On paper, Australia is a conservation success story.

Over the past 15 years, we’ve dedicated vast areas of land to conservation. Our primary goal has been to protect our unique plants, animals, and ecosystems. As a result, Australia now has one of the largest protected area estates in the world, covering roughly 22% of the country.

That’s an impressive achievement, and a significant step towards our goal of protecting 30% of Australia’s land by 2030.

But there’s a problem. Our new analysis shows we’re not protecting the places that matter most for Australia’s diverse wildlife and environments.

So what are we actually conserving? And what should change?

More land but no more protection

Our recent analysis of Australia’s network of protected areas shows, between 2010 and 2022, we’ve nearly doubled the amount of land under protection. Protected land refers to areas which are specifically set aside to conserve nature. However, this expansion has done little to help our most at-risk animals, plants, and ecosystems.

Our national list of threatened species, which identifies the plants and animals most at risk of extinction, illustrates this. Since 2010, we’ve only slightly increased the amount of protected land that’s home to threatened species. Based on our data, in that time this figure rose by an average of just 3%.

Worse still, 160 species have virtually no protection. That’s roughly 10% of our endangered species list. Many others species only have a very small amount of their habitat inside the fences of protected areas.

One example is the Margaret River burrowing crayfish, a critically endangered crayfish from Western Australia. Currently none of its two remaining habitats are protected.

And the Grey Range thick-billed grasswren, a bird endemic to New South Wales, is now critically endangered because of habitat loss and agriculture. However none of its habitat, found just north of Broken Hill, is formally protected.

Tragically, these are not exceptional cases. And they are exactly the plants and animals that protected areas are designed to protect.

The same is true for Australia’s ecosystems, which are geographic areas where plants and animals interact with their natural environment. Nationally, we have nearly 100 ecological communities which are listed as threatened. But in the last decade, we’ve only improved protection for a handful of these.

And some still have no protection. The critically endangered weeping myall woodlands in the Hunter Valley, Sydney’s blue gum high forest and the iron-grass natural temperate grassland of South Australia are just three examples.

So what’s gone wrong?

For decades, we’ve tended to protect land that is more remote and less productive. Our findings suggest this pattern is continuing today.

However, many of Australia’s at-risk plants, animals, and ecosystems are found in heavily modified landscapes. These include areas which have been cleared for agriculture or are close to towns and cities. But under current conservation models, we’re much less likely to protect these kinds of land.

As a result, we are expanding protected areas but not necessarily where they matter most.

To be clear, protecting some of these landscapes is incredibly valuable. This is especially true given the current and future impacts of climate change. And in Australia, we’ve done well to protect nearly half of intact ecosystems by including them in nature reserves.

But protecting intact ecosystems is just one piece of the conservation puzzle.

Getting our priorities right

Australia has committed to protect 30% of our lands and waters by 2030. This is known as the “30 by 30” target. We are also a leader in the so-called high ambition coalition of 124 countries which have pledged to meet this same target.

But to protect our biodiversity we need to focus on which land is protected, not just how much. A hectare in the wrong place will have little effect, while a hectare in the right place can be the bridge between survival and extinction.

So as Australia moves towards the “30 by 30” target, the key challenge will be ensuring we protect land strategically, not opportunistically.

The good news is, we now have the tools to do so. Australia has some of the best biodiversity data in the world. This is because the Australian government has invested in ecologists from around the country, allowing them to closely study endangered species.

However, what we’re missing is a commitment to use this information. So far, we’ve largely measured progress using one blunt metric: total area protected. This metric is easy to communicate but is dangerously misleading. It tells us very little about whether protected areas are in the right location or are being managed well.

If we’re serious about halting species extinctions within the next five years, we need to change course now. Here are three ways to do that.

• urgently protect areas of highest biodiversity value, especially the habitats of species on the brink of extinction
• prioritise under-protected ecosystems instead of those which are easiest to conserve
• start measuring success in terms of outcomes, not just area.

Without this shift, we risk meeting our “30 by 30” target while failing to save our most threatened species and ecosystems. That would be a hollow victory.

James Watson, Professor in Conservation Science, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland; Carly Cook, Lecturer Head, Cook Research Group; School of Biological Sciences, Monash University; Michelle Ward, Lecturer, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, and Ruben Venegas Li, Research fellow, School of Environment, University of Queensland, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

It’s no secret our planet is heating up.

And here’s the evidence: we’ve just experienced the 11 hottest years on record, with 2025 being the second or third warmest in global history.

The annual State of the Climate report, published today by the World Meteorological Organization, suggests we’re still too reliant on fossil fuels. And that’s pushing us further from our goal to decarbonise.

So what is happening to our climate? And how should we respond?

The climate picture

Unfortunately, the most recent climate data makes for grim reading.

Let’s look back at 2025, through the lens of four climate change indicators.

Carbon dioxide

We now have a record amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, about 50% higher than pre-industrial levels. And we’re still emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide through our use of fossil fuels. In 2025, global emissions reached record high levels. The carbon dioxide we emit can stay in the atmosphere for a long time. So each year we keep emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide, the more concentrated it will be in our atmosphere.

Temperature

In 2025, the world experienced its second or third warmest year on record, depending on which dataset you use. The average temperature was about 1.43°C above the pre-industrial average.

This is particularly unusual given we observed slight La Niña conditions in the Pacific region. La Niña is a type of climate pattern characterised by temperature changes in the Pacific Ocean. It typically creates milder, wetter conditions in Australia and has a cooling effect on the global average temperature. But even with La Niña conditions, the planet stayed exceptionally hot.

And each of the last 11 years were hotter than any of the previous years in the global temperature series. This is true across all the different datasets used in the report. However, this does not mean a new record was set each year.

Oceans and ice

In 2025, the heat held within the world’s oceans reached a record high. And as our oceans continue to warm, sea levels will also rise. Hotter oceans also speed up the process of acidification, where oceans absorb an increased amount of carbon dioxide with potentially devastating consequences for some marine animals.

The amount of Arctic and Antarctic ice is also well below average. This report shows sea ice extent, a measure of how much ocean is covered by at least some sea ice, is at or close to record low levels in the Arctic. Meanwhile, the amount of ice stored in glaciers has also significantly decreased.

Extreme weather

Research shows many of the most devastating extreme weather events of 2025 were exacerbated by human-driven climate change. The heatwaves in Central Asia, wildfires in East Asia and Hurricane Melissa in the Carribean are just three examples. Through attribution analysis, which is how scientists determine the causes of an extreme weather or climate event, this report highlights how our greenhouse gas emissions are making severe weather events more common and intense.

How does Australia stack up?

Compared to most other countries, Australia has a disproportionate impact on the global climate.

This is largely because our per capita carbon dioxide emissions are about three times the global average. That means on average, each of us emits more carbon dioxide than people in all European countries and the US.

Emissions matter because they exacerbate the greenhouse effect. That is the process by which greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, trap heat near Earth’s surface. So by emitting more greenhouse gases, we contribute to global warming. And research suggests Earth is warming twice as fast today, compared to previous decades.

However, Australia is also experiencing first-hand the adverse effects of human-induced climate change.

In 2025, we lived through our fourth-warmest year on record. The annual surface temperatures of the seas around Australia reached historic highs, beating the record temperatures set in 2024. And last March was the hottest March we’ve seen across the continent.

Here in Australia, we are also battling longer and hotter heatwaves and bushfire seasons. And scientists warn these extreme weather events will only become more common.

So what can we do?

The 2025 State of the Climate Report shows how much, and how quickly, we are changing our climate. And it is worryingly similar to previous reports, highlighting the need for urgent action.

The priority should be decreasing our emissions. This would slow down global warming, which will only continue if we keep the status quo. Some countries are already decarbonising rapidly, in part through transitioning to renewable electricity supplies. Others, including Australia, need to move much faster to reduce emissions.

Crucially, we must also meet our net zero targets. In Australia, as in many other countries, we are aiming to reach net zero by 2050. The sooner we reach net zero, the more likely we are to avoid harmful climate change impacts in future. To achieve net zero, we need to significantly reduce our emissions while also increasing how much carbon we remove from the atmosphere.

Even if we meet our net zero targets, climate change will not magically disappear. However, by turning away from fossil fuels and cutting our greenhouse gas emissions now, we may spare future generations from its worst effects. That’s the least we can do.

Andrew King, ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor in Climate Science, ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Good rainfall across much of Australia in the past year has kept the vegetation green and rivers flowing. For the fifth year in a row, our national environment scorecard for Australia’s landscapes in 2025 rated them as “above average”.

Queensland had an exceptionally wet year. The Channel Country river systems in southwest Queensland flooded spectacularly, sending water surging toward Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre in South Australia. The biggest floods in at least 15 years, this flush of water triggered fish breeding and the arrival of waterbirds from across the continent.

But underneath the ocean waves, it was a different story. Marine heatwaves and the algal bloom in South Australia were a disaster for Australia’s underwater ecosystems and their unique animals and plants.

How we assess environmental health

To create this scorecard we analysed large amounts of data from satellites, weather stations, river gauges and ecological surveys. For the eleventh year running we gathered information on topics like climate change, oceans and weather, and summarised it with a score between zero and ten.

This score gives a relative measure of how favourable conditions were for nature, agriculture and the Australian quality of life, compared to all years since 2000.

Conditions varied enormously by region this year, so for the first time we have calculated environmental condition scores right down to the suburb and locality level. You can look up your own area at ausenv.tern.org.au.

A good year but uneven on land

The country’s environmental health was split between a wetter, greener north and east, and a dry south and west. Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory all recorded notable declines in environmental condition.

But beyond the rainfall, there were real signs of progress. New detailed data on native forest loss and gain — a first in this year’s report — showed forest loss has declined for five consecutive years, with tree cover increasing nationally.

The amount of land cleared for grazing and native forest logging continued to fall. Vegetation canopy area and soil surface protection against erosion was at near record levels. And Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions fell by 1.9%, even as the economy grew 2.6% and the population by 1.5% — a sign growth and environmental damage are slowly being decoupled. Emissions per person have fallen 30% since 2000, though Australians still emit around three times the global average.

These improvements didn’t happen by accident. They reflect real improvements in land management and nature conservation and policy changes on emissions reduction, forest logging and land clearing accumulated over years.

Bushfires under the sea

What our scorecard doesn’t capture is what happened in our oceans in 2025 — and there the story was very different.

The Black Summer fires of 2019–20 were a climate-driven catastrophe. More than a prolonged drought, it was an extreme heat event that turned the forest into a tinderbox and caused fires of unprecedented scale. Marine heatwaves are doing the same thing underwater.

Sea surface temperatures around Australia reached their highest-ever level in 2025, breaking the record set just the year before. Our new analysis of heat stress across 24 monitored reef locations found that nearly 80% exceeded their once-in-a-decade heat threshold — more than in any previous year of the 40-year record. A sixth mass bleaching event struck the Great Barrier Reef in early 2025, following the fifth just months earlier.

The damage extended well beyond the reef. A toxic algal bloom, fuelled by a marine heatwave that pushed water temperatures well above average, spread across nearly a third of South Australia’s coastline and persisted for most of the year, killing more than 80,000 animals of 500 different species and causing respiratory symptoms in coastal residents. Elsewhere, tropical fish appeared far outside their normal ranges.

Marine heatwaves are the underwater equivalent of bushfires: large-scale, climate-driven mass mortality events that used to be rare and are now happening repeatedly. The difference is that most of us don’t see what’s happening below the ocean surface.

The extinction crisis deepens

According to the federal government’s threatened species list, 2,175 species are now listed as threatened – a 54% increase since 2000. Climate change is identified as a threat to nine in ten of the newly listed species. And the legacy of the Black Summer bushfires continues – more than half of all species listed or uplisted since 2019 were affected by those fires.

The Threatened Species Index, which tracks population trends of listed species, shows threatened species have declined by an average of 59% since 2000. In 2025 we published Australia’s first Threatened Reptile Index. Based on the monitoring data included in the index, reptile populations have declined by an average of 88% since 2000, and frogs by 67%, the steepest long-term declines of any group we have measured.

Reasons for hope

There are some reasons for hope. The index shows that trends for threatened mammal populations have stabilised in recent years. This may reflect both wetter conditions and the impact of conservation management, such as fenced sanctuaries, predator control and habitat restoration. The data show that sustained conservation effort can make a difference.

In many respects, Australia’s environment is in better shape than it was a decade ago, and progress on emissions and land management is real. But global climate change operates on a different scale entirely. Decades of warming are already locked in, and the damage to our oceans and wildlife will worsen until global warming is brought under control.

Reducing our own emissions matters more than ever. This will also make us more resistant to the kind of energy shocks the world is experiencing right now. We cannot reverse all the damage already done, but we can certainly do much better.

Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University; Shoshana Rapley, Research Assistant, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University, and Tayla Lawrie, Project Manager, Threatened Species Index, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia is facing a wave of misinformation and disinformation on climate change and energy. This is being fuelled by the growth in artificial intelligence and allowed to spread freely on social media, according to the findings of a Senate inquiry.

This misinformation presents a threat to action on climate change, but also challenges the health of Australia’s democracy, the committee found. AI was even used to generate fake content in some of the submissions to the inquiry.

Drawing on 247 written submissions and 11 days of public hearings – including some extraordinary revelations I’ll get to shortly – senators from all sides of politics heard about the challenge our society faces to combat misinformation and disinformation.

Why does misinformation matter?

First, it’s important to understand why misinformation matters, and why about 74% of Australians are concerned about it.

Misinformation is the spread of false information, regardless of whether there is an intent to harm or mislead. But when an individual or organisation spreads misinformation with the intent to influence public opinion, this is known as disinformation.

Both are important. In democratic societies, public opinion is the link between what people want, their electoral behaviour, and what politicians do on their behalf. Democratic representation is therefore predicated on knowing and understanding public opinion.

If misinformation starts to warp or sever this link, our democratic societies can unravel. We only have to look across the Pacific to the United States to see what this looks like in real time.

What is happening in Australia?

The inquiry uncovered countless instances where misinformation – and often disinformation – was affecting public opinion on everything, from wind farms and whales to electric vehicles and batteries.

Indeed, one of the motivations for the Senate inquiry was evidence that emerged in 2025 highlighting how anti-offshore wind campaigns had spread misinformation. They claimed turbines killed whales and would block out the sunrise – neither of which is true.

It is not only wind farms that have been the target. Misinformation about batteries is rife too. For example, testimony from a NSW farmer told how a 500 kilowatt-hour community battery in Narrabri, initially supported by the local council, was later blocked following a campaign driven by misinformation on Facebook. These pages claimed the battery would blow up, catch fire, and might even shut down the town – assertions that were not supported by evidence.

For many people, misinformation and disinformation have become part of daily life. Survivors of the 2019 Black Summer bushfires submitted evidence describing how misinformation had created rifts in local NSW communities and driven family members apart. Those advocating for action on climate change had faced a torrent of abuse on social media, as lies about the causes of the fires spread online.

Who is funding and spreading it?

In my own testimony before the committee, I described how research from more than 100 scholars around the world has uncovered a network of organisations that exist to influence the public, media and political arenas to slow, stop or reverse effective climate action. This is what we refer to as climate obstruction.

In Australia this is not just gas and coal companies. But there are other players too, such as trade associations, think tanks and PR firms, among many others, that have a history of opposing climate policies.

For example, Australians for Natural Gas, which appears to be a grassroots organisation that supports pro-gas policies, was in fact set up by the chief executive of gas company Tamboran Resources, with help from PR firm Freshwater Strategy, according to an investigation by the ABC.

My own research has shown industry lobby groups historically opposed to climate policies in the US spent US$3.4 billion (A$4.88 billion) on political activities, especially public relations, between 2008 and 2018. In Australia, our knowledge of who is funding disinformation is hampered by a lack of transparency.

A number of participants to the Senate inquiry refused to reveal who was funding their operations.

The role of AI and social media

The committee’s report makes it clear that social media and AI are fuelling misinformation. Senators heard how the algorithms on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok often prioritised engagement over accuracy, “creating echo chambers that reinforce existing beliefs and can amplify misleading content”.

What is worse is that social media corporations are doing little to address it. Under a grilling from senators, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, conceded it spends more on lobbying than fact-checking in Australia.

AI was also used to generate fake content in Senate submissions to the very inquiry investigating misinformation. It was uncovered that Rainforest Reserves Australia (RRA), a conservative campaign group opposing renewable energy, had included information about wind farms that do not exist. It also cited academic articles that do not exist.

In one of the more ridiculous moments, when RRA was confronted by the media about its AI-influenced submissions, it sent a 1,500-word response. Later, it acknowledged this had itself been generated with the help of AI. You can’t make this stuff up!

AI is also making it easier for groups to spread false information by generating fake social media posts, pictures and videos.

Combating climate misinformation

While the committee acknowledged “there is no simple fix for the spread of false and misleading information”, it recommended a series of important actions. These included:

• greater transparency around political donations and lobbying
• strengthening media literacy
• funding independent monitoring programs to track misinformation across platforms
• funding independent media, among many others.

Additional comments from senators went further. These included banning donations from fossil fuel industries and legislating truth in political advertising. Significantly, they also called for powers to compel social media companies to remove fake content and bots used in coordinated campaigns to obstruct climate action.

The federal government should act on these worthy recommendations before the next election. Otherwise, this problem will only grow. As the senators pointed out, nothing less than the health of our democracy is at stake.

Christian Downie, Professor of Political Science, School of Regulation and Global Governance, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Parks are vital public spaces. This is especially true if you’re a parent with energetic children, or an office worker searching for a peaceful lunch spot.

But parks are also ideal environments for infectious diseases to spread, particularly through critters who carry harmful pathogens. This is because, unlike other public spaces, they are designed to connect humans and nature.

There’s a long list of diseases that may be found in parks. They range from those caused by direct contact with infected animals to others spread by mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas. Some of these diseases cause only mild symptoms, while others can have severe or life-long consequences.

Our new study looks at how we interact with parks and green spaces, and how this may increase our exposure to disease.

The good news is, there are ways we can reduce this risk.

What’s the link between parks and disease?

If you regularly visit parks, our research suggests there are several factors that may increase your exposure to disease. Here are three.

Domestic pets

Our study shows domestic animals, such as cats and dogs, are a substantial disease threat. One reason is when they poo in parks and public gardens, they often contaminate soil and water sources.

Domestic pets may also carry roundworms, a long tube-shaped parasite that infects an animal’s intestines. Research suggests we often find more roundworms in parks where cats and dogs are present.

This is particularly dangerous for children under four. These young children often eat dirt, a common practice known as geophagy, which increases their risk of ingesting infected eggs that are commonly found in soil.

Food waste

Food-related waste, such as uncovered rubbish bins, are another source of disease risk. If not properly discarded, food waste can attract rodents and foxes. This can turn our beloved BBQ and picnic areas into potential disease hotspots.

Food waste may also attract other animals, such as dingoes, which we don’t usually find in cities and suburbs. These animals carry different pathogens and may expose parkgoers to new diseases.

Insects and parasites that carry disease

Mosquitoes and ticks are common disease vectors, or living organisms which carry disease from one infected person or animal to another. In parks and green spaces, mosquitoes are the main concern. This is because they often breed in stagnant water, such as shallow ponds and lakes.

The role of humans

Animals, insects, and parasites aren’t the only source of disease in parks. Humans spread pathogens too.

We do this through common, but potentially harmful, behaviours. These include not picking up our pet’s poo and not properly disposing of food waste.

Of particular concern is the practice of feeding birds. Bird feeding increases contact between humans and high numbers of birds. And scientists are worried this may have implications for public health.

This, alongside the fact it can negatively impact bird health, is why authorities generally discourage bird feeding.

So, what can we do?

Parks are vital for our physical and mental health because they allow us to spend more time in nature. So we shouldn’t just avoid them, even if they may harbour disease.

Instead, we should design parks with features that reduce infectious disease risk.

Fencing is one example. Putting fences around playgrounds can limit children’s exposure to ticks. Fences help prevent tick exposure by keeping animals, which often carry ticks, separate from children. We can also construct more off-leash dog areas to keep dogs from contaminating the soil with their poo or urine. And putting mulch or rubber, instead of sand, underneath playgrounds means cats are less likely to treat them as litter boxes.

We can also place predatory fish, such as the Australian smelt and Pacific blue-eye, in water bodies. This will help control mosquito populations, as the fish eat mosquito eggs and larvae before they can mature. Planting more native flora may also be beneficial, with research suggesting invasive plants encourage mosquitoes to breed more.

To address problematic human behaviour, public education is key. We need clear messaging around the importance of not feeding wildlife. We must also urge pet owners to clean up after their pets, and parents to discourage their kids from eating dirt.

Putting parks in perspective

It’s unlikely the next pandemic will come from your local park or community garden. But there’s still the chance you’ll be exposed to diseases through your everyday interactions in these spaces.

For centuries, humans have carefully designed urban spaces to help manage infectious disease risk. The construction of sewage networks in 19th century London is just one example.

So while our research is new, the idea of designing more disease-resistant cities is not. It’s time to apply it to the parks we all know and love.

Katherine M. Robertson, PhD student, The University of Melbourne; Holly Kirk, Associate Professor & ARC Industry Fellow, Urban Ecology, Curtin University; Jacinta Humphrey, Senior Research Fellow in Urban Ecology, The University of Melbourne, and Sarah Bekessy, Professor, Industry Laureate Fellow, The University of Melbourne; RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Oil and gas prices are shooting up as war in the Middle East cuts down the supply of fossil fuels available, in what has been described as “the largest supply disruption in the history of oil markets”.

There have been several major upheavals in energy markets since 2020, including the COVID pandemic, Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine, and US President Donald Trump’s trade and tariff war with much of the world.

What now? The closest historical comparison may be to the oil shock of the 1970s, which prompted significant moves by governments around the world to reduce the demand for fossil fuels.

This time around, things are different: relatively cheap, widely available renewable energy technology means not only governments but also companies and individuals can reduce their own reliance on fossil fuels, permanently.

The traditional case for renewables

Compared to what we get from fossil fuels, renewable energy is clean, cheap and reliable.

Solar and wind can provide virtually unlimited energy without greenhouse emissions. They also eliminate smog, strip mining, gas fracking, oil spills and oil-related warfare – not to mention avoiding the radioactive waste, accidents and weapons proliferation that go hand in hand with nuclear power.

Renewables have low requirements for raw materials, land and water. Waste from solar farms is about 1,000 times smaller than the avoided carbon dioxide from burning equivalent fossil fuels.

These technologies also come out ahead on price. Solar and wind have provided virtually all new power plant capacity in Australia over the past decade.

At a global level, solar and wind are being installed five times faster than everything else combined. This is compelling market-based evidence of their low cost.

The reliability test also favours renewables. In recent years, Australia’s shaky fleet of ageing coal power stations has become a substantial threat to grid stability. In contrast, solar and wind are very predictable, because thousands of collectors spread over a million square kilometres greatly reduces the impact of collector malfunctions and local weather.

Energy from solar and wind can be stored and released on demand via batteries and pumped hydro projects such as Snowy 2.0.

Consumer electric vehicles are also taking off, and heavy transport is not far behind. In China, electric truck sales have reached parity with diesel trucks. In Australia, major companies such as Fortescue are on track to drastically cut their emissions.

The spike in the price of gas following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 had a major effect on Australian energy prices because the companies exporting Australian gas charged Australian consumers world parity prices. However, apart from 2022, Australian electricity wholesale market price is unchanged over the past decade, while the renewables fraction increased from 17% to 42%.

Renewables make us more resilient

If we “electrify everything” – transport, heating and industry – clean electricity can replace most gas heating and imports of petroleum products (which cost Australia A$53 billion in 2025). This would double Australia’s electricity demand and reduce greenhouse emissions by three quarters.

At the domestic level, an all-electric home with solar panels can have no bill for gas or petrol, and a low bill for electricity. Energy storage is available via hot water tanks, electric vehicles and home batteries.

Energy from rooftop solar works out costing around 5 cents per kilowatt-hour, a fraction of the retail price.

If grid power fails or fossil fuel prices soar, solar-powered homeowners can carry on indefinitely with nearly normal house operation.

Once an international disruption of oil and gas supply lasts for a month or so, it becomes a big problem for Australia as reserves are depleted and prices spike. In contrast, solar panels, wind turbines, transmission, batteries, pumped hydro, electric vehicles, electric heat pumps and electric furnaces last for decades – so we have much more time to see any disruption coming and work around it

And in a darker possibility, a decentralised energy system based on thousands of solar and wind farms and millions of solar rooftops would be far more resilient against military attacks than a few coal and nuclear power stations.

War, trade war and pandemics

Nobody knows the ramifications of the latest war in the Middle East. In the short term, prices for oil and gas have risen sharply.

The fundamental difference this time round is that individuals, companies and countries have remarkably cheap clean energy alternatives available.

Australia is rapidly decarbonising its electricity grid by replacing coal and gas with solar and wind. The government target is 82% renewable electricity by 2030. Gas heating is being actively discouraged in favour of electric heat pumps, and electric cars and trucks are being encouraged.

Alongside lower emissions, lower cost and greater reliability, a rapid transition to clean energy also means greater resilience in an unpredictable future. In the long run, the most important outcome of the current wars might be an acceleration of the world’s move away from fossil fuels.

Andrew Blakers, Professor of Engineering, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The US military action in Iran may have an unintended secondary effect – ending the cultural dominance of the internal combustion engine and ushering in the age of electric vehicles.

Back in the 1970s, a sudden increase in the price of oil led to the public embracing smaller and more fuel efficient cars; similarly, the choking of the Strait of Hormuz, and the resultant high cost of oil, is driving a historic surge of interest in electric vehicles.

Google Trends data shows that almost three times as many Australians searched for “electric vehicles” on March 23 when compared to February 27, the day before the US started to bomb Iran and the cost of oil (and fuel) started to skyrocket. The increase in RSV (Relative Search Volume) represents a 278% increase in Australians searching for “electric vehicles”.

While research shows a number of factors influence Australians’ choice to own an electric vehicle, the price and availability of energy clearly plays a central role and the weight of public opinion is slowly shifting towards embracing EVs.

EV interest remains over time

Historically, the relationship between the cost of petrol and interest in electric vehicles (EVs) is even more telling. The graph below shows a clear pattern of higher petrol prices leading to more searches for EVs.

While the most notable feature of this data is the dramatic increase in searches for EVs since the US attacks on Iran began, it’s also interesting that while interest in EVs often drops as oil prices return to “normal”, it never drops back down to its previous level. Once sparked, our interest in EVs remains higher than before.

For instance, after the spike in oil prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, you can see a similar spike in searches for EVs. However, even after the oil price had dropped back down and stabilised, the Relative Search Volume (RSV) of Google searches for EVs remained at a higher level than before the invasion.

This suggests consumers retain some interest in EVs after the increase in oil prices has passed. Perhaps these global oil crises prompt the realisation that relying on energy imported from the other side of the world is more tenuous than relying on energy from your own rooftop.

A pragmatic interest in saving money

My colleagues and I recently explored Australia’s cultural attitudes to EVs. We argued increasing access to household solar energy was driving an enthusiasm for a new relationship with energy. But long-held anxieties around range, infrastructure, gender roles and national image, as well as traditionalist hold outs like enthusiast car culture and engine sounds, as factors that inhibit the take up of EVs in Australia.

However, the clear signal this trend data sends is that Australians are a pragmatic lot. If using an EV might save them money, then they are interested.

The data also presents a warning to car makers that have “bet against” the rise of the electric vehicle. Porsche, Lambourghini and Ferrari have all recently announced plans to reconsider or scale back their production of EVs. This is based on their assessment of shifts in the “political climate”, with security and trade taking precedence over “environmental concerns”.

While economic driving may not be a concern for many Ferrari drivers, Toyota has also made the decision to “not go all in” on electric. Instead, it offers only one full EV in Australia, amid a range of internal combustion and hybrid options. This bet against electric vehicles may look foolish if oil prices continue to rise.

Is this the ‘critical mass’ for EVs?

Google trends data is an enigmatic metric. It tells you how interest in things changes but not how much interest there is overall. According to sales data, there was a slump in EV sales in 2024, but EV sales in February 2026 were already 95% higher than they were in February 2025. The evidence of Google Trends suggests March’s results will show even more of an increase.

While technological change can be difficult to initiate, new technologies tend to reach a tipping point when they reach a “critical mass” of public adoption. Like the move from LPs to CDs to streaming services, what starts out as idiosyncratic can soon become a norm. Similarly, technology that once seemed here to stay can quickly become outdated.

With the cost of petrol rising once again, and Australians increasingly harnessing their solar electricity, we are rapidly normalising the benefits of electric vehicles.

I’d like to acknowledge the contribution to this article of my colleague, car enthusiast and academic Damian Fasolo, whose understanding of car culture contributed significantly.

Tauel Harper, Associate Professor in Communications and Media, Murdoch University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Most of our food travels many thousands of kilometres across Australia to reach our kitchens. We are highly dependent on a vast web of long-haul trucks to move food between growers, massive food distribution hubs and large supermarkets.

Of course, trucks need fuel – and lots of it. As war in the Middle East leads to diesel price spikes in Australia, food prices will rise too. Already, the National Farmers’ Federation has said it expects food prices will rise “within weeks”.

And as the COVID pandemic showed – where supermarket shelves were emptied after widespread panic buying – it’s not just war that can reveal weaknesses in a system too heavily reliant on available diesel and long supply chains. These problems are also laid bare when natural disasters strike, roads are cut off and trucks can’t get food to supermarkets.

Meanwhile, Australia’s current strategy of releasing fuel reserves may only end up delaying food price hikes, as the war in the Middle East plays out in unknown ways.

This shock to our food system is not the first, and it won’t be the last.

Focusing on band-aid solutions that prop up the current system undermines our long-term capacities for resilience. We need a plan B for when plan A – the current system – isn’t working.

We need a place-based approach

A place-based approach to food systems asks the question: what could work for our own local (or regional) area?

This approach normalises access to locally or regionally grown food, and acknowledges that what works in one area might not work in another.

Access to shorter food supply chains can include things such as policies to promote:

• smaller, regional produce processing and distribution hubs
• local abattoirs
• local canneries
• cultivation and protection of regional food bowls, rather than building housing on them
• direct food sales from cooperatives
• promoting school and home gardens.

Allowing people to participate in the system – or even co-produce food – helps build community resilience to economic shocks and access food beyond just supermarket shelves.

This could include things such as:

• joining a community-supported agriculture group, in which a community of people pledge money to buy produce from a farm before it’s harvested and offers certainty to local farmers
• buying what you can from farmer’s cooperatives and markets
• participating in a community food garden
• buying locally grown produce online, which has become easier in the wake of the pandemic
• participating in fruit and veggie box collectives.

A place-based approach also means focusing on what’s in season in your region and acknowledging that this means you might not, for instance, be able to get mangoes in autumn in southern Victoria.

Having a back-up plan

Governments need to encourage people to have a contingency for tough times, when the long supply chain supermarket system is disrupted.

For communities, this can mean asking yourself what’s your plan if you can’t get food from the supermarket. It might mean taking time to work out where the local suppliers are, what food is in season in your area, and how you can support local farming co-operatives.

Being able to access food reliably from local and regional places is common sense; it means we don’t have all our eggs in one basket.

For businesses, a more strategic approach to local procurement – by preferencing the purchase of locally produced food – means your business can stay open when the food supply chain system is under pressure.

Governments need a plan to shorten food supply chains

Shorter food supply chains means ensuring people can get food within, for example, a 400-kilometre radius. Federal, state and local governments have a role to play in finding policies to support this. This can include promoting and supporting things such as:

• farm gate sales and shops
• pick-your-own produce on farm sites
• community, school and home gardens, and
• purchasing groups.

One example, which I was involved in, was a local farm co-run by students with the Mini Farm Project, on school grounds at Loganlea State High School in Queensland. The students farmed food, donated food to local charities, and learned about self-sufficiency.

Governments obviously have a range of competing priorities. But smart policy-making means embedding access to place-based food initiatives across multiple policy areas, such as climate change, education, urban development and community-building projects.

A system that can withstand shocks

Sudden shocks – such as war, pandemics and severe weather events – reveal the folly of having a food supply chain so absolutely reliant on the price of crude oil.

A major part of our vulnerability to these shocks is our unquestioned and ongoing dependence on government to come in and prop up the system.

The federal government recently announced it would undertake national assessment of Australia’s food supply chains, which will “focus on diesel supply chains, and will then expand to other critical agricultural inputs, including crop protection products and fertilisers”.

This is a start but it fails to solve the problems sustainably.

Place-based approaches to food systems offers opportunities to change the dynamics around how we relate to our food.

Kimberley Reis, Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering and Built Environment, Griffith University, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

It’s been hard to ignore growing fears of a looming fuel shortage in Australia. Conflict in the Middle East has led to what the International Energy Agency has called the “largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market”.

The federal government has been at pains to reassure the public Australia’s fuel supply is secure until mid-April. Tankers carrying diesel, petrol and jet fuel are already heading here from places such as India, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea. In the short term, supplies look steady.

However, there’s one fuel where Australia is particularly exposed: diesel. Our whole economy depends on it. Trucks that move our food and goods around, machinery used in farming and mining, and even backup generators all rely on diesel.

And because most of it is imported and takes weeks to arrive, even a small disruption could cause serious problems. Recent price spikes are a sign of how sensitive the system is. Hundreds of service stations around Australia have reportedly run out of fuel due to soaring demand.

This is where our diesel goes now, why switching off supply would cause major problems – and some of the hard choices we could face as a country if things get worse.

Keeping things moving

Diesel is a crucial fuel for a wide range of industries. One of the most important uses of diesel is simply moving people (and small loads) around.

According to the Australian Industry Group, by activity, 26% of diesel consumption goes to powering cars and utes.

After that, trucks and mining sit close behind, each accounting for 24% of consumption. Other significant use activities include agriculture (8%) and manufacturing (7%).

And it’s important not to forget the importance of diesel in various other essential functions for communities. Many remote areas, for example, rely on diesel power as a backup power source.

Similarly, when power goes out at a hospital, diesel generators are an important source of backup electricity, where continuity of power is crucial.

Why is it hard to switch?

There are a few key reasons why switching away from diesel is so hard. One is that diesel is the preferred fuel for large vehicles and heavy industry.

Many of diesel’s key uses – powering freight and long-distance trains, trucks or even large shipping vessels – require a huge amount of energy. In very simple terms, diesel contains more energy per litre than petrol. It’s also more fuel-efficient than petrol. That fuel efficiency has enticed many Australians to buy diesel vehicles.

Over the past 15 years, there’s been a surge in diesel sales, with more small trucks and vans on the road required to keep up with Australia’s booming demand for online deliveries.

Our transport and industry infrastructure in Australia is built around access to diesel. Transitioning away from this fuel can’t be done easily or in a hurry.

How bad could things get?

If diesel stops flowing to Australia (or is severely restricted), one of the most immediate impacts will be on freight.

It’s highly unlikely there will be no diesel at all. But if we can’t get enough stock into the country, what is available could become extremely expensive.

Many freight companies will be unable to absorb these costs, and so will likely push them onto their customers in the form of higher prices.

It’s more difficult to speculate about the speed and severity of other impacts, such as on food production or the cost of construction. But these effects could be significant in a prolonged crisis.

What’s on the way

Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said on Sunday six fuel tankers scheduled to arrive in Australia had been cancelled or deferred, but that this was out of 81 expected in total.

My own analysis, using the latest shipping data from financial data firm LSEG, indicates fuel is still headed for and arriving in Australia.

At the time of this article’s publication, there were no visible fuel shipments scheduled beyond April 14. But that isn’t necessarily any reason to panic. Typically, departure data is only made available within a couple of weeks before a ship departs (sometimes only a few days before).

It will be important for the government to remain transparent about exactly how much is expected to come into the country.

Tough choices

If we zoom out to the bigger picture, Australia’s reliance on diesel is the result of years of particular choices.

If the situation doesn’t improve before mid-April, the country could face hard choices – such as rationing fuel, requiring people to work remotely if possible and minimise travel, or switching to alternatives such as electric vehicles.

But our reliance on diesel isn’t inevitable, and other systems are possible. For one, Australia is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Why isn’t our economy based around this prime asset?

Nations such as India and China have already demonstrated how transport can pivot away from diesel, rolling out both LNG-powered and electric trucks in large numbers.

Even if it’s resolved soon, this crisis will have forced Australia to finally confront tough questions about its energy security.

Lurion De Mello, Senior Lecturer in Finance, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle continues to amaze us with its long journey across northern Australia.

This cyclone began life near the Solomon Islands on March 16, when moist air rose rapidly and created a low-pressure zone. Narelle crossed the Cape York Peninsula last Friday as an intense but compact category 4 system, and continued a steady westerly track across the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Northern Territory and the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Today the cyclone crossed as a dangerous category 4 cyclone near Exmouth, in the far northwest of WA. So far, Narelle has travelled more than 5,700 kilometres since it formed as a system near the Solomons, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

It is relatively rare for an individual tropical cyclone to affect Queensland, the NT and WA. The last time was Severe Cyclone Ingrid in 2005 and Cyclone Steve in 2000. The final path of Narelle is likely to be very similar to Steve, with its final dissipation in the Great Australian Bight.

A large and severe cyclone

Narelle is a much more severe cyclone than Steve, however. The system is now twice the size it was when it reached far north Queensland a week ago — as measured by the area of strong gales around its eye. These damaging winds now extend 200–260km from the centre, while destructive storm-force winds extend 110–210km, and the very destructive core of hurricane-force around the eye is 90–130km wide.

The cyclone’s larger core poses a significant threat to settlements in its path from both severe winds and intense rainfall. Dangerous storm surge and ocean inundation is also a high risk for exposed coastal locations along its path. There will be much greater impact if it passes by at or near high tide.

So far, wind and storm surge damage from the cyclone has been minimal, as it has tracked over more sparsely populated areas. Its worst impacts have been heavy rain and flooding across NT catchments, which were already saturated from weeks of monsoonal rain. The west of the continent is unlikely to be so lucky.

An unusually predictable path

Narelle’s track, forward speed and intensity have been remarkably predictable compared with many cyclones in the Australian region. Prevailing easterly winds under the cyclone, associated with a subtropical high pressure ridge over southern Australia, have propelled it along at 15–25km per hour over the past week.

Narelle is now being steered around the northwestern periphery of the same high-pressure system, and this is why its track is now more to the south southwest. It is expected to intensify over warm ocean waters. It will continue to move in a more southerly direction and maintain intensity as a dangerous category 4 cyclone until later today, before weakening to a still severe category 3 system near Shark Bay. The towns of Onslow and Exmouth are expecting severe impacts as the core winds pass over them, with wind gusts of up to 250km per hour. Further south, Carnarvon is expecting winds up to 200km per hour this afternoon.

Weakening over land

The world heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef is likely to be severely affected by the cyclone as its core winds pass along its entire length. This is a double whammy for the reef, after the severe 2025 marine heatwave caused catastrophic coral bleaching and high mortality. Some areas lost up to 60–80% of coral. Coral reefs that are already stressed by coral bleaching are likely to take longer to recover, if they are struck soon after by a powerful tropical cyclone.

Narelle will still be a severe category 3 system when it tracks through Shark Bay, probably on Friday, but will begin to weaken as it moves over land south of the tourist town of Denham. An approaching upper trough from the Southern Ocean will begin to interact with the cyclone and force it to track more quickly to the south-southeast. This will see it weaken to a category 2 as it passes just inland of the major town of Geraldton. Due to forecast changes in wind speed and direction near the cyclone from the west, the strongest winds will shift to its eastern flank and the system will begin to lose its tropical cyclone characteristics.

The people of Kalbarri and Northampton, small towns north of Geraldton, will be on edge as they remember April 2021, when the towns suffered serious damage from category 3 Tropical Cyclone Seroja.

The WA capital Perth is likely to avoid the core of the cyclone as it undergoes extra-tropical transition. This is when a cyclone loses its tropical warm core and becomes more extra-tropical in structure, meaning its strong winds and heavy rain can be expected to spread out from the centre over a wide area of the greater southwest during Saturday.

On the positive side, widespread rainfalls are forecast for most of the WA Wheatbelt. This will be welcomed by farmers as they typically sow their winter wheat crops between late April and June.

Tropical cyclones becoming more intense

It’s too early to draw a link between Cyclone Narelle and background global heating of the oceans and atmosphere, largely driven by rising greenhouse gases from the combustion of fossil fuels. This will require detailed attribution studies, which factor in natural variations in the climate system with those being driven by human-driven climate change.

Numerous studies now confirm globally tropical cyclones are becoming more intense and delivering higher short-term and daily rainfall than in the past. In the Australian region, there has been a decline in overall cyclone frequency in recent decades, but the ones we’re getting now are more intense and producing more rainfall. This trend is expected to continue under future global heating.

Steve Turton, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Geography, CQUniversity Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Mangareva Islands are about 1,600 kilometres southeast of Tahiti in French Polynesia. They get their name (which means “floating mountains”) from the way the sea spray breaking on the surrounding coral atolls, or motu, causes the ancient volcanic peaks to appear as if they are floating above the waves.

Today, the islands are home to about 2,000 people, many of whom work on the pearl farms in the idyllic turquoise lagoon. Dotted across the islands are the remains of dozens of remarkable pieces of architecture: homes built from coral.

As part of a larger project studying the transformations of everyday life in 19th-century Mangareva, my archaeology research team has documented dozens of these coral houses, including on the islands of Aukena, Akamaru, Mangareva and Taravai.

Now, in a new paper published in the journal Antiquity, we have established the first precise construction timeline for these coral houses.

The results reveal new patterns in how Pacific societies shaped their built environment after European contact – and how that colonial legacy continues to shape life today.

Colonisation changed community life in the Pacific

French Catholic missionaries set up an outpost in Mangareva starting in 1834.

In addition to learning the habits of prayer, attending religious services and reading the bible, Mangarevan people also changed their day-to-day lives. Among the many changes were a complete transformation of people’s domestic spaces.

Traditional buildings of wood and thatch were replaced within a few decades by a new kind of stone cottage.

The missionaries often recorded specific dates for their constructions, above all the cathedral in Rikitea, churches throughout the islands, and the main Catholic schools.

However, for the largest category of buildings from this time, houses, we usually don’t have any information about construction dates, who built them, and who lived there.

A precise dating method

During fieldwork in October 2024, I noticed that one of the coral blocks that had fallen from the wall of the ruined house we were excavating had branch corals that looked very fresh, almost like they were just cut from the living reef.

We used an advanced technique known as uranium-thorium (U-Th) dating to understand the age of these branch corals – and the structures built from them.

Unlike the more well-known radiocarbon dating, where the error ranges are measured in decades, U-Th dates are super precise, narrowing down the date when the corals died, leaving behind the hard exoskeleton, to within a few years.

Also unlike radiocarbon, which isn’t very reliable for materials less than about 400 years old, U-Th works right up until the present.

We took a “control” sample from a building with known dates, the 1850s boys’ school from Aukena, as well as samples from an additional eight houses, plus a coral watch tower.

We also sampled a branch coral from a pit layer in the same house where I first noticed the “fresh” looking branches from the coral blocks.

At the time, we were thinking that the pit held the remains of a feast held just before the house was built. Overlapping dates in our U-Th results confirmed this hypothesis.

Mysteries of ‘old coral’

After testing the samples, we were surprised to notice several dates that were older than expected.

Some of the corals apparently died before the 1830s when missionaries arrived. Some even pre-dated European contact in the 1790s.

A similar problem is known from radiocarbon dating, called the “old wood” problem where the date of the death of an organism might be centuries or even decades before the event an archaeologist is hoping to date. Did we have an “old corals” problem here?

There are two potential explanations.

An archaeologist visiting Mangareva in the 1930s noted piles of coral rubble he believed were the remains of marae, once sacred structures that were overthrown during the missionary period. This raised the possibility that this ancient coral was repurposed for new buildings.

Another possibility for this kind of coral, from the scientific genus Acropora, is that some branches die off away from the area of active growth on the reef over a period of years or decades but retain their “fresh” look.

This might be the more likely scenario, as our “too old” dates were years or decades, but not centuries, too early. But we also can’t completely rule out the marae theory.

We still have a lot to learn about how people used coral for buildings in the past, and possibly to learn about how coral reefs rebounded, or not, after decades of human exploitation. This last point could be important for thinking more carefully about our own relationships to coral reefs in the present.

James L. Flexner, Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology and Heritage, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The fight against infectious disease is a race against evolution. Bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. Viruses adapt to spread more quickly. Diseases transmitted by insects present another evolutionary front: Insects themselves can evolve resistance to the poisons that people use to kill them.

In particular, the mosquito-borne disease malaria kills over 600,000 people annually. Since World War II, people have battled malaria with insecticides – chemical weapons intended to kill Anopheles mosquitoes infected with the Plasmodium parasites that cause the disease.

However, mosquitoes are quickly evolving counterstrategies that make these insecticides ineffective, putting millions of people at greater risk of deadly infection. My colleagues and I have newly published research showing how.

Insecticide resistance threatens public health

As an evolutionary geneticist, I study natural selection – the basis for adaptive evolution. Genetic variants that best promote survival can replace less advantageous versions, causing species to change. Anopheles mosquitoes are frustratingly adept at evolving.

In the mid-1990s, most African Anopheles were susceptible to pyrethroids, a popular type of insecticide originally derived from chrysanthemums. Anopheles control relies on two pyrethroid-based methods: insecticide-treated bed nets to protect sleepers, and indoor residual spraying of insecticide against the walls of homes. These two methods alone likely prevented over a half-billion cases of malaria between 2000 and 2015.

However, mosquitoes today from Ghana to Malawi are often able to survive insecticide concentrations 10 times the previously lethal dose. Along with Anopheles control efforts, agriculture also inadvertently exposes mosquitoes to pyrethroids and contributes to insecticide resistance.

In some African locales, Anopheles is already showing resistance to all four main classes of insecticide used for malaria control.

Adaptation in Latin American mosquitoes

Anopheles mosquitoes and the malaria-causing Plasmodium also occur outside Africa, where insecticide resistance is less well-researched.

In much of South America, the main malaria vector is Anopheles darlingi. This mosquito species has diverged evolutionarily from the African vectors so extensively that it might be a different genus, Nyssorhynchus. Along with colleagues from eight countries, I analyzed over 1,000 Anopheles darlingi genomes to understand its genetic diversity, including any recent changes due to human activity. My collaborators collected these mosquitoes at 16 locations ranging from the Atlantic coast of Brazil to the Pacific side of the Andes in Colombia.

We found that, like its African counterparts, Anopheles darlingi shows extremely high genetic diversity – more than 20 times that of humans – indicating that very large populations of this insect exist. A species with such a vast gene pool is well poised to adapt to new challenges. The right mutation giving it the advantage it needs is more likely to pop up when there are so many individuals. And once that mutation starts to spread, it’s protected by numbers since it won’t be wiped out if a few mosquitoes die by chance.

In contrast, bald eagles in the contiguous U.S. were never able to evolve resistance against the insecticide DDT and approached extinction. Evolution is more efficient among millions of insects than mere thousands of birds. And indeed, we saw signals of adaptive evolution in the resistance-related genes of Anopheles darlingi occurring over the past few decades.

Mosquitoes evolve to detoxify poisons

Insecticides like pyrethroids and DDT share the same molecular target: channels in nerve cells that can open and close. When open, the nerve cell stimulates other cells. These insecticides force the channels to remain open and continuously fire, causing paralysis and death. However, insects can evolve resistance by changing the shape of the channel itself.

Earlier genetic scans performed by other researchers had not detected this type of resistance in Anopheles darlingi, and neither did ours. Instead, we found that resistance is evolving in another way: a group of genes encoding enzymes that break down toxic compounds. High activity of these enzymes, called P450, frequently underlies resistance to insecticides in other mosquitoes. The same cluster of P450 genes has changed independently at least seven times across South America since insecticide use began in the mid-20th century.

In French Guiana, a different set of P450 genes exhibits a similar evolutionary pattern, cementing the clear connection between these enzymes and adaptation. Moreover, when we exposed mosquitoes to pyrethroids in sealed bottles, differences among the P450 genes of individual mosquitoes were linked to the length of time they stayed alive.

Insecticide-heavy campaigns against malaria have been only sporadic in South America and may not be the main driver behind this evolution. Instead, it’s possible that mosquitoes are being exposed indirectly to agricultural insecticides. Intriguingly, we saw the strongest signs of evolution in places where farming is prevalent.

Toward more sophisticated vector control

Despite new vaccines and other recent advances against malaria, mosquito control remains essential for reducing disease.

Some countries are launching trials of gene drives to control malaria, which involve forcing a genetic modification into a mosquito population to reduce their numbers or their tolerance for Plasmodium. Such prospects are exciting, though the relentless adaptability of mosquitoes could be an obstacle.

I and others are revising methods to efficiently test for emerging insecticide resistance. Genome-scale sequencing remains important to detect new or unexpected evolutionary responses. The risk of adaptation is highest under a continuous, strong selection pressure, so minimizing, switching and staggering pesticides can help thwart resistance.

Success in the fight against evolving resistance will require a coordinated effort of monitoring, and reacting accordingly. Unlike evolution, humans can think ahead.

Jacob A Tennessen, Research Scientist in Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A huge wall of water and debris swept down the Teesta valley in the eastern Himalayas on October 3 2023, causing widespread devastation and the tragic loss of over 50 people. This powerful flood in India was the result of a landslide which caused a glacial lake higher up the valley to spill over. This phenomenon is known as a glacial lake outburst flood, or GLOF.

In a 2025 study of glacial lakes across the Bolivian Andes, my colleagues and I found that 11 are highly susceptible to producing potentially hazardous GLOFs. Such lakes are increasing in size and number as glaciers retreat around the world. In Bolivia, we saw 60 new lakes form in just six years.

Over the same six-year period, glaciers in the region shrank rapidly. If they continue to melt at the same rate, Bolivia will be entirely ice free by the 2080s. Unfortunately, this is likely to be a conservative estimate.

We modelled the shape of the land surface underneath the existing ice to predict where lakes might form in future. We found more than 50 potential lake sites. Further monitoring will ascertain which of these emerging lakes might pose a risk to downstream populations or infrastructure.

In our study, we used high resolution satellite imagery to monitor glaciers and glacial lakes across the Bolivian Andes. We mapped glacier and lake boundaries at annual intervals between 2016 and 2022.

Bolivia is home to nearly one-fifth of the world’s tropical glaciers. These glaciers are important in their own right, particularly during the dry season, when meltwater provides essential supplies for human consumption, agriculture and industry. Glaciers also play a role in the cultural life and heritage of Indigenous peoples in this region.

We found an alarming rate of shrinkage among these glaciers. Between 2016 and 2022, the total surface area of glaciers in Bolivia decreased by nearly 10% – at an average rate of almost two square miles per year. If these glaciers continue to retreat at the same rate, there will be none left in the region by the 2080s.

Yet this represents a best case scenario. As glaciers get smaller, they shrink more rapidly, so the rate of decline will probably increase over time.

Such rapid deglaciation not only threatens water security but may also damage ecosystems. In the Andes, high-altitude wetlands known as “bofedales” store vast amounts of carbon and help absorb water too. Should they dry out as a result of decreasing water availability, they may release the carbon they have been storing – driving further warming of the atmosphere.

As glaciers melted and shrank across the region, the number and size of glacial lakes increased. Around 60 new lakes formed over the course of the study period. Many of these lakes were small and would be unlikely to produce a GLOF capable of doing significant damage, but 120 were considered large enough to represent a potential hazard.

We analysed these lakes in order to assess their susceptibility to producing a GLOF and found that 11 were worthy of further investigation. For example, ascertaining the potential consequences on downstream populations of an outburst flood from one of these lakes could help to inform future monitoring and mitigation efforts.

To reduce the risk of future catastrophe, local communities can prepare in a range of ways. That includes the physical construction of spillways and diversion canals, strategic land-use planning and the design of flood-resistant infrastructure. Disaster preparedness also requires social measures, such as education and awareness raising so that residents understand clearly communicated evacuation plans or early warning systems.

Modelling the hollows

Using existing global glacier thickness data combined with our findings, we created a digital model representing the shape of the land surface underneath the ice. Glaciers are immensely powerful erosive agents and can carve deep hollows into the bedrock that they travel over. As the ice retreats, these hollows often fill with water and become lakes.

We found 55 potential future lake sites. Not all of these lakes will definitely form. Shallow depressions may fill with sediment instead of water while deeper ones may be drained by gorges which can’t be detected by modelling because they’re just too narrow for the tech to find. Models would be even more reliable with access to higher resolution datasets which are not currently available for the Bolivian Andes.

Future lakes across Bolivia may represent important sources of water – partially offsetting the consequences of losing glacial meltwater. Nevertheless, these lakes may be susceptible to producing GLOFs, so rapid and sustained international action to reduce the effect of climate change on the world’s glaciated regions is critical.

Jamie MacManaway, Junior scientist, Loughborough University; University of the Highlands and Islands

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Trump administration pulled the rug out from underneath US federal climate policy in February, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overturned the landmark 2009 “endangerment finding”. Now, the official policy of the US government holds that greenhouse gases do not pose a risk to human health.

The move has opened a new frontier for Donald Trump to govern without being constrained by evidence or in a manner that represents the majority of Americans, who support pro-climate policies. It also follows a year in which the US president and his allies have hollowed out American climate leadership.

Since taking office, Trump and his allies have rolled back clean air standards for almost anything with a tailpipe or smokestack. In January 2026, they even instructed the EPA to stop estimating the value of lives saved in the agency’s cost-benefit analyses for new pollution rules. This could lead to looser controls on pollutants from industrial sites across the country.

As US climate leadership recedes into the rearview mirror, one question remains: will any nation – and China in particular – rush in to fill the gap? I wish there were a simple answer. But enthusiasm for climate leadership is backsliding, and not just from the US government.

Even as renewable energy installation continues worldwide, there are some signs of retreat. Across the world, companies are quietly shedding their net-zero targets. US car manufacturers Ford and General Motors also recently wrote off more than US$25 billion (£18.5 billion) of investment in electric vehicles because consumer demand has failed to match their forecasts.

It is no coincidence that this breakdown in the global climate consensus comes at a time when tensions are rising worldwide. The global order is reeling over Trump’s war in Iran and sabre-rattling over Greenland. Meanwhile, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has dragged into its fifth year without any clear prospect of peace.

Climate collaboration requires a belief that everyone is pitching in. When global institutions and norms look weak, national leaders worry about being the last honest participant in a deal that everyone else has abandoned. This is as true for countries as for human beings: nobody wants to feel like they’ve been duped.

However, there are some signs of hope. Demand for clean energy isn’t going away overnight. Renewable energy is often cheaper than fossil power, even without subsidies. A July 2025 report by the International Renewable Energy Agency found that nine in ten new renewable projects are on track to generate cheaper power than fossil fuel alternatives.

Just as important is the fact that citizens around the world continue to suffer from the effects of breathing polluted air, which the World Health Organization estimates causes 7 million deaths worldwide each year.

Even as climate concern falters, some of the world’s most populous cities, such as New Delhi in India, are under growing pressure to protect their residents’ health. They are likely to continue reducing their use of fossil fuels to heat homes, generate electricity and move people around.

Meanwhile, China is on a glide path to fill part of the void opened by America’s climate retreat. It already dominates certain clean energy technologies, holding a near-monopoly on battery, solar panel and fuel cell production. Chinese companies now manufacture more electric vehicles than every other nation combined.

Cementing its position as the new global climate leader would also earn China diplomatic “soft power,” especially among developing nations where Beijing can offer clean energy infrastructure plus the loans to finance it.

But, at the same time, China has shown a steady unwillingness to back strong political leadership on climate action. China’s leaders are bullish on renewable energy when it serves their economic interests. However, they are broadly resistant to the sort of strong international pressures that could stabilise global temperature rise.

It wasn’t until 2025 that China promised to actually reduce its emissions. And its recent commitments, which include a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 10% below peak levels by 2035, fall well short of what analysts say will be necessary to keep global warming below 1.5°C.

With US credibility rapidly eroding, the 21st century seems poised to slide deeper into a style of governance that is characterised less by rigorous analysis than by the whims of its leaders.

The silver lining is that demagoguery has a shelf life. Trump’s approval rating has fallen to second-term lows, with polls showing him at -17 points. The demand for clean air, cheap energy and competent governance doesn’t go away because one administration decides to ignore it.

One day Trump will eventually fade from the political landscape. Climate change will not.

Stephen Lezak, Programme Manager at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.