While the US president seems hellbent on securing Greenland, local experts advise that achieving control of its potentially lucrative shipping route will be no mean feat
If shipping boss Niels Clemensen were to offer any advice to Donald Trump or anyone else trying to get a foothold in Greenland, it would be this: “Come up here and see what you are actually dealing with.”
Sitting on the top floor of his beamed office in Nuuk harbour, where snow is being flung around by strong winds in the mid-morning darkness outside and shards of ice pass by in the fast-flowing water, the chief executive of Greenland’s only shipping company, Royal Arctic Line, says: “What you normally see as easy [setting up operations] in the US or Europe is not the same up here.” As well as the cold, ice and extremely rough seas, the world’s biggest island does not have a big road network or trains, meaning everything has to be transported either by sea or air. “I’m not saying that it’s not possible. But it’s going to cost a lot of money.”
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
01/30/2025 - 06:00
01/30/2025 - 05:00
Court says UK government green light for Rosebank and Jackdaw permits does not take into account CO2 emissions
The decision to greenlight a giant new oilfield off Shetland has been ruled unlawful by the courts in a major win for environmental campaigners.
The proposed Rosebank development – the UK’s biggest untapped oilfield – had been given the go-ahead in 2023 under the previous government.
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01/30/2025 - 03:24
Refugee Council says ‘many refugees themselves could also be prosecuted’ under proposals
Richard Madeley goes next.
Q: The Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary says you are wrong, and the third runway won’t be built until you are 70. You are 45 now. Why is he wrong?
We’re signing off decisions on wind farms, on solar farms, a commitment to a new stadium at Old Trafford. We are upgrading the Transpennine route to make journey times easier between York and Manchester via Leeds and Huddersfield. Those things are happening right now.
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01/30/2025 - 03:00
Our rivers, our wildlife, the air we breathe: the government is sacrificing all to the insatiable god of GDP – and mocking our objections
I can scarcely believe I’m writing this, but it’s hard to dodge the conclusion. After 14 years of environmental vandalism, it might have seemed impossible for Labour to offer anything but improvement. But on green issues, this government is worse than the Tories.
The last prime minister to insist that growth should override every other consideration, and to fling insults at anyone who disagreed, was Liz Truss. She called those of us seeking to defend the living world an “anti-growth coalition”, “voices of decline” and “enemies of enterprise” who “don’t understand aspiration”.
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01/30/2025 - 02:00
Populations have been falling for decades, even in tracts of forest undamaged by humans. Experts have spent two decades trying to understand what is going on
Something was happening to the birds at Tiputini. The biodiversity research centre, buried deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, has always been special. It is astonishingly remote: a tiny scattering of research cabins in 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) of virgin forest. For scientists, it comes about as close as you can to observing rainforest wildlife in a world untouched by human industry.
Almost every year since his arrival in 2000, ecologist John G Blake had been there to count the birds. Rising before the sun, he would record the density and variety of the dawn chorus. Slowly walking the perimeter of the plots, he noted every species he saw. And for one day every year, he and other researchers would cast huge “mist” nets that caught flying birds in their weave, where they would be counted, untangled and freed.
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01/30/2025 - 02:00
Solution to stop River Severn fish being sucked into cooling systems taking too long to resolve, EDF says
The owner of Hinkley Point C in Somerset has warned that the much-delayed construction of Britain’s first new nuclear power plant in a generation could face further hold-ups because of a row over its impact on local fish.
The nuclear developer, EDF Energy, warned that the “lengthy process” to agree to a solution with local communities to protect fish in the River Severn had “the potential to delay the operation of the power station”.
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01/29/2025 - 16:22
New research from a team of tropical biologists forecasts some of the changes that may occur in the Amazon rainforest as temperatures rise due to climate change.
01/29/2025 - 14:09
Emission targets could derail project as campaigners say net zero commitment cannot be met if expansion happens
Reeves urged to rethink plans for airports and roads
Heathrow third runway: promises, protest and U-turns
Rachel Reeves caused a furious backlash as she insisted a third runway at Heathrow was “set up for success”, despite scepticism in Whitehall that the plan can be reconciled with the UK’s climate obligations.
The chancellor made throwing the government’s weight behind Heathrow expansion the centrepiece of a major speech on growth on Wednesday.
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01/29/2025 - 12:14
Researchers have identified priority areas for conserving the black-tailed prairie dog in the United States. Protecting these regions will also benefit North America's Central Grasslands and the many associated grassland species that flourished there centuries ago.
01/29/2025 - 11:52
In the most comprehensive global analysis of genetic diversity ever undertaken, an international team of scientists has found that the genetic diversity is being lost across the globe but that conservation efforts are helping to safeguard species.
