The Guardian Climate Change

Nuclear is costly, risky and slow, Ramana says. Why then, he asks in his new book, do governments still champion it?

You would be forgiven for thinking that the debate on nuclear power is pretty much settled. Sure, there are still some naysayers, but most reasonable people have come to realise that in an age of climate crisis, we need low-carbon nuclear energy – alongside wind and solar power – to help us transition away from fossil fuels. In 2016, 400 reactors were operating across 31 countries, with one estimate suggesting roughly the same number in operation in mid-2023, accounting for 9.2% of global commercial gross electricity generation. But what if this optimism were in fact wrong, and nuclear power can never live up to its promise? That is the argument the physicist MV Ramana makes in his new book. He says nuclear is costly, dangerous and takes too long to scale up. Nuclear, the work’s title reads, is not the solution.

This wasn’t the book Ramana, a professor at the University of British Columbia, planned to write. The problems with nuclear are so “obvious”, he wagered, they do not need to be spelled out. But with the guidance of his editor, he realised his mistake. Even in the contemporary environmental movement, which emerged alongside the anti-war and anti-nuclear movements, there are converts. Prominent environmentalists, understandably desperate about the climate crisis, believe it is rational and reasonable to support nuclear power as part of our energy mix.

Nuclear is Not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change by MV Ramana is out now

Three states and the Northern Territory face an increased risk of bushfire this spring, according to fire authorities and the BoM

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Large parts of Queensland and the Northern Territory, the south-west of Victoria and south-east corner of South Australia face an increased risk of bushfires this spring.

An official assessment from fire authorities and the Bureau of Meteorology, co-ordinated by the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities (AFAC) and released on Wednesday morning, points to a likely early start to the fire season in Victoria.

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Hannah Kim, eight, and Jeah Han, 12, are part of a group of activists that won a four-year fight to tackle climate inaction. For them, it is just the beginning

Hannah Kim, eight, was just starting primary school when she joined the “baby climate litigation” to force South Korea’s government to protect the rights of future generations against the dangers of the climate crisis.

Now, with high school still some way off, she is toasting success after winning her part in a four-year legal battle that has set a significant precedent for climate-related legal action in Asia.

Take renewable energy out of the equation and there isn’t much else expected to reduce fossil fuel use this side of 2030

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Australia has a problem with greenhouse gas emissions – a bigger problem than the political debate concedes.

Late last week, as Australians endured record August warmth and global heating-fuelled extreme rain, the federal government released data that suggest heat-trapping gases across most of the economy are currently headed in the wrong direction or yet to budge much from historic highs.

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Heatwaves and lack of rainfall have led to receding water levels in the Mornos reservoir, which submerged Kallio in the 1970s

No place is more indicative of plummeting rainfall levels in Greece than the Mornos reservoir. And no settlement is more indicative of how serious this year’s drought has been than Kallio, a village submerged by the artificial lake in the late 1970s.

Nearly five decades after Kallio was deliberately flooded as part of the construction of a dam to ensure water supply for Athens, people living nearby have watched in disbelief as reserves have receded to the point that the village has reappeared.

As prices soar, farmers are facing the worst harvests in decades, while traditional production methods passed down for generations are being lost

Edilberto Morales has been farming cocoa, the key ingredient in chocolate, in the Lacadon jungle in southern Mexico for decades. Typically, he harvests about 1,000kg of cocoa pods a year, but only produced half that last year, due to drought. It was one of the worst harvests of his lifetime.

“Climate change has affected us a lot,” says Morales, from the town of Maravilla Tenejapa in Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala. “The lack of rain directly affects the solidification of the flower. Without rain, cocoa pods do not develop in seasons of intense heat. On this plot, we used to harvest 1,000kg a year on average; the most drastic change was the last harvest in 2024 when we harvested 500kg.”

Greenpeace urges Labour to ‘fulfil international obligations’ as critics question accuracy of official data

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The UK’s worst methane hotspots include the last coalmine, livestock farm clusters, landfills, power plants and North Sea oil and gas wells, according to an analysis.

The process has also thrown up serious doubts over the UK’s ability to calculate its methane emissions.

Climate scientists have already predicted that 2024 will be the hottest year ever

Japan has recorded its hottest summer on record after a sweltering three months marked by thousands of instances of “extreme heat”, with meteorologists warning that unseasonably high temperatures will continue through the autumn.

The average temperature in June, July and August was 1.76C higher than the average recorded between 1991 and 2020, the Japan meteorological agency said, according to Kyodo news agency.

Seabirds are in a precarious position as their breeding areas are threatened by climate breakdown and overfishing

Five seabirds have been added to the UK’s conservation red list, meaning they are at dire risk of local extinction.

The government has been urged to act as the arctic tern, Leach’s storm petrel, common gull, great skua and great black-backed gull join other seabird species such as the puffin on the list after severe population declines.

Fourteen hiker deaths reported in the park this season, with total fatalities at almost the annual average of 15

More than one dozen park-goers have died in Grand Canyon national park this summer, with three perishing in just over one week in August, as weather extremes linked to climate change make for increasingly dangerous conditions.

With 14 deaths reported in the park this season, total fatalities have already almost reached the annual average of 15, the Hill reported.

The 2024 winter was the second hottest on record since weather data collection began in 1910

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Australia recorded its hottest August on record, with the national temperature 3C above average, as September kicked off with total fire bans in parts of New South Wales on Monday.

Bureau of Meteorology data showed average temperatures across the nation in August were 3.03C above the long-term average, easily beating the previous 2.56C record set in 2009.

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August was a month of extremes, from unseasonal heat to damaging winds. We have no choice but to adapt to the instability – and fire risk – brought by climate change

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Heavy winds struck south-east Australia over the weekend as a series of cold fronts moved across the continent. It followed a high fire danger in Sydney and other parts of New South Wales last week, and a fire in south-west Sydney that threatened homes.

The severe weather rounds out a weird winter across Australia. The nation’s hottest ever winter temperature was recorded when Yampi Sound in Western Australia reached 41.6C on Tuesday. Elsewhere across Australia, winter temperatures have been way above average.

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Campaigners say there’s impatience about Australia’s reluctance to stop ‘opening, subsidising and exporting fossil fuels’

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Anthony Albanese had just finished briefing Pacific island leaders on Australia’s bid to host a UN climate summit when one of his counterparts made a pointed intervention.

The president of the Marshall Islands, Hilda Heine, began her speech diplomatically, saying she was “grateful” for the update and hoped the initiative was a “true” partnership with the Pacific.

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Hurricane Dorian ravaged the Bahamas in 2019. Its poorest survivors are being pushed from one shantytown to the next

Shaquille Joseph knew things were profoundly wrong, irreversibly so, when he heard the bubbling.

The noise had no logical origin. It wasn’t the sound of a tidal wave, roaring towards his house, but a steady fizzing, like a pot of water boiling over in the next room. Moments before, Joseph had been ready to fall asleep in his bedroom. But now he got up and went to the window.

Unseasonably strong winds and record-breaking warm weather has been forecast to continue through the weekend

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Winter has ended in Australia with weather records broken across the country – with expectations of August temperature records being broken on the final day of the month.

Amid wild winds in the country’s south, a warm run of weather was expected to continue through the weekend in central and southern Queensland, along with north-eastern New South Wales. Brisbane is expected to see multiple days of over 30C.

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Heat building up in country’s centre and driving south-east is causing ‘really unusual’ heatwave that is breaking winter records

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Australia’s winter runs from June to August, but swathes of the country have felt like summer the past week with temperatures topping 40C and records tumbling.

“It doesn’t matter how you slice and dice it,” said Dr Linden Ashcroft, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne. “The temperature records have been gobsmacking.”

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The evacuation of Pokrovsk, the Israeli raid in the West Bank, the Paralympic Games in Paris and the Notting Hill carnival: the last seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

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It’s really not cool

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More electricity demand and lower than usual generation from two renewable sources raises questions about climate targets

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Greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s ageing coal-fired power plants rose slightly in the first half of the year, reversing years of declining pollution from the power section and raising questions about the country’s ability to meet its climate targets.

An increase in electricity consumption across the country and lower than usual wind and hydro output led to an increase in coal generation. It pushed up emissions from the electricity grid between January and June.

Many of the roughly 100,000 units are illegal and do not conform to codes, making them a hazard for fires and floods

Josh Alba had lived in an illegal basement apartment in Queens, New York, for almost five years. Despite the low ceilings, he savored his chance to afford housing without roommates. But his tenure there ended during Hurricane Ida.

He’d been asleep on his couch as the rain started falling. He only woke up when his cat smacked him in the face, and he noticed water coming in from outside, rising to at least an inch on the floor.