Industrial action at Sellafield and escalating cyber threats to nuclear sites are now the “top concerns” for Nuclear Decommissioning Authority chief executive David Peattie, who oversees clean-up of 17 UK sites including Magnox and Dounreay. Peattie warned that further strikes by GMB and Unite members at the 6 km² Sellafield complex could disrupt high-hazard waste retrievals and legacy pond and silo decommissioning schedules. He also flagged ransomware and operational technology intrusions as key risks to safety-critical control systems and long-term programme delivery.

Strong-to-very strong El Niño conditions, with an 83% chance of exceeding all events since 1950, are set to disrupt copper and nickel supply through early 2027 via drought, flooding and power shortages across Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Chilean and Peruvian copper hubs face flood risk to mines, smelters and ports—operations such as Los Bronces and El Teniente were previously halted in 2017—while Zambia and DRC copper smelters risk hydropower-driven load shedding. In Indonesia, drought has already forced output cuts at Morowali, with around 100,000 tonnes of NPI production affected.

Successive summer heatwaves caused more than 50,000 heat-related excess deaths across 854 European urban areas, according to joint modelling by Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The analysis links mortality spikes to prolonged high night-time temperatures and dense urban morphology, where limited green infrastructure and high building thermal mass trap heat. For civil and infrastructure engineers, the findings strengthen the case for city-scale cooling strategies such as reflective pavements, shaded public realms and revised design criteria for heatwave return periods.