Q&A: How climate change and war threaten Iran’s water supplies
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Climate change, war and mismanagement are putting Iran’s water supply under major strain, experts have warned. The Middle Eastern country has faced years of intense drought, which scientists have found was made more intense due to human-caused climate change. In recent years, Iranian citizens have protested against the government’s management of water supplies, pointing the […]
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Water regarded as national security priority, says FCDO
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Delegates at the British Water International Reception 2026. Water resilience should be regarded as a national security priority, delegates to the British Water International Forum 2026 heard on 23 February. Speaking at the event in London, Andy Roby, senior water resources advisor for the UK government’s Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), said, that there […]
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New conference will shine a light on waste crime amid record incidents
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Fly-tipping on a housing estate. A new national conference taking place on 19 March (online) will address the growing challenge of waste crime, following new Government data showing that fly‑tipping incidents in England have risen to their highest level since records began. The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) Waste Crime Conference, supported by the […]
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Glasgow fire renews concerns over lithium-ion battery safety
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The fire in Glasgow on 8 March. A major fire in a building next to Glasgow Central station on 8 March – which forced the closure of Scotland’s busiest railway hub – has put the spotlight once again on longstanding concerns about the safety of lithium-ion batteries. More than 200 firefighters1 battled the blaze which […]
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Can AI help predict which heart-failure patients will worsen within a year?
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Characterized by weakened or damaged heart musculature, heart failure results in the gradual buildup of fluid in a patient’s lungs, legs, feet, and other parts of the body. The condition is chronic and incurable, often leading to arrhythmias or sudden cardiac arrest. For many centuries, bloodletting and leeches were the treatment of choice, famously practiced […]
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Reluctance to rely on China for green technology could slow climate action
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Photovoltaic circuit board production in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province, in 2021. New research suggests that concerns about relying too heavily on Chinese manufacturing are shaping climate policy – and could even delay the adoption of green technologies around the world. The study by Dr James Jackson from The University of Manchester, working alongside Dr Mathias Larsen […]
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Cost of Net Zero by 2050 less than a single fossil fuel price shock, says CCC
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The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has released a new report to complement its 2025 advice on the UK’s Seventh Carbon Budget. The independent, statutory body tested its cost and energy security conclusions against different scenarios. It found that the total additional cost of a single fossil fuel price spike of 2022 magnitude is likely to […]
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Best Practices for Minimizing Construction Impact on Natural Habitats
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Photo courtesy of Freepik As urbanization continues to expand, the need for balancing development with conservation becomes increasingly vital. Construction projects often disrupt natural habitats, leading to loss of biodiversity and ecological damage. To mitigate these effects, it’s essential to adopt construction practices that prioritize environmental sustainability. This article aims to explore best practices that […]
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3 Questions: On the future of AI and the mathematical and physical sciences
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Curiosity-driven research has long sparked technological transformations. A century ago, curiosity about atoms led to quantum mechanics, and eventually the transistor at the heart of modern computing. Conversely, the steam engine was a practical breakthrough, but it took fundamental research in thermodynamics to fully harness its power. Today, artificial intelligence and science find themselves at […]
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Cropped 11 March 2026: Iran water worries | Seabed-mining treaty progress | Women farmers and climate change
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight. This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here. Key developments Fertiliser disruption in Middle East FOOD RISKS: The US-Israel war on Iran is “disrupting” the production and […]
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Analysis: Why clean energy will cut UK gas imports by more than North Sea drilling
The Iran war has spurred a range of commentators to renew calls for the UK government to issue new licences for oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. They argue that new domestic drilling could boost energy security at a time of volatility in major oil-and-gas producing countries in the Middle East. However, such […]
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New MIT class uses anthropology to improve chatbots
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Young adults growing up in the attention economy — preparing for adult life, with social media and chatbots competing for their attention — can easily fall into unhealthy relationships with digital platforms. But what if chatbots weren’t mere distractions from real life? Could they be designed humanely, as moral partners whose digital goal is to […]
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Call for Presentations: Corporate Climate Accountability Litigation – Law, Strategy and Accountability
The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, the GDR ClimaLex, CNRS, and the Institute of Legal and Philosophical Sciences (ISJPS) at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne are pleased to invite submissions for the workshop Corporate Climate Accountability Litigation: Law, Strategy and Accountability, to be held at the Columbia Global Center in Paris […]
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Dolphin-shaped robot developed to skim oil spills using sea-urchin-inspired filter
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RMIT’s Electronic Dolphin minibot is a proof‑of‑concept device designed to skim oil from the surface of water. It has a front‑mounted nozzle and compact dolphin‑like body (image credit: Peter Clarke, RMIT University) Engineers at RMIT University in Australia have developed a remote-controlled miniature robot designed to collect oil spills from the surface of water using […]
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Back British biofertiliser to protect farmers from rising prices: Trade body issues call
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British biofertiliser could replace imported artificial fertilisers whose costs are soaring if the Government removes unnecessary restrictions to help farmers, according to the UK trade body representing green gas and bioresources. In an open letter of 11 March to Emma Reynolds (Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) the UK trade association for […]
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A better method for planning complex visual tasks
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MIT researchers have developed a generative artificial intelligence-driven approach for planning long-term visual tasks, like robot navigation, that is about twice as effective as some existing techniques. Their method uses a specialized vision-language model to perceive the scenario in an image and simulate actions needed to reach a goal. Then a second model translates those […]
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CCC: Net-zero will protect UK from fossil-fuel price shocks
The “cost” of cutting UK emissions to net-zero is less than the cost of a single fossil-fuel price shock, according to a new report from the Climate Change Committee (CCC). Moreover, a net-zero economy would be almost completely protected from fossil-fuel price spikes in the future, says the government’s climate advisory body. The report is […]
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How Joseph Paradiso’s sensing innovations bridge the arts, medicine, and ecology
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Joseph Paradiso thinks that the most engaging research questions usually span disciplines. Paradiso was trained as a physicist and completed his PhD in experimental high-energy physics at MIT in 1981. His father was a photographer and filmmaker working at MIT, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and the MITRE Corporation, so he grew up in a house where artists, […]