Climate change news
CBS Sunday Morning—Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall: Reasons for Hope
Jane Goodall: The Hope (Full Episode) | SPECIAL | National Geographic
Jane Goodall: An Inside Look (Full Documentary) | National Geographic
Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees (1965) (1988 Edited Version) [26:00]
Climate change news
Secrets of the Octopus
Climate change: Good news (Yale climate change)
Is effective action on climate change feasible in a political atmosphere overheated by a pandemic, wars, zealous partisanship, and now tariffs?
Yes, argues Ani Dasgupta, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute, a nonprofit research organization, in his new book, The New Global Possible: Rebuilding Optimism in the Age of Climate Crisis.
Climate change news
MIT Technology Review
The vibes in the climate world this year have largely been . . . less than great.
Global greenhouse-gas emissions hit a new high, reaching 37.4 billion metric tons in 2024. This year is also on track to be the warmest on record, with temperatures through September hitting 1.54 °C (2.77 °F) above preindustrial levels. Global climate talks fell flat, and disasters from wildfires to hurricanes are being made worse by climate change.
But among all that (very real) negative news, there was some good, too:
We saw progress cutting back on the most polluting fossil fuels, cheaper and better technologies for combating climate change, and a continuous global effort to address the problem. As we near the end of 2024, let’s take a moment to look back on some of the bright spots.
Climate change news
MIT Technology Review
We’re kicking coal to the curb.
One of my favorite climate moments from this year happened in the UK. The country has historically relied heavily on coal as an electricity source—as of 1990, coal met about 65% of its electricity demand. But on September 30, 2024, the last coal plant in the nation shut down.
Renewables are stepping in to fill the gap. Wind farms in the UK are on track to produce more electricity this year than coal and gas plants together.
The moment was symbolic, reflecting the very real progress, happening around the world, in inching away from this polluting fossil fuel. In the US, coal made up around 50% of the electricity supply four decades ago. In 2023, that share was roughly 16%.
We should see coal use plateau and potentially begin to fall by the end of the decade, according to the International Energy Agency. Progress needs to happen faster, though, and it needs to happen in countries like China, where energy demand is increasing. There’s also growing concern about what increasing energy demand from data centers, including those used to power AI, will mean for efforts to shut off old coal plants.
Climate change news
Yale Climate Connections:
The world produced more electricity from renewables than from coal in the first half of 2025. Bill McKibben writes: “That means that fossil fuel emissions for producing electricity plateaued – even fell slightly – over the first half of the year. It’s an epochal moment: it demonstrates that the clean energy transition is not destined to be the slow, dragged-out affair that most analysts would have predicted even five years ago.”
Trump's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency want you to believe that climate change is good for farmers, crops, and food consumers. Don't buy it.
A draft report commissioned by the DOE misleadingly claims that increasing levels of carbon dioxide may be beneficial for agriculture. In fact, mainstream climate experts have found that rising CO2 levels, by causing climate change and making extreme weather more common, are harmful to agriculture overall – and likely to cause food prices to increase.
The EPA cited the DOE report in a proposal to reverse its Obama-era determination that carbon pollution poses a threat to public health and welfare. The EPA argued that higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will increase the amount of food that farmers produce, implying that carbon pollution is a good thing.
Climate change news
Yale Climate Connections:
In response to the DOE report, a group of 85 climate experts and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine each published comprehensive reviews of the scientific literature and arrived at the opposite conclusion. These experts found that rather than boosting agricultural productivity, the body of scientific evidence indicates that increased extreme weather resulting from climate change will instead reduce crop yields, making food more expensive.
The notion that crops will benefit from climate pollution is based on the fact that plants absorb carbon dioxide during photosynthesis. Scientists have known for decades that in a controlled environment like a glass greenhouse, higher CO2 levels in the air will cause plants to grow bigger.
But Earth’s atmosphere isn’t a controlled environment. Increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere trap extra heat like a blanket, causing more frequent extreme weather like heat waves, droughts, and floods. These events stress plants and hamper their growth and productivity.
Climate change news
Yale Climate Connections:
Let’s get the truth out together.
Powerful people want to stop climate progress, and they’re trying to hide the truth about climate science behind a deluge of disinformation. But Yale Climate Connections isn’t backing down. With your support, we’re sharing life-saving and life-changing climate news with the public, always for free.
Your moment of hope
A conservative voice calls for climate unity. Benji Backer, founder of the Nature Is Nonpartisan coalition, says protecting the planet should transcend politics.
Climate change news
Yale Climate Connections:
UN International Court of Justice says countries have a legal obligation to reduce pollution
When nations fail to cut fossil fuel pollution, it makes global warming worse. And it may violate international law.
In July, the United Nations’ International Court of Justice issued a unanimous opinion about countries’ legal obligations on climate change.
Burt: “The court stated very clearly … that states have legal obligations to cut emissions and protect human rights … including the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment … and to repair harm already done by climate change.”
Sarah Burt is an attorney with Earthjustice, an environmental law nonprofit. She says an opinion by this court is not directly enforceable.
Burt: “It is nonetheless an extremely authoritative statement of what the law is. … This will be a legal precedent that can be taken up in future cases, whether cases before international bodies or cases before domestic courts.”
Climate change news
AI Boom Will Boost US Renewables Despite Trump (Bloomberg)
President Donald Trump’s dismissal of climate change and attacks on renewable energy won’t significantly damp demand for clean power in the US, where artificial intelligence will further accelerate the shift to cheap, low-carbon energy, according to Fortescue Ltd.
Cost-of-living pressures and an AI-driven surge in power use will ensure clean-energy demand grows over the mid-to-long-term in the US, CEO Otranto said in an interview on Friday. Renewable energy is already more economical than coal or gas in the US despite political roadblocks, he said.
“What the US consumer needs is lower cost of energy in a inflationary environment,” Otranto said, adding that renewables provide that solution. “Politics will be, pardon the pun, trumped by economics.”
Climate change news
MIT Technology Review
Batteries just keep getting cheaper
Lithium-ion battery packs are cheaper than ever in 2024, with prices dropping 20% this year to $115 per kilowatt-hour, according to data from BloombergNEF. That’s the biggest drop since 2017.
Batteries are a central technology for addressing climate change. They power the electric vehicles we’re relying on to help clean up the transportation sector and play an increasingly important role for the grid, since they can store energy from inconsistently available renewables like wind and solar.
Since EVs are still more expensive upfront than their gas-powered counterparts in most of the world, cheaper batteries are great news for efforts to get more people to take the leap to electric. And it’s hard to overstate how quickly battery prices have plummeted. Batteries were twice as expensive in 2017 as they are today. Just 10 years ago, prices were six times what they are in 2024.
To be fair, there’s been mixed news in the EV world this year—a slowdown in demand growth for EVs is actually one of the factors helping battery prices hit record lows. EV sales are still growing around the world, but at a slower pace than they were in 2023. China is the biggest EV market in the world by far, making up three-quarters of global registrations in 2024 as of October. Batteries are a central technology for addressing climate change.
Climate change news
MIT Technology Review
Climate tech is still busy and bustling. Looking back at the energy and climate stories we published this year, I can’t help but feel at least a little bit optimistic about what’s coming next.
Some groups are looking to the natural world to address the climate crisis; this year, I covered a company working to grow microbes in massive bioreactors to help supplement our food sources, as well as researchers who are looking to plants to help mine the metals we need to fight climate change. Others hope to tweak biology—my colleague James Temple spoke with Jennifer Doudna about the potential for CRISPR, the gene-editing technology she pioneered.
Climate change news
MIT Technology Review
Companies are deploying air-conditioning systems that can act like batteries, storing up energy for when it’s needed. The US Department of Energy is investing in projects that aim to concentrate heat from the sun and use it to power the grid or industrial processes. I spoke to a startup looking to make hydropower technology that’s safer for fish, and another building magnets using cheap, widely available materials.
And in October we published our 2024 list of 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch, which featured everything from a startup using AI to detect wildfires to a company giving supplements to cattle to help cut emissions from their burps.
Climate change news
Yale Environment 360
Global Solar Installations Up 64 Percent So Far This Year
Even as the U.S. guts support for renewable power, the world is still pushing ahead on the shift to solar energy, with installations up 64 percent in the first half of this year.
Solar is the fastest-growing source of electricity worldwide, and the buildout continues to gain pace, year after year. In the first six months of 2025, countries installed 380 gigawatts of solar capacity, up from 232 gigawatts in 2024, according to a new analysis from Ember, an energy think tank.
“These latest numbers on solar deployment in 2025 defy gravity, with annual solar installations continuing their sharp rise,” said senior analyst Nicolas Fulghum.
Climate change news
Yale Environment 360
China accounted for most of the growth, installing more than twice as much solar in the first half of this year as it did in early 2024. The U.S., by comparison, saw solar installations rise by just 4 percent.
Through its exports of low-cost solar panels, China also drove growth in India and across much of Africa, the analysis found. Over the last 12 months, solar exports to the African continent rose by 60 percent, according to Ember. Fulghum said that for countries contending with a volatile fossil fuel market, solar has become an attractive option.
This year China has added twice as much solar capacity as the rest of the world combined, the analysis found, though the country is now at a crossroads. For the first time in China, solar isn’t just supplementing coal power, but replacing it. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, analyst Lauri Myllyvirta said that policymakers must choose between propping up coal, a keystone industry in many cities, or doubling down on renewables, a major driver of economic growth.
Climate change news
Yale Climate Connections: Will your next EV have a solid-state battery—and improved performance?
Superionic materials have spawned hope for a new generation of power packs for electric cars, with a promise of greater range, faster charges and more safety. But scaling up won’t be easy.
Every few weeks, it seems, yet another lab proclaims yet another breakthrough in the race to perfect solid-state batteries: next-generation power packs that promise to give us electric vehicles, or EVs, so problem-free that we’ll have no reason left to buy gas-guzzlers.
These new solid-state cells are designed to be lighter and more compact than the lithium-ion batteries used in today’s EVs. They should also be much safer, with nothing inside that can burn like those rare but hard-to-extinguish lithium-ion fires. They should hold a lot more energy, turning range anxiety into a distant memory with consumer EVs able to go four, five, six hundred miles on a single charge.
And forget about those “fast” recharges lasting half an hour or more: Solid-state batteries promise EV fill-ups in minutes — almost as fast as any standard car gets with gasoline.
Climate change news
Yale Climate Connections: Will your next EV have a solid-state battery — and improved performance?
This may all sound too good to be true — and it is, if you’re looking to buy a solid-state-powered EV this year or next. Look a bit further, though, and the promises start to sound more plausible. “If you look at what people are putting out as a road map from industry, they say they are going to try for actual prototype solid-state battery demonstrations in their vehicles by 2027 and try to do large-scale commercialization by 2030,” says University of Washington materials scientist Jun Liu, who directs a university-government-industry battery development collaboration known as the Innovation Center for Battery500 Consortium.
Indeed, the challenge is no longer to prove that solid-state batteries are feasible. That has long since been done in any number of labs around the world. The big challenge now is figuring out how to manufacture these devices at scale, and at an acceptable cost.
Climate change news
The Daily Climate (Environmental Health News--EHN, 28 August)
Insect farms turn food waste into animal feed, raising hopes for greener protein
A French startup is breeding billions of black soldier fly larvae to turn food waste into protein for fish and livestock feed, aiming to reduce carbon emissions and reliance on soy and forage fish.
In short:
Innovafeed operates the world’s largest insect farm in Nesle, France, using black soldier fly larvae to convert food waste into protein powder, oil, and fertilizer. The company uses waste heat and by-products from nearby factories to lower energy use and emissions, but has not yet reached profitability amid industry bankruptcies and slow regulatory approval. Insect protein remains costly compared to soy and fishmeal, but offers potential environmental and health advantages if scaled up effectively.
“Being able to incorporate insect farming into waste management and use the by-products as safe and nutritious ingredients would be great, rather than hauling so many trucks of trash out to the landfill.”
Climate change news
Inside Climate News
The Three Rivers Waterkeeper found tiny “nurdles” in the water and banks of Raccoon Creek in western Pennsylvania.
A Pennsylvania plastics manufacturer will pay $2.6 million for allegedly violating the federal Clean Water Act and will ensure that no more of its plastic pellets leak into waterways, under a proposed settlement with two environmental groups.
Climate change news
Inside Climate News
PennEnvironment and Three Rivers Waterkeeper sued Styropek USA, claiming the company discharged large quantities of “nurdles”—tiny pellets used to produce a wide variety of plastic products—into a western Pennsylvania creek, polluting the water and leaving the pellets on creek-side vegetation. Testing by state officials also found that the plastic pollution had increased due to stormwater runoff from the site.
Environmentalists called the agreement, announced Thursday, a landmark that will set a precedent for other plastics manufacturers in Pennsylvania and around the country. It comes amid growing evidence that plastics in general, and nurdles specifically, represent a threat to human health and natural systems.
Climate change news
Inside Climate News: related
Residents of New Freeport, a small town in Pennsylvania’s Greene County, experienced what’s called a “frac-out,” when drilling fluids used in the fracking process escape their intended path and end up at the surface or elsewhere underground, via an abandoned gas well nearby. Residents had noticed strange odors and discoloration in their well water. Their pets were refusing to drink it. Now they wondered if it was unsafe.
The testing carried out over the next two years shows that residents were right to be concerned. They found evidence for oil and gas contamination in a larger geographic area than was initially reported. Of the 75 samples tested, 71 percent contained methane.
“We found significant contamination. . . . Essentially half of the people in our study had bad water.” Two of the wells registered “explosive levels of methane,” he said. “The homeowners had no clue it was that bad.” In addition to the pollution issues, some New Freeport residents have also recently noticed their wells are drying up.
Climate change news
From Canary Media:
Solar generated more power than it ever has before on Texas’ grid earlier this month.
That’s impressive, but even more so when you consider it was the 17th record the power source set in the state this year, according to a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
The record setting started bright and early on Jan. 24, when solar generated 22.1 gigawatts of power. That figure has since steadily risen, and on Sept. 9, solar produced a huge 29.9 GW. Also that day, solar provided more than 40% of the state’s power from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., per data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid operator.
That early September day capped a groundbreaking summer for solar in Texas. From June 1 through Aug. 31, solar met 15.2% of all demand in the ERCOT system. Coal provided for 12.5% of demand during that time.
Climate change news
From Canary Media:
And solar wasn’t the only top performer this year. Battery storage has already set four discharge records in Texas this month, often charging up on solar power that floods the grid in the mornings and putting it back into the system when the sun sets, per the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Because of Texas’s extreme summer temperatures, frequently people are asked to conserve power--increased air-conditioning use could overwhelm energy supplies. But this year, ERCOT didn’t ask customers to conserve power and credited its summertime stability to the nation-leading deployment of solar and batteries.
This all reveals solar’s growing ability to replace fossil fuels and meet power demand, especially when the clean energy source is paired with batteries.
Meanwhile, natural gas is failing to meet the moment. Texas developers have proposed building more than 100 new gas power plants to meet rising demand from data centers and other heavy industry. But just two facilities have been approved; developers pulled another seven projects from consideration, citing high costs and supply chain challenges.
Climate change news
From Canary Media:
Solar and batteries, meanwhile, remain among the cheapest and quickest ways to add power generation to the grid — though the Trump administration isn’t making it any easier for communities to benefit from these technologies as it rolls back federal clean energy tax credits and solar-boosting programs.
The current administration has also killed the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which has required top polluters to disclose their planet-warming emissions for around 15 years.
And it has stopped funding to wind turbine projects, including the nearly complete Revolution Wind project that would power Connecticut and Rhode Island from an offshore array.
Climate change news
From Utah News Dispatch:
Before clean energy tax credits expire under congressional Republicans’ “big, beautiful” law, clean energy advocates are requesting the Utah Public Service Commission direct PacifiCorp, the parent company of Utah’s largest electricity supplier, to open an expedited procurement process for wind, solar and storage resources.
The process, Utah Clean Energy says, has the potential to save Utahns millions, or even billions of dollars in future energy costs.
“The question isn’t if Utah invests in new energy resources, we know we need to bring on new energy. The real question is how much those investments will cost,” Sarah Wright, CEO of Utah Clean Energy said in a statement. “This is a once in a decade opportunity to procure zero-fuel-cost renewable projects at record low prices.”
Climate change news
From Fashion United:
PlasticFree has opened access to its entire global materials database so that it is freely accessible to designers, brands, and businesses looking to move away from plastic-related materials.
Operating in 37 countries, the announcement was made at PlasticFreeLand’s US debut at New York Climate Week earlier this week. Founded by A Plastic Planet, PlasticFree is an online platform that features a database of science-backed, validated, plastic-free materials, as well as design advice and other tools to help accelerate the shift to a circular economy.
The platform, which houses thousands of verified materials, is now fully open to the public, without any fees or subscription models. In addition, PlasticFree is also integrating its data and insights with AI infrastructure worldwide in a bid to enhance transparency further and reduce greenwashing.
Climate change news
From Fashion United:
“If we want AI to shape a better future, it must be fed trusted, science-backed, human-verified data,” said Sian Sutherland, Co-Founder, PlasticFree, at the launch of PlasticFree Land in New York.”
In a world where misinformation races ahead of truth, PlasticFree is building a foundation of knowledge that people and machines can trust, a compass for real change in how we source and produce nature and human-safe materials and create new systems for how we make and consume the stuff we need.”
“AI can only be as good as the data it learns from. Having open access to validated sustainability data is essential if we want AI to help accelerate the shift to truly circular economies and protect human health from the impact of plastic,” said Manon Dave, AI Innovator and award-winning Creative Director, in a statement. “PlasticFree’s commitment to free human-validated information and complete transparency sets a new benchmark for how this vital material knowledge is shared.”
Climate change news
From FSC (Forest Stewardship Council, an international non-profit organization that promotes responsible forest management.
Eight good new stories about climate change:
Companies are more committed than ever to meet science-based targets
2022 saw an 80 per cent increase in companies committing to ambitious goals. Statistics the following year found that nearly 50 per cent of Fortune 500 companies had committed to one or more significant climate initiatives.
There’s still major room for growth to reach these goals as a planet, but increased commitments and straightforward standards are a powerful step forward.
It’s also not just a problem for big business. Smaller businesses can do their part by opting for sustainable materials, like cafes using FSC certified paper for cup sleeves and certified Fairtrade coffee beans. Offices might also update to high-efficiency appliances and LED lighting or opt for work-from-home policies that reduce commute times.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
Carbon-zero technologies are fully available.
Currently, the energy sector generates three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions. Clean energy is the cornerstone for decarbonization, and it has to be widely available and abundant enough to cover the increasing demand for affordable energy. A mix of zero-carbon energy sources include:
Bioenergy that uses organic substances like plant and animal matter to produce fuel, like biodiesel or ethanol made from vegetable oils and fats.
Renewables, including solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower sources that come from natural, replenishable resources.
Green hydrogen-based fuels are produced with an electrolysis process using renewable energy. This provides energy for heavy industry and freight transportation needs that renewables alone can’t effectively manage.
Clean energy sources are essential, but they only work when the global community adapts its behaviors to prioritize carbon-zero initiatives and reduce consumption and demand.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
The Green Deal successfully limits temperature increases
The UN’s Paris Agreement aims to cap global temperature increases at 1.5°C by 2050 with global adoption of sustainability measures. Hitting this temperature limit can reverse the most significant impacts of climate change and prevent further damage.
The European Union committed to this goal with the 2019 Green Deal, which includes policies to expand renewable energy, set new standards for car emissions, and reform existing and introduce new EU emissions trading systems.
In the years since the Green Deal agreement, the EU has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions so significantly that it’s now expected to reach a low 3°C temperature increase by 2030 – an over 1 point decrease from the 4°C+ estimate with 2019 policies. That’s also a 51 per cent reduction of emissions from the 1990s levels.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
The Green Deal successfully limits temperature increases
While still shy of the Paris Agreement’s 2050 goals, it is on target to limit temperature increases to 2°C by the end of the century. This enormous increase in European commitments and clear improvements via tangible actions show positive momentum towards global goals. Especially considering Europe is one of the largest greenhouse gas emitting regions in the world.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
Sustainably managed forests support biodiversity and climate resilience
To a newcomer, managing the health of Earth’s forests feels at odds with increased production and agriculture needs to support a growing global population. But it shouldn’t be.
More individuals and corporations are recognizing that forest stewardship is key to a sustainable future. Well-maintained forests help combat climate change, and they facilitate the well-being of people, particularly Indigenous Peoples, and the planet as a whole.
It’s not just about access to food and natural resources, either. Between 2001-2019, global forests removed about twice as much carbon dioxide from the Earth’s atmosphere as they emitted annually.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
New AI opportunities help fight climate change
AI is great for digging into data, and we have a whole planet’s worth of information on water levels, global temperatures, material harvesting, biodiversity loss, and so much more that folds into the larger picture that is climate change.
Manually parsing through this data to create accurate climate models and predictions isn’t easy, but AI can do it in minutes. And with a little expert help and redirection, improved models and analysis across climate issues is extremely valuable for scientists and decision makers.
Ireland reaches lowest greenhouse emissions in 30 years
Governments and organizations have been committing to climate initiatives for decades, and more of these commitments are starting to pay off over time. In 2023, Ireland accomplished its lowest greenhouse gas emissions since 1990.
Ireland had previously committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions with increased renewables, reduced fossil fuels in home heating, and sustainability improvements in agriculture. 2023 emissions decreased by 6.7 per cent across almost all sectors.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
Renewable wind and solar energy ousts fossil fuels in EU and US.
In the EU, wind and solar energy currently account for 30 per cent of electricity generation. While that’s just 3 points higher than the fossil fuel share, there’s also been a 17 per cent decrease in fossil fuel generation. All of this as energy demand increased by 0.7 per cent during the same period.
The U.S. reached this milestone in the first half of 2023 by a difference of 3 terawatt-hours, with wind and solar production 252 terawatt-hours. This is largely a result of decreased coal production, which decreased 27 per cent between 2022 and 2023.
At a global scale, there are officially 8 countries that rely on renewable energy for over 90 per cent of their power. This includes Albania, Bhutan, Iceland, Nepal, Paraguay, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Netherlands
The EU votes to criminalize environmental damages. Further, a European Court of Human Rights has declared that climate inaction is actually a violation of human rights.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
The EU votes to criminalize environmental damages
Finally, the EU is putting its money where its mouth is and has voted to criminalize environmental damages. This provides an updated directive for countries to identify and prosecute serious crimes comparable to “ecocide.”
This can include significant habitat or biodiversity loss, illegal logging, and more.
The directive also updates punishments to push for harder penalties and even time in prison for environmental crimes.
Further, a European Court of Human Rights has declared that climate inaction is actually a violation of human rights.
Next week
Background on Raising Hare (leveret)
Climate change news
CBS Sunday Morning—Jane Goodall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6YiyQiWzWA
Jane Goodall: Reasons for Hope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXXb5MjPbPI
Jane Goodall: The Hope (Full Episode) | SPECIAL | National Geographic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ST6pqfCTy0
Jane Goodall: An Inside Look (Full Documentary) | National Geographic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3b6zSpy7P4#:~:text=Drawing%20from%20over%20100%20hours,behaviors%20between%20humans%20and%20apes.
Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees (1965) (1988 Edited Version) [26:00]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2U6d_2ghIc
Climate change news
Secrets of the Octopus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0RLERl3TmU
Climate change: Good news (Yale climate change)
Is effective action on climate change feasible in a political atmosphere overheated by a pandemic, wars, zealous partisanship, and now tariffs?
Yes, argues Ani Dasgupta, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute, a nonprofit research organization, in his new book, The New Global Possible: Rebuilding Optimism in the Age of Climate Crisis.
Climate change news
MIT Technology Review
The vibes in the climate world this year have largely been . . . less than great.
Global greenhouse-gas emissions hit a new high, reaching 37.4 billion metric tons in 2024. This year is also on track to be the warmest on record, with temperatures through September hitting 1.54 °C (2.77 °F) above preindustrial levels. Global climate talks fell flat, and disasters from wildfires to hurricanes are being made worse by climate change.
But among all that (very real) negative news, there was some good, too:
We saw progress cutting back on the most polluting fossil fuels, cheaper and better technologies for combating climate change, and a continuous global effort to address the problem. As we near the end of 2024, let’s take a moment to look back on some of the bright spots.
Climate change news
MIT Technology Review
We’re kicking coal to the curb.
One of my favorite climate moments from this year happened in the UK. The country has historically relied heavily on coal as an electricity source—as of 1990, coal met about 65% of its electricity demand. But on September 30, 2024, the last coal plant in the nation shut down.
Renewables are stepping in to fill the gap. Wind farms in the UK are on track to produce more electricity this year than coal and gas plants together.
The moment was symbolic, reflecting the very real progress, happening around the world, in inching away from this polluting fossil fuel. In the US, coal made up around 50% of the electricity supply four decades ago. In 2023, that share was roughly 16%.
We should see coal use plateau and potentially begin to fall by the end of the decade, according to the International Energy Agency. Progress needs to happen faster, though, and it needs to happen in countries like China, where energy demand is increasing. There’s also growing concern about what increasing energy demand from data centers, including those used to power AI, will mean for efforts to shut off old coal plants.
Climate change news
Yale Climate Connections:
The world produced more electricity from renewables than from coal in the first half of 2025. Bill McKibben writes: “That means that fossil fuel emissions for producing electricity plateaued – even fell slightly – over the first half of the year. It’s an epochal moment: it demonstrates that the clean energy transition is not destined to be the slow, dragged-out affair that most analysts would have predicted even five years ago.”
Trump's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency want you to believe that climate change is good for farmers, crops, and food consumers. Don't buy it.
A draft report commissioned by the DOE misleadingly claims that increasing levels of carbon dioxide may be beneficial for agriculture. In fact, mainstream climate experts have found that rising CO2 levels, by causing climate change and making extreme weather more common, are harmful to agriculture overall – and likely to cause food prices to increase.
The EPA cited the DOE report in a proposal to reverse its Obama-era determination that carbon pollution poses a threat to public health and welfare. The EPA argued that higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will increase the amount of food that farmers produce, implying that carbon pollution is a good thing.
Climate change news
Yale Climate Connections:
In response to the DOE report, a group of 85 climate experts and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine each published comprehensive reviews of the scientific literature and arrived at the opposite conclusion. These experts found that rather than boosting agricultural productivity, the body of scientific evidence indicates that increased extreme weather resulting from climate change will instead reduce crop yields, making food more expensive.
The notion that crops will benefit from climate pollution is based on the fact that plants absorb carbon dioxide during photosynthesis. Scientists have known for decades that in a controlled environment like a glass greenhouse, higher CO2 levels in the air will cause plants to grow bigger.
But Earth’s atmosphere isn’t a controlled environment. Increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere trap extra heat like a blanket, causing more frequent extreme weather like heat waves, droughts, and floods. These events stress plants and hamper their growth and productivity.
Climate change news
Yale Climate Connections:
Let’s get the truth out together.
Powerful people want to stop climate progress, and they’re trying to hide the truth about climate science behind a deluge of disinformation. But Yale Climate Connections isn’t backing down. With your support, we’re sharing life-saving and life-changing climate news with the public, always for free.
Your moment of hope
A conservative voice calls for climate unity. Benji Backer, founder of the Nature Is Nonpartisan coalition, says protecting the planet should transcend politics.
Climate change news
Yale Climate Connections:
UN International Court of Justice says countries have a legal obligation to reduce pollution
When nations fail to cut fossil fuel pollution, it makes global warming worse. And it may violate international law.
In July, the United Nations’ International Court of Justice issued a unanimous opinion about countries’ legal obligations on climate change.
Burt: “The court stated very clearly … that states have legal obligations to cut emissions and protect human rights … including the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment … and to repair harm already done by climate change.”
Sarah Burt is an attorney with Earthjustice, an environmental law nonprofit. She says an opinion by this court is not directly enforceable.
Burt: “It is nonetheless an extremely authoritative statement of what the law is. … This will be a legal precedent that can be taken up in future cases, whether cases before international bodies or cases before domestic courts.”
Climate change news
AI Boom Will Boost US Renewables Despite Trump (Bloomberg)
President Donald Trump’s dismissal of climate change and attacks on renewable energy won’t significantly damp demand for clean power in the US, where artificial intelligence will further accelerate the shift to cheap, low-carbon energy, according to Fortescue Ltd.
Cost-of-living pressures and an AI-driven surge in power use will ensure clean-energy demand grows over the mid-to-long-term in the US, CEO Otranto said in an interview on Friday. Renewable energy is already more economical than coal or gas in the US despite political roadblocks, he said.
“What the US consumer needs is lower cost of energy in a inflationary environment,” Otranto said, adding that renewables provide that solution. “Politics will be, pardon the pun, trumped by economics.”
Climate change news
MIT Technology Review
Batteries just keep getting cheaper
Lithium-ion battery packs are cheaper than ever in 2024, with prices dropping 20% this year to $115 per kilowatt-hour, according to data from BloombergNEF. That’s the biggest drop since 2017.
Batteries are a central technology for addressing climate change. They power the electric vehicles we’re relying on to help clean up the transportation sector and play an increasingly important role for the grid, since they can store energy from inconsistently available renewables like wind and solar.
Since EVs are still more expensive upfront than their gas-powered counterparts in most of the world, cheaper batteries are great news for efforts to get more people to take the leap to electric. And it’s hard to overstate how quickly battery prices have plummeted. Batteries were twice as expensive in 2017 as they are today. Just 10 years ago, prices were six times what they are in 2024.
To be fair, there’s been mixed news in the EV world this year—a slowdown in demand growth for EVs is actually one of the factors helping battery prices hit record lows. EV sales are still growing around the world, but at a slower pace than they were in 2023. China is the biggest EV market in the world by far, making up three-quarters of global registrations in 2024 as of October. Batteries are a central technology for addressing climate change.
Climate change news
MIT Technology Review
Climate tech is still busy and bustling. Looking back at the energy and climate stories we published this year, I can’t help but feel at least a little bit optimistic about what’s coming next.
Some groups are looking to the natural world to address the climate crisis; this year, I covered a company working to grow microbes in massive bioreactors to help supplement our food sources, as well as researchers who are looking to plants to help mine the metals we need to fight climate change. Others hope to tweak biology—my colleague James Temple spoke with Jennifer Doudna about the potential for CRISPR, the gene-editing technology she pioneered.
Climate change news
MIT Technology Review
Companies are deploying air-conditioning systems that can act like batteries, storing up energy for when it’s needed. The US Department of Energy is investing in projects that aim to concentrate heat from the sun and use it to power the grid or industrial processes. I spoke to a startup looking to make hydropower technology that’s safer for fish, and another building magnets using cheap, widely available materials.
And in October we published our 2024 list of 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch, which featured everything from a startup using AI to detect wildfires to a company giving supplements to cattle to help cut emissions from their burps.
Climate change news
Yale Environment 360
Global Solar Installations Up 64 Percent So Far This Year
Even as the U.S. guts support for renewable power, the world is still pushing ahead on the shift to solar energy, with installations up 64 percent in the first half of this year.
Solar is the fastest-growing source of electricity worldwide, and the buildout continues to gain pace, year after year. In the first six months of 2025, countries installed 380 gigawatts of solar capacity, up from 232 gigawatts in 2024, according to a new analysis from Ember, an energy think tank.
“These latest numbers on solar deployment in 2025 defy gravity, with annual solar installations continuing their sharp rise,” said senior analyst Nicolas Fulghum.
Climate change news
Yale Environment 360
China accounted for most of the growth, installing more than twice as much solar in the first half of this year as it did in early 2024. The U.S., by comparison, saw solar installations rise by just 4 percent.
Through its exports of low-cost solar panels, China also drove growth in India and across much of Africa, the analysis found. Over the last 12 months, solar exports to the African continent rose by 60 percent, according to Ember. Fulghum said that for countries contending with a volatile fossil fuel market, solar has become an attractive option.
This year China has added twice as much solar capacity as the rest of the world combined, the analysis found, though the country is now at a crossroads. For the first time in China, solar isn’t just supplementing coal power, but replacing it. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, analyst Lauri Myllyvirta said that policymakers must choose between propping up coal, a keystone industry in many cities, or doubling down on renewables, a major driver of economic growth.
Climate change news
Yale Climate Connections: Will your next EV have a solid-state battery—and improved performance?
Superionic materials have spawned hope for a new generation of power packs for electric cars, with a promise of greater range, faster charges and more safety. But scaling up won’t be easy.
Every few weeks, it seems, yet another lab proclaims yet another breakthrough in the race to perfect solid-state batteries: next-generation power packs that promise to give us electric vehicles, or EVs, so problem-free that we’ll have no reason left to buy gas-guzzlers.
These new solid-state cells are designed to be lighter and more compact than the lithium-ion batteries used in today’s EVs. They should also be much safer, with nothing inside that can burn like those rare but hard-to-extinguish lithium-ion fires. They should hold a lot more energy, turning range anxiety into a distant memory with consumer EVs able to go four, five, six hundred miles on a single charge.
And forget about those “fast” recharges lasting half an hour or more: Solid-state batteries promise EV fill-ups in minutes — almost as fast as any standard car gets with gasoline.
Climate change news
Yale Climate Connections: Will your next EV have a solid-state battery — and improved performance?
This may all sound too good to be true — and it is, if you’re looking to buy a solid-state-powered EV this year or next. Look a bit further, though, and the promises start to sound more plausible. “If you look at what people are putting out as a road map from industry, they say they are going to try for actual prototype solid-state battery demonstrations in their vehicles by 2027 and try to do large-scale commercialization by 2030,” says University of Washington materials scientist Jun Liu, who directs a university-government-industry battery development collaboration known as the Innovation Center for Battery500 Consortium.
Indeed, the challenge is no longer to prove that solid-state batteries are feasible. That has long since been done in any number of labs around the world. The big challenge now is figuring out how to manufacture these devices at scale, and at an acceptable cost.
Climate change news
The Daily Climate (Environmental Health News--EHN, 28 August)
Insect farms turn food waste into animal feed, raising hopes for greener protein
A French startup is breeding billions of black soldier fly larvae to turn food waste into protein for fish and livestock feed, aiming to reduce carbon emissions and reliance on soy and forage fish.
In short:
Innovafeed operates the world’s largest insect farm in Nesle, France, using black soldier fly larvae to convert food waste into protein powder, oil, and fertilizer. The company uses waste heat and by-products from nearby factories to lower energy use and emissions, but has not yet reached profitability amid industry bankruptcies and slow regulatory approval. Insect protein remains costly compared to soy and fishmeal, but offers potential environmental and health advantages if scaled up effectively.
“Being able to incorporate insect farming into waste management and use the by-products as safe and nutritious ingredients would be great, rather than hauling so many trucks of trash out to the landfill.”
Climate change news
Inside Climate News
The Three Rivers Waterkeeper found tiny “nurdles” in the water and banks of Raccoon Creek in western Pennsylvania.
A Pennsylvania plastics manufacturer will pay $2.6 million for allegedly violating the federal Clean Water Act and will ensure that no more of its plastic pellets leak into waterways, under a proposed settlement with two environmental groups.
Climate change news
Inside Climate News
PennEnvironment and Three Rivers Waterkeeper sued Styropek USA, claiming the company discharged large quantities of “nurdles”—tiny pellets used to produce a wide variety of plastic products—into a western Pennsylvania creek, polluting the water and leaving the pellets on creek-side vegetation. Testing by state officials also found that the plastic pollution had increased due to stormwater runoff from the site.
Environmentalists called the agreement, announced Thursday, a landmark that will set a precedent for other plastics manufacturers in Pennsylvania and around the country. It comes amid growing evidence that plastics in general, and nurdles specifically, represent a threat to human health and natural systems.
Climate change news
Inside Climate News: related
Residents of New Freeport, a small town in Pennsylvania’s Greene County, experienced what’s called a “frac-out,” when drilling fluids used in the fracking process escape their intended path and end up at the surface or elsewhere underground, via an abandoned gas well nearby. Residents had noticed strange odors and discoloration in their well water. Their pets were refusing to drink it. Now they wondered if it was unsafe.
The testing carried out over the next two years shows that residents were right to be concerned. They found evidence for oil and gas contamination in a larger geographic area than was initially reported. Of the 75 samples tested, 71 percent contained methane.
“We found significant contamination. . . . Essentially half of the people in our study had bad water.” Two of the wells registered “explosive levels of methane,” he said. “The homeowners had no clue it was that bad.” In addition to the pollution issues, some New Freeport residents have also recently noticed their wells are drying up.
Climate change news
From Canary Media:
Solar generated more power than it ever has before on Texas’ grid earlier this month.
That’s impressive, but even more so when you consider it was the 17th record the power source set in the state this year, according to a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
The record setting started bright and early on Jan. 24, when solar generated 22.1 gigawatts of power. That figure has since steadily risen, and on Sept. 9, solar produced a huge 29.9 GW. Also that day, solar provided more than 40% of the state’s power from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., per data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid operator.
That early September day capped a groundbreaking summer for solar in Texas. From June 1 through Aug. 31, solar met 15.2% of all demand in the ERCOT system. Coal provided for 12.5% of demand during that time.
Climate change news
From Canary Media:
And solar wasn’t the only top performer this year. Battery storage has already set four discharge records in Texas this month, often charging up on solar power that floods the grid in the mornings and putting it back into the system when the sun sets, per the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Because of Texas’s extreme summer temperatures, frequently people are asked to conserve power--increased air-conditioning use could overwhelm energy supplies. But this year, ERCOT didn’t ask customers to conserve power and credited its summertime stability to the nation-leading deployment of solar and batteries.
This all reveals solar’s growing ability to replace fossil fuels and meet power demand, especially when the clean energy source is paired with batteries.
Meanwhile, natural gas is failing to meet the moment. Texas developers have proposed building more than 100 new gas power plants to meet rising demand from data centers and other heavy industry. But just two facilities have been approved; developers pulled another seven projects from consideration, citing high costs and supply chain challenges.
Climate change news
From Canary Media:
Solar and batteries, meanwhile, remain among the cheapest and quickest ways to add power generation to the grid — though the Trump administration isn’t making it any easier for communities to benefit from these technologies as it rolls back federal clean energy tax credits and solar-boosting programs.
The current administration has also killed the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which has required top polluters to disclose their planet-warming emissions for around 15 years.
And it has stopped funding to wind turbine projects, including the nearly complete Revolution Wind project that would power Connecticut and Rhode Island from an offshore array.
Climate change news
From Utah News Dispatch:
Before clean energy tax credits expire under congressional Republicans’ “big, beautiful” law, clean energy advocates are requesting the Utah Public Service Commission direct PacifiCorp, the parent company of Utah’s largest electricity supplier, to open an expedited procurement process for wind, solar and storage resources.
The process, Utah Clean Energy says, has the potential to save Utahns millions, or even billions of dollars in future energy costs.
“The question isn’t if Utah invests in new energy resources, we know we need to bring on new energy. The real question is how much those investments will cost,” Sarah Wright, CEO of Utah Clean Energy said in a statement. “This is a once in a decade opportunity to procure zero-fuel-cost renewable projects at record low prices.”
Climate change news
From Fashion United:
PlasticFree has opened access to its entire global materials database so that it is freely accessible to designers, brands, and businesses looking to move away from plastic-related materials.
Operating in 37 countries, the announcement was made at PlasticFreeLand’s US debut at New York Climate Week earlier this week. Founded by A Plastic Planet, PlasticFree is an online platform that features a database of science-backed, validated, plastic-free materials, as well as design advice and other tools to help accelerate the shift to a circular economy.
The platform, which houses thousands of verified materials, is now fully open to the public, without any fees or subscription models. In addition, PlasticFree is also integrating its data and insights with AI infrastructure worldwide in a bid to enhance transparency further and reduce greenwashing.
Climate change news
From Fashion United:
“If we want AI to shape a better future, it must be fed trusted, science-backed, human-verified data,” said Sian Sutherland, Co-Founder, PlasticFree, at the launch of PlasticFree Land in New York.”
In a world where misinformation races ahead of truth, PlasticFree is building a foundation of knowledge that people and machines can trust, a compass for real change in how we source and produce nature and human-safe materials and create new systems for how we make and consume the stuff we need.”
“AI can only be as good as the data it learns from. Having open access to validated sustainability data is essential if we want AI to help accelerate the shift to truly circular economies and protect human health from the impact of plastic,” said Manon Dave, AI Innovator and award-winning Creative Director, in a statement. “PlasticFree’s commitment to free human-validated information and complete transparency sets a new benchmark for how this vital material knowledge is shared.”
Climate change news
From FSC (Forest Stewardship Council, an international non-profit organization that promotes responsible forest management.
Eight good new stories about climate change:
Companies are more committed than ever to meet science-based targets
2022 saw an 80 per cent increase in companies committing to ambitious goals. Statistics the following year found that nearly 50 per cent of Fortune 500 companies had committed to one or more significant climate initiatives.
There’s still major room for growth to reach these goals as a planet, but increased commitments and straightforward standards are a powerful step forward.
It’s also not just a problem for big business. Smaller businesses can do their part by opting for sustainable materials, like cafes using FSC certified paper for cup sleeves and certified Fairtrade coffee beans. Offices might also update to high-efficiency appliances and LED lighting or opt for work-from-home policies that reduce commute times.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
Carbon-zero technologies are fully available.
Currently, the energy sector generates three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions. Clean energy is the cornerstone for decarbonization, and it has to be widely available and abundant enough to cover the increasing demand for affordable energy. A mix of zero-carbon energy sources include:
Bioenergy that uses organic substances like plant and animal matter to produce fuel, like biodiesel or ethanol made from vegetable oils and fats.
Renewables, including solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower sources that come from natural, replenishable resources.
Green hydrogen-based fuels are produced with an electrolysis process using renewable energy. This provides energy for heavy industry and freight transportation needs that renewables alone can’t effectively manage.
Clean energy sources are essential, but they only work when the global community adapts its behaviors to prioritize carbon-zero initiatives and reduce consumption and demand.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
The Green Deal successfully limits temperature increases
The UN’s Paris Agreement aims to cap global temperature increases at 1.5°C by 2050 with global adoption of sustainability measures. Hitting this temperature limit can reverse the most significant impacts of climate change and prevent further damage.
The European Union committed to this goal with the 2019 Green Deal, which includes policies to expand renewable energy, set new standards for car emissions, and reform existing and introduce new EU emissions trading systems.
In the years since the Green Deal agreement, the EU has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions so significantly that it’s now expected to reach a low 3°C temperature increase by 2030 – an over 1 point decrease from the 4°C+ estimate with 2019 policies. That’s also a 51 per cent reduction of emissions from the 1990s levels.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
The Green Deal successfully limits temperature increases
While still shy of the Paris Agreement’s 2050 goals, it is on target to limit temperature increases to 2°C by the end of the century. This enormous increase in European commitments and clear improvements via tangible actions show positive momentum towards global goals. Especially considering Europe is one of the largest greenhouse gas emitting regions in the world.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
Sustainably managed forests support biodiversity and climate resilience
To a newcomer, managing the health of Earth’s forests feels at odds with increased production and agriculture needs to support a growing global population. But it shouldn’t be.
More individuals and corporations are recognizing that forest stewardship is key to a sustainable future. Well-maintained forests help combat climate change, and they facilitate the well-being of people, particularly Indigenous Peoples, and the planet as a whole.
It’s not just about access to food and natural resources, either. Between 2001-2019, global forests removed about twice as much carbon dioxide from the Earth’s atmosphere as they emitted annually.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
New AI opportunities help fight climate change
AI is great for digging into data, and we have a whole planet’s worth of information on water levels, global temperatures, material harvesting, biodiversity loss, and so much more that folds into the larger picture that is climate change.
Manually parsing through this data to create accurate climate models and predictions isn’t easy, but AI can do it in minutes. And with a little expert help and redirection, improved models and analysis across climate issues is extremely valuable for scientists and decision makers.
Ireland reaches lowest greenhouse emissions in 30 years
Governments and organizations have been committing to climate initiatives for decades, and more of these commitments are starting to pay off over time. In 2023, Ireland accomplished its lowest greenhouse gas emissions since 1990.
Ireland had previously committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions with increased renewables, reduced fossil fuels in home heating, and sustainability improvements in agriculture. 2023 emissions decreased by 6.7 per cent across almost all sectors.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
Renewable wind and solar energy ousts fossil fuels in EU and US.
In the EU, wind and solar energy currently account for 30 per cent of electricity generation. While that’s just 3 points higher than the fossil fuel share, there’s also been a 17 per cent decrease in fossil fuel generation. All of this as energy demand increased by 0.7 per cent during the same period.
The U.S. reached this milestone in the first half of 2023 by a difference of 3 terawatt-hours, with wind and solar production 252 terawatt-hours. This is largely a result of decreased coal production, which decreased 27 per cent between 2022 and 2023.
At a global scale, there are officially 8 countries that rely on renewable energy for over 90 per cent of their power. This includes Albania, Bhutan, Iceland, Nepal, Paraguay, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Netherlands
The EU votes to criminalize environmental damages. Further, a European Court of Human Rights has declared that climate inaction is actually a violation of human rights.
Climate change news
Eight good new stories about climate change:
The EU votes to criminalize environmental damages
Finally, the EU is putting its money where its mouth is and has voted to criminalize environmental damages. This provides an updated directive for countries to identify and prosecute serious crimes comparable to “ecocide.”
This can include significant habitat or biodiversity loss, illegal logging, and more.
The directive also updates punishments to push for harder penalties and even time in prison for environmental crimes.
Further, a European Court of Human Rights has declared that climate inaction is actually a violation of human rights.
Next week
Background on Raising Hare (leveret)