Connect with us

Published

on

English farmers received tens of millions of pounds more in flood-relief funding in 2024 than in any year over the past decade, following intense rainfall last winter.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) recently paid £57.5m from the farming recovery fund to farmers who were hit by extreme rain and floods between October 2023 and March 2024.

This is 75 times more than the amount paid out the last time the fund opened to applicants, which was £768k in 2020, according to figures released to Carbon Brief.

It is also more than six times higher than all of the payments dispersed between 2015 and 2020, which totalled £9.4m.

Between October 2022 and March 2024, England experienced its wettest 18-month period since records began in 1836, according to Met Office data

In 2024, the country had its second-worst harvest in four decades for key crops such as wheat, barley and oats, according to the thinktank the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).

Rachel Hallos, the vice chair of the National Farmers’ Union, welcomes the “long-awaited” payments for last winter’s flooding, but tells Carbon Brief that farmers now face “further devastation in the midst of a new storm season”.

The fund is a “sticking plaster to a much wider problem” facing agriculture, says Alice Groom, the head of sustainable land use policy at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Record-breaking rain

The farming recovery fund provides one-off emergency payments to farmers impacted by flooding in England. It opened for the first time in 2014 and has re-opened four times since: in 2015, 2019, 2020 and 2024.

The money is intended to help cover the cost of actions to restore flooded land that are not already covered by insurance, such as soil remediation and removing debris.

The fund opened in April this year for farmers hit by last year’s winter flooding.

In October 2023, Storm Babet damaged crops and left “entire fields…submerged in water” across the UK, reported the Guardian. In January 2024, Storm Henk flooded thousands of acres of crops and farmland.

Flooding in Alfriston, Sussex after the Cuckmere River burst its banks in January 2024.
Flooding in Alfriston, Sussex after the Cuckmere River burst its banks in January 2024. Credit: Simon Dack News / Alamy Stock Photo

Up to September 2024, £2.2m had been paid out under the fund, according to figures released to Carbon Brief via an Environmental Information Regulations request. This was followed by £57.5m in November, Defra said in a press release.

Carbon Brief received figures showing the total annual payments under the fund since 2015, outlined in the table below. The amount for 2024 is the combined total figures from the request and Defra’s press release.

2015 2019 2020 2024
£8,002,300 £636,271 £767,628 £59,662,885

October 2023 to March 2024 was the wettest winter half-year period in England since records began in 1836, the Environment Agency said.

Climate change made this record rainfall in the UK and Ireland about 10 times more likely to occur, according to a rapid attribution study.

The extent and significance of extreme weather impacts on farms during this time led to the increased budget for the farming recovery fund in 2024, Defra says.

England experienced its wettest 18 months on record from Oct 2022–March 2024
England monthly rainfall anomalies from January 2015 to November 2024. Figures above the baseline indicate higher-than-average rainfall levels (blue) and those below the baseline indicate lower-than-average rainfall (red), compared to average levels from 1991-2020. Credit: Carbon Brief, based on data from the UK Met Office.

The fund ran into controversy earlier this year after thousands of farmers waited months to receive their payments.

Extreme weather over the past couple of years has “time and time again render[ed] farmland completely saturated and unusable”, says Rachel Hallos, the vice president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU). She tells Carbon Brief:

“While it’s welcome news that over £57 million in long-awaited farming recovery fund payments has been paid out to farmers, many of our members are only now receiving this support for events that happened over a year ago.

“Yet here we are, facing further devastation in the midst of a new storm season. We also still have members badly affected by the storms last winter who are unsure why they are not eligible for support.”

Fund breakdown

Between 2015 and 2020, around £9.4m was paid out under the farming recovery fund.

The fund opened for the first time in February 2014 with a £10m budget allocation. This year did not fall into the scope of Carbon Brief’s figures, but Farmers’ Weekly reported at the time that less than £530,000 had been paid out by May 2014.

The fund re-opened in December 2015 to help farmers hit by Storm Desmond, which flooded swathes of the UK and Ireland, bringing heavy rainfall and intense winds.

In England, the north of the country was worst affected. The fund was available for flood-hit farmers in Cumbria, Lancashire and Northumberland who had suffered “uninsurable losses” to apply for grants of £500-£20,000.

Just over £8m was paid out under the fund that year, the figures show. Farmers in east Cumbria received the biggest portion (£2.8m), followed by west Cumbria (£1.9m) and north Yorkshire (£1.4m).

Flooding in Lancashire, England after Storm Desmond in December 2015.
Flooding in Lancashire, England after Storm Desmond in December 2015. Credit: Eliot Wilson / Alamy Stock Photo

The fund re-opened in September 2019 to help farmers affected by summer flooding. Hundreds of homes were evacuated in Lincolnshire after severe flooding in June. Flash floods hit other parts of the country throughout the year, including North Yorkshire in July.

The fund was available for farmers in parts of North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to apply for grants worth £500-£25,000. This was extended to cover flood-hit farmers in more parts of the country in November.

In 2019, just over £636,000 was awarded to farmers. North Yorkshire received the biggest chunk of funding – around £270,000.

The fund opened again in June 2020 for farmers impacted by floods in February that year. At this stage, Defra said £10m had been allocated for farmers hit by floods in 2019-20.

However, according to the figures released to Carbon Brief, just under £768,000 was spent in 2020. This means that from 2019-20, around £1.4m was paid out – significantly below the total budget.

Defra confirms that 250 farmers were paid out through the fund in 2019-20. The department says the disparity between fund allocation and payouts was due to the budget being set before assessing the extent of the impacts from the weather extremes.

No money was given out under the fund from 2016-2018 and 2021-2023, the Environmental Information Regulations response shows.

Flooding near Lewes, England after rainfall in December 2019.
Flooding near Lewes, England after rainfall in December 2019. Credit: Simon Dack News / Alamy Stock Photo

The fund lay dormant until April 2024, when it re-opened for farmers hit by winter flooding, including storms Henk and Babet. The fund was then expanded further in May and the then-Conservative government allocated £50m towards the fund – significantly more than payouts in previous years. (The new Labour government increased this again to £60m.)

The payments under the fund – previously set between £500-£25,000 – also rose to £2,895-£25,000, depending on the size of land and the amount affected by floods.

The figures show that almost £2.2m was paid out to farmers between January and September this year. A Defra statement said that more than 12,700 payments, worth £57.5m, were sent to farmers in November. As a result, the combined 2024 total was at least £59.7m – just below the £60m budget.

Defra did not comment directly on the figures when contacted by Carbon Brief, but pointed to a November press release. In this, the farming minister Daniel Zeichner says the farming recovery fund payouts, along with Labour’s farming budget, “demonstrates this government’s steadfast commitment to farmers”.

Future of farming

Extreme weather last winter “created havoc for farmers, making it much harder to establish and manage crops”, says ECIU land, food and farming analyst Tom Lancaster. He tells Carbon Brief:

“It’s right that [the] government should support farmers to rebuild from these impacts, but this strategy will quickly become unaffordable as the impacts of climate change take hold.”

Heavy rainfall and other weather extremes occur more frequently and more intensely as a result of climate change, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Earlier this year, Carbon Brief analysis found that the average UK winter has become around 1C warmer and 15% wetter in the past century. Four of the top 10 rainiest winters in recorded history have occurred in the 21st century.

Flooding in Wiltshire, England where the River Avon burst its banks after heavy rain during Storm Bert in November 2024.
Flooding in Wiltshire, England where the River Avon burst its banks after heavy rain during Storm Bert in November 2024. Credit: Andrew Lloyd / Alamy Stock Photo

More widely, farmer “confidence” has taken a hit, according to NFU surveys. The Guardian reports that income for almost every type of farm fell in England last year.

More than 10,000 farmers also protested against inheritance tax changes in London in November. Demonstrators gathered again on 11 December, with hundreds of tractors blocking central London streets.

Extreme weather continues to have a “significant effect” on UK food production, especially arable crops, fruits and vegetables, according to Defra’s food security report published this week.

Alice Groom, the head of sustainable land-use policy at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, says the farming recovery fund is a “sticking plaster to a much wider problem”. She tells Carbon Brief:

“As we see the effects of the climate crisis undeniably worsen, farmers need support in equal measure to farm in a climate and nature friendly way to boost their businesses’ resilience.

“We, therefore, need ambitious packages of support for farmers from [the] government that go beyond managing the effects of climate change and instead build climate resilience and nature into the very core of our farming systems for the benefit of us all.”

UK farmers protesting against inheritance tax changes in central London on 11 December 2024.
UK farmers protesting against inheritance tax changes in central London on 11 December 2024. Credit: Richard Milnes / Alamy Stock Photo

Earlier this week, the RSPB was among dozens of NGOs and campaigners who wrote to Defra secretary Steve Reed urging him to “act quickly” on reforming farm subsidies and tackling “supply-chain injustices”.

Hallos, the NFU’s vice president, tells Carbon Brief:

“These increasingly frequent extreme weather events demonstrate that we cannot keep getting stuck in this reactive cycle – we simply must invest in our water management systems.

“The farming recovery fund is one part, but we need [the] government to invest in a long-term plan for how we protect our towns and countryside from what is becoming more regular, and expensive, flooding events.”

Lancaster from the ECIU tells Carbon Brief that a “better approach” to supporting farmers is building “resilience to these extreme events, an area where the government’s new green farming schemes will be vital”.

The post Revealed: English farmers received record-high flood relief after last winter’s extreme rain appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Revealed: English farmers received record-high flood relief after last winter’s extreme rain

Continue Reading

Climate Change

‘Concerning’ low sea ice persists as Antarctic hits third-lowest winter peak

Published

on

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.

Antarctic sea ice peak in 2026 is third smallest on record. Daily Antarctic sea ice extent for 2026, 2025, and 2023, as well as decadal averages, million km2. Source: NSIDC. Line chart showing 2026 peak in September remaining below 1980s-2010s averages but above Sep 2023's lowest record. - (alt text generated by Google Gemini)
Daily Arctic sea ice extent for 2026 and 2025, with decadal averages for comparison, based on data from the NSIDC. Chart by Carbon Brief.

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”.

Map showing the main regions of the Antarctic.
Map showing the main regions of the Antarctic. Credit: Carbon Brief

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.

Arctic sea ice minimum in 2026 is tied for 10th smallest on record. Daily Arctic sea ice extent for 2026, 2025 and 2012, as well as decadal averages, million km2. Source: NSIDC. The line graph shows annual ice extent reaching September lows, with 2026 far below 1980s-2000s averages. - (alt text generated by Google Gemini)
Daily Antarctic sea ice extent for 2026 and 2025, with decadal averages for comparison, based on data from the NSIDC. Chart by Carbon Brief.

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”.

Map showing main regions of the Arctic.
Map showing main regions of the Arctic. Credit: Carbon Brief

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.)

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

Continue Reading

Climate Change

COP31 attendees told not to interfere in Türkiye’s “internal affairs”

Published

on

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.

Turkish riot police arrested protesters during the anti NATO protest on July 7, 2026 in Ankara, Turkey. (Photo by Sedat Suna/Getty Images)

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”.

COP31 electrification pledge leaves out clean power commitment

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.

Thousands march in a COP30 protest calling for climate justice and protection of the Amazon among other things in Belem, Brazil on November 15, 2025.
Thousands march in a COP30 protest calling for climate justice and protection of the Amazon among other things in Belem, Brazil on November 15, 2025. (Photo: Mariel Lozada/Climate Home News)

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”

Continue Reading

Climate Change

Threatened by rising seas, small islands secure right to keep their statehood

Published

on

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.

    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.”

    At regional summit, Pacific islands ask for COP31 support for clean energy and finance

    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.

    Secretary-General António Guterres attending the meeting on addressing the existential threats posed by sea level rise at UN headquarters in New York.
    Secretary-General António Guterres attending the meeting on addressing the existential threats posed by sea level rise. (Photo: UN Photo/Manuel Elías)

    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

    Continue Reading

    Trending

    Copyright © 2022 BreakingClimateChange.com