Post Category → Climate Change

Mother Jones: Putin Tried to Freeze Ukraine. Instead, He Sparked an Energy Revolution

Mother Jones: Putin Tried to Freeze Ukraine. Instead, He Sparked an Energy Revolution

Russia is bombing fossil-fueled power plants, so the country is building solar and wind. From the story:

Wind and solar arrays with independent transmission lines are scattered over the landscape, which makes them harder to hit and easier to repair. “A coal power station [is] a large single target that a single missile could take out,” says Jeff Oatham of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest energy company and its largest private energy investor. “You would need around 40 missiles to do the equivalent amount of capacity damage at a wind farm.” 

“Attacking decentralized solar power installations is not economically rational,” says Ukrainian energy expert Olena Kondratiuk. “Missiles and drones are expensive, and significantly disrupting such systems would require a large number of strikes, while the overall impact on the energy system would remain limited.”

Link.

Yale Environment 360: Europe to Ramp Up Offshore Wind in Push for Energy Independence

Yale Environment 360: Europe to Ramp Up Offshore Wind in Push for Energy Independence

A group of European leaders pledged Monday to build 100 gigawatts of offshore wind,enough to power more than 50 million homes. As Europe faces a hostile Russia and an increasingly bellicose U.S., experts see deepening risks in its reliance on imported fossil fuels.

“Historically, interferences by the U.S. government in gas markets to exert pressure on Europe were considered unthinkable,” said Raffaele Piria, of the Ecologic Institute, a think tank based in Berlin. “In the current geopolitical context, this assumption is questionable.”

Link.

Ember Report: Wind and solar overtook fossil fuels for EU power generation in 2025, for the first time

Ember Report: Wind and solar overtook fossil fuels for EU power generation in 2025, for the first time

We’re winning.

A study by the energy think tank Ember found that the EU’s electricity transition reached a new milestone in 2025 with wind and solar generating more power than fossil fuels for the first time. From the Guardian report:

Turbines spinning in the wind and photovoltaic panels lit up by the sun generated 30% of the EU’s electricity in 2025, according to an annual review. Power plants burning coal, oil and gas generated 29%.

EU solar generation reached a record 369 TWh in 2025, 20% higher than in 2025 and wind and solar generated more electricity than fossil fuels in 14 of the 27 EU countries.

The report, Ember’s 10th annual, is here.

Half of world’s CO2 emissions come from just 32 fossil fuel firms, study shows

Guardian: Half of world’s CO2 emissions come from just 32 fossil fuel firms, study shows.

Guardian report on the Carbon Majors annual review of the CO2 emissions from the world’s biggest fossil fuels.

Just 32 fossil fuel companies were responsible for half the global carbon dioxide emissions driving the climate crisis in 2024, down from 36 a year earlier, a report has revealed.

Saudi Aramco was the biggest state-controlled polluter and ExxonMobil was the largest investor-owned polluter. Critics accused the leading fossil fuel companies of “sabotaging climate action” and “being on the wrong side of history” but said the emissions data was increasingly being used to hold the companies accountable.

State-owned fossil fuel producers made up 17 of the top 20 emitters in the Carbon Majors report, which the authors said underscored the political barriers to tackling global heating. All 17 are controlled by countries that opposed a proposed fossil fuel phaseout at the Cop30 UN climate summit in December, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and India. More than 80 other nations had backed the phaseout plan.

Saudi Aramco was responsible for 1.7bn tonnes of CO2, much of it from exported oil. If it were a country, Aramco would be the world’s fifth biggest carbon polluter, just behind Russia. ExxonMobil’s fossil fuel production led to 610m tonnes of CO2 – it would be the ninth biggest polluter, ahead of South Korea.

More.

T&E Study: Avoiding contrails on night and winter flights is aviation’s fastest climate win

T&E Study: Avoiding contrails on night and winter flights is aviation’s fastest climate win

A new analysis by European clean transportation NGO T&E shows that 25% of European aviation’s contrail-related global warming comes from night flights in autumn and winter, which make up just 10% of European air traffic.

Contrail warming is highly seasonal and concentrated in time: in 2019, 75% of European contrail warming occurred between January to March, and October to December and 40% during late evenings and nights. Combined, night flights in autumn and winter accounted for 25% of European contrail warming, with only 10% of air traffic. These periods create ideal conditions to adjust a small number of flights with minimal effects on air traffic and major climate benefits.

Contrails, the white lines left by planes in the sky, can spread and persist in certain atmospheric conditions. This traps heat and warms the planet at least as much as aviation’s CO₂ emissions, contributing between 1% and 2% to global warming. Yet only 3% of flights caused 80% of this warming in 2019. Reducing contrails and the warming they cause could be easily achieved by adjusting the flight paths of just a few flights at specific times of the day and year.

Yale Environment360: Photos Capture the Breathtaking Scale of China’s Wind and Solar Buildout

Yale Environment360: Photos Capture the Breathtaking Scale of China’s Wind and Solar Buildout

Astounding photos by Chinese photographer Weimin Chu.

Last year China installed more than half of all wind and solar added globally. In May alone, it added enough renewable energy to power Poland, installing solar panels at a rate of roughly 100 every second. The massive buildout is happening across the country, from crowded eastern cities increasingly topped by rooftop solar panels to remote western deserts where colossal wind farms sprawl across the landscape.

“From the ground, it’s hard to grasp the scale of these power plants,” said Chinese photographer Weimin Chu. “But when you rise into the air, you can see the geometry, the rhythm — and their relationship with the mountains, the desert, the sea.”

Copernicus: Global Climate Highlights 2025 report

Copernicus: Global Climate Highlights 2025.

The 25th edition from the Copernicus Climate Change Service was released this morning. Key messages:

  • 2025 ranks as the third warmest year on record, following the unprecedented temperatures observed in 2023 and 2024
  • 2025 was only marginally cooler than 2023, while 2024 remains the warmest year on record and the first year with an average temperature clearly exceeding 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level
  • Globally, January 2025 was the warmest January on record. March, April and May were each the second warmest for the time of year.
  • In 2025, annual surface air temperatures were above the 1991–2020 average across 91% of the globe, the same fraction as in 2024. Nearly half of the globe (48%) experienced much warmer than average annual temperatures.
  • All regions –Arctic, Northern mid-latitudes, Tropics, Southern mid-latitudes and Antarctic– show a clear long-term warming trend.
  • The global sea surface temperature remained historically high throughout 2025, despite the absence of El Niño conditions.
  • The annual average sea surface temperature for 2025 was +0.38°C above the 1991–2020 average. It ranked as the third-highest on record.
  • February saw the lowest global sea ice cover since the beginning of satellite observations in the late 1970s.
  • In 2025, half of the globe experienced more days than average with at least strong heat stress (a feels-like temperature of 32°C or above)

Guardian: Mapped: How the world is losing its forests to wildfires

Guardian: Mapped: How the world is losing its forests to wildfires.

A story based on a recent World Resources Institute study illustrated with great maps.

Wildfires have always been part of nature’s cycle, but in recent decades their scale, frequency and intensity in carbon-rich forests have surged. Research from the World Resources Institute (WRI) shows that fires now destroy more than twice as much tree cover as they did two decades ago. In 2024 alone, 135,000km² of forest burned – the most extreme wildfire year on record.

Experts warn that climate change is making wildfires bigger, longer and more destructive. Hotter, drier conditions are extending fire seasons and fuelling more extreme blazes. 2023 and 2024 had the most forest area burned by wildfires on record. They were also the two hottest years on record.

Nature: US scientists push back as Trump eyes Greenland

Nature: US scientists push back as Trump eyes Greenland

An open letter organized by US-based researchers who work in Greenland opposes any takeover of the territory.

In response to Donald Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland, a group of scientists has compiled a “statement from US scientists in solidarity with Greenland”, which is open to any US-based researcher who has conducted research on the island. The letter, published on 9 January, has so far gathered 204 signatures.

Guardian: ‘Profound impacts’: record ocean heat is intensifying climate disasters, data shows

Guardian: ‘Profound impacts’: record ocean heat is intensifying climate disasters, data shows

Reporting on ‘Ocean Heat Content Sets Another Record in 2025‘, a study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences on 9 January 2026, Damian Carrington writes:

The world’s oceans absorbed colossal amounts of heat in 2025, setting yet another new record and fuelling more extreme weather, scientists have reported.

More than 90% of the heat trapped by humanity’s carbon pollution is taken up by the oceans. This makes ocean heat one of the starkest indicators of the relentless march of the climate crisis, which will only end when emissions fall to zero. Almost every year since the start of the millennium has set a new ocean heat record.

This extra heat makes the hurricanes and typhoons hitting coastal communities more intense, causes heavier downpours of rain and greater flooding, and results in longer marine heatwaves, which decimate life in the seas. The rising heat is also a major driver of sea level rise via the thermal expansion of seawater, threatening billions of people.

A Year of Clean Energy Milestones

YaleEnvironment360: A Year of Clean Energy Milestones.

In spite of the Trump administration’s worst intentions at home and policy bullying abroad, there is good news to be found around the transition to cleaner energy. From The Yale School of Environment’s 2025 review:

“Wind, solar, and electric vehicles made huge strides globally in 2025. For the first time, wind and solar supplied more power than coal worldwide, while plug-in vehicles accounted for more than a quarter of new car sales.

These milestones reflect the dramatic drop in the price of clean energy over the last decade and a half. Today, wind and solar are cheaper than coal and natural gas, and increasingly, they are boosted by ever more affordable batteries, which have gotten 90 percent cheaper over the last decade.”

An Idaho Bird Research Station Rises From the Ashes of a Wildfire

Inside Climate News: An Idaho Bird Research Station Rises From the Ashes of a Wildfire.

Glaciers The Valley Fire torched Lucky Peak, near Boise, Idaho, in the fall of 2024. It lasted three weeks and burned more than 10,000 acres/4000 hectares. The Boise State University’s Intermountain Bird Observatory, stationed there, was among the fire’s casualties. The researchers there are now “channeling their grief into a study of how avians respond to climate-driven blazes”. From the story:

“No bird research station had ever been impacted by a wildfire like this, so detailed studies of how a blaze would impact the animals and their habitats is hard to come by. Lucky Peak, meanwhile, has 30 years of data on its birds from before the fire. By collecting comparable data after the blaze, they could investigate aspects of fire ecology that were nearly impossible to study before.”

Deadliest climate disasters of 2025 revealed as experts warn women and the poorest ‘hit the hardest’

Via EuroNews: Deadliest climate disasters of 2025 revealed as experts warn women and the poorest ‘hit the hardest’

Another entry for the end of year reports file, a summary of this annual extreme weather report from World Weather Attribution that analyzed 22 climate-fuelled disasters from 2025. The impacts hit women and the poor hardest.

“Every December we are asked the same question: was it a bad year for extreme weather? And each year, the answer becomes more unequivocal: yes. Fossil fuel emissions continue to rise, driving global temperatures upward and fueling increasingly destructive climate extremes across every continent.”

Man enough to save the planet? Masculinity concerns predict attitudes toward climate change

Via PsyPost: Some men may downplay climate change risks to avoid appearing feminine.

New research published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology provides evidence that men who are concerned about maintaining a traditional masculine image may be less likely to express concern about climate change.

The study, ‘Man enough to save the planet? Masculinity concerns predict attitudes toward climate change’, published in November 2025, is here.

WRI: What Is the EU Deforestation Regulation? 7 Key Questions, Answered

What World Resources Institute: What is the EU Deforestation Regulation? 7 Key Questions, Answered

The world is losing 18 soccer fields of tropical primary every minute; much of it is the result of clearing for farms, pastures and tree plantations.

As a major buyer of commodities largely responsible for fueling deforestation — such as palm oil, cocoa, coffee, soy, cattle and timber — the EU has both a responsibility and an opportunity to help shift global markets toward more sustainable supply chains. The landmark EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), adopted in 2023, requires businesses to demonstrate that the products they sell or export to the EU do not come from land that was recently deforested or degraded. 

The EUDR is a key step in responding to today’s deforestation and supporting countries in achieving their national forest protection policies. Yet despite its promise, the regulation has faced delays and pushback, threatening its timely implementation.

Just weeks before the EUDR was to go into force on Dec. 30, 2025, the European Parliament voted to delay entry into application of the law until Dec. 30, 2026 for large corporations and until June 30, 2027 for small businesses with fewer than 50 employees and earning less than 10 million euros ($11.7 million) in annual sales of covered products.

The rest.

Glaciers to reach peak rate of extinction in the Alps in eight years

Nature Climate Change study: Glaciers to reach peak rate of extinction in the Alps in eight years.

Glaciers in the European Alps are likely to reach their peak rate of extinction in only eight years, according to the study Peak glacier extinction in the mid-twenty-first century published in Nature Climate Change today (15 Dec 2025), with more than 100 due to melt away permanently by 2033. [via The Guardian.]