LONDON — Water firms and campaigners are set to wait until next year to see the full details of Andy Burnham’s plans to overhaul the sector in England.

Britain’s new prime minister has promised greater “public control” of the water industry as a centerpiece of his domestic agenda, partly reversing a wave of privatization that began in the 1980s. Ministers are due to unveil more detail in a “10-year plan for Britain” that is currently expected in December.

However, while this 10-year plan will contain a high-level vision, priorities and principles for the industry’s future, much of the granular detail of how future ownership models will work in practice is only expected later, said two people with knowledge of the discussions.

Some of these key details will be laid out in Chancellor John Healey’s multi-year spending review at some point in 2027, added the two people, who were granted anonymity to discuss evolving policy. One said the spending review — a date for which has not been decided — was where the full details would be “nailed down.”

These include any fiscal implications for the Treasury, which could have to find billions of pounds if ministers decided to transfer privately-owned shares to the public purse.

This appears to mirror an approach Burnham has taken to policymaking for decades, first as a Cabinet minister and then mayor of Greater Manchester before he took over 10 Downing Street in July. He is known for setting out a broad direction which his officials can later use to pin down detailed policy, while also seeking buy-in from private industry.

With a general election due by summer 2029, however, any wait will compress the prime minister’s window to enact far-reaching reform before he goes back to the electorate.

‘£40 being added to every single water bill’

England’s privatized water firms also argue that uncertainty over the sector’s future is damaging investor confidence.

The industry trade association Water UK has said the entire industry risks being downgraded by the credit ratings agency Moody’s, which would add £40 to customers’ annual bills.

Water UK Chief Executive David Henderson urged the government to move ahead with reforms suggested last year by former Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe, before ministers decide the overall path of how the sector is owned.

The Cunliffe report “was given to the government 15 months ago and the credit rating agencies are watching,” Henderson told POLITICO. “If the government doesn’t pretty soon decide what it wants to do with that report, then we risk a downgrade, as Moody’s has indicated. And if there’s a downgrade, that would sadly see £40 being added to every single water bill across England and Wales. That’s the last thing anybody wants.”

He added: “We still have no idea how [a proposed] new regulator will look, what status it will have, what its duties will be, which parts of the Environment Agency will stay in the Environment Agency, and which parts will go into the new regulator. That is causing uncertainty … an important consideration for any investor.”

One government official insisted the 10-year plan would contain some finer details of plans to overhaul the water industry, though they accepted that fiscal implications were always dealt with in fiscal events such as the spending review. 

Environment Secretary Angela Eagle is also due to bring a water bill to parliament before Christmas with separate policy, such as closing what Burnham has called “loopholes used to pay excessive bonuses” to water company executives. It will also contain scrutiny powers for regional mayors.

Burnham announced last month that the bill would lift a ban on the government owning more than 3% of shares in any English water firm. But he has also long made clear that he would not fully nationalize the industry, a move the government previously estimated would cost £100 billion for England and Wales together.

First Secretary of State Louise Haigh, one of Burnham’s most powerful allies in government, is leading three task forces including one on public control of water alongside housing, energy and transport.

Officials have been working through a “spectrum of options” for how public control in the water sector will look, a second government official said. They added that ministers are due to begin deciding which option — or combination of options — will be taken forward before the 10-year plan.

BRUSSELS — The European Union is beefing up its presence in the Arctic to catch up with neighboring powers carving new trade lanes and drilling for resources under the melting ice.

On Tuesday, the EU unveiled a new plan called Northern Neighborhood. It’s meant to prepare for rising military and commercial activity in the north driven by climate change, and calls for new transport, research and security infrastructure in the region.

“The Arctic is one place where the tectonic plates of geopolitics are colliding. And it’s not someone else’s frontier. It’s part of the European Union,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared as she unveiled the strategy.

She pointed to Russia’s expanding military footprint and the race for emerging shipping routes and critical resources as forces reshaping Europe’s security and economic future.

Climate change is dramatically affecting the Arctic. Planet-warming emissions are making the ice melt faster, disrupting the region’s fragile ecosystems. But where the ice is disappearing, countries like China, Russia and even Canada see an opportunity.

The EU is now scrambling to update its existing policies on the Arctic — once largely focused on environmental protection — to give more importance to security, shipping and extracting resources.

The strategy calls for a rebranding of the EU’s existing partnerships with Norway, Iceland, Canada and the U.K., backed by regular summits to set joint priorities and launch projects.

Here are five things Brussels wants to change about its Arctic policy.

1. Defense and security 

The strategy warns that Russia is rebuilding its military presence in the Arctic and that China has growing strategic ambitions in the region.

The EU plans to set up a pilot research project using satellite and maritime observation in 2027 and share ship-tracking data to help identify Russian shadow fleet vessels.

In the longer term, it wants EU countries to lead on a maritime security hub to pool intelligence on threats ranging from undersea cable sabotage to illegal fishing. It also calls for setting up an Arctic Cable Hub alongside NATO to monitor and protect subsea cables in the North Atlantic and the Arctic. The strategy lacks any information on funding for these projects, however.

Finnish MEP Mika Aaltola of the European People’s Party said the new focus on the Arctic is long overdue.

“Europe hasn’t been thinking about [the Arctic] enough,” Aaltola said. “Because of the ice melting and climate change, it’s becoming kind of the next great game. And if that happens, then what are the European positions when it comes to Russia, China and also the United States?”

2. Access to energy resources

The new policy sticks with EU promises not to drill for fossil fuels in the Arctic.

“The EU remains committed to ensuring that oil, coal and gas stay in the ground, including in Arctic regions,” it reads. Instead, Brussels promises to develop renewable energy projects in the region but drops an old commitment to convince the rest of the world to follow its lead. 

“It is good that the Commission maintains its opposition to oil and gas drilling in the Arctic,” said Delara Burkhardt, a Socialist MEP, but not pressing for a global ban “weakens the EU’s ability to push for stronger international protection and leaves the door open for other countries to exploit one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems.”

The EU’s former Arctic policy — drafted in 2021 — committed the bloc to pursuing an international moratorium on Arctic oil and gas extraction. 

Norway — which supplies a lot of energy to the EU — has made it clear it would still drill in the Arctic regardless of the bloc’s position.

3. Critical raw materials 

The EU is under pressure to secure new supplies of critical raw materials to reduce its dependency on China.

The new strategy says it will continue working with Canada, Greenland, Norway and the United States to develop critical raw materials projects in the region, but insists it will do so while following the “highest social, environmental and governance standards,” and work to the “benefit of local communities in respect of Indigenous Peoples’ rights.” 

Brussels has already labeled several critical raw materials projects, including the Sokli project in Finland and the Per Geijer rare earth deposit in northern Sweden, as “strategic” under EU law, which means they could benefit from faster permitting procedures.  

But some of these projects face serious local resistance from local and indigenous communities, who say the mining plans threaten reindeer herding and protected ecological sites. 

4. New trade routes

Melting ice is opening up new shipping routes in the far north, and the EU is worried that it could be sidelined from the region. But the strategy offers little on that front; its only action is a study on new shipping lanes.

The number of vessels operating in the area covered by the Polar Code — international regulations covering shipping in the Arctic and Antarctic — rose by 40% between 2013 and 2025, while the total distance sailed nearly doubled, said Michael Kingston, a special adviser on polar issues to the Arctic Council on marine protection.

Recent transits by Chinese and South Korean container ships using the Northern Sea Route running along Russia’s Arctic coast show the appeal of a route that is about 20 days faster than conventional routes, he added. 

“Russia builds the infrastructure, China facilitates and funds some of it,” Aaltola said, calling it part of a “grand bargain” between the two.

He complained that the EU is left on the sidelines. “When it comes to the Arctic, there is a vacuum of interest, and there’s also a vacuum of resources and institutions participating.” 

The route is still mostly seasonal for Russian oil and gas tankers, said Ksenia Vakhrusheva, project manager and Arctic project adviser at the environmental group Bellona. Ice, unpredictable weather, increased insurance costs and Moscow’s control over the route make it unlikely to become a mainstream commercial corridor anytime soon, she added.  

Europe also has leverage as the final customer for Chinese shipments, Vakhrusheva said.

“If the EU sends a strong message to China that they do not want goods shipped via NSR, China won’t use this route for transit,” she said. “For NSR to become a valid transit route you need two sides,” she said, “a seller on one side and a buyer on the other.” 

5. Environmental protection 

The strategy is light on measures to shield the Arctic from the impact of global warming. However, it does warn that increased shipping in an “inherently harsh and poorly charted environment” raises the risk of “catastrophic accidents, severe marine pollution” and hybrid interference.  

“Increased shipping in the Arctic both exploits this vulnerability and exacerbates it,” said Dave Walsh, an adviser at the Clean Arctic Alliance NGO, citing carbon emissions, wastewater discharge and noise as some of the impacts of more traffic.

Safety and the environment have not been a priority for Moscow, said Vakhrusheva, and a shortage of high ice-class ships combined with the need to sell oil and gas “to whoever is ready to buy it” raises the risks. 

Protections such as a ban on heavy fuel oil are still negotiated at the International Maritime Organization, where the EU is a key player, she said, adding that such measures will push up the cost of Arctic shipping. 

The strategy says Brussels will push at the IMO to turn measures to limit black carbon — soot emitted by ships that falls on snow and ice and accelerates melting — from voluntary guidelines into binding rules.

It also calls for expanding the definition of Arctic waters to everything north of 60 degrees latitude, replacing the current boundary, which excludes much of the waters around Iceland and Norway from special Arctic shipping rules.

It also promises to keep pressing for compliance with the Polar Code through tools such as an IMO regulation that involves national maritime authorities inspecting foreign-flagged ships in Arctic ports to verify compliance with international safety, environmental and crew-qualification standards. 

The document includes non-binding commitments on biodiversity loss and plans to boost ocean and Arctic research programs. It also promises to launch an “initiative to promote local public and private investment in the Arctic around blue economy sectors.” 

Jakob Weizman contributed reporting.

The US is building more fossil fuel infrastructure than it has in a decade while renewable energy growth slows down, a new report shows.

Electricity demand is also climbing faster than it has in more than a decade with more data centers, factories, and electric vehicles plugging into the grid. Despite those growing demands, the Trump administration has sought to hobble the wind and solar industries in favor of fossil fuels.

America's energy landscape is already shifting as a result, according to the report published last week by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund and research firm Atlas Public Policy. If all the gas projects in the d …

Read the full story at The Verge.

As coastlines change, so do surf breaks. That may spell the end for premier waves and the tourist economies that depend on them.

BRUSSELS — France and Germany said Friday they had struck a deal to favor European-made cars under a landmark EU industry bill in exchange for weakening a 2035 vehicle emissions target, ending months of wrangling between the bloc’s two biggest economies.

Under the agreement, Germany would accept stricter “Made in Europe” — or local content — requirements for the automotive industry in the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act, a longstanding French demand, while France would back Berlin’s push to relax the EU’s plan to phase out new combustion-engine cars.

The EU’s current target is for companies to reduce emissions from new vehicles by 100% from 2021 levels by 2035, with the possibility to “earn” 10% of emissions leeway through initiatives like offsets and investments.

France and Germany now want to soften the 2035 target to 90% but without having  to offer investments in alternative fuels to compensate the remaining 10%, as proposed by the European Commission.

“This balanced approach will enable the European Union to pursue its climate objectives while strengthening the technological sovereignty, industrial base and international competitiveness of its automotive industry,” the two countries said in a joint statement.

The agreement, first reported by POLITICO in July, was due to have been announced Thursday, during a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels. But it was held up at the last minute by disagreements within Germany’s governing coalition.

“We hope that this Franco-German dynamic can swiftly lead to an agreement with our partners, for our jobs and our industry,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on social media.

An Elysée official on Friday made clear that, under the Franco-German deal, the scope of Made in Europe for automotive can be extended to the U.K. and Switzerland under certain conditions. — addressing a key concern of Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government ahead of a Nov. 20 U.K.-EU summit in Brussels.

The agreement was reached after the German Social Democratic Party, the junior partner in Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition government, dropped its opposition.

“This is a modern realignment of German industrial policy that places significantly greater emphasis on preserving jobs and production sites,” said German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider, who is from the SPD.

“The clear expectation for German companies is that they will use these new opportunities to make investments and guarantee jobs here in Germany,” he added.

CORRECTION: This article was updated on Oct. 16 after an earlier version misrepresented the figures in the Franco-German proposal on the softening of 2035 targets.

Scientists can’t agree why reefs in the Red Sea have long been immune to bleaching. The answer could be the key to saving these tough corals as climate change begins taking its toll.

BRUSSELS — It was meant to be a debate on how to curb Europe’s soaring energy prices.

But the first session of talks at an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels Thursday quickly descended into a three-hour fight over whether the EU should put a carbon price on driving cars and heating buildings.

The delay got so bad, the roast veal and fig tartlet lunch awaiting European leaders was driven well into the afternoon.

Countries including Italy, Poland, Czechia and Hungary called for ETS2 — an already-legislated law that will put a carbon price on heating and transport from 2028 — to be delayed for two more years. Estonia suggested it could be scrapped altogether.

The push was rejected by a majority of the bloc, with several EU diplomats telling POLITICO it was, as one put it, an “unacceptable” offer. Another said the ETS2 launch date would never be changed. But the debate reflects a growing sense from right-leaning governments that the EU’s ambitious green agenda runs against their push to bring down energy costs. 

While the main topic of today’s discussion was ETS2, its predecessor, the Emissions Trading System — which puts a price on carbon emissions from factories and power plants — was arguably the real target.

Put together, these two emissions trading schemes will be the EU’s most powerful policy tool for bringing down planet-warming emissions.

A proposed reform of the original ETS is currently being debated in the European Parliament and in the Council of the EU. Italy and Poland have been leading a gang of 10 member-countries which have been railing against the ETS since American and Israeli bombs started falling on Iran in March. 

What they want is for the European Commission’s July review of the ETS to be further weakened, even though the proposal already softens carbon restrictions over the next decade to give industry more time to invest in cleaner production methods.

But by framing the ETS as a scourge on household bills, both Warsaw and Rome have found ready audiences at home and abroad. On Monday, hours before a meeting of EU environment ministers convened in Luxembourg, Poland led a meeting of member countries with concerns on the ETS. Their gang, which originally counted 10 countries in March, had now grown to 16.

While Italy and Poland did manage to get Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and Greece to back their ask for a “reassessment of the ETS2” and to “further postpone its entry into force until at least 2030,” inside the room of European leaders the position mostly fell flat.

Five EU diplomats granted anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations said Nordic countries and the Netherlands were firmly against changes to ETS2 — a position backed by France and Germany.

But Paris and Berlin’s long-term reliability as ETS defenders is in doubt. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz both face threats from the far-right, where the ETS has become a dirty word.

Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland, which is no fan of the ETS, is politically ascendant, having won the largest share of votes in two regional elections in September. In France, with elections only months away in 2027, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally is leading in the polls. 

How Le Pen would deal with the ETS isn’t certain, but Jordan Bardella, the French far-right lawmaker and rising star of National Rally, offered a clue  in recent comments.

“ETS: three letters, an acronym that reeks of detached bureaucracy, with one question that keeps coming up: who’s going to pay?” he said to European Parliament in May.

Old-school physics-based weather forecasting and even new AI models typically become less reliable beyond two weeks, a problem Microsoft claims to have solved using machine learning.

Researchers with the company say they've found a new, cost-effective way to make more accurate weather forecasts two to six weeks in advance - allowing farmers and emergency responders to plan ahead with greater certainty. The findings were published today in the journal Nature, and the tool is now open-source software.

Microsoft joins Google, Nvidia, and other companies developing AI tools for weather forecasting. Instead of creating a new standalone weather …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Seven of 16 planetary vital signs are in their most extreme state ever recorded, and El Niño is here to make matters even worse.

The deeply uncomfortable film forces audiences to confront what types of stories we tell ourselves about who has economic and political power.

Solar geoengineering could buy humanity time against climate change—or trigger a dangerous new arms race. A first-of-its-kind simulation offered a glimpse of what happens when geopolitics takes the wheel.

Here’s what we know about the record-setting El Niño on a record-hot planet, and the most important questions scientists are trying to answer.

Redwoods adapted to a cool, foggy climate. Now a new study shows they slow down photosynthesis when their environment warms.

The 1975 film “Jaws,” in which a local government hires a shark hunter to protect the town’s tourism industry, delighted me as a 10-year-old. But other than its infamous opening sequence, I don’t recall being scared. My younger sister, however, developed a years-long fear of deep water, even our 11-foot-deep pool. Maybe I’d just cultivated too much shark knowledge, well aware that these apex predators are docile and do not hunt humans like they do in Peter Benchley’s novel. The book and the film — I consumed both and can report that Steven Spielberg’s adaptation is better — only instilled in me a deeper love and respect for sharks. They are still my favorite fish to observe in aquariums or the ocean.

Outside of the movies, shark bounties are uncommon these days. That’s why news this week that Greenland was planning to cull 1,000 Greenland sharks was so alarming to many online. Officials in the Avannaata municipality on the island nation’s west coast approved the plan, offering fishers 300 Danish kroner, or about $45, per shark heart. The government complained that hungry sharks are eating too much Atlantic cod and Greenland halibut, cutting into what humans can bring home and damaging their gear. Lars Erik Gabrielsen, mayor of Avannaata, told The Guardian, “We need to safeguard the income of fishermen and the catch so that we can continue to eat the foods that we have relied on for generations.”

Conservationists and shark lovers were outraged at the proposal. Nick Dulvy, a professor and marine conservationist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, called it a “disaster” and said that biologically, the sharks are “the most sensitive species in the ocean to overfishing.” Marine ecologist Spencer Roberts, whose advocacy work includes calling out shark poaching, posted on X that “There is a psychotic sense of entitlement spreading around the world that imagines humans own the fish in the sea and demands retaliatory killing of predators who rely on these fish. Even centuries-old sages of the Arctic Ocean are not safe from this deranged human delusion.”

---

Start your day with essential news from Salon.
Sign up for our free morning newsletter, Crash Course.

---

Indeed, the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) is bizarre and misunderstood, basically being the couch potato of the depths of the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean, where waters are just above freezing. Known as an abyssal species, it slothfully trawls the shadows like some mournful Lovecraftian being, possessing an especially sluggish metabolism, which isn’t surprising considering its size. Greenland sharks weigh in at one ton and reaching up to 23 feet in length. The maximum lifespan can average 400 years, the longest lifespan of any known vertebrate, meaning there are apparently Greenland sharks that are older than the United States. If that doesn’t blow you out of the water, I don’t know what will. Humans are famously bad at mentally fathoming deep time, so thinking about these ghostly rotund things hiding in the dark of the ocean, outliving empires like an ichthyological Ozymandias, fills me with even more awe than most sharks do.

In a rare spot of good news, the local government dropped the plan after national officials questioned its legality, but a future cull hasn’t been ruled out. Still, it’s worth upholding this turnaround as an example of why speaking out on animal rights can be successful. We don’t need to just sit back and watch the extinction of any species that doesn’t directly benefit us, while of course recognizing that fishers have to eat too. Some have proposed reimbursing fishers or using acoustic deterrents instead of mass slaughter.

But it’s more than just Greenland sharks at risk, with an estimated 79 million sharks dying in fisheries in 2019. At least 25 million of those species are threatened. As coral reefs struggle to survive, many sharks are losing their main food source, but humans are to blame for that one. These animals can be dangerous, same as a grizzly bear or elephant, but people tend to value sharks a lot less. This is in spite of their critical role in a healthy environment. Sharks aren’t monsters, they evolved to fill very specific roles in the ocean — a huge block in the Jenga of life — and if they go, our oceans would dramatically tumble in ways that would negatively impact humans too.

“Jaws” is a fantastic film if you can suspend your disbelief about a great white being the menace of the seas. That’s really us, but it doesn’t have to be.

The post Leave the Greenland sharks alone appeared first on Salon.com.

Castelion—a next-generation defense tech company—is building a facility in Rio Rancho Estates that documents show could pose a major fire and chemical hazard to neighboring communities.