Environment minister Murray Watt says other parties must decide ‘whether they want to see us do a deal with the other side of politics’
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Senior Liberal MPs are optimistic a deal can be reached with Labor on a watered-down version of its new nature laws, allowing them to be passed in parliament’s final sitting week of the year.
The environment minister, Murray Watt, is open to a deal with the Coalition that would require a raft of concessions, including revising a new provision designed to block projects that cause an “unacceptable impact” on the environment.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/19/2025 - 09:00
11/19/2025 - 07:37
As president Lula tries to find common ground between negotiating countries, planetary scientists say emissions must be urgently cut
Mother Earth is watching over Cop30. “I am taking care to watch over all the decisions taken here about me,” she told the Guardian. The blessing card she presented said: “Knowing the powerful impact my thoughts can have on others and the environment, I choose to create a positive mindset.”
This beautiful vision is in everyday life Nazaré Oliveira, an indigenous woman from Belém, and a descendant of the Potyguar people. She is part of the international spiritual organisation Brahma Kumaris, led by women and which uses meditation to emphasise the concept of identity as souls rather than bodies and the idea that humanity and nature are one.
This is my fifth COP. I’ve been around since COP26 in Glasgow and this has been the most militarised COP I’ve attended. We had really high expectations because I’m from Latin America, and this is also the Latin American COP – apart from the Amazonian and the Brazilian Cop.
So we had really high expectations of also being able to demonstrate, protest and exercise our right to the civic space. But we have encountered heavy militarisation and a heavy crackdown on civil society protesting outside the venue.
I think it’s very disconcerting. Like it was definitely a very racist letter where the UN seems to want to inflict power over the autonomous territory of Brazilian authorities.
I think this is a confrontation that is needed. What’s happening in between civil society, the military and the UN, it’s a reflection of the tension that exists within this space. So I hope for this COP that the United Nations authorities and the Brazilian authorities open their eyes and they realise that what they are doing, what they are inflicting with the militarisation of COP is completely opposite of what they have been preaching in the last three years.
Brazil knew that they wanted to host this COP since three years ago, probably even earlier. So the way that they are responding to it does not show that they were ready to receive all this flow of international civil society. So my hope is that they can release, relax the heavy militarization that they’re putting in the space and allow us to use the civic space to demonstrate.
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11/19/2025 - 06:00
Exclusive: A top official in Beijing’s Cop delegation says China is committed to clean energy – but US’s absence is a problem
China is committed to the energy transition needed to avert climate breakdown – but does not want to take the lead alone in the absence of the US, one of the country’s senior advisers has told the Guardian.
Wang Yi said China would provide more money to vulnerable countries, but the EU’s climate commissioner has warned Beijing is not doing enough to cut emissions.
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11/19/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 19 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00159-w
A machine learning-based evidence map of ocean-related options for climate change mitigation and adaptation
11/18/2025 - 23:36
If it makes impact on Friday, it would be the earliest cyclone of the season to make landfall in Australia since 1973
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If tropical cyclone Fina crosses the Northern Territory coast on Friday, it could equal the earliest cyclone to make landfall in Australia.
Fina intensified to a category two storm on Wednesday night, the Bureau of Meteorology said, and was moving east about 370km north-east of Darwin before making an expected turn south on Thursday.
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11/18/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 18 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00162-1
Critical energy minerals face persistent shortages. Deep-sea mining offers a potential supplement but raises environmental, technical, and governance concerns. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature and policy review, this comment analyzes the resource potential and commercialization challenges of deep-sea mining. We propose five priorities: building sustainable consensus, advancing green technologies, establishing commercialization safeguards, strengthening global monitoring, and enhancing the International Seabed Authority’s capacity to foster cooperative global governance.
11/17/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 17 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00158-x
Co-producing ocean plans with Indigenous and traditional knowledge holders
11/17/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 17 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00157-y
Collaborative bottom-up Trust Missions: a perspective on long-term strategies with and for people and Nature
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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