China's new climate targets made it clear that policymakers are still leaving the door open to a rebound in emissions in the next few years, despite a recent falling trend and clean energy growth rates that will keep emissions falling if sustained.

In a new Gallup poll in the US, 12.4% of adults said that they'd taken GLP-1 drugs for weight loss. 15% in women, and 9% in men. I'd have guessed half as much, but I guess I'm a year behind the times. news.gallup.com/poll/696599/...

The ensemble mean of Google DeepMind's experimental machine learning weather model had Hurricane Melissa hitting Jamaica 7 days out. That's very impressive.

One area where AI has a lot of potential is in weather forecasting and climate modelling. Fairly accurate weather forecasting, in particular, is something that many of us now take for granted. From my latest Substack: www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/artificial...

My favourite event of the year 🧵👇

Big China electricity&industial data update🧵for September: ➡️Power generation from coal and gas dropped 5%, for a 1.2% fall in the first nine months of the year. ➡️Crude steel production fell by 5% and cement output by 9% in Sep, accelerating from 3% and 5% drops year-to-date.

On November 4th I'll be in London at the How To Academy, discussing and answering question about solutions to climate change, and how they stack up. If you're interested in coming along, you can find details here: howtoacademy.com/events/how-t...

This article is just bollocks, isn't it? There are lots of good reasons not to eat many Doritos, but the carbon footprint of the corn going into them isn't one of them, because eating almost anything else would be worse. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Does the news reflect what we die from?

NEW: GLOBAL RENEWABLES OVERTAKES COAL How the heck did that happen so quickly?!...🧵

Not nearly enough is made of the incredibly impressive feat Indian Railways has made to electrify almost 100% of its 135,000km of track, while also growing renewable sourcing. Huge: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/ind...

Some good news. London is meeting legal limits for toxic NO2 pollution for the first time – almost 200 years earlier than predicted – following the Mayor’s "world leading air pollution policies," City Hall announces. The Ultra Low Emissions Zone - and similar policies - really do work.

Foreign aid from the United States saved millions of lives each year by @hannahritchie.bsky.social and @simonvanteutem.bsky.social ourworldindata.org/us-foreign-a...

Many people feel overwhelmed with the number of potential climate solutions, and are not quite sure what to focus on. @projectdrawdown.bsky.social has always been at helping people navigate the minefield. Their new explorer is really cool, and helps to make things clearer: drawdown.org/explorer

What impact do contrails from aviation have on global warming? Is there a cheap and easy way to get rid of them? There might be. In the latest episode of Solving for Climate we speak with Ian McKay, founder of Orca Sciences about this and much more. Listen here: open.spotify.com/episode/4aMv...

Next book on the reading list 📚

NEW – Analysis: India’s power-sector CO2 falls for only second time in half a century ✍️ Anubha Aggarwal @laurimyllyvirta.bsky.social Nandikesh Sivalingam Read here: buff.ly/2OHaLGM

My new book is published today, and my cats highly recommend it. www.penguin.co.uk/books/462676...

I really enjoy the wide-ranging (and often provocative) conversations Mark Lynas has on his @weplanetint.bsky.social podcast. So I was very happy to join him again to talk more about climate change and what we do to fix it. www.weplanet.org/podcast/epis...

Imagine all cars were electric, and then one Volkswagen engineer comes up with another idea … #EMobility

This week, @MLiebreich talks to @hannahritchie.bsky.social about her new book 'Clearing the Air', busting 50 climate myths and digging into what really works (and what doesn’t). Out now 🔗 www.youtube.com/watch?v=voLb...

A decade of change. In 2014, less than 4% of the world's electricity came from solar and wind. In 2024, this was 15%. Here's how the distribution across countries has changed (+ shifted upwards) over those 10 years. Data from @ember-energy.org

"A refreshingly pragmatic and undoomy book." The Guardian just published a great review of @hannahritchie.bsky.social's new book 'Clearing the Air'. The book will be out in 2 days. If you are unsure whether you want to read it, the review gives a good overview: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

Cement is responsible for around 7-8% of carbon emissions. How do we decarbonise it? This week on Solving for Climate we talk to Leah Ellis, CEO of Sublime Systems, about how we might solve for low-carbon cement. Listen here: open.spotify.com/episode/3PXb...

It's here folks. Part II of the Pragmatic Climate Reset. Prepare to be provoked! about.bnef.com/insights/cle...

This is an excerpt from Kate's new book, which is just out in the UK. I've been inspired by Kate's work for a long time, so I'm super-excited to read it. I bet a lot of you will enjoy it too!

Where is China in the energy transition? In our latest episode of Solving for Climate we chat with @laurimyllyvirta.bsky.social about all things China and climate. Listen here: open.spotify.com/episode/1FFO...

Solar power is taking off quickly in Hungary ☀️⚡️ Our latest data insight: ourworldindata.org/data-insight...

In a few weeks (Saturday 6th September), Greg Jackson and I will be speaking with Pilita Clark at the FT Weekend Festival. Do come along if you're interested in clean energy, climate change (and many other interesting talks at the festival!). ukftweekendfestival.live.ft.com

A key challenge for data centres/AI is that they are very geographically concentrated. See this chart from the IEA. Even if data centres are "just" 1-2% of global electricity, if you're adding a reasonable amount quickly, the local grids serving this demand are going to struggle.

NEW: The first evidence of a solar take-off in Africa☀️✈️ x33 rise in Algeria solar panel imports in the 12 mths to June 2025, compared to previous 12 mths. x8 in Zambia x7 in Botswana x6 in Sudan x3 in each of Liberia, DRC, Benin, Angola, Ethiopia 🧵

Our @ourworldindata.org we visualise weekly updates of wildfire data from the Global Wildfire Information System. Spain was having a pretty low/average year until the past few weeks when it went roaring past previous years. You can track this data here: ourworldindata.org/wildfires

Electric car batteries degrade over time, but typically less than a lot of people think. Many are still over 80% capacity after 200,000 miles. Most manufacturers are now giving 8+ years warranty. My Substack from this week: hannahritchie.substack.com/p/electric-c...

Yesterday, Google released a new report estimating the environmental footprint per Gemini query. That's very welcome, as lack of any transparency from big tech companies has been a big problem. I hope others follow suit. I wrote about on this on Substack: hannahritchie.substack.com/p/ai-footpri...

Electrification is a huge lever for decarbonisation, but for consumers, innovations can seem overwhelming + confusing. @everythingelectric.bsky.social do a great job of making things accessible. Sept 5-7 they'll be in Vancouver, if you want to geek out for a day or two: ca.everythingelectric.show

The US is building a record amount of electricity generation capacity in 2025 to meet rapidly growing demand. And its overwhelmingly clean energy, with a bit of gas. Meanwhile the Trump administration wants to stop permitting of new solar and wind projects.

Didn't realise this nonsensical government advice about deleting emails was now all over the news as top advice. Madness. www.thetimes.com/uk/environme... www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08... www.independent.co.uk/news/delete-... metro.co.uk/2025/08/12/d...

I ran the numbers on the UK government's recommendation to delete old photos and emails to save water in data centers andymasley.substack.com/p/contra-the...

Death rates from cardiovascular disease have been falling for a long time, but we rarely hear about it. @scientificdiscovery.dev looks at some of the medical innovations and changes in risk factors that are behind this: ourworldindata.org/cardiovascul...

✍️ New article: “$3 a day: A new poverty line has shifted the World Bank’s data on extreme poverty. What changed, and why?” 🧵

We are considering organizing a small workshop on cost-effectively reducing mortality risk. I would appreciate names of people who have thought long and hard about cost-effective means of reducing mortality risk (nutrition, health care, pollution, climate, etc). ourworldindata.org/causes-of-de...

Whales are important marine species and should be protected. Their role in the global ocean carbon cycle, however, may not be as large as sometimes suggested. Figure from recent synthesis article compares contribution of different animals to sinking carbon flux in the ocean. doi.org/10.1029/2024...

Climate models have underestimated the departure of high temperature extremes from monthly means. If we assume these model biases persist in future projections, then the climate models are also likely underestimating the magnitude of future high temperature extremes. www.nature.com/articles/s43...

The IEA projects that almost all of the growth in electricity production this year and next in China will be renewables. Coal expected to drop this year. From its mid-year electricity review: www.iea.org/reports/elec...

In September my new book is published in the UK 📚 This week (until Thursday) at Waterstones you can get 25% off a pre-order. Congratulations! www.waterstones.com/book/clearin...

From one of our recent data insights: ourworldindata.org/data-insight...

Trump says the US is going to be competing with China on unleashing "clean, beautiful coal". He has instructed "his people" that they're not allowed to say coal without putting "clean, beautiful" in front of it. Alrighty then. youtu.be/HmxbPH1PL_A?...

Nice post on the long march of electrification from @kingsmillbond.bsky.social, @daanwalt3r.bsky.social, @sambutl3r.bsky.social. Lots of interesting charts! ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

I always find survey results like this staggering (almost to the point of unbelievability). The US was spending around 1% of its federal budget on foreign aid. The average guess among 1,000+ surveyed Americans was 26%. 15% thought it was over half of the budget (?!) www.kff.org/global-healt...

With a new all-time record in June (43 TWh), US 🇺🇸 solar power has now reached 192 TWh so far this year ☀️ That easily surpasses the 2021 TOTAL ANNUAL generation of 164 TWh and almost exceeds the 2022 total (205 TWh). Between this and coal, I know who I would bet on.