prioritize conservation on both natural landscapes such as forests or wetlands as well as on so-called working lands – farms, ranches and commercial timberlands. It also includes waterways and state-managed ocean waters. The order comes as the state faces both a significant revenue shortfall due to federal tax cuts and the loss of...

The warming of the world’s oceans caused by climate change helped double Hurricane Melissa’s wind speed in less than 24 hours over the weekend, climate scientists said Monday. Melissa is currently a Category 5 storm, the highest category, with sustained wind speeds of over 157 mph. Melissa is forecast to make landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday before crossing Cuba and the Bahamas through Wednesday. “That part of the Atlantic is extremely warm right now — around 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), which is 2 to 3 degrees Celsius above normal,” said Akshay Deoras, a meteorologist at the University of...

"According to Report 24, the numbers are clear: It was the coldest October measured at the station since 1981. This extreme cold is not an isolated event. As the article points out, even CNN reported in 2021 that the continent had experienced its coldest winter since records began. The data from stations like Amundsen-Scott, Vostok, and Dome C show that instead of a linear, CO₂-driven heating trend, the South Pole is dominated by naturally occurring, extreme temperature fluctuations, including pronounced cold snaps. Natural factors dominate This directly contradicts the dominant narrative that “extreme heat is the new normal”

GENEVA (Reuters) -The U.N. weather agency plans to cut some posts and is reviewing its priorities as dozens of countries, including the United States, are late with their fees, a spokesperson said on Friday. The World Meteorological Organization, set up in 1951 to coordinate global data for weather forecasts, created a review task force this week during a meeting in Geneva aimed at improving early-warning systems for deadly climate disasters. Outstanding late payments to the WMO amount to around 48 million Swiss francs ($60 million) as of the end of August, a WMO document showed, equivalent to two-thirds of its...

Real-time data shows the water temperatures underneath Tropical Storm Melissa are 600 times more likely due to climate change. The analysis is operated by Climate Central, a nonprofit organization that focuses on the science and communication behind climate change. The organization compares current sea surface temperatures to average, then overlays the current and forecast track of tropical systems. Melissa is currently a tropical storm southeast of Jamaica and southwest of Haiti. The storm will move over very warm water, around 86 degrees Fahrenheit, and that warm water will be a key piece of the storm's rapid intensification. Melissa is predicted...