Environmentalists call bid to skirt UN treaty ‘reckless’ amid fears that mining will cause irreversible loss of biodiversity
A Canadian deep-sea mining firm has revealed it has been negotiating with the Trump administration to bypass a UN treaty and potentially gain authorisation from the US to mine in international waters.
The revelation has stunned environmentalists, who condemned the move as “reckless” and a “slap in the face for multilateralism”.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
03/28/2025 - 09:00
Body representing the gas industry says Peter Dutton’s plan is a ‘damaging market intervention that will drive away investment’
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Energy experts have expressed doubts the Coalition’s plans to force gas producers to sell more of the fossil fuel domestically could bring down prices or ease supply pressures, saying the move could also push up greenhouse gas emissions.
In his budget-reply speech, delivered only 12 hours before Anthony Albanese announced a federal election for 3 May, the Coalition leader, Peter Dutton, said that, if elected, his government would deliver an “east coast gas reservation”.
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03/28/2025 - 06:00
California Forever is back with a proposal that has some on board: using the land it owns to create a shipbuilding hub
In 2023, a group called California Forever, funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, introduced a splashy proposal to build a new city on tens of thousands acres of farmland it had acquired north-east of San Francisco.
Residents and officials of Solano county, where the city would sit, were frustrated by what they saw as a lack of local input and concerned about wealthy outsiders with big plans to reshape their region. After months of extensive news coverage and efforts to woo over local leaders, California Forever changed track: withdrawing a ballot measure that would have fast-tracked the plans and instead seeking approval through standard county processes.
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03/28/2025 - 05:00
Greenpeace lost – not because it did something wrong but because it was denied a fair trial
The stunning $667m verdict against Greenpeace last week is a direct attack on the climate movement, Indigenous peoples and the first amendment.
The North Dakota case is so deeply flawed – at its core, the trial was really about crushing dissent – that I believe there is a good chance it will be reversed on appeal and ultimately backfire against the Energy Transfer pipeline company.
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03/28/2025 - 03:00
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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03/28/2025 - 00:53
Heavy rainfall expected to stretch from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast to the Victorian border, with the potential for isolated falls of up to 100mm
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A wet and wild weekend is on the way for much of Australia, as heavy rain in Queensland moves east and a tropical low off the coast of Western Australia threatens to develop into a cyclone.
Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra can all expect a washout on Saturday, with heavy rainfall expected to stretch from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast down to the Victorian border, including the potential for isolated falls of up to 100mm.
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03/27/2025 - 15:19
EPA sets up email address where ‘regulated community’ can request exemption to evade air pollution rules
Donald Trump’s administration has offered fossil fuel companies an extraordinary opportunity to evade air pollution rules by simply emailing the US president to ask him to exempt them.
Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set up a new email address where what it calls the “regulated community” can request a presidential exemption from their requirements under the Clean Air Act, which is used to regulate dangerous toxins emitted from polluting sources.
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03/27/2025 - 13:17
In the past, intact forests absorbed 7.8 billion tons of CO2 annually -- about a fifth of all human emissions -- but their carbon storage is increasingly at risk from climate change and human activities such as deforestation. A new study shows that failing to account for the potentially decreasing ability of forests to absorb CO2 could make reaching the Paris agreement targets significantly harder, if not impossible, and much more costly.
03/27/2025 - 10:00
Ministers urged to do more after United Utilities discharged raw sewage into Unesco site for 6,327 hours last year
Celebrated by William Wordsworth, Windermere has long epitomised the natural timeless beauty of the Lake District, with millions of tourists drawn to the shores that inspired the poet. But today England’s biggest lake is, some campaigners say, a shadow of its 19th century self: its waters blighted by algae and its wildlife threatened by pollution, in a symbol of all that is wrong with the privatised water industry.
This month the environment secretary, Steve Reed, vowed to break with the recent past, standing on its shores and promising that Labour would “clean up Windermere”. The lake is showing the impact of sewage pollution from United Utilities treatment plants and increased pressure from climate change-induced temperature rises.
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03/27/2025 - 09:00
The Labor Environment Action Network says it won’t ‘sugar coat’ its reaction after working ‘so hard’ on obtaining commitment for EPA
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Labor’s grassroots environment action network has told its members it does not support legislation that Anthony Albanese rushed through parliament this week to protect salmon farming in Tasmania, describing it as “frustrating and disappointing”.
In an email on Thursday, the Labor Environment Action Network (Lean) said it would not “sugar coat” its reaction to a bill that was introduced to end a formal government reconsideration of whether an expansion of fish farming in Macquarie Harbour, on the state’s west coast, in 2012 was properly approved.
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