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World leaders are set to discuss action to tackle climate change, at the UN climate summit in Egypt. It follows a year of climate-related disasters and broken temperature records. UN climate summits are held every year, for governments to agree steps to limit global temperature rises. They are referred to as COPs, which stands for “Conference of the Parties”. The parties are the attending countries that signed up to the original UN climate agreement in 1992. 

COP27 is the 27th annual UN meeting on climate. It will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh from 6 to 18 November.

Why are COP meetings needed?

The world is warming because of emissions produced by humans, mostly from burning fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.

Global temperatures have risen 1.1C and are heading towards 1...

Dozens of small coral fragments are anchored to a man-made underwater frame, suspended just a few metres below the surface on the Great Barrier Reef. The pieces of staghorn coral are only a few centimetres long at best, but represent something much greater than what I can see. My divemaster Russel Hosp holds up a sign underwater to communicate.

“We call these fragments of opportunity,” it reads. 

I’m diving at a coral nursery with Passions of Paradise, an eco-certified operator which departs from Cairns daily to take guests out to dive and snorkel the famous reef and one of 13 operators certified as carbon-neutral...

The UK has opened a new licensing round for companies to explore for oil and gas in the North Sea. Nearly 900 locations are being offered for exploration, with as many as 100 licences set to be awarded. The decision is at odds with international climate scientists who say fossil fuel projects should be closed down, not expanded. They say there can be no new projects if there is to be a chance of keeping global temperature rises under 1.5C. 

Both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global body for climate science and the International Energy Agency (IEA) have expressed such a view.

The government’s own advisers on climate change said in a report earlier this year that the best way to ease consumers’ pain from high energy prices was to stop using fossil fuels r...

Climate activists are “baffled” over Egypt’s decision to have Coca-Cola – a major plastic producer – sponsor this year’s global climate talks. Campaigners told the BBC the deal undermines the talks, as the majority of plastics are made from fossil fuels. Coca-Cola said it “shares the goal of eliminating waste and appreciates efforts to raise awareness”.

This year’s COP27 UN climate talks are hosted by the Egyptian government in November in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Egypt announced it had signed the sponsorship deal last week.

At the signing, Coca-Cola Global Vice-President, Public Policy and Sustainability Michael Goltzman said: “Through the COP27 partnership, the Coca-Cola system aims to support collective action against climate change.”

But opposition to the decision has grown over ...

When the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) 12th Ministerial Conference closed at dawn on 17 June 2022, the 164-member intergovernmental body had finally adopted a fisheries subsidies agreement after 21 years of on-and-off discussions and negotiations.

The WTO’s Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies is a historic step towards tackling one of the key drivers of overfishing on the world’s ocean harmful subsidies nations pay to commercial fishing operators to help keep their businesses profitable. 

One-third of fish stocks worldwide are exploited beyond sustainable levels, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The $22 billion a year in government subsidies are helping drive this overfishing; the funds go primarily to industrial fishing fleets to artifici...

Coral spawning is a natural wonder. It’s also a pain in the neck for coral researchers. Once a year, at a time determined by a combination of water temperature, the length of the days and the phase of the moon, coral across a reef release buoyant bundles of eggs and sperm into the water. The effect resembles an upside-down snow globe, a blizzard of little pearls rising toward the surface.

The event is magical. And, for scientists, it triggers a crazed late-night frenzy of trying to collect enough eggs and sperm to last them through a year of experiments, until the next spawning.

Now, researchers in Australia have joined a select few labs around the world that have figured out how to trigger spawning on a human-made schedule...

Ocean temperatures are rising every year, according to a 2021 UN report, which means certain marine species vulnerable to heat, such as corals, are becoming increasingly endangered. In Brazil’s Northeastern Pernambuco state, a scientific initiative is trying to fight back. Since 2017 the Corais Biofactory, a local scientific startup, has developed a technique to aid coral restoration by using “nurseries”. In these spaces, scientists rehabilitate damaged corals taken from the sea. After the treatment, they reintroduce them into Pernambuco’s coral reefs.

The work is a pioneering effort in Brazil, as it uses 3D-printed bases that serve as support for the coral while it undergoes rehabilitation...

Two months ago the Sea Save Foundation delegation participated in the United Nation’s Ocean Conference – Sustainable Development Goal #14. Delegate after delegate took the podium and passionately expressed their nations’ support for the protection and the conservation of oceans.
Scientists are concerned that the failure to protect open oceans will spell disaster not only for marine species, island communities and fisheries but for the entire planet.

Climate Change, the effects of which we are seeing daily in news headlines, is largely buffered by oceans. Ocean decline will cause a domino-like effect on the climate of our planet.

The United Nations has tried to pass the High Oceans treaty four times before, and this fifth-time failure to reach consensus was unexpected by most and is ...

The way Google calculates the climate impact of your flights has changed, the BBC has discovered. Flights now appear to have much less impact on the environment than before. That’s because the world’s biggest search engine has taken a key driver of global warming out of its online carbon flight calculator.

“Google has airbrushed a huge chunk of the aviation industry’s climate impacts from its pages” says Dr Doug Parr, chief scientist of Greenpeace.

With Google hosting nine out of every 10 online searches, this could have wide repercussions for people’s travel decisions. 

The company said it made the change following consultations with its “industry partners”.

It affects the carbon calculator embedded in the company’s “Google Flights” search tool.

If you have ever tried ...

Researchers have declared a mammal related to the manatee – said to have inspired ancient tales of mermaids and sirens – extinct in China. Only three people surveyed from coastal communities in China reported seeing the dugong in the past five years. Known as the ocean’s most gentle giant, the dugong’s slow, relaxed behaviour is likely to have made it vulnerable to overfishing and shipping accidents. It still exists elsewhere in the world but is facing similar threats.

Prof Samuel Turvey, from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), who co-authored the research study, said: “The likely disappearance of the dugong in China is a devastating loss.”

Scientists at ZSL and the Chinese Academy of Science reviewed all historical data on where dugongs had previously been found in China.