Fourth consecutive year that seals have bred at Orford Ness, where more than 130 pups were born last season
The first grey seal pup of the season has been born at a remote shingle spit that was once a cold war weapons-testing site.
The birth at Orford Ness on the Suffolk coast marks the fourth consecutive year of seals breeding there, which began in 2021 after a reduction in visitor access because of the Covid pandemic.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/23/2024 - 02:45
EU and nations including the UK, US and Australia indicate they will make the increase in exchange for changes to a draft text, sources say
Major rich countries at UN climate talks in Azerbaijan have agreed to lift a global financial offer to help developing nations tackle the climate crisis to $300bn a year, as ministers met through the night in a bid to salvage a deal.
The Guardian understands the Azeri hosts brokered a lengthy closed-door meeting with a small group of ministers and delegation heads, including China, the EU, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, the UK, US and Australia, on key areas of dispute on climate finance and the transition away from fossil fuels.
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11/23/2024 - 01:46
The deal was met with long applause, cheering, whistling and embraces but few are happy with it
Marching in silence with their arms crossed high, activists from around the world protested the draft deal at the Cop29 venue last night.
“Pay up or shut up!” the campaign group Demand Climate Justice said in a post on social media.
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11/23/2024 - 01:00
Conservationists failed to capture elusive insects this summer, so Kristina Kenda offered to step in
When British conservationists flew to Slovenia this summer hoping to catch enough singing cicadas to reintroduce the species to the New Forest, the grasshopper-sized insects proved impossible to locate, flying elusively at great height between trees.
Now a 12-year-old girl has offered to save the Species Recovery Trust’s reintroduction project. Kristina Kenda, the daughter of the Airbnb hosts who accommodated the trust’s director, Dom Price, and conservation officer Holly Stanworth in the summer summer, will put out special nets to hopefully catch enough cicadas to re-establish a British population.
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11/23/2024 - 00:00
Advocates and officials argue that consequences of Israeli siege are inextricably linked to tackling the climate crisis
As countries negotiate over climate finance, Palestinian officials and advocates have come to Cop29 in Baku to highlight global heating’s intersection with another crisis: Israel’s siege on Gaza.
“The Cop [meetings] are very keen to protect the environment, but for whom?” said Ahmed Abu Thaher, director of projects and international relations at Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, who had travelled to Cop29 from Ramallah. “If you are killing the people there, for whom are you keen to protect the environment and to minimise the effects of climate change?”
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11/22/2024 - 13:17
Talk grows of a walkout from poor countries in response to ‘unacceptable’ and ‘insulting’ finance proposal
Developing countries were being urged by civil society groups to reject “a bad deal” at the UN climate talks on Friday night, after rich nations refused to increase an “insulting” offer of finance to help them tackle the climate crisis.
The stage is set for a bitter row on Saturday over how much money poor countries should receive from the governments of the rich world, which have offered $250bn a year by 2035 to help the poor shift to a low-carbon economy and adapt to the impacts of extreme weather.
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11/22/2024 - 12:23
Residents concerned as North Carolina city lifts boil advisory and scientists detect lead in water at area schools
When the western North Carolina town Swannanoa was battered by Hurricane Helene in September, two large trees crushed Stephen Knight’s home. His family of six was launched into a complicated web of survival: finding a temporary home, applying for disaster relief, filing insurance claims.
The new logistics of living included the daily search for food and water. Until earlier this week, most residents of this town east of Asheville had no drinkable tap water for 52 days. After the storm damaged infrastructure around the region, water had been partly restored in mid-October. It was good for flushing toilets but not safe for consumption. In some places, sediment left the water inky like black tea.
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11/22/2024 - 11:51
Chancellor understood to be determined to keep policy despite Treasury analysing ways to soften impact
Rachel Reeves is holding firm against a U-turn on inheritance tax for farmers, despite the Treasury analysing ways of softening the impact.
The chancellor is understood to be determined not to drop the policy even though some Labour MPs – and even ministers – are worrying about the political fallout that has led to farmers protesting in Westminster this week.
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11/22/2024 - 08:20
Experts are optimistic about energy and drug production breakthroughs but also fear its potential misuse
When better to hold a conference on artificial intelligence and the countless ways it is advancing science than in those brief days between the first Nobel prizes being awarded in the field and the winners heading to Stockholm for the lavish white tie ceremony?
It was fortuitous timing for Google DeepMind and the Royal Society who this week convened the AI for Science Forum in London. Last month, Google DeepMind bagged the Nobel prize in chemistry a day after AI took the physics prize. The mood was celebratory.
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11/22/2024 - 07:51
Cop29 is taking place in a country whose economy has long been dependent on its oil reserves
Oil runs deep in Azerbaijan, the host country of this year’s UN climate summit. Just 30 minutes south-west of the Cop29 conference centre lies the site of the world’s first industrially drilled oil well, opened in 1846.
Just metres away sit a handful of operating oil wells, nodding away. The Guardian spoke to an employee of Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company, Socar, who was working on one of the wells. Asked what oil meant for Azerbaijan, the 47-year-old worker said: “Too much!”
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