At night, the Lázaro Cárdenas refinery – Mexico‘s oldest, built in 1906 – lights up the city of Minatitlán, in the southern oil-producing state of Veracruz. Gas flaring turns night into day, inhabitants say, while a mix of industrial smells in the air reminds visitors they have arrived in Mexico’s oil and gas heartland.
“It is like Mordor,” said one resident, referring to the volcanic realm in the fantasy novel “The Lord of the Rings” with a tone between humour and resignation. “There are no more dark nights in Minatitlán,” said another local interviewed by Climate Home.
The refinery is a key pillar of Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos Mexicano (Pemex), and a testament to the firm’s problems with climate-heating methane gas. Pemex has struggled for years to control its rocketing methane emissions despite promises to the contrary and has failed to find an efficient way to use the gas – instead venting or flaring it, which releases methane into the atmosphere.
While its oil production went down in the decade from 2013 to 2023, Pemex now has one of the highest methane footprints per barrel of oil in the world, about eight times that of ExxonMobil and 83 times Saudi Aramco’s, according to local think-tank Mexico Evalúa.
Methane is a greenhouse gas that is around 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after it is emitted. Experts say cutting methane emissions is “low-hanging fruit” in tackling climate change.
To that end, a coalition of 160 countries – among them Mexico – have signed a global methane pledge, aiming to reduce emissions by 30% globally by 2030 with respect to 2020 levels. The initiative was first launched in 2021 at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.
Pemex has also joined voluntary initiatives like the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP) in 2014, under which ten oil and gas giants – including BP, Shell and TotalEnergies – promised to track and evaluate ways to reduce their emissions. Pemex left the partnership when it was ratcheted up in scope and relaunched in 2020. Meanwhile, the company’s emissions have continued to go up.
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Pemex’s rising methane emissions, even as its oil and gas production fell, could put Mexico’s ambitious climate goals at risk, analysts warned. The government recently announced at COP29 it will set a net zero greenhouse gas emissions target for 2050, making it the last G20 country to adopt a net zero pledge.
“This new ambition from the Mexican state to reach net zero by 2050 needs to consider the country’s energy policy and Pemex in particular,” said Fernanda Ballesteros, Mexico country manager at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI).
Like many of the world’s largest economies, Mexico is still due to submit a new nationally determined contribution (NDC) – a climate plan with a 2035 target to cut emissions of all greenhouse gases including methane. Countries are expected to file their new NDCs before September.
Mexican environment secretary Alicia Bárcena has called this round of climate plans “our last hope” to keep global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial times.
But the country’s new NDC will need to address Pemex’s emissions and show a clear plan for change, Ballesteros said. “[Pemex] is a very relevant actor for Mexico to achieve this [net zero] goal,” she added.
Fugitive methane
Minatitlán is a small city of just over 144,000 inhabitants, including a large floating population from neighbouring states like Oaxaca and Tabasco. Mexico’s southern region made headlines in 2021 when a pipeline rupture caused a gas leak that set fire to the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico.
Around the time of that incident, Pemex promised to reduce flaring (where gas is burned off), as well as venting (where it is released directly) and other types of fugitive emissions such as leaks, as outlined in its 2021-2025 business plan.
A Climate Home analysis of the company’s last four sustainability reports shows that Pemex did manage to reduce flaring, but gas venting and leaks kept growing. And over the past decade, methane emissions still followed an upward trend.
Many methane leaks from Pemex-run facilities – some major – have occurred in recent years, with one in the Deer Park refinery, located in Texas, leaving two dead in 2024.
Climate Home has identified another large leak of methane emissions from a Pemex plant in Minatitlán.
On April 28, 2024, methane monitoring platform Carbon Mapper detected one of the largest methane plumes in the Americas coming from a Pemex plant located right in the heart of the city. Climate Home confirmed that a second satellite data provider, Kayrros, also recorded this plume.
The plume released more than 16 tonnes of methane per hour into the atmosphere, a rate higher than any other single plume detected in oil-producing countries on the continent such as the US or Venezuela over that same year.
Both Kayrros and Carbon Mapper recorded the plume only once, meaning it is not possible to know how long it was active and thus the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.
The plume was detected over Pemex’s Cosoleacaque petrochemical complex, located 5km from the centre of Minatitlán, near a university and a hospital. The complex contains four ammonia plants, of which only one is currently operational, according to six Pemex workers interviewed.
Cosoleacaque produces ammonia from gas, which is then sold to make fertilisers. This is a business Pemex has recently resuscitated with support from President Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist, in a bid to boost the domestic agriculture sector.
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Pemex plans to invest almost $400 million in reactivating petrochemical plants that were dormant for more than two decades. Cosoleacaque is one of the plants that was restarted in 2023 after operating at minimum levels for years. Workers said there are plans for all four ammonia plants in the complex to come back online, with a second one due to restart around March.
When asked about the leak there, workers suggested it could have gone undetected, because it was active on a Sunday. “If the leak happened on the weekend, there is no way we could have known, because we just work from Monday to Friday,” said one Pemex worker who requested anonymity.
Climate Home contacted Pemex for comment on its growing methane emissions and the plume detected over the Cosoleacaque complex, but did not receive a response.
Soaring emissions
Pemex received a boost from the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018, as he vowed to “rescue the national oil industry again”. Up to then, the company had struggled through years of high debt and plummeting production. Nonetheless, Mexico’s former president described oil as “the best business in the world”.
As the company started to drill more oil under the new mandate to increase production, it found itself with a lot of excess gas it could not take advantage of, mostly due to a lack of suitable infrastructure, analysts said. It resorted to flaring and venting the gas instead.
“Deliberate gas flaring and venting was a problem in the past, but it really worsened during the previous government’s six-year term,” said Adrián Duhalt, a Minatitlán-born energy researcher at US-based think-tank the Texas-Mexico Center.
As deliberate methane releases soared and accidental leaks continued, Pemex’s methane emissions rocketed, almost doubling between 2018 – when López Obrador was elected – and 2022, according to Pemex statistics.
The country’s current president, Sheinbaum, has doubled down on the previous administration’s spending on new oil and gas projects, with the goal of making Mexico self-sufficient in gasoline consumption.
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Health impacts unknown
While flaring is the most obvious source of emissions, leaks are frequent in Minatitlán, according to residents – but most are only perceptible when ammonia is emitted, because of its distinct smell. The oil and gas industry’s toll on the public health in the area remains largely unknown, analysts said.
Neighbours of the plant interviewed by Climate Home – most of whom have worked in the oil and gas industry themselves – raised concerns over ammonia leaks from the Cosoleacaque complex, which they said caused headaches, dizziness and allergies.
The city was ranked among the top 30 industrial cities in Mexico with worsening health indicators due to air pollution and other types of contamination, according to a 2023 multidisciplinary study sponsored by the Mexican government. Researchers reported rising cases of cancer, kidney failures, birth defects and spontaneous abortions.
In La Oaxaqueña, a neighbourhood immediately adjacent to the ammonia plants, people have learned to live with the chemical smell in the air, which they describe as “that of a public restroom” or “hair dye”.
“Coughing and sneezing is nothing – sometimes you want to run away. I once had to carry my daughter in the middle of the night to the hospital because she was vomiting,” said one woman, describing the effects of an ammonia leak incident. She wished to remain anonymous.
While experts say there is a research gap on the health impacts of oil and gas infrastructure in southern Mexico, a group of NGOs reported similar symptoms last year in the neighbouring state of Tabasco, where they found headaches, nausea and nosebleeds to be common among people living near Pemex plants.
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On the other side of Minatitlán, flaring at the Lázaro Cárdenas refinery adds to the air pollution, locals said. As the city relies on northern winds to blow away air pollutants from the refinery, the situation worsens when those winds shift or stop.
“Whenever the North [wind] is not blowing, you can really see the cloud of gases on the horizon, and sometimes also perceive the smell,” explained Ramón García, a lawyer who has worked on cases of health complications blamed on the local oil industry.
García said such legal cases are common in the region, especially those related to environmental damage and health impacts – but they almost never reach local administrative courts, as Pemex often settles early in the process, he added.
The details of the cases are also kept secret, García said. In one, involving an oil spill in the region of Papantla, north of Veracruz, the National Agency for Safety, Energy and Environment (ASEA) ordered Pemex to implement an 11-point plan to clean up the spill. When García asked for details of the case in January, he was told they were confidential.
Researcher Duhalt said such issues haven’t “affected the loyalty from the community to the company”.
From an academic standpoint, the Minatitlán-Coatzacoalcos corridor might be considered a sacrifice zone, “but from the standpoint of the head of family, it is just your source of employment,” he added.
Aging infrastructure
Pemex has struggled to control its methane emissions partly due to aging infrastructure and a lack of political will, analysts told Climate Home.
“There are already corporate procedures and technological changes for Pemex to [be able to] emit much less methane. It has been in their plans for years,” said Viviana Patiño Alcala, an energy researcher at think-tank México Evalúa. “But this has not translated into meaningful (emissions) reductions,” she added.
Ballesteros from NRGI noted that the company has focused most of its investments on new projects rather than maintaining existing ones.
In Minatitlán, one worker interviewed near the Cosoleacaque complex said, “it’s all messed up inside, but we are working to fix it”, while a neighbour said it was common to see fires and hear ambulances heading to the plant.
Ballesteros noted that the poor state of Pemex’s infrastructure is reflected in the number of leakage and spill events, which have increased since 2018, rising from 912 recorded events in 2018 to 1,211 incidents in 2023, according to the company’s annual statistics.
It may also be contributing to the high number of worker accidents. In 2023, Pemex reported 129 injuries and 11 fatalities. Its index for accident frequency in that same year was 57% above the industry standard set by the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP).
A 2024 report by Reuters showed that the company put off urgent repairs to two of its offshore platforms, causing key components to fail and forcing it to flare large amounts of gas as a result.
“It’s very difficult for this trend [of rising methane emissions] to change soon,” said Patiño Alcala. “If this current administration has been clear in something it is that the environment is important, but it’s more important to provide Pemex with a market.”
Meanwhile, in Minatitlán, residents seem resigned to living with the clouds of gas and the light of the refinery’s flares painting the sky orange.
“With the leaks, even if we don’t see clearly, we know what is in the breeze,” said Irving, a 27-year-old oil worker who lives near the Cosoleacaque plant. “We know how this is, but that’s life for us.”
The post Oil giant Pemex fails to control methane emissions, threatening Mexico’s net zero goal appeared first on Climate Home News.
Oil giant Pemex fails to control methane emissions, threatening Mexico’s net zero goal
Antarctic sea ice has recorded its third-smallest winter peak extent since satellite records began 48 years ago, new data reveals.
Provisional data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that Antarctic sea ice hit its annual winter peak on 14 September, with an extent of 17.59m square kilometres (km2).
The organisation notes that the data is still preliminary, adding that “large fluctuations in extent are typical of Antarctic sea ice near the seasonal maximum”.
One expert tells Carbon Brief that it is “concerning to see these low values persisting”, but says that scientists need more time to determine whether this represents a “structural shift” in Antarctic sea ice extent.
Meanwhile, at the Earth’s other pole, Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum on 12 September, ranking as the joint-10th lowest in the satellite record.
The NSIDC notes that the last 20 years have seen the lowest 20 Arctic sea ice extents in the satellite record.
Antarctic peak
Dr Lettie Roach, a polar climate scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, tells Carbon Brief that this year’s Antarctic sea ice maximum was “well below average for the season”. She warns that, “after several decades of stable or increasing winter Antarctic sea ice conditions, it is concerning to see these low values persisting”.
She adds:
“Compared with the Arctic, it’s less clear how recent changes in Antarctic sea ice are attributable to human-caused warming vs natural variability. We need more years of observations to better understand whether this is truly a structural shift.”
Dr Clare Eayrs, a postdoctoral researcher at the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), tells Carbon Brief that, since recording a “near-average February minimum” extent, Antarctic sea ice has “returned to unusually low winter coverage”.
She notes that Antarctic sea ice extent in July and August this year were the fifth and fourth lowest on record, respectively, adding that “all five of the lowest July extents have occurred since 2022 and all four of the lowest August extents since 2023”.
The chart below shows Antarctic sea ice extent in 2025 (dark blue) and 2026 (red) so far. For comparison, the chart shows decadal averages (dotted lines) as well as 2023 (mid blue), the year of the smallest winter sea-ice maximum on record.
Eayrs tells Carbon Brief that the regional pattern of Antarctic sea ice cover “changed substantially during the growth season”.
For example, she says that “in April, the Bellingshausen Sea remained almost entirely ice-free, while the neighbouring Amundsen Sea had more ice than usual”.
However, by late August, changes in atmospheric pressure and wind meant that “the Bellingshausen deficit had largely recovered, while ice was unusually scarce in the Amundsen Sea and across much of East Antarctica”.
Arctic minimum
Meanwhile, the Arctic recorded its minimum summer sea ice extent on 12 September. At 4.60m km2, this year ties with 2025, 2010 and 2008 as the 10th-lowest sea ice extent on record.
The chart below shows Arctic sea ice extent in 2025 (dark blue) and 2026 (red) so far. For comparison, the chart shows decadal averages (dotted lines) as well as 2012 (mid blue), the year of the smallest summer sea-ice minimum on record.
Roach tells Carbon Brief that although this minimum is not “record setting”, it is still “lower than any sea ice minimum before 2007”. She adds:
“Human-caused climate change has reduced Arctic sea ice cover and thickness, so the region is fundamentally different compared to a few decades ago.”
Scientists have been tracking Arctic sea ice thickness using a reanalysis produced called the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) since 1979.
In March 2026, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) terminated a global dataset of air pressure that scientists relied upon to produce PIOMAS, forcing both datasets to stop publishing updates.
The PIOMAS website says it will take “considerable effort and time” to find alternative data to use in their reanalysis. It adds that “we don’t yet have a good sense if that’s possible with available funds and if so, when we will be able to resume production of a new PIOMAS timeseries”.
Roach also notes that August saw record-breaking heat sweep across much of the world, explaining that high temperatures “extended into Arctic coastal regions, close to regions with substantial sea ice loss – particularly the Barents-Kara and East Siberian seas”.
Dr Zack Labe, a scientist at Climate Central, tells Carbon Brief that the absence of a new record does not mean that ice cover is becoming more “resilient”. He says:
“Local weather patterns across the Arctic play a really important role in year-to-year sea-ice extent, even as the long-term trend is clearly downward.”
Labe tells Carbon Brief that weather in the Arctic this summer was “influenced mainly by lower pressure toward the central Arctic, which brought cloudier and cooler conditions that limited surface melt and delayed the start of the melt season”.
He explains that this “was most obvious across parts of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, where the melt season didn’t really kick off until after early July, which was more than two weeks later than normal”.
In contrast, he says, the Atlantic side of the Arctic “had a much more extreme summer”, with sea ice in the Barents Sea recording its “earliest melt-out on record”.
This was partly due to “unusually warm air and ocean temperatures”, Labe says. He notes, for example, that parts of western Siberia saw unusually persistent temperatures more than 5C above the 1981-2010 average for much of the summer, which extended out over the Kara Sea and contributed to substantial ice melt in this area”.
Labe tells Carbon Brief that, going forward, scientists need “more data and observations of other sea-ice metrics, like ice thickness, which may give us better insight into the overall condition of the ice pack, especially during years like 2026 when it is very fragmented”.
(In March 2026, Arctic sea ice reached its peak extent for this winter, clocking in as the joint-smallest in a satellite record going back almost half a century.)
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The post ‘Concerning’ low sea ice persists as Antarctic hits third-lowest winter peak appeared first on Carbon Brief.
‘Concerning’ low sea ice persists as Antarctic hits third-lowest winter peak
Participants at COP31 in Antalya will have a “duty” not to interfere in Türkiye’s internal affairs under the country’s hosting deal with the UN, reviving a clause dropped for last year’s climate summit in Brazil that human rights groups warn could put activists at risk.
Türkiye has faced growing criticism from human rights groups over the jailing of opposition figures, journalists and activists and imposed a blanket protest ban around July’s summit of the NATO military alliance in Ankara.
The contested provision is included in the binding agreement between the UN climate secretariat and the Turkish government that sets out responsibilities over logistical arrangements and details participants’ rights and obligations.
The document, signed in June but only made public on Wednesday, gives accredited COP31 attendees immunity from legal action over what they say, write or do in connection with the conference. Climate Home News understands that this safeguard can be applied to what takes place both inside and, in certain circumstances, outside of the UN-controlled COP “Blue Zone”. For the first time, this protection explicitly continues after the summit ends.
But participants enjoying these “privileges and immunities” also have a duty to respect Türkiye’s laws and regulations and not to interfere in its internal affairs, the agreement states. Rights groups fear its wide-ranging formulation could be used to discourage criticism of the host government.
Climate Home News understands that whether an action is covered by the immunity or infringes on the host’s internal affairs would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, with close coordination between the country’s authorities and the UN climate change body.
A separate provision states that immunity shall be waived where the UN believes it would “impede the course of justice”.
‘Chilling effect’
Those same provisions featured in the host country agreements for COP28 in the United Arab Emirates and COP29 in Azerbaijan, both regarded as authoritarian regimes, before being dropped for COP30 in Brazil.
Ann Harrison, climate justice policy advisor at Amnesty International, said it is “extremely disappointing” that the COP31 agreement re-introduced clauses that could “hinder the ability of human rights defenders and civil society organisations to conduct their work safely”.
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She added the provisions could have a “wider chilling effect” on rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, given concerns over the human rights situation in Türkiye, including laws that “have shrunk civic space” and their “abusive” implementation by authorities.
The UN climate change body declined to comment.
Rights groups have documented blanket protest bans, unlawful use of force by the police and prosecutions of journalists, human rights defenders and lawyers across Türkiye in the last year.
Arrests and protest bans
Last July, environmental activist Esra Işık was sentenced to more than two years for “resisting” a public official over what Amnesty International described as a peaceful protest against an urgent expropriation order linked to the expansion of coal mining in south-western Türkiye. She is appealing the conviction.
Ahead of a summit of the NATO alliance in the capital Ankara in July, authorities put in place a 13-day blanket ban on demonstrations, citing “national security”, and arrested over 200 people. Human Rights Watch said the crackdown showed Türkiye’s “ruthless intolerance of freedom of speech and assembly”.
Earlier this month, Turkish police detained dozens of people as part of what rights groups described as the government’s widening crackdown on LGBTQ+ activists and venues.
Questioned by media as to how he would guarantee the right to protest at COP31, Kurum said earlier in September that his team would “try to meet” any request they receive from civil society and give them “a free space to express themselves”.
“Don’t worry, thinking you will not be able to voice your opinions or really share your thoughts,” he said in an attempt to reassure campaigners, adding that he had put former deputy environment minister Mehmet Birpinar in charge of liaising with civil society.
Civic space needed
Camilla Pollera, human rights and climate change campaigner at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said meaningful participation at COP31 is fundamental to the legitimacy of climate action.
“At a climate summit, civil society participation necessarily includes being present, speaking out, scrutinising governments’ decisions and climate policies, and advocating for communities most vulnerable to climate change,” she added.
At last year’s COP30 summit, thousands of Indigenous people and climate activists peacefully marched through the Amazonian city of Belém in the first major demonstration outside the UN venue in four years. Smaller-scale demonstrations were largely confined to the “Blue Zone” at COP27 in Egypt, COP28 in the UAE and COP29 in Azerbaijan.
In two other separate incidents in Belém, members of the Munduruku tribe blocked access to the conference centre for hours, demanding an end to development projects in their ancestral land, and protesters stormed through the venue clashing with UN security officials.
The COP31 hosting agreement keeps some of the safeguards previously hailed by civil society groups. The government and the UN secretariat commit to upholding “the fundamental human rights” of all participants in the agreement’s preamble.
Under the deal, Türkiye also needs to ensure that security personnel follow “the highest ethical and professional standards and are expected to behave with integrity and respect”.
The post COP31 attendees told not to interfere in Türkiye’s “internal affairs” appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP31 attendees told not to interfere in Türkiye’s “internal affairs”
As rising seas submerge growing swathes of land, countries that lose territory should still keep their national boundaries, sovereign rights and UN membership, according to a political declaration adopted at the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday.
The declaration, which was championed by climate-vulnerable small island states, affirms “the presumption in favour of continued statehood” in the face of sea level rise fuelled by climate change, and urges countries to work together to assist communities affected by encroaching oceans.
Speaking at a high-level UN meeting to address the existential threats posed by sea level rise, Cabo Verde’s Prime Minister Francisco Carvalho, one of the initiative’s co-facilitators along with Australia, said the adoption of the text by consensus sends “a message of hope”.
“This declaration has a very special meaning. For us, sea level rise is neither a distant threat nor a theoretical concern,” he said, adding that rising seas put at risk key infrastructure, water resources and economic growth in small island states.
In the Pacific, sea levels have risen at twice the global rate, dramatically increasing coastal flooding events from two to 20 a year in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and from zero to 102 events per year in American Samoa, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Surangel Whipps Jr., president of the Pacific island of Palau, said the summit in New York represents a “moment of international solidarity”, and highlighted that small island states will remain permanent members of the UN.
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Declaration recognises statehood
An advisory opinion by the world’s top maritime court, the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), first upheld in 2024 that countries do not have to shrink their maritime borders even if they lose land territory due to sea level rise. This was reiterated by the International Court of Justice in last year’s landmark ruling on the climate obligations of states.
The new declaration endorsed by all governments at the UN General Assembly stresses that sea level rise “is not a distant scenario but a real and lived experience for many”, and notes that international law must be implemented in global responses to rising seas.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the “milestone must now be translated into action”, adding that the declaration should encourage an “ongoing dialogue” at the “highest possible level” leading to practical outcomes. Pacific islands have proposed an international treaty on sea level rise that would provide more legal certainty.
“Those on the frontlines must be front and centre on every decision. We cannot allow countries and cultures to vanish beneath the waves,” he said. “The SOS has gone out. The world must answer.”
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Goodwin Friday, prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said measures to protect vulnerable states will require adequate finance. “Investing in resilience now is more cost-effective than paying the far greater price for loss and damage later,” he added.
Championed by Australia’s COP31 co-presidency, Pacific islands have sought to put adaptation to sea level rise and ocean conservation at the top of the political agenda by inviting world leaders to attend the pre-COP31 summit co-hosted by Fiji and Tuvalu in October.
Tuvalu will also host the second global fossil fuel phase-out summit in April 2027, after around 60 governments met this year in Santa Marta, Colombia, to discuss ending their dependence on coal, oil and gas.
“Our coastlines, our reefs and our communities are living with the consequences of fossil fuel dependence every day, and our people have earned the right to help shape the way forward,” Lynda Tabuya, Fiji’s climate minister, said in a statement announcing details of the conference.
Ocean monitoring gets a boost in New York
Amid record-breaking marine heat and seas rising at unprecedented speed, governments in New York announced new commitments to protect the world’s ocean, as efforts to bolster marine ecosystems and coastal communities rise up the political agenda.
On Wednesday, the EU and Canada announced more funding for a new Europe-led ocean monitoring system called OceanEye, launched in the aftermath of a failed attempt by the Trump administration to dismantle the largest existing network of deep-sea observatories.
During an event at UN headquarters in New York, EU President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced around $163 million in new funding for the initiative, with the EU pledging €92 million ($105m) on top of existing seed funding and Canada pledging C$82 million (US$58m) over five years.
According to an EU statement, while OceanEye will collaborate with the Global Ocean Observing System, that network “remains vulnerable to financial shortfalls and geopolitical disruptions”. A group of 30 countries from Europe, Africa and the Americas joined an international initiative in support of OceanEye, including large coastal nations like Brazil, Namibia and Mexico.
Von der Leyen said OceanEye “can make us the leading ocean data provider in a matter of years”, including by launching new satellites and installing new observatories in the deep ocean. “From outer space to the deepest ocean, our funding helps us keep watch beneath the waves,” she added.
Carney said the initiative would help protect Canada’s Arctic region with real-time monitoring operating year-round. “We can’t protect what we can’t see,” he said, also highlighting that Canada had expanded conservation of its ocean territory from 1% a decade ago to 15% now.
In New York, a group of 19 countries said they are either developing or implementing plans to sustainably manage all of their ocean territory, with 12 new nations joining the initiative. In a joint communiqué, they called on more countries to sign up ahead of COP31.
Warnings of El Niño-fuelled extreme heat
Scientists and world leaders have raised the alarm over this year’s record-breaking marine temperatures, which have persisted above historical peaks for more than 100 days as the naturally occurring El Niño phenomenon intensifies in the Pacific.
Extreme ocean heat could become a threat to coastal ecosystems and communities, experts fear. Water temperatures 1.5C above normal levels have also rapidly fuelled a strong hurricane in the Pacific in recent days.
Despite scientific calls for additional ocean conservation efforts, a report launched this week in New York warned that efforts to protect ocean ecosystems are lagging behind, with only 10% of the global ocean covered by conservation areas and just 3.5% designated as “effectively protected”.
The post Threatened by rising seas, small islands secure right to keep their statehood appeared first on Climate Home News.
Threatened by rising seas, small islands secure right to keep their statehood
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