Science has named the seemingly unstoppable growth of renewable energy worldwide as the 2025 Breakthrough of the Year. Learn more about this year's #BOTY and other big advances in science: https://scim.ag/493Tpgx

Scenes from pension fund meeting, which hasn’t started yet. The FT crowd lol. @nyccomptroller.bsky.social @bradlander.bsky.social is here in person (it’s unusual for principals to attend). About to start. This is the public part but the action will be in exec session (closed) I suppose I will live🧵

Killer @justcalma.bsky.social piece on the mad scramble solar installers are facing to get systems installed before the end of the year… and the deep uncertainty about what comes next. (Inside baseball: got this story idea from the installers at my house last week!) www.theverge.com/science/8448...

I was a bit bummed I couldn't get tickets to the Atlanta game but this makes me feel better. Zero desire to give institutions like these any of our money

My final Down to Earth newsletter for the Guardian: What I saw reporting on the American lives cut short by killer heat and broken promises www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Clean energy jobs here in GA keep growing!

For Giving Tuesday, I wrote about three ways to think about how giving can improve the lives of people in poor countries: giving directly, giving efficiently, and giving systemically Spoiler alert: I think there’s no one right answer timhirschelburns.substack.com/p/who-should...

It's pretty fascinating how insufferable LinkedIn has become. Everyone has advice and insight

"This is how the negotiators are doing behind the scenes of #COP30 while the Plenary session is on hold."

help

With all eyes on the big COP30 agenda items, WIM review talks have stalled. Negotiators and civil society observers say it has come down to Kenya blocking the decision. This goes back to Kenya wanting to host the Santiago Network secretariat in Nairobi. It says current host Geneva is too expensive

I hope Democratic state lawmakers throughout the country who are considering rollbacks to state-level climate policy will watch this: m.youtube.com/watch?v=jySY...

NEW: As Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick drives billions of dollars in foreign payments to help build AI data centers in the US, his sons help run a company earning tens of millions in fees helping finance AI data centers. A NYT investigation. (Free link) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/u...

Thank you NYT subscribers for supporting this work

"We all stayed in [the Paris Agreement] because we believe in it" - CDL at COP30

After the new COP30 text leaves out reference to a "fossil-fuel roadmap", a group of nations led by Colombia 🇨🇴 has launched a new push against fossil fuels. The list of 24 nations supporting the “Belem Declaration for transitioning away from fossil fuels” includes: 🇦🇺🇦🇹🇧🇪🇰🇭🇨🇱🇨🇴🇨🇷🇩🇰🇫🇯🇫🇮🇮🇪🇯🇲🇰🇪🇱🇺🇲🇭🇲🇽🇫🇲🇳🇵🇳🇱🇵🇦🇪🇸🇸🇮🇻🇺🇹🇻

While COP30 was on literal fire, US attendance at the G20 is also currently a giant schrodinger's cat www.foxnews.com/politics/whi...

Cop30: a new sculpture titled 'The Orange Plague' depicts Trump as a self-proclaimed king of justice, sitting atop a frail man armed with a golf club next to an Earth-shaped golf ball. Danish artist/activist Jens Galschiøt "highlights America’s failure to share responsibility for Earth’s future.”

Meet the Republicans who killed solar subsidies — after using them

In a media huddle earlier at COP30, Latam ministers emphasised the urgent need to adopt the indicators as part of the global goal on adaptation in Belem. Edgardo Ortuño Silva (Uruguay) said: "We will not accept less in our conference than the adoption of action indicators and implementation means."

The world is watching Belém for a clear sign that governments are rising to the urgency of the climate crisis and are determined to do better, together. Citizens will not thank those who choose instead to reopen what has already been settled. (1/8)

just learned we won an award for our blog post about Tom Holland and stormwater management. remember, when you see an article about stormwater management, you repost it. i don’t make the rules.

"Wind lashed the tents. Fences tipped. Water flooded into the venue...Pope Leo, possibly sensing this was his moment, issued a statement warning “creation is crying out in floods, droughts, storms and relentless heat”. Welcome to Belem. He’s not wrong"😂 climatediplobrief.substack.com/p/climate-di...

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) averaged about 425 ppm in October 2025 10 years ago October averaged about 398 ppm Data available at gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

New 'informal notes' have been published for the just transition work programme. The option for a just transition mechanism - the Belem Action Mechanism - now includes an alternative for an 'action plan' This follows the EU tabling this as an option on Friday, having pushed back on the BAM

AOSIS AILAC EIG UK Germany France Denmark Sweden Portugal Kenya Australia Mongolia Brazil all support a fossil fuel roadmap

While the COP is an important milestone every year, the real engine of global climate action is now industrial policy. That’s why next Friday, as COP closes, we will launch the Clean Industrial Capabilities Explorer. Register in-person: luma.com/cd2255t4 Sign up for the webinar: bit.ly/484IS5o

As a former member of NYT’s finance team & the co-author of this story exposing the relationship between Epstein & Bill Gates as well as one on Epstein & JPMorgan, I am really frustrated to see people claiming that NYT sat on publishable info about Trump and Epstein 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/b...

Countries at #COP30 are discussing a potential new #adaptationfinance goal. I've updated the calculations from our August blog on potential options - removing some scenarios that haven't gained traction and adding others that have.

COP30: It seems there are some backroom squabbles over 1.5C (Again! Remember the fight over whether to "welcome" the IPCC's 1.5C report…) Per ENB, Arab Group & India are opposing references to 1.5C in the COP30 outcome, even tho it's coming from World Meteorological Org? 1/4

Im old enough to remember when capitalism was a thing in America.

Is it me or is the headline a bit weird? www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-s...

Another day another reminder to separate opinion pages from the gritty reporting of actual journalists in these big news outlets. We really need the latter

"“I don't think lining up with Russia and Saudi against rest of the world is a winning long-term strategy.” Newsom today ahead of his jaunt to #COP30 milkeninstitute.org/content-hub/...

The US is the world's largest oil and gas producer. Yet, "China is now making more money from exporting green technology than America makes from exporting fossil fuels."

Nice to see new state-level support for battery storage out of Illinois. Obviously batteries play a critical role in an "all of the above" energy strategy: www.eenews.net/articles/ill...

It's flown under the radar but check out the first official #G20 report on global inequality, finding that 2000 and 2024, the world’s top 1% captured 41% of all new wealth. g20.org/g20-media/la...

Finally

A quarter of the power added in the US this year will be batteries--four times as much batteries as gas. This is your fossil fuel king? www.eia.gov/todayinenerg...

Seriously nuts: the US threatened African and small Pacific and Caribbean island diplomats with cancelled visas and refused entry if they didn't vote against a shipping carbon price. "Bullying" doesn't do this justice. They're gangsters and criminals. www.ft.com/content/4e0a...

Luisa Neubauer argues that rolling back climate policies is economic suicide masquerading as pragmatism