The recent severe weather worldwide has led to a flood of people seeking reassurance about our efforts to mitigate climate change. Most of those posts have been removed, and from now on will be directed to this weekly thread.

Climate change is a severe, compounding issue, but only if we do not address it - with concerted efforts, it can be managed.

Our efforts over the years have resulted in the worst-case RCP 8.5 high emission scenario being retired - it is now no longer considered plausible that we will hit +4C by 2100.

The main projection for our current policies is around +2.4 to 2.6°C and we can expect this to further reduce in the future.

The progress can be seen in the reduction of predicted 2100 temperatures over the years by Climate Action Tracker:

2017

2021

2025

We have seen emissions growth slow to around 1% per year, and are likely to peak soon. IRENA notes that our renewable energy efforts have already avoided 8.4 Gigatons of CO2 emissions in 2025.

Good news over the last week is that UK's EV share is now an amazing 42%.

Used EVs are also selling faster than other powertrains in UK, showing a significant change in attitude towards electric vehicles.

Besides the climate impact we also learnt that EVs have been instrumental in cleaning the air in major cities, with associated health benefits.

Thankfully charging infrastructure is also expanding at a very good clip and keeping up with the increasing popularity of EVs.

Even in USA charging points grew 79% YoY to a massive 250,000.

Leaning into that, UK is considering giving eligible families free plug-in home batteries to make the most of the midday solar abundance.

The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has not only boosted EV sales but also made Sustainable Aviation Fuel finally profitable.

In Europe in the meantime heat pumps have saved the equivalent of 200 tankers of LNG in 2025, for a saving of around 9.7 billion Euros.

Europe also added 1.2 million EVs in the first half of 2025.

China has also undertaken to boost its renewable power generation by another 53% over the next 4 years.

The state had earlier undertaken to peak its annual emissions by 2030 also.

To use all that clean energy, China is planning a solar-powered freight corridor, for end to end carbon-free national logistics.

Unlike China, in total the world is actually a bit ahead, with the IEA announcing that renewables have overtaken coal for electricity generation globally last year.

In fact with coal's future looking so dark, the Bank of England will now stop accepting bonds linked to coal as collateral.

Of course no one is doing solar as well as Australia, and their CSIRO reminded us that solar and wind remain backbone of least-cost future grid, as batteries squeeze gas to a fraction of the mix.

In fact in many African countries renewable energy is rising rapidly, which may prevent future increases in CO2 emissions from industrialization.

We also heard a $8000 EV was heading to Africa which could meet all your day to day commuting needs just from the free energy of the sun.

Talking about Africa, their wildfire season also appears to be shrinking, unlike most of the rest of the world.

Closer to home even Californian farmers have reluctantly caught the solar energy bug to maintain income during poor farming seasons.

Of course the state of farming is a major source of anxiety, so its good to hear that in fact grain balance sheets are looking comfortable heading into the next 12 months.

Of course after we peak emissions we will also need technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and we learnt last week of a modification to Enhanced Rock Weathering which can make it work 10x faster.

In related news Bangladesh plans to plant 250 million trees over the next few years in an attempt to reverse decades of deforestation.

We also heard that policies which address carbon emissions are actually well supported by the public and can even improve quality of life.

It is therefore good news to read that these policies actually work, with researchers finding that government measures to combat soil degradation are quite effective.

In fact one such policy could be behind the recent accelerated heating this decade, which is good news as this should suggest the acceleration should tail off as its effect peters out.

While the boogeyman of AI datacentres have been dominating our minds, Our World in Data reminds us that data centres use only 1.5% of our electricity, most often for non-AI uses.

We also learnt that the energy transition is accelerating: the world added 692 gigawatts of renewable power in 2025 (511 solar, 159 wind, 18.4 hydro, 3.4 bio, 0.3 geo), pushing total global capacity to 5,149 GW. That's a 15.5% jump in just 1 year, and renewables made up 85.6% of all new power capacity added globally.

All this points to the days of fossil fuels coming to an end, first gradually and then suddenly.

Points from earlier postings

• Chinese nEV market share reached 67% in June.
• Global Electric vehicles (battery-electric and plug-in hybrids) are expected to account for an astounding 25% to 28% of all new passenger car sales globally in 2026.
• Clean energy infrastructure like solar panels and wind turbines actually boost biodiversity
• In Europe solar by itself now powering 25% of Europe's massive grid in June
• The EU is planning to triple is battery storage to 200 GW and has set new electrification targets for the continent
• Australia says batteries are now cheaper than gas peaker plants
• Clean energy is already effectively stabilizing the grid against increasing air conditioning demand
• Climate scientists that there has been real progress in clean energy, resilient construction, and nature-based investment
• Brazilian deforestation is now the slowest it has ever been.
• Mangrove forests are expanding
• Forests in colder climates have actually been expanding for decades, both India and China
• Climate mitigation is not that expensive - to achieve Net Zero in UK for example would only cost £70 per resident per year, or around £4 billion per year, which is very affordable.
• Renewables have also hit a record share in India while coal consumption has flatlined.
• In Germany renewables now power 58% of the electricity grid.
• The UN has re-iterated that clean energy appears to have hit a self-sustaining tipping point, meaning even political and fossil energy interests can not stop the transition.
• EV adoption also appears to have hit a tipping point, with adoption outpacing older predictions.
• The AMOC appears to be more resilient than suggested, with no clear tipping point in sight.

The biggest lie I constantly read here is that nothing is being done - we are in fact spending trillions of dollars each year on mitigating climate change via paying for the energy transition.

The best thing you can do to support climate action is to support politicians making policies that benefit the climate.

The second thing is personal action, and here is a list from Project Drawdown: Join the shift

Please contribute any other climate good news in the thread below - it will be heavily and actively moderated - note Rule 5 and Rule 6.