Below the radar

2026 – the most extreme year yet in climate history

In the first part of 2026 we saw a number of records broken. These included the temperature of the oceans, unseasonal heatwaves, huge wildfires and torrential rainfall. This shows very starkly that the climate crisis is accelerating. The return appearance of El Niño is highly likely to exacerbate the situation. El Niño could strengthen throughout the autumn before reaching a peak between December and January.

Not for the first time scientists have expressed deep concern that tackling global warming is clearly not a priority and climate targets are no longer going to be met in numerous parts of the world.  Friederike Otto, Professor in Climate Science at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London and author of Climate Injustice: Why We Need to Fight Global Inequity to Combat Climate Change has joined the call to action: “In our everyday work, we see just the devastating impacts from climate change that we already have now, when we are not quite at 1.5 degrees warming. We must take action.” She has for some time argued that global inequality is interlinked with the climate and that the most vulnerable populations in the Global South suffer the greatest ill-effects from the West’s reckless and continued exploitation of fossil fuels.

As individuals we can change our lifestyle choices and hope that others see how important this is and make changes, but individual lifestyles only contribute to a fraction of emissions. It is essential that governments and businesses make choices for the sake of the planet and to preserve it for the chance of life in the future. It is puzzling that many of those with the power have children and grandchildren yet are too obsessed with short-term gain to pause, consider their futures and take the action that is so urgently needed.

In the world’s sixth biggest economy homelessness continues to rise

“Shamefully, the UK tops the global league table with by far the highest rate of homelessness in the developed world with one in 200 households living in emergency temporary housing…It is now crucial to focus on solutions and work with the government to end this national scandal and international embarrassment.” John Glenton, Executive Director of Care and Support at Riverside Housing Association.

There has been a consistent rise in homelessness. One in every 200 households in the UK is experiencing homelessness. A count carried out one night in autumn 2025 discovered 4793 people homeless on England’s streets. These numbers reveal a record high and are also 171% higher than in 2010 when the count began. There has also been an increase in the numbers of households in temporary accommodation; in the autumn of last year there were 134,760. This is a record and 7% higher than in the autumn of 2024. 172,420 children now live in temporary accommodation.

Labour promised to build 1.5 million homes and to invest £39bn to build social and affordable homes over the next decade but it will be surprising if they meet this target and it is frustrating that they fail to take action over the many empty properties that could be people’s homes. In London alone the official figure of empty properties in 2026 is about 161,000. Another figure from the most recent count estimates almost twice as many, about 300,000. London has around 11,000 empty council homes.

Action on Empty Homes argues that the new homes that are built are unaffordable for the many who are desperate for safe accommodation they can call their own. “This is why we have collaborated with every conceivable partner in the housing space to illustrate what is going wrong. We have worked with organisations such as Crisis and Shelter to show how homes currently languishing unused could be brought into use to meet social needs.” The situation is urgent, especially as almost 36,000 London households, 46% of London’s homeless families, have been allocated accommodation, often in poverty-stricken parts of the country, away from the communities they know and away from their children’s schools. 

Trump to dismantle $368 million programme to observe the deep oceans

Installing deep-sea observing networks was a huge achievement for US science. The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) has been collecting long-term oceanographic data at multiple deep-ocean sites since 2016. But Trump is dismantling the programme, an initiative which cost $368 million. The removal is planned to take place over the coming 15 months. The plans involve removing all the in-water arrays and infrastructure from 4 of the 5 sites which are operating. This includes hundreds of deep-sea instruments. 

The plans are very much in line with the Trump administration’s disregard for the climate crisis. The oceanographic community is extremely concerned, especially as the dismantling is planned when we are expecting an intense El Niño this year, a year in which an alarming number of climate records have been broken. It is very important to be able to monitor the effect El Niño is  having on coastal physical circulation and ecosystems, but for many decades we have chosen to ignore the warnings from scientists about the effect of human activity on our climate and ecosystems. And the world may well take no notice of Trump’s latest decision to continue shelving projects and plans which are designed to monitor and protect the earth. 

Hilary Palevsky is a marine biologist who has been studying how the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide for a decade. She commented: “There’s a real danger that we lose the ability to keep looking for long-term changes [in the ocean]…I worry that … we’ll be losing this enormously valuable site where we could really contextualize and detect these changes going forward.”

Will this latest short-sighted, thoughtless and inappropriate decision by the Trump administration remain under the radar, unacknowledged and unresisted?

The Filton 25

Two years ago in August, six activists took part in direct action involving dismantling weapons at the Elbit Systems factory in Filton in Bristol. This factory is where weapons are produced that are used by the Israelis against the Palestinians in Gaza. Originally known as the Filton 6,the group grew as other activists were arrested and detained by counter terrorism police, were charged with aggravated burglary, violent disorder and criminal damage and were held on remand in different UK prisons.

The establishment made use of terrorism powers, although the group was not charged under terrorism legislation. The Crown Prosecution Service is aiming for severe terror-related sentences.

Six of the accused were tried in November 2025 and the jury refused to convict them. All 25 were acquitted on the most serious charge of aggravated burglary. All but one were released from custody. In April 2026 the 6 were retried. The judge restricted what they could tell the jury about their motives, about the genocide in Gaza and the weapons manufactured by Elbit. This was a severe restriction on their legal defence. The judge directed the jury to declare a guilty verdict and four were found guilty of criminal damage and returned to custody. The judge did not take into consideration the contempt of court by Yvette Cooper, yet, in an unprecedented move, he referred the lead KC on the case, Rajiv Menon, to the High Court for alleged contempt of court in his closing speech. Menon won a Court of Appeal challenge last month. 

On 12 June 2026, the 4 are due to be sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court

Newscord has call upon us to write to our MPs regarding the Filton25 sentencing: https://newscord.org/action/filton25-sentencing.