More than 40 “flesh-eating” infections have been identified in Florida this year amid record-high water temperatures in the North Atlantic. The bacterium Vibrio vulnificus, which thrives in warm seawater, has killed ten people in the state this year out of 43 infections, giving an estimated case fatality of 23 per cent. Experts have noted a concerning rise...
EU environment ministers scrapped a commitment to lift its greenhouse gas emissions reduction target after several countries held back during many hours of negotiations over the proposals thebloc will present to the upcoming UN climate summit. Poland, Hungary and Italy objected to a pledge to increase the bloc’s emissions reduction target from 55 per cent...
UPDATE “In addition to Mr. Zucker, the key players in the new venture, known as RedBird IMI, are Gerry Cardinale, the chief executive and founder of RedBird, and Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, an Emirati government minister who has spearheaded many of IMI’s investment conversations in the United States. Mr. Cardinale is the chief investment officer...
The emptying of supermarket shelves during the COVID pandemic demonstrated the chaos that disruption to the UK’s food supply can provoke. Could this type of disruption have a different cause in the future? And what might the impact on society be? These are the questions we sought to answer in our new study, which involved surveying 58 leading...
Women seeking jobs as domestic workers in the UAE allege they are being detained and abused in squalid accommodation, while recruiters sell them over apps and social media platforms to household employers, according to interviews and documents seen by the Guardian. In a series of interviews conducted over several years, 14 women from east Africa...
As Nia scrambled to the top of a Dubai compound wall, she paused for a moment. Behind her were a group of fellow Kenyan women, also being held captive, who had helped her climb up. On the other side of the wall there was an expanse of busy streets in an unfamiliar land. “Jump!” the women urged,...
‘We’re not paying enough attention’ say scientists studying pollinator loss in the tropics. Climate change and habitat loss are combining to dramatically shrink the numbers of insects pollinating key tropical crops. As those problems intertwine and intensify, it likely will hit coffee lovers right in the mug, according to a new study. And that one-two punch will...
Fossil fuel exploration should cease globally by 2030 and funding to rescue poor countries from the impacts of the climate crisis should reach $200bn (£165bn) to $400bn a year by the same date, according to proposals in a UN report before the next climate summit. Countries were still “way off track” to meet the goals...
The EU’s new climate commissioner has been criticised for backsliding on a commitment to push for a fossil fuel phase-out at the upcoming COP28 climate summit in Dubai, ahead of talks on Monday (16 October) where EU countries are expected to agree their stance. Dutchman Wopke Hoekstra was officially nominated on Monday (9 October), on...
If global warming reaches 2°C, similar heatwaves are predicted to happen every five or six years, a new study warns. Human-induced climate change made the recent winter heatwave in South America 100 times more likely, according to a study published on Tuesday. Global warming was the main driver of the extreme weather that scorched much of...