The British brand has entered the booming market in luxury “car-chitecture”, opening a themed tower in Miami boasting ballroom, helipad and infinity pool – all offering millionaires a perfect view of our choking, collapsing world

Move over, James Bond – a new Aston Martin has rolled into town, brimming with more flashy features than Q could ever dream of. Parked ostentatiously on the Miami waterfront, overlooking a private marina brimming with superyachts, its streamlined flanks glisten in the Florida sunshine, housing an interior trimmed with the finest leathers and exotic wood veneers. There’s no ejector seat or rocket-launcher, but it is the biggest Aston Martin ever made – housing Jacuzzi, bar, cinema, golf simulator, art gallery, ballroom and infinity pool, all crowned with a 66th-storey helipad.

Unveiled in the week of the Miami Grand Prix, the latest exclusive model from the timeless British automotive brand is not a high-performance sports car, but an ultra-luxury apartment building – the tallest residential tower in the US, south of New York. After Aston Martin’s years of financial woes , following a disastrous stock market performance since the company’s 2018 listing, it seems that the boutique car-
maker is seeking salvation in property development.

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Dubaï a été récemment frappé par un épisode météorologique d'une ampleur rare, avec des précipitations exceptionnelles -- au point de provoquer des inondations. Une hypothèse a suggéré que le violent orage qui a frappé l'émirat était dû à un ensemencement de nuages qui a mal tourné. C'est toutefois improbable.

World Weather Attribution group says intensified El Niño effects caused torrential rain, but rules out cloud seeding as cause

Fossil fuels and concrete combined to worsen the “death-trap” conditions during the recent record flooding in the United Arab Emirates and Oman, a study has found.

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution team said downpours in El Niño years, such as this one, had become 10-40% heavier in the region as a result of human-cased climate disruption, while a lack of natural drainage quickly turned roads into rivers.

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Questions have swirled online about the process being behind the historic rainfall – but experts say it’s not the real culprit

Severe floods inundated the United Arab Emirates this week, as a storm dumped the largest amount of rainfall the country has seen in more than 75 years, the government said.

A record 254mm (10in) of rainfall dropped in Al Ain, a city bordering Oman – more than the country sees on average in a year. Highways turned to rivers as drivers abandoned stuck vehicles, homes and businesses have been damaged, and flights at one of the world’s busiest airports have been significantly disrupted. Twenty people have reportedly been killed, and the recovery is expected to be slow: in a place known for its dry desert climate and hot temperatures where rain is rare, many areas lack drainage.

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Heavy rain forecast in Saudi Arabia and UAE as weather in France and Spain cools down after weekend of high temperatures

Intense thunderstorms are forecast across parts of the Gulf on Monday and Tuesday, bringing very high rainfall totals to the region and a significant flooding risk in parts.

Low pressure over the Arabian peninsula will deepen on Monday while a flow of moist tropical air moves into the region, significantly enhancing the production of showers as a result.

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The 80,000 delegates are thinking of how best to unwind from the climate summit ‘whirlwind’ in Dubai on their only day off

From the world’s largest waterpark to an indoor ski resort in a shopping centre, Cop28 delegates will have plenty of options to choose from on their only day off at the climate summit.

After an exhausting week of negotiations, events and protests, the 80,000 delegates in the United Arab Emirates will have a chance to enjoy Dubai ahead of the final push.

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Sixth day of Cop28 comes as new report says threats to humanity drawing closer as carbon pollution heats the planet to ever more dangerous levels

Countries negotiating at Cop28 must not fall into the trap of point scoring and “lowest common denominator politics”, Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, has said.

Stiell, who is executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the structure under the auspices of which the climate summit is held, spoke at a press conference in Dubai as Cop28 reached its midpoint. He said:

All governments must give their negotiators clear marching orders. We need highest ambition, not point scoring or lowest common denominator politics.

We have a starting text on the table … but it’s a grab bag of wishlists and heavy on posturing. The key now is to sort the wheat from the chaff.

For all intents and purposes, moving towards the phase-out of fossil fuel combustion is necessary to keep the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement within reach.

Scenarios consistent with this goal require a complete phase-out of coal by 2050 and rapid phase-down of oil and gas (halved every decade). After 2050 the world needs to rapidly move into net negative emissions, particularly after a number of decades of 1.5C overshoot.

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Summit negotiations continue in wake of Sultan Al Jaber’s claim there is ‘no science’ indicating a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C

• Cop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels

The Prime Minister of Barbados and one of the world’s foremost negotiators on loss and damage, Mia Mottley, has kicked off finance day at Cop with a press conference.

She said: “We are living in the age of superlatives. Temperature and extreme weather records are tumbling, and our finance systems cannot cope”.

Adaptation, mitigation, loss and damage. Those have been the three areas that we have been focused on for the last few years. This has probably been the most progress we’ve seen in the last twelve months on finance but we’re not where we need to be at, so first of all I want to give thanks and I really do want to give thanks to Dr Sultan for his leadership and determination that we should leave Dubai with progress even if we are not at the final destination.

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Exclusive: Simon Stiell, will oversee crucial climate summit Cop28 in Dubai where he will campaign for faster action

World leaders must “stop dawdling and start doing” on cutting carbon emissions, as rapidly rising temperatures this year have put everyone on the front line of disaster, the UN’s top climate official has warned.

No country could think itself immune from catastrophe, warned Simon Stiell, who will oversee the crucial Cop28 climate summit that begins next week, when scores of world leaders will arrive in Dubai for tense talks on how to tackle the crisis.

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