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Page Updated:
Dec. 1, 2025

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• • Southeast Asia Storm Deaths Near 800 as Scale of Disaster Revealed

  Death Toll Rises to 604 in Indonesia, 176 in Thailand
  
  
  

  Dec. 1, 2025 -The death toll from cyclone-induced floods and landslides in Indonesia passed 600 on Monday as rescuers battled to clear roads and improved weather conditions revealed the scale of a disaster that has killed nearly 800 people in Southeast Asia.

  Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have suffered devastation after a rare tropical storm formed in the Malacca Strait unleashed torrential rains and wind gusts for a week that hampered efforts to reach people stranded by mudslides and high floodwaters.

• • Water Shortages Could Derail UK’s
  Net Zero Plans, Study Finds

  British Research Finds There May Not Be Enough Water For Planned Carbon Capture and Hydrogen Projects
  
  
  

  Dec. 1, 2025 - Tensions are growing between the government, the water sector and its regulators over the management of England’s water supplies, as the Environment Agency warns of a potential widespread drought next year.

  Research commissioned by a water retailer has found water scarcity could hamper the UK’s ability to reach its net zero targets, and that industrial growth could push some areas of the country into water shortages.

• • Indonesia Flood Death Toll Climbs
  to 303 Amid Cyclone Devastation

  As Reprted By the Disaster Agency
  
  
  

  Nov. 29, 2025 - The death toll from floods and landslides following cyclonic rains in the Indonesian island of Sumatra has risen to 303, the head of the country's disaster mitigation agency said on Saturday, up from a previous figure of 174 dead.

  Large parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have been stricken by cyclone-fuelled torrential rain for a week, with a rare tropical storm forming in the Malacca Strait.

• • The Disaster to Come: New York’s Next Superstorm

  What Rain Can Do In New York City
  
  
  

  Nov. 25, 2025 - The largest city in the country is mostly a cluster of islands. Its inlets and rivers rise and fall with the tides.

  When a hurricane pushes the ocean ashore, it produces a storm surge, an abnormal rise of water that creates deadly flooding. This is what happened in New York during Sandy. As climate change causes sea level rise, storm surges, which can travel upstream through the city’s tidal rivers, will become more dangerous.

• • Hurricane Melissa’s 252-mph Gust Sets New Wind Record

  It Raged as a Category 5 Storm In the Caribbean Last Month—and Now Scientists Have Confirmed That Its Strongest Gusts Neared Record Speeds
  
  
  

  Nov. 24, 2025 -Hurricane Melissa was already one of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean—and now scientists have confirmed a new way it neared superlative status.

  Newly released data show that Hurricane Melissa produced a wind gust of 252 miles per hour—just 1 mph shy of the fastest wind gust ever measured on Earth, according to the World Meteorological Organization, and 4 mph faster than the most powerful gust ever measured in a tropical cyclone at sea.

• • Vietnam’s Year of Floods, Mud and Death

  Scientists Suggested That Climate Change Could Make Central Vietnam a Global Hot Spot For Destructive Storms
  
  
  

  Nov. 24, 2025 - Central Vietnam has become the latest epicenter of a deadly rainy season in Asia that has been supercharged by climate change, and seems to drag on without end.

  More than 90 people in the nation have been killed in the past week from flooding and landslides, and around a dozen more are missing, government officials reported Sunday.

• • Texas Workers Keep Dying in the Heat

  Texas Has No Labor Protections For Heat. That Leaves Workers, Especially Immigrants, Vulnerable On the Job.
  
  
  

  Nov. 24, 2025 -Eighteen-year-old Danny Nolasco spent the day of July 15, 2024, mixing and hauling buckets of cement at a construction site in stifling heat.

  The neighborhood of sprawling four- and five-bedroom houses, west of the Austin suburb of Bee Cave, was worlds away from the small mountain town in Honduras where Nolasco grew up. He had come to Texas two years earlier, hoping for a better life, and was working in his free time while attending school.

• • Violent ‘Storms’ Hidden Under Antarctica’s
  Ice Could Be Speeding Its Decline

  When Ice Freezes and Melts, It Creates Vortices That Drag Warmer Waters From the Depths to the Surface, Where They Eat Away At the Continent's Rapidly Degrading Ice Shelves
  
  
  

  Nov. 21, 2025 -The West Antarctic Ice Sheet covers some 760,000 square miles and is up to 1.2 miles thick. If it were to ever melt away entirely, it would add 10 feet to global sea levels. Even considering how quickly humans are heating the planet, such a change would likely unfold over centuries — that’s how much ice we’re talking about here. But scientists are finding more and more evidence that Antarctica’s ice is in far more peril than previously believed, with many abrupt changes, like the loss of sea ice, reinforcing one another.

  Click now to learn more.

• • Stopping the Greatest Threat to the Amazon

  One Fire at a Time
  
  
  

  Nov. 22, 2025 - Daniel Nepstad first set fire to the Amazon rainforest in 1985.

  He was a young researcher at the time, studying how tropical forests remained so lush, even during the dry season. “I became obsessed with the incredible ability of these forests to endure drought,” he said.

  After years of experiments, including numerous attempts to intentionally light the Amazon aflame, he arrived at a surprising conclusion: “Forests are pretty hard to burn down.”

  Much has changed since then.

• • COP30 Falls Short of Ambitious Deal

  Could Be Worse?
  
  {SEMAFOR}
  
  

  Nov. 22, 2025 - The COP30 climate summit in Brazil concluded Saturday without an explicit new international mandate to drive the global transition away from fossil fuels, but managed to piece together enough of a patchwork of alternative solutions that at least some of the most ambitious negotiators were able to call the talks a success.

  “I would always love more,” the UK climate envoy, Rachel Kyte, told Semafor. “But… in the current geopolitical environment this is a big victory.”

• • The Strange and Totally Real Plan to Blot
  Out the Sun and Reverse Global Warming

  A 25-Person Startup is Developing Technology to Block the Sun and Turn Down the Planet’s Thermostat
  
  {POLITICO}
  
  

  Nov. 22, 2025 -Janos Pasztor was conflicted. Sitting in his home office in a village just outside Geneva, he stared into the screen of his computer, where a bizarre Zoom call was taking place. It was Jan. 31, 2024. The chief executive of an Israeli-U.S. startup, to whom Pasztor had only just been introduced, was telling him the company had developed a special reflective particle and the technology to release millions of tons of it high into the atmosphere.

  The intended effect: to dim the light of the sun across the world and throw global warming into reverse. The CEO wanted Pasztor, a former senior United Nations climate official, to help. The company called itself Stardust Solutions.

• • Iran’s Capital Is Moving. The Reason Is an Ecological Catastrophe

  The Decision to Move Iran’s Capital is Partly Driven By Climate Change
  
  
  

  Nov. 21, 2025 -Amid a deepening ecological crisis and acute water shortage, Tehran can no longer remain the capital of Iran, the country’s president has said.

  The situation in Tehran is the result of “a perfect storm of climate change and corruption,” says Michael Rubin, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.

  “We no longer have a choice,” said Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian during a speech on Thursday.

• • As Seas Rise, So Do the Risks From Toxic Sites

  Flooding From Surging Seas is Likely to Inundate Thousands Of U.S. Hazardous Sites In Coming Years As Global Temperatures Rise
  
  
  

  Nov. 20, 2025 -On a sunny morning in May, Luna Angulo walked alongside a towering chain-link fence topped with razor wire on San Francisco Bay’s eastern shore. She lingered near locked gates posted with warnings to keep out of the “hazardous substance area,” where long-shuttered chemical plants had dumped toxic waste on marshlands, and recounted the refinery explosion that changed her life.

  Angulo was just 12 years old when a massive explosion rocked Chevron’s accident-prone Richmond refinery, four miles up the road. Towering clouds of black smoke darkened the skies for hours that summer day in 2012, forcing 15,000 residents to seek medical care for chest pain, headaches and asthma, among other ailments.

• • An Unusual Phenomenon is Likely to
  Cause a Frigid December in the U.S.

  A Sudden Stratospheric Warming Could Soon Disturb the Polar Vortex, Causing Frigid Air to Spill From the North Pole to North America
  
  
  

  Nov. 20, 2025' -December might be extra chilly across parts of the United States because of a weather phenomenon unfolding miles above the North Pole.

  It’s called sudden stratospheric warming and happens once every other winter on average. Despite the name, there’s unlikely to be any sudden warming where people live.

• • Sea-Level Rise Accelerates in New Jersey,
  Raising Coastal Flooding Risk

  Landmark Report Forecasts Water Levels and Temperature Gain But Avoids Policy Prescriptions
  
  
  

  Nov. 19, 2025 -New Jersey is likely to see between 2.2 and 3.8 feet of sea-level rise by 2100 if the current level of global carbon emissions continue, but seas could rise by as much as 4.5 feet if ice-sheet melt accelerates, the New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center at Rutgers University said on Tuesday.

  In the third report since 2016 by the center’s Science and Technical Advisory Panel, scientists at Rutgers and beyond said human-caused climate change is accelerating sea-level rise in New Jersey, and flood hazards are “rapidly increasing” along the state’s coast, as well as in communities near tidal rivers, marshes and wetlands.

• • Trump’s Anti-Green Agenda Could Lead
  to 1.3 Million More Climate Deaths

  The Poorest Countries Will Be Impacted Most
  
  {PROPUBLICA}
  
  

  Nov. 19, 2025 -New advances in environmental science are providing a detailed understanding of the human costs of the Trump administration’s approach to climate change.

  Increasing temperatures are already killing enormous numbers of people. A ProPublica and Guardian analysis that draws on sophisticated modeling by independent researchers found that President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda of expanding fossil fuels and decimating efforts to reduce emissions will add substantially to that toll, with the vast majority of deaths occurring outside the United States.

• • The Climate Is Changing, Cows Are Stressed

  And Italy’s Cheesemakers Are Worried
  
  
  

  Nov. 19, 2025 -As a fourth-generation cheesemaker from the Puglia region in Italy’s boot, Angelantonio Tafuno sounds in many ways like just another millennial trying to slow down in a frenetic world.

  On a recent fall afternoon, Mr. Tafuno, 32, preached a more languid lifestyle for farmers and cheesemakers who “are running a little too much.” His goal, he said, was to churn out fewer bulbs of the handmade burrata and mozzarella that his family has been making for decades, while developing specialty aged cheeses that he can produce for just a few months of the year.

• • A Climate ‘Shock’ Is Eroding Some Home Values

  New Data Shows How Much
  
  
  

  Nov. 19, 2025 -Even after she escaped rising floodwaters by wading away from her home in chest-deep water during Hurricane Rita in 2005, Sandra Rojas, now 69, stayed put. A fifth-generation resident of Lafitte, La., a small coastal community, she raised her home with stilts.

  But this year, her annual home insurance premium increased to $8,312, more than doubling over the past four years.

• • The Congo Basin is the Second Largest
  On Earth, So Why is It Being Neglected?

  The Rainforest the World Forgot
  
  
  

  Nov. 18, 2025 -In October 2023, leaders, scientists and policymakers from three of the world’s great rainforest regions – the Amazon, the Congo, and the Borneo-Mekong basins – assembled in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo. They were there to discuss one urgent question: how to save the planet’s last great tropical forests from accelerating destruction.

  For those present, the question was existential. But to their dismay, almost no one noticed. “There was very little acknowledgment that this was happening, outside of the Congo basin region,” says Prof Simon Lewis, a lecturer at the University of Leeds and University College London, and co-chair of the Congo Basin Science Initiative (CBSI).

• • Boat Electrification Is a Climate and Health Win

  Making the Switch Isn’t Easy
  
  
  

  Nov. 18, 2025 -Anyone who has visited a port or harbor knows that it can be an overwhelmingly sensory experience—from the pungent tang of diesel or gas exhaust to the deafening rumble of a boat’s outboard motor engine. But these engines and their emissions can have some risky consequences, fueling both global warming and health problems.

  They’re also just plain annoying, according to Maine local and boater Nick Planson.

• • COP30 Has a Huge Blind Spot On Climate Adaptation

  Here's The Latest Report
  
  {SEMAFOR}
  
  

  Nov. 18, 2025 -As negotiators at COP30 struggle to make progress on a long-delayed global agreement on climate adaptation, some observers in Belém warn the talks overlook what could be the most important solution for improving countries’ resilience: Drawing in more private sector investment.

  One of Brazil’s top priorities for this COP is to hammer down a “global goal on adaptation,” which would identify universal metrics for countries to track, and articulate shared principles for how to reach them.

• • As Insurers Around the U.S. Bleed Cash
  From Climate Shocks, Homeowners Lose

  Christopher Flavelle Reported From Iowa and Spoke With More Than 40 Insurance Experts, Officials and Homeowners in a Dozen States
  
  
  

  Nov. 18, 2025 -At first glance, Dave Langston’s predicament seems similar to headaches facing homeowners in coastal states vulnerable to catastrophic hurricanes: As disasters have become more frequent and severe, his insurance company has been losing money. Then, it canceled his coverage and left the state.

  But Mr. Langston lives in Iowa.

  Relatively consistent weather once made Iowa a good bet for insurance companies. But now, as a warming planet makes events like hail and wind storms worse, insurers are fleeing.

• • Pope Leo Urges Stronger Action as
  UN Climate Summit Enters Final Week

  Pope Says World Failing to Do Enough to Fight Climate Change
  
  
  

  Nov. 18, 2025 -Pope Leo criticized world governments on Monday for failing so far to slow global warming and called for a stronger response to the threat, as countries at the U.N. climate summit in Brazil's Amazon city of Belem entered the second week of negotiations with a goal to resolve their thorniest issues ahead of schedule.

  The Pope's message reflected mounting concern about flagging international ambition and rising greenhouse gas emissions a full decade after the 2015 Paris Agreement, a landmark deal at which countries for the first time agreed to limit global warming to well within 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

• • Thousands March for Climate Action
  as U.N. Talks Enter Second Week

  As the Talks Continue, Some Countries Are Pushing For a Detailed “Road Map” For a Global Transition Away From Oil, Gas and Coal
  
  
  

  Nov. 17, 2025 -Thousands of climate activists flooded the Brazilian city of Belém this weekend, marching with a giant inflatable Earth, singing, dancing and demanding that nations gathered for a global climate summit at the edge of the Amazon rainforest take action to protect the planet.

  But inside the negotiating halls where the United Nations conference, known as COP30, is entering its second week, the mood was less festive. Numerous issues remain unresolved as government officials confront the gap between the pledges they have made to reduce their greenhouse gases and the ambition required to stave off rising global temperatures.

• • Women Toiling in India’s Insufferable
  Heat Face Mounting Toll on Health

  Prolonged Exposure to Hot Weather Can Hinder People’s Ability to Lead Safe and Productive Lives
  
  
  

  Nov. 17, 2025 -Every summer morning, Kantaben Kishen Parmar, a 45-year-old vegetable seller in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, settles onto a patch of ground the size of a large rug, sandwiched between the warming asphalt and a simmering sky, to sell peppers and tomatoes. She doesn’t get back home until 10 p.m.

  Over the decades, summers have gotten longer and hotter — average temperatures can hover around 105 degrees Fahrenheit, or 40 Celsius, between March and June — but Ms. Parmar’s hours have remained the same. The toll on her health is growing.

• • There’s a New Effort on the Runway to Raise Climate Funds

  A Small Group of Countries Aims to Impose a Fee On Private Jets and Premium Commercial Fares Which Would Help Nations Adapt to Warming
  
  
  

  Nov. 17, 2025 -A handful of countries are taking baby steps to impose a fee on private jets and first- and business-class seats on flights taking off from their airports. The proceeds would help all the countries that join the coalition adapt to climate change.

  “Those who pollute more should contribute more, and a levy on premium fliers can generate billions for climate resilience, adaptation and sustainable development,” said Maria del Mar Fernández-Palacios, a Spanish diplomat. She was representing her country at an event at the COP30 climate talks to draw other countries to join the Premium Flyers Solidarity Coalition, as they call themselves.

• • The Rising Heat Threat Inside Football Stadiums

  Excessive Heat and More Frequent Medical Incidents In Southern College Football Stadiums Could Be a Warning Sign For Universities Across the Country
  
  
  

  Nov. 18, 2025 -When Vanderbilt University football fan Douglas Dill set out with his son the morning of Oct. 4 to watch their team play rival University of Alabama, he didn’t expect his game-day experience to include a gurney ride to a medical facility inside Bryant-Denny Stadium.

  But by the fourth quarter in Tuscaloosa, with the sun beating down on the upper decks, the 60-year-old needed medical help.

• • The UK’s Waters Are Rising and We’re Being Kept in the Dark

  Flooded and Forgotten
  
  
  

  Nov. 16, 2025 - As autumn blurs into winter, the news is once again filling up with a familiar story: overflowing rivers, inundated streets and overwhelmed infrastructure. Since Friday, England, Wales and Ireland have been hit by the storm the Spanish meteorological agency has elegantly named Claudia, with grim results.

  One place in particular massively bore the brunt of it all: the Welsh border town of Monmouth, where the raging River Monnow spilled into the streets, people had to be rescued from their homes and drones captured aerial views of the scene, showing fragile-looking buildings suddenly surrounded by a huge clay-brown swamp.

• • UN Climate Chief Warns World to Act Or Face Disaster

  Faltering Governments Will Be Blamed For Famine and Conflict Abroad, and Face Stagnation and Inflation at Home
  
  
  

  Nov. 16, 2025 -Governments failing to shift to a low-carbon economy will be blamed for famine and conflict abroad, and will face stagnation and rising inflation at home, the UN’s climate chief warned on Monday at the start of the Cop30 climate talks.

  Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, addressed the gathering of ministers and high-ranking officials from nearly 200 countries, in a stark portrayal of the price of failure on the climate crisis.

• • How Many People Die in India From Hot Weather?

  Nobody Really Knows
  
  
  

  Nov. 16, 2025 -India is getting hotter, faster.

  The grim present presages a grimmer future for the world’s most populous country, which is experiencing more frequent and severe heat waves. But India — with 1.4 billion people, many of whom are impoverished and particularly vulnerable to climate change — has yet to grasp the magnitude of the problem and may be underequipped to deal with it, public health experts and scientists say.

• • How Snowy Could It Be Where You Live This Winter?

  Look Up Your Area
  
  
  

  Nov. 16, 2025 -The magic of a winter wonderland runs deep in American culture, from the prospect of spending the day by the fireplace as snow piles up outside to the promise of canceled classes for schoolkids.

  But data shows there’s less of that magic in the last half decade than there used to be — particularly in the central and eastern United States. A new analysis by The Washington Post found that swaths of the Plains, Midwest and East Coast have received much less snow than average over the past five winters — a trend that may continue this season, unless the polar vortex makes an early winter visit.

• • Why Saudi Arabia is the Biggest Blocker of Climate Action

  Desert Kingdom Depends On Oil Dollars But Its People Already Face a climate ‘at the Verge of Livability’
  
  
  

  Nov. 17, 2025 -Can you imagine someone giving you $170,000 (£129,000)? What would you buy?

  Can you imagine getting another $170,000 one minute later? And the handouts then continuing every minute for years? If so, you have a feel for the colossal cash machine that is Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Aramco, the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas last year.

• • COP30 Bulletin Day 6: First Week Ends
  With a Colourful March and Much Work Left to Do

  But the Success Comes With Growing Pains
  
  {CLIMATE HOME NEWS}
  
  

  Nov. 15, 2025 -As COP30 reached halftime with most key issues still to play for, UN climate chief Simon Stiell told countries to listen to each other’s priorities and compromise to secure a final deal that “preserves” the Paris Agreement.

  “I urge you to give a little so that you may get a lot,” he said during a stock-taking plenary on Saturday evening, giving delegates plenty to ponder during Sunday’s break.

• • A Dead Glacier Is a Loss, a Dying One Is a Threat

  Melting Ice From the Himalayas Is Creating Thousands of Unstable Lakes, a Growing Menace to Towns and Cities Below
  
  
  

  Nov. 14, 2025 -The ice of the Himalayas is wasting away. Glacier-draped slopes are going bare. The ground atop the mountain range, which sprawls across five Asian countries, is slumping and sliding as the ice beneath it — ice that held the land together — disappears. Meltwater is puddling in the valleys below, forming deep lakes.

  As humans warm the planet, so much ice has been erased from around Mount Everest that the elevation at base camp in Nepal, which sits on a melting glacier, has dropped more than 220 feet since the 1980s.

• • He Helped Cities Anticipate Damage From Storms

  His Project’s Funding Was Eliminated in April
  
  
  

  Nov. 13, 2025 -Austin Becker is a marine policy researcher who studies how we can make coastal areas safer from big storms and sea level rise.

  In 2014, he started developing a new system to help emergency managers quickly get information about the potential damage from hurricanes and nor’easter storms. He collaborated with Isaac Ginis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography, to make a system, which we called C.H.A.M.P.: Coastal Hazards, Analysis, Modeling and Prediction.

• • Seattle City Light Surcharge Remains After Third Bad Water Year

  The Drought First Appeared in City Light’s Series of Reservoirs and Hydropower Dams On the Skagit River
  
  
  

  Nov. 13, 2025 -For the third year in a row, Seattle City Light failed to fill its largest hydropower reservoir, Ross Lake, because of an ongoing and severe drought gripping the Pacific Northwest.

  This drought might not look like the one sweeping across the deserts of the American Southwest, but it’s here all the same. Poor snowpack, early melt-offs and longer, hotter, drier summers all combine to leave our region short on water.

• • Rules at UN Climate Talks Favor the Status Quo, Not Progress

  Built to Fail
  
  
  

  Nov. 12 -Frustration about slow progress at the United Nations climate talks boiled over this week. After hours under the equatorial sun at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, scores of protesters pushed past security guards Tuesday evening and briefly occupied parts of the negotiating area, calling for an end to mining and logging in the Amazon, among other demands.

  The clash symbolized a deeper tension at the heart of the U.N. climate summits. The people demanding change are often outside the gates while those with power inside are bound by rules that slow progress to a crawl.

• • World Still On Track For Catastrophic 2.6C Temperature Rise

  Fossil Fuel Emissions Have Hit a Record High While Many Nations Have Done Too Little to Avert Deadly Global Heating
  
  
  

  Nov. 12, 2025 -The world is still on track for a catastrophic 2.6C increase in temperature as countries have not made sufficiently strong climate pledges, while emissions from fossil fuels have hit a record high, two major reports have found.

  Despite their promises, governments’ new emission-cutting plans submitted for the Cop30 climate talks taking place in Brazil have done little to avert dangerous global heating for the fourth consecutive year, according to the Climate Action Tracker update.

• • Blocking Fossil-Fuelled Disinformation in Belém and Beyond

  Bad COP to Good COP
  
  {CLIMATE HOME NEWS}
  
  

  Nov. 12, 2025 -For years, fossil fuel lobbyists have swarmed the international climate summits outnumbering most national delegations and drowning out the voices of climate-vulnerable nations. Their mission is clear: derail progress, spread disinformation, and dodge accountability for fueling the climate crisis.

  This overwhelming influence raises urgent questions – how do we prevent industry obstruction of science-based policy, and what would a climate summit look like if fossil fuel interests were finally shut out?

• • Oil and Gas Demand Will Rise Beyond
  2030, Departing from Previous Forecasts

  The International Energy Agency Says Weak Climate Action and Energy Security Fears Are Effectively Delaying Peak Fossil Fuel Consumption
  
  

  Nov. 12, 2025 -The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts global demand for oil and gas will rise well beyond 2030, marking a sharp departure from the agency’s previous forecasts that demand for oil would peak by 2030.

  In a new report, the IEA says low gas prices, growing concerns over energy security and a global lack of ambitious climate policies will delay the peak of the fossil fuel era until at least 2050.

• • Climate Action Is Slow—But It Will Still Curb Extreme Heat

  Ten years After the Paris Climate Agreement, the Limited Progress We’ve Made In Reducing Global Warming Means That There Will Be Less Extreme Heat In the Future Than There Would Be Without the Accord
  
  

  Nov. 12, 2025 -In the decade since the Paris climate agreement was hammered out, countries have made only halting efforts toward meeting the accord’s goal of limiting global warming. But even that modest progress means that the world will have to deal with far less extreme heat in the future than it otherwise would.

  This is a clear example, climate experts say, of why it is important to push forward with even imperfect progress.

• • Where The Sky Keeps Bursting

  “The Next Flood That Comes, There Might Not Be Any House”
  
  
  

  Nov. 12, 2025 -The epic one in 1977, when she fled over a mountain with her young children to avoid rising water. The deluges of 2001 and 2002, which left a trail of destruction in this area but somehow spared the modest house she and her husband have shared for more than a half century.

  But like many others who have spent their lives in the coalfields of southern West Virginia, she had never seen the likes of what arrived on a frigid day this past February. Days of rain sent the Tug Fork River surging from a relatively calm 6.8 feet to a raging 22.7 feet in just 10 hours, filling the river and its tributaries far beyond their banks.

• • China’s Emissions Have Remained Flat For More Than a Year

  What the New Data Shows
  
  {SEMAFOR}
  
  

  Nov. 11, 2025 -China’s greenhouse gas emissions have been flat or falling for 18 months, welcome news as the COP30 climate summit is underway in Brazil.

  The emissions trend is partly driven by China’s economic slowdown, Carbon Brief data showed, as construction and manufacturing have fallen, but also by rapid growth in renewable energy and electrification of the economy.

• • At COP30, California Governor Newsom
  Blasts Trump for 'Dumb' US Climate Policy

  On Monday, Newsom Spoke With Investors at a Conference in the Brazilian Financial Hub of Sao Paulo, Telling Them the Vacuum in U.S. Climate Leadership Was "Jaw-Dropping"
  
  {US News & World Report}
  
  

  Nov. 11, 2024 -Speaking at an event with Germany's vice minister for climate and state-level officials, he lamented the Trump administration's attacks on the fast-growing clean energy economy as ceding the market to China.

  "China is flooding the zone and will dominate in the next great global industry," Newsom said in the first of several scheduled appearances at the U.N. climate summit in Brazil's Amazon city of Belem.

• • Typhoon Fung-Wong Becomes Second
  in a Week to Hit the Philippines

  Destructive Winds and Rainfall Hit Archipelago, While a Cold Florida Spell Prompts Fears of Falling Iguanas
  
  
  

  Nov. 10, 2025 -Typhoon Fung-Wong, locally known as Uwan, is the second in a week to affect the Philippines after making landfall on Sunday evening. The weather system prompted warnings for heavy rainfall and life-threatening storm surges across much of the country, with sustained winds of 115mph (185km/h) and gusts of about 140mph recorded on Sunday by the National Meteorological Agency.

  By the time Fung-Wong moves past the Philippines early this week, more than 200mm of rainfall is expected to have fallen on Luzon, the country’s most populous island.

• • Your Comprehensive Cop30 Jargon Buster

  Brief Explanations of 19 Key Terms Likely to Be Heard at the Cop30 Summit in Brazil
  
  
  

  Nov. 10, 2025 -Cop30 will be the 30th conference of the parties to the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC), the parent treaty to the 2015 Paris agreement. It takes place in Belém, near the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil.

  At recent Cops, hosts have taken to having special meetings based on traditional formats. This began in Durban in 2011, when, as the negotiations stretched long past their official deadline, heads of delegation moved into special indaba meetings, named after a traditional Zulu gathering of tribal elders.

• • What Are the Main Issues at Cop30

  And Why Do They Matter?
  
  
  

  Nov. 10, 2025 -Cop30 is the 30th conference of the parties under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the treaty signed in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro that binds the world to “avoid dangerous climate change”, without specifying how to do so.

  This year, Cop returns to its roots in Brazil for the first time in the Amazonian city of Belém. The Brazilian hosts have a packed agenda, with 145 separate items on it, and decided to begin early, with a preliminary event called the Belém Climate Summit.

• • COP30 Bulletin Day 1

  Host Nation Brazil Averts Agenda Row At Opening
  
  {CLIMATE HOME NEWS}
  
  

  Nov. 10, 2025 -Brazil, the COP30 host nation, managed to head off an expected public clash over the UN summit’s agenda during its opening session, after countries submitted eight proposals for new items they want to see tackled at the talks.

  COP30 boss André Aranha Corrêa do Lago announced a compromise solution reached after informal meetings with delegation heads, which he said showed “strong desire for a smooth and swift” start to the proceedings that would “set a positive tone”.

• • A Flood of Green Tech From China
  Is Upending Global Climate Politics

  Emerging Countries Are Embracing Renewable Energy Thanks to a Glut of Cheap Equipment
  
  
  

  Nov. 10, 2025 -As the United States torpedoes climate action and Europe struggles to realize its green ambitions, a surprising shift is taking hold in many large, fast-growing economies where a majority of the world’s people live.

  Countries like Brazil, India, and Vietnam are rapidly expanding solar and wind power. Poorer countries like Ethiopia and Nepal are leapfrogging over gasoline-burning cars to battery-powered ones. Nigeria, a petrostate, plans to build its first solar-panel manufacturing plant. Morocco is creating a battery hub to supply European automakers. Santiago, the capital of Chile, has electrified more than half of its bus fleet in recent years.

• • How We’re Killing Our Internal Ecosystem

  And What We Can Do to Reverse It
  
  
  

  Nov. 7, 2025 -When people think about the biodiversity crisis, images of rainforests being bulldozed and species going extinct probably come to mind, but in recent months, I’ve been exploring a much smaller biodiversity crisis – the one inside us.

  First, this week’s most important climate headlines – and a reminder that the pivotal Cop30 conference kicks off in Belém, Brazil, next week. The Guardian will have unrivalled coverage from our team of reporters on the ground, some of whom you’ll hear from in extra editions of Down to Earth over the next two weeks.

• • It's Been 10 Years After a Breakthrough Climate Pact

  Here’s Where We Are Now
  
  
  

  Nov. 7, 2024 -Almost exactly 10 years ago, a remarkable thing happened in a conference hall on the outskirts of Paris: After years of bitter negotiations, the leaders of nearly every country agreed to try to slow down global warming in an effort to head off its most devastating effects.

  The core idea was that countries would set their own targets to reduce their climate pollution in ways that made sense for them. Rich, industrialized nations were expected to go fastest and to help lower-income countries pay for the changes they needed to cope with climate hazards.

• • Leaders at the Global Climate Summit
  Highlight the Rising Toll of Warming

  “All We Have to Do Is Look Outside,” One Delegate Said. “The Sea Rises, The Coral Dies”
  
  
  

  Nov. 7, 2025 -In Spain, intense heat waves and floods have claimed thousands of lives in recent years. In Namibia, higher temperatures have resulted in drought and widespread hunger. And in Haiti, Hurricane Melissa, which was made more violent by global warming, last week killed more than 40 people.

  World leaders shared vivid stories about the increasingly severe effects of a warming planet on Friday, the second day of the United Nations climate summit in Belém, Brazil.

• • The Amazon’s Oldest Tree Are Bulking Up As CO2 Levels Rise

  Resilience Among the Rainforest’s Giants, Though Scientists Warn That Nutrient Limits and Rising Heat Could End the Trend
  
  
  

  Nov. 6, 2025 -When we look at the towering trees of old-growth forest patches in the Amazon, we might think these ancient beings have reached their maximum size and width.

  It turns out they have not, a new study suggests. It shows that even the largest and oldest Amazonian trees still capture carbon dioxide (CO2)—and keep getting bigger, albeit at a slow pace.

• • Americans Are Moving Out of Flood-Prone Neighborhoods

  After Seeing An Influx of Residents During the Pandemic, Some the Riskiest Counties Are Now Losing Residents
  
  {Bloomberg}
  
  

  Nov. 6, 2025, The American neighborhoods with the highest risk of floods are again losing residents.

  For the first time since 2019, high-risk counties lost domestic residents, with 30,000 more people relocating to other places in the country than moved in, according to a new Redfin report. It's a sharp reversal from the pandemic years, when remote workers flocked to coastal areas and Sun Belt cities. Some of those counties, however, still had a total increase in population as immigration from overseas remained strong.

• • Global Warming Made Hurricane Melissa More Damaging

  Climate Change Enabled the Storm to Churn Faster and Grow More Quickly
  
  
  

  Nov. 6, 2025 -Hurricane Melissa’s path through the Caribbean last month was made more violent by climate change, according to a scientific analysis released Thursday.

  Researchers from the group World Weather Attribution found that the storm had 7 percent stronger wind speeds than a similar one in a world that has not been warmed by the burning of fossil fuels. They also found the rate of rainfall inside the eyewall of the storm was 16 percent more intense.

• • The COP30 Climate Talks in Brazil

  Here’s What to Know
  
  
  

  Nov. 6, 2025 -This year’s United Nations climate summit got underway in Belém, Brazil, on Thursday.

  The meeting, known as COP30, comes during another year of record heat and extreme weather around the globe. At the same time, energy demand is rising and some of the world’s biggest economies are rapidly shifting their climate policies.

• • Seattle Weather: Coastal Flooding, Heavy Rain Bring Wet Week

  High Tides Are Expected Thursday Afternoon and Evening Along the Coast and Interior
  
  
  

  Nov. 6, 2025 -Widespread rainfall overnight and major coastal flooding require caution from Western Washingtonians during the end of this workweek, the National Weather Service warns.

  Wednesday was the wettest day of the year so far in Seattle. Over 1.1 inches of rain was measured at the NWS field office.

• • Still a Chance to Return to 1.5C Climate Goal, Researchers Say

  Report Calls For Scaling-Up of Renewable Energy and Electrification of Key Sectors to Limit Peak of Global Heating
  
  
  

  Nov. 5, 2024 -There is still a chance for the world to avoid the worst ravages of climate breakdown and return to the goal of 1.5C if governments take concerted action on greenhouse gas emissions, a new assessment argues.

  The Climate Analytics report says governments’ goals are inadequate and need to be rapidly revised, and calls for the rapid scaling-up of the use of renewable energy and electrification of key sectors including transport, heating and industry.

• • Scientists Thought Great Barrier Reef
  Doomed If Global Temperatures Rise 1.5C

  But a New Study Finds Hope
  
  
  

  Nov. 5, 2025 -The Great Barrier Reef will undergo “rapid coral decline” until 2050 but could recover if global heating is kept below 2C, according to the most detailed modeling so far of the future of the world’s biggest coral reef.

  The finding contradicts a widely held view that the decline of the oceanic gem would become irreversible as global temperatures rise above 1.5C, with one report last month suggesting the world’s tropical corals had already reached a tipping point of long-term decline.

• • New York’s Next Mayor Will Face
  Big Decisions on Climate Change

  The City’s New Leader Will Have to Contend With Preparing For Deadly Floods, Rising Electricity Costs and the Future of an Ambitious Energy Efficiency Program
  
  
  

  Nov. 4, 2024 -Today, New Yorkers are headed to the polls to choose their next mayor. Though none of the three major candidates has emphasized climate change on the campaign trail, avoiding the matter once in office is not an option.

  As John Surico and Nick Underwood reported last month on the growing risks of floods in the city: “New York’s adaptation is a matter of survival.”

• • A Record-Breaking Glacier Could
  Alter Predictions About Sea-Level Rise

  Antarctica’s Hektoria Glacier Retreated Five Miles in Two Months, 10 Times as Fast as the Previous Record
  
  
  

  Nov. 4, 2025 -More than five miles of glacial ice in Antarctica vanished in only two months, retreating 10 times as fast as the previous record, with possible implications for the stability of other glaciers and the pace of sea-level rise on a warming planet.

  The research on the ice retreat was published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.

• • Save the Amazon or Drill for Oil?

  Brazil Says It Can Do Both
  
  
  

  Nov. 4, 2025 -When President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil returned to power, he had an ambitious goal: restoring his country’s image as a champion of climate action.

  He vowed to slash Brazil’s emissions of planet-warming gases, raise global funds to tackle the climate crisis and curb the rampant destruction of the Amazon rainforest, just as he had done in his first two terms in office.

• • A Storm Hit Alaska. Now, a Native
  Community Is Racing to Save Its History

  The Remnants of Typhoon Halong Scattered Artifacts From an Archaeological Site Along the Shore of the Bering Sea
  
  
  

  Nov. 4, 2025 -The morning after a storm slammed into western Alaska last month, Jimmy Jones was collecting driftwood on the beach near Quinhagak, a fishing village. When he reached to pick up a log, a face stared up at him from the sand beneath.

  For a split second, he worried that he had found a human body. But looking closer, Mr. Jones, 27, realized it was a wooden mask with delicate traces of paint staining the surface.

  The remnants of Typhoon Halong, which killed at least one person and displaced hundreds from flooded homes around the region, had also swept up and carried thousands of artifacts from an archaeological site three miles south called Nunalleq.

• • New Climate Pledges Only Slightly
  Lower Dangerous Global Warming Projections

  Under a Third of Parties to Paris Agreement Submitted New NDCs by 30 September 2025
  
  {UN Environment Programme}
  
  

  Nov. 4, 2025 -A UN Environment Programme (UNEP) assessment of available new climate pledges under the Paris Agreement finds that the predicted global temperature rise over the course of this century has only slightly fallen, leaving the world heading for a serious escalation of climate risks and damages.

  UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report 2025: Off Target finds that global warming projections over this century, based on full implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), are now 2.3-2.5°C, compared to 2.6-2.8°C in last year’s report. Implementing only current policies would lead to up to 2.8°C of warming, compared to 3.1°C last year.

• • Deadly Rivers in the Sky

  Where Climate Forces are Fueling More Dangerous Floodsd
  
  
  

  Nov. 3, 2025 -The Post’s analysis, based on state-of-the-art weather data and computer models of the climate system, reveals how rising global temperatures have made the atmosphere more waterlogged — providing fuel for wetter and more dangerous storms. In the past 85 years, The Post found, the amount of water vapor moving through Earth’s atmosphere has increased 12 percent. That increase is equivalent to 35 Mississippi Rivers flowing through the air every second.

  But this moisture is not distributed equally around the planet. Nor are its effects evenly felt.

• • Record Grounded Glacier Retreat
  Caused By an Ice Plain Calving Process

  The EPA is Backing Away From Plans to Shut Down Energy Star
  
  {nature geoscience}
  
  

  Nov. 3, 2024 -Understanding and predicting marine-terminating glacier instability presents one of the greatest challenges to forecasting future sea level rise. An extreme case of such instability is the Hektoria Glacier on the Eastern Antarctic Peninsula, which retreated ~25 km between January 2022 and March 2023. Here we investigate the dynamics and drivers of this retreat event primarily from analysis of geophysical data and satellite imagery. We find that retreat commenced immediately after the loss of decade-old fast ice in the Larsen B embayment and was associated with an almost 6-fold increase in flow speed and 40-fold increase in glacier thinning, relative to the period immediately before the fast ice loss.

  We also find that in November–December 2022, the glacier retreated a total of 8.2 ± 0.2 km in two months—a retreat rate nearly an order of magnitude faster than published values—and began with a transition from tabular iceberg calving to buoyancy-driven calving on an ice plain, a flat area where the glacier was only lightly grounded. Hence we conclude that in this case, retreat primarily resulted from an ice plain calving process, rather than atmospheric or oceanic conditions as suggested previously. This implies that marine-terminating glaciers with ice plain bed geometry can be easily destabilized.

• • Permafrost Is Thawing in Alaska at an Alarming Rate

  The Arctic has Warmed Four Times Faster Than Anywhere Else On the Planet
  
  {Bloomberg}
  
  

  Nov. 3, 2025, by Danielle Bochove -On the last day of August, as the High North summer tips to autumn, I found myself balancing on the gunnels of a 10-foot inflatable Achilles raft bouncing across whitecaps scudding the Beaufort Sea. The temperature was barely above freezing, the sun fickle.

  It's a short ride but the only dry way to get me, lacking hip-waders, to a waterlogged patch of tundra beside one of Hilcorp Alaska’s massive oil pads where the team of scientists from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, I’ve embedded with will be gathering data all week. (The boat serves another purpose, which I’ll get to.)

• • The Alps Are Melting, But
  the Villagers Will Not Be Moved

  Switzerland is Racing to Rebuild Blatten, Which Was Crushed By a Glacier
  
  
  

  Nov. 3, 2025 -The melting glacier collapsed on a Wednesday in May, a cascade of boulders and ice and water burying recently evacuated homes and farms in the village of Blatten. It took half a minute. By the start of the next week, authorities were already drafting plans for a new village, in the same valley, with the threats of a warming world still lurking in the Alps all around.

  Blatten was home to 300 people before disaster struck; some families had been there for hundreds of years. The authorities do not know where exactly the new town will sit.

• The National Climate Change Assessment
• 6 Things We Can Do About Climate Change
• Climate Change Positive Thoughts (free e-Book)
• Get the Climate Lab Book
• Interactive Climate Map 2050 (CC Consequences)
• The People's Dosier on Climate Change

• Global Warming Report from NOAA
• Another Good Global Warming Resource
• More Climate Change Resources
• NY Times Climate Forward: (Climate Change Q&A)
• Carbon Fee & Dividend Video
• Interactive Air Pollution Map 2100