The fires in Spain and France spread rapidly because of tinderbox conditions worsened by successive heatwaves both countries have experienced since May. Scientists say global warming is increasing droughts and making weather emergencies more extreme and more frequent.

Remember, this fire season will likely be one of the mildest of the century. –DB

2. Meta Kicked Out of Pro-Renewables Group

Big Tech giant Meta—owner of Facebook and Instagram—has been kicked out of a pro-renewables industry group due to its plans for multiple data centers powered by polluting fossil gas, explains Recharge.

The tech giant is among the hyperscalers ramping up new gas capacity to power its data centres. In March, Meta reached an agreement with Entergy Corp. to build seven new gas-fired power plants in Louisiana, delivering more than 5 GW of capacity for its largest data centre to date.

3. Wildfire Smoke Dampens Solar PV Generation

The recent wildfires in North America impaired solar generation, notes PV Magazine. Generation was down by about 10% as smoke blocked some of the sun’s radiation.

Smoke travelled south-east across southern Ontario and Quebec before extending into the US Midwest and Northeast. Toronto, Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis recorded some of the world’s poorest air quality during 14–17 July, while alerts were issued across more than 20 US states.

Book of the Week

Ferns: Lessons in Survival from Earth’s Most Adaptable Plants | Fay-Wei Li and Jacob S. Suissa

Ferns! Explore these primal plants with two world-leading experts. This beautifully illustrated tome explains the 400 million-year evolutionary history of ferns, their interactions with humans, their deeply strange method of reproduction, and much else. An excellent primer on this oft-overlooked and underrated group of non-flowering plants. –DB

Buy Now: Bookshop.org 🇺🇸 | Bookshop.org 🇬🇧

Good Climate News

1. China to Expand Wind and Solar by 50%

China has announced plans to increase wind and solar generation by 50% over the next five years, relays Reuters. China is also planning an increase in pumped-hydro storage to help mitigate intermittency.

It calls ⁠for building deep-sea offshore wind bases, suggesting Beijing may in future apply the centralized, large-scale development model used for its ​desert wind and solar megabases to offshore wind projects as ​well.

2. A Record Summer for Solar in Europe

Solar energy is setting new records in Europe this summer, heralds Canary Media. Solar PV provided 25% of the continent’s electricity in June.

Several countries, including Spain and Germany, received more than one-third of their electricity from solar in June; in Hungary, it supplied nearly 50%. The data highlights Europe’s rapid solar adoption. Five years ago, solar delivered around 10% of the EU’s electricity even in the sunniest months.

3. Idaho Bets Big on Solar

The US state of Idaho has completed one large solar project and is planning a bigger one, details Electrek. The conservative, rural Western state—known primarily for its potatoes—now has around 1 GW of solar either built or in some stage of development.

Idaho isn’t a solar heavyweight yet – it’s actually a big hydropower state – but it’s making headway. As of June 2026, the state had installed 1,301 MW of solar, ranking 34th in the US, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). Solar now supplies 9.01% of Idaho’s electricity…

Texas and California dominate the US solar industry, but there is enormous growth potential in smaller states. –DB

Our Blue Marble

Lagoa das Sete Cidades | São Miguel Island, Portugal 🇵🇹

37°51′18″N 25°47′11″W

In Brief

🇰🇭 Cambodia: A new report details how illegal traffic in endangered animals—including tigers and rhinos—is booming to serve the Chinese market.

🇫🇷 France: The repeal of a ban on two controversial pesticides has angered beekeepers.

🇮🇳 India: At least 50 are dead and 500,000 displaced by monsoons exacerbated by climate change.

🇺🇬 Uganda: A new conservation park has been inaugurated to help protect giraffes from oil and gas development.

Planetary Pulse

Planetary Health — Latest figures

CO2: 430.78 PPM (+.34% YoY)1 | Temperature Anomaly: +1.42 C

Forest Cover: 31.8% | Protected Areas: 12.3% (17.3% terrestrial, 10.01% marine)

Emissions per Capita: 4.89 (World) | 9.1 (China) | 13.1 (USA) | 6.1 (EU) | 2.1 (India)

Low Carbon Electricity: 43.1% | Low Carbon Energy: 19.8% | EV New Sales : 24.1%2

The Other 74% 🌊

• Chile’s seamounts are still damaged decades after bottom-trawling fishing ended.

• A coral reef long thought to have been lost has been rediscovered in West Africa off the coast of Benin.

• The US government is seeking to legislatively exclude Right Whales from the protections of the Endangered Species Act until 2035—imperiling their future.

Meet the Endangered

O‘ahu Tree Snail (Achatinella concavospira)

On the Hawaiian island of O’ahu evolved 41 species of land snails. The nine still extant are all endangered, none more so than the O’ahu Tree Snail. Native to the island’s Koʻolau Mountain Range, this decorative banded mollusk makes its home in the clement, high-elevation cloud forest. The snails are fungivores, cleaning off fungal species that grow on leaves.

Invasive species and climate change are the largest threats. Introduced predators like rats and the Rosy Wolfsnail (Euglandina rosea) devour the O’ahu Tree Snail. And as temperatures warm, the snails must climb higher up the mountain to access cool temperatures. Eventually, they will run out of mountain to climb.

Fewer than 500 O’ahu Tree Snails remain in the wild, and only in special exclosures hand-cleared of predators by conservationists. Similar numbers have been bred in captivity to serve as a genetic reservoir.

IUCN: Critically Endangered (CR)

Over the weekend, several North American cities vied for the title of the worst air quality in the world thanks to wildfires burning (mostly) in Canada’s boreal forests.

The experience is jarring for those who—like me—grew up not long ago in North America's eastern half and never once experienced such a phenomenon. It is now an annual occurrence.

This dramatic, highly visible environmental change within the span of a single lifetime has given rise to a slew of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Here are the top five myths about these “Canadian” wildfires debunked:

5. They’re All Canadian

Although typically labelled “Canadian” by the media, the wildfires dumping smoke into populous eastern cities are best thought of as a “North American” phenomenon. The United States and Canada share a political border that natural ecosystems and wildfires tend to ignore.

While most of the attention has been on Canada, wildfires have also been burning this past week in northern Minnesota. The majority of wildfire smoke in Minnesota over the past week has been locally generated, and this smoke also contributed about one-fifth of the total smoke across the rest of the continent.

4. Immigrants Are Setting the Fires

One very commonly circulated conspiracy theory attributes the increasing incidence of wildfire in Canada to arson. Although rarely stated as such, the very strong implication of this narrative is that Canada’s changing demographics are to blame. In this alternative right-wing reality, the problem isn’t climate change: it’s migrant crime.

This theory has no basis in reality. Most wildfires are ignited by lightning strikes, and such fires account for the great majority of the area burned.1 Although human activity is an important secondary ignition source, these ignitions are typically accidents, not arson. There is no evidence that a significant percentage of the 2026 Canadian wildfires were started intentionally, nor that arson has increased in the last decade.

Indeed, the very idea strains credulity. Canada’s boreal forest is a vast, isolated region larger than the European Union. Few road links traverse it. The idea that immigrants from Toronto are driving to Yellowknife, hiring an aircraft, skydiving into the wilderness, starting massive wildfires, and then somehow escaping the area before engulfing themselves in flames (helicopters?) is absurd.

3. Canada Stopped Managing Its Forests

Another persistent myth is that the Canadian wildfires are the result of the Canadian government’s poor forest-management practices. In this revisionist narrative, Canada once actively managed its forests using controlled burns—until the 1990s when it went woke and stopped these measures under pressure from environmentalists. Now the nation is reaping the consequences of left-wing green politics run amok.

This narrative is almost laughably false. In reality, Canada has never actively managed the wide swath of boreal forests that are currently burning. The vast majority of Canada's forests are located extremely far away from roads and other infrastructure needed to pursue active management. And the sheer size of them—larger than France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, and Scandinavia combined—makes managing them effectively impossible.

Additionally, it has historically been unnecessary to prevent or even fight these wildfires, as in the past they were much smaller, generated much less smoke, and only rarely threatened population centers.

In the future, Canada should indeed do more to prevent the dangerous levels of smoke these fires now create. But that would be an act of climate change adaptation, not an acknowledgment that its historically passive wildfire policy—which was perfectly suited to a pre-industrial climate—was incorrect.

2. America Can Fix It

In the aftermath of this year’s wildfires, there is one thing all right-wing commentators have agreed upon: this would never happen in America. America—unlike Canada—knows how to prevent and fight wildfires. Some have even renewed calls for the United States to annex Canada, so as to “fix” its wildfire problem.

Of course, wildfires do happen in the United States. They tend to be highly seasonal and vary from year to year. Yet as recently as 2022, the acreage lost to wildfires in the US was twice as large as that in Canada. This is despite Canada being the larger of the two countries, having a higher percentage of forest cover, and its forests being far more remote.

There is no indication that the United States would be any better than Canada at managing the issue.

1. Climate Change Isn’t the Cause

Most of the conspiracy theories and myths regarding Canada’s wildfires have a singular purpose: to propagate any plausible explanation—other than climate change—that might explain their increasing intensity.

But climate change is the explanation. The science could not be clearer: as the climate gets hotter and drier, wildfires grow larger.2 And larger wildfires naturally create more smoke. This simple fact cannot be explained away. And the only remedy is the phase-out of fossil fuels and other human activities that contribute to climate change.

2

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-024-00841-9

See also:

The Climate Brink

Canada's boreal wildfires aren't just bad forest management

Over the past week smoke from Canadian wildfires has once again poured into cities across Canada and the northern US. Toronto briefly had the worst air quality of any major city on Earth, Thunder Bay’s readings went off the top of Canada’s air quality health index scale, and unhealthy air alerts…

Read more

a month ago · 226 likes · 114 comments · Zeke Hausfather

“Our forecasts show the smoke continuing to move eastwards across the North Atlantic, and potentially towards Europe, highlighting the scale of wildfire pollution and how it can travel thousands of kilometers across borders and impact air quality in places far beyond the fires themselves…”

2. Fossil Phase-Out Key to Fighting Fires

Climate scientists have reiterated that the only way to prevent more massive wildfires is to stop burning fossil fuels, explains CBC News.

“…while firefighting resources are important for protecting local communities—some of which have been completely destroyed in Ontario fires this year—experts say it is not possible to extinguish every fire sending smoke toward major cities.”

Raking and controlled burns alone won’t work. We need to halt climate change. Full stop. –DB

3. Aral Sea’s Death Contributes to Climate Change

The death of the Aral Sea—one of the world’s worst ecological disasters in its own right—is also contributing to climate change, notes Grist. The dry lakebed the size of Ireland has already released 748 million tons of CO2—three times the annual emissions of Spain.

The mounting evidence around these emissions is particularly worrying because it could be a sign of a climate tipping point from which it would become difficult, if not impossible, to recover. “If we keep on doing this kind of stuff, where we are drying up lakes,” said Brothers, “those could take over driving climate change.”

Book of the Week

Wildfire: The Culture, Science, and Future of Fire | Ferin Davis Anderson

Climate change is making wildfires larger and more frequent. Environmental scientist Ferin Davis Anderson helps prepare us for this future by breaking down the science of wildfires and the science of firefighting.

Can modern firefighting techniques mitigate the damage climate change has caused? Or are we destined to live in a pyrocenic prison of our own making? –DB

Buy Now: Bookshop.org 🇺🇸 | Bookshop.org 🇬🇧

Good Climate News

1. Renewable Energy Still the Cheapest

Renewable energy remains the cheapest source of energy in the world, heralds Canary Media. Despite efforts in the United States to destroy renewable energy, it keeps lowering its costs while the price of fossil generation is rising.

The LCOE of gas power from modern “combined-cycle plants”—which was already about $20 higher per megawatt-hour than solar’s and onshore wind’s in 2025—rose by 15%.

2. The Sodium-Ion Revolution is Coming

A new energy storage revolution is kicking off with the advent of sodium-ion technology, relays Nature. Sodium-ion uses cheaper materials than the competing lithium-ion, dramatically lowering the potential price floor for energy storage in the coming decades.

“Sodium is an almost inexhaustible resource,” says Zhang Yizhi, a spokesperson for CATL. It is more than 1,000 times as abundant as lithium in Earth’s crust, and up to 60,000 times as plentiful in the ocean. Last month, industrial-grade sodium carbonate cost only US$200–280 per tonne, compared with $20,000–25,000 per tonne for battery-grade lithium carbonate, Zhang adds.

Sodium-ion also poses a dramatically lower fire risk, obviating the need for expensive fire suppression at the systems level. –DB

3. EU Targets Mass Electrification by 2040

The European Union (EU) released a plan to hit an electrification rate of 46% by 2040, details PV Magazine. This aggressive target can only be met by rapidly phasing out non-electric fossil technologies like gasoline and diesel vehicles, and fossil gas and oil-powered heating.

The action plan aims to address these challenges by narrowing the price gap between electricity and fossil fuels, thereby encouraging the deployment of heat pumps, electric vehicles and battery energy storage systems.

Our Blue Marble

Kronotsky Volcano | Kamchatka, Russia 🇷🇺

54°45′12″N 160°31′36″E

In Brief

🇨🇱 Chile: Communities in the Atacama Desert are researching fog harvesting to help alleviate a chronic drought.

🇨🇩 DR Congo: A new species of monkey has been discovered in the Congo rainforest.

🇮🇩 Indonesia: A new short documentary seeks to explore a patch of rainforest in Borneo before it is bulldozed to make way for a new national capital.

🇺🇬 Uganda: A 900-mile oil pipeline in East Africa that cuts through several important wildlife habitats is nearing completion despite efforts to halt it.

Planetary Pulse

Planetary Health — Latest figures

CO2: 430.78 PPM (+.34% YoY)1 | Temperature Anomaly: +1.42 C

Forest Cover: 31.8% | Protected Areas: 12.3% (17.3% terrestrial, 10.01% marine)

Emissions per Capita: 4.89 (World) | 9.1 (China) | 13.1 (USA) | 6.1 (EU) | 2.1 (India)

Low Carbon Electricity: 43.1% | Low Carbon Energy: 19.8% | EV New Sales : 24.1%2

The Other 74% 🌊

• A new study has found that 90% of deep-sea molluscs are contaminated with microplastics, with the worst pollution occurring in the Indian Ocean.

• A group of Pacific Island nations in Melanesia has announced plans for a new marine protected area the size of Great Britain—dubbed the Melanesian Ocean Corridor of Reserves (MOCOR).

• The US has announced plans to start deep-sea mining in American Samoa.

Meet the Endangered

Wollemia (Wollemia nobilis)

The Wollemia tree was thought to have gone extinct 200 million years ago until 1994, when a park ranger in Australia discovered a small grove of live trees growing at the bottom of a canyon.

Sometimes called the Wollemi Pine, the tree is not a true pine but rather a relic species of a different family of conifers that was once more widespread. The exact location of the Wollemia grove is kept secret by the Australian government to guard the vulnerable tree from harvesting or diseases introduced by hikers. A special mission was also arranged to protect the grove from the 2019-2020 bushfires.

Hobbyist gardeners have proven to be useful allies in its conservation. The Wollemia’s beauty and unusual history make it a popular ornamental tree worldwide, creating a genetic reservoir and an important insurance population.

IUCN: Critically Endangered (CR)

Vaquita (Phocoena sinus)

The Vaquita (Spanish for ‘little cow’) is the most endangered marine mammal on Earth. It entered the Holocene an already rare species, filling a small ecological niche in the Gulf of California. It never numbered more than 5,000; it now numbers fewer than ten.

A porpoise, the Vaquita is the smallest of all extant cetaceans. The greatest threat to its survival is accidental extraction by fishermen aiming for a different endangered fish, the totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi). Its reproduction rates are feeble, increasing its vulnerability.

All attempts to breed the Vaquita in captivity have failed. The only hope for the species, therefore, is protecting the exiguous wild population. The Mexican government has created a Zero Tolerance Area to shield the porpoise from fishing vessels and deployed its naval forces to enforce the exclusion zone. El tiempo dirá. But it may already be too little, too late.

IUCN: Critically Endangered (CR)

Be sure to sign up to get Earthview in your inbox:

Subscribe now

And consider a paid subscription to get premium analysis and support the work we do!

These places are dangerous to live in now, and climate change will only make things worse. Here are the seven hottest cities on Earth1, ranked by average daily high in their hottest month of the year:

7. Medina 🇸🇦

Temp: 44.3°C (111.7°F)

Medina in Saudi Arabia is the second-holiest city in Islam and the cradle of global Islamic civilization. Founded in the 9th century B.C. on the site of a natural desert oasis, the city is now a modern metropolis home to over 1.5 million people. The punishing heat in summer is a major public health threat to the millions of religious pilgrims who visit each year.

6. Baghdad 🇮🇶

Temp: 44.8°C (112.6°F)

Iraq’s ancient capital along the Tigris contains over 8 million people, around a quarter of the country’s entire population. In the summer months, the power grid struggles to handle the air conditioning load—to which only a minority of the population has access. Shifting work and commuting to cooler parts of the day has become the primary means of adaptation. Like many cities with long histories of extreme heat, Baghdad only really comes alive at night.

5. Khartoum 🇸🇩

Temp: 44.9°C (112.8°F)

Sudan’s capital faces a long summer that offers the worst of both worlds. In early summer, extreme dry heat bakes the city. In late summer, a blanket of humid, tropical heat smothers it. All this takes place in a dystopian conflict zone where power and water services rarely function.

4. Jacobabad 🇵🇰

Temp: 45.6°C (114.1°F)

Jacobabad in Pakistan’s Sindh province is the hottest city in South Asia and among the most inhospitable inhabited places in the world. Like Khartoum, it is located in the liminal space between a hot, dry desert and an alluvial plain—meaning it gets both extreme heat and humidity. Access to electricity is spotty, and most people work outdoors as agricultural laborers.

3. Ahvaz 🇮🇷

Temp: 46.3°C (115.3°F)

Ahvaz in Iran’s Khuzestan Province lies along a Mesopotamian alluvial plain neighboring that which contains Basra and Kuwait City. Near the border of Iraq, it’s a multicultural city of 1.5 million Arabs, Persians, Qashqai, Kurds, and others. In summer, the baking heat combines with humidity blowing in from the Persian Gulf, creating a dangerously high heat index. The health impacts of the heat are exacerbated by equally extreme air pollution.

2. Basra 🇮🇶

Temp: 46.5°C (115.7°F)

Basra is the third-largest city in Iraq and the cultural and economic capital of the southern part of the country. Located near the Iranian border, it just edges out nearby Ahvaz for summer heat. A modern metropolis of 1.5 million, it is an industrial powerhouse focused on petrochemicals and oil export. The highest temperature ever recorded in Iraq was measured in Basra on July 22, 2016, at 53.9°C (129°F).

1. Kuwait City 🇰🇼

Temp: 46.8°C (116.2°F)

The hottest city in the world is Kuwait City. Kuwait lies in the same general region of lower Mesopotamia as Ahvaz and Basra. However, the city is much larger at a population of 3 million people and much wealthier, which means more development and thus more concrete. All this concrete creates a pronounced urban heat island effect, exacerbating the natural climate and pushing it to the top of the list.

Canadians pride themselves on being a moral example to the rest of the world. When, in the 1800s, the United States viciously enslaved its African-American population, Canada welcomed escaped refugees with open arms via the Underground Railroad.1 And today—while their loutish cousins to the south invade sovereign states and execute regime-change operations around the world—Ottawa floods conflict zones with neutral, UN-helmeted peacekeepers.

Every year, Canada resettles more refugees per capita than any other wealthy nation. Via the Ottawa Treaty, it led the global effort to ban landmines. It was also an original co-author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

There is one humanitarian issue, however, on which the Great White North is a severe laggard relative to its peers: climate change. Canada’s carbon emissions are among the highest in the world on a per capita basis. In 2024, Canada’s CO2 emissions per capita were 13.42 tonnes, nearly three times those of the UK, six times those of India, and roughly on par with the United States.

These dismal numbers are unlikely to improve anytime soon. Since Prime Minister Mark Carney came to office last year, he has executed a slow but deliberate pivot away from the pro-climate policies of his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, both of the left-wing Liberal Party. Carney has scrapped climate targets and gone all in on maximizing Canada’s oil and gas production.

This project accelerated in the last few weeks, as Carney announced a major new pipeline to ship oil and fossil gas to Asian export markets, particularly China and India. The process emissions from this project alone will scuttle any remaining hope that Canada will meet the emissions goals it made under the previous government.

Carney himself put it bluntly: “The changes we have made will mean that our emissions will be higher in the next few years…”2

God Keep Our Land

It is impossible to understand Canada’s dramatic climate pivot without considering the twin crises currently buffeting the nation. First, there is a surge of secessionist sentiment in Alberta—the center of Canada’s oil and gas industry. Alberta is the nation’s most conservative province and expected a Conservative prime minister to succeed left-wing Trudeau in last year’s election. Carney’s shocking resurrection of the Liberal Party’s fortunes, subsequent electoral victory, and continuing popularity have generated the real possibility of a 20-year Liberal Party reign—and a genuine desire among some in Alberta to leave Canada altogether.

Alberta has immense oil wealth, which, in theory, gives it the financial resources to go it alone. The province’s premier, Danielle Smith, is personally opposed to independence but has nonetheless called for a referendum on the issue later this year on October 19th.

Polls show the referendum failing miserably, with under 30% in favor of leaving Canada. But any policy that harms the oil and gas industry could drive that number higher, into much more dangerous territory. The situation in Alberta represents the gravest threat to Canada’s unity since the 1995 Quebec Independence Referendum, which came within 0.6% of separating Quebec from the federation and fracturing the rump nation into two non-contiguous shards.

The second crisis is Canada’s increasingly erratic relationship with the hegemonic power to its south. Since his reelection to a second term, Donald Trump has expressed a rather strong—and somewhat inexplicable—desire to annex both Canada and Greenland. Separately, he has also pursued a chaotic and economically illiterate trade policy that has hurt Canada more than any other nation.

A true war with the United States or the forced cession of territory both remain distant prospects. But the unprovoked economic war has forced Canada to find other export markets—and oil is one of only a handful of goods that is both easily tradable and can generate enough export revenue to make a real dent in a nation’s trade balance.

Additionally, an oil pipeline facilitating export to China is not simply an economic matter of energy policy or export promotion. It also gives the only great power in the world capable of challenging the United States a stake in Canada’s autonomy—serving as a vital geopolitical hedge against the United States in a way no other piece of infrastructure could.

Despite an obvious alternative explanation, centrist “energy realist” types have gleefully celebrated Canada’s energy volte-face as a repudiation of left-wing pro-climate environmental policy writ large.3 In this purblind telling, Carney has rejected “woke net-zero madness” and embraced “the Norway model”—i.e., a petrostate that pumps huge amounts of oil and gas while pursuing aggressive climate action elsewhere in the economy.

There is one glaring problem with this facile analysis, however: Canada is absolutely nothing like Norway. Norway has one of the lowest levels of per capita emissions in the developed world, and those emissions are falling. The Nordic country gets nearly all of its electricity from hydro and wind, while Canada still relies on fossil for a large and growing share of its generation. 72% of Norway’s primary energy consumption comes from low-carbon sources, compared to just 33% in Canada.

Norway also led the world in creating an initial market for electric vehicles (EVs). By incubating an infant EV industry within its borders, Norway helped to create the global zero-emission vehicle industry, and—as road transport makes up 16% of global carbon emissions—this Norwegian impact on climate change over the coming decades will be massive. Canada has no such analogous policy.

Indeed, the non-pipeline policies Carney has announced recently are a mixed grab bag of measures that range from modestly helpful for climate (tightened methane regulations), to uncertain (carbon capture projects that may or may not happen), and to actively harmful (continuing to burn fossil gas for electricity until 2050). Nothing Canada is planning will move the needle in a sufficiently positive direction.

Faced with secessionist movements and an aggressive, erratic neighbor threatening its territorial integrity, Canada may indeed have no choice but to continue pumping oil and gas, using the economic benefits of fossil fuel export to stabilize its internal cohesion and geopolitical standing.

But this lamentable reality need not necessarily lead to a higher emissions trajectory. Canada should make up for its oil and gas industry by cutting emissions in other sectors. And, like Norway, it should use its own decarbonization efforts to advance the fight against climate change globally.

Des plus brillants exploits

First, Canada should do everything it can to accelerate the electrification of its own economy. Between 30% and 35% of the nation’s carbon emissions come from just two sectors: road transport and heating. Technologies exist in both these domains—electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps—that drastically slash emissions via electrification.

Canada lags behind in the adoption of both. Only 8% of Canadian homes have heat pumps, compared to 15% in the United States and 60% in Norway. Last year, EVs represented only 10.3% of new vehicle sales in Canada, compared to 17.9% in the European Union (EU) and 95.9% in Norway. These bleak numbers have a silver lining, of course, as they offer enormous room for progress to offset rising emissions.

But to truly make a difference, Canada must move beyond mere deployment and push technological frontiers. One area where it could lead is steel. Like most developed nations, Canada has a thriving recycled steel industry powered by clean electric arc furnaces. But it lags behind in transitioning its virgin steel industry, which is vital for high-end manufacturing and certain other applications.

Canada has two virgin steel plants currently powered by coal. Each presents a separate opportunity to create two different varieties of low-carbon “green steel.” One is primed to convert from coal to 100% hydrogen; the other—built too recently to make that transition economically—is experimenting with mixing hydrogen and biomass. Deadlines to convert these plants should be brought forward, spurring innovative solutions. These innovations could then be shared with the world, helping to decarbonize a sector that makes up around 10% of global GHG emissions.

Another area ripe for investment is the market for low-carbon “clean firm” electricity generation. Canada is already doing good work on nuclear, pursuing both Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and large-scale indigenous CANDU reactors. There is a total of 1.2 GW of nuclear under construction and another 15.8 GW being planned.

Canada isn’t moving fast enough, however, on the hottest new source of clean firm generation—geothermal. Enhanced geothermal (EGS) and advanced geothermal (AGS) technologies offer the promise of low-carbon 24/7 electricity and heat without the safety concerns and long construction times of nuclear.

Canada has enormous geothermal potential, especially in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories. It also is home to Eavor, one of the world’s leading advanced geothermal companies. Despite these advantages, a measly 0.16 GW of geothermal projects are in the pipeline. That number should be at least 10 GW—enough to incubate an entirely new power generation technology and bring it down the cost curve closer to parity with fossil.

As with green steel, geothermal’s biggest emissions impact would be deployment beyond Canada. Closed-loop advanced geothermal technology—the sort in which Eavor specializes—is a better fit for Europe and many other regions of the world where American-led EGS (which involves fracking) may not be politically viable. It also uses much less water in a world that has been newly sensitized to the issue of industrial water usage.

Finally, Canada’s largest untapped opportunity in the power sector is offshore wind. The seas of Atlantic Canada have some of the highest offshore wind potential anywhere in the world—yet they currently have zero operating wind farms. Nova Scotia’s government has an ambitious plan to build 40 GW of offshore wind, exporting the vast majority via undersea transmission cables to the Northeastern United States and via land towards Ontario and Quebec.

Ottawa should agree to Nova Scotia’s plan. The Northeastern US is in desperate need of low-carbon energy to replace its aging fleet of expensive oil and gas generating stations. Plans for offshore wind farms in America have been scuttled by the current administration’s anti-wind policies. The demand hasn’t gone anywhere, but no new offshore wind farms in US waters are likely to start construction before 2029. By getting a jump on the Yanks, Canada could lock in a major export industry for generations and gain leverage North American trade relations. The rest of the electricity would help provision Canadian EVs, heat pumps, steel factories, etc.

The current net-zero plans are not enough. If Canada cannot restrain its oil and gas sector, it must accelerate decarbonization efforts elsewhere. And—crucially—it should focus on sectors that matter in Canada but whose solutions can be shared with the world for a meaningful impact on global emissions.

These two battery types are emerging as near-term winners for EVs, but they are far from the only tech being pursued in industry or in labs. There’s an entire alphabet soup of battery types based on dozens of elements, all with various pros and cons and specific best uses.

Moving beyond lithium-ion will lower the cost of energy storage, allowing more wind and solar onto the grid and making EVs much cheaper than gas vehicles. –DB

2. Climate Denier to Lead US Climate Policy

The United States has named a climate change denialist to an important position that oversees a key climate report, explains The Guardian. The Trump administration has tapped Matthew Wielicki—who has no qualifications in climate science—to author the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment.

In 2023, Wielicki said people who believe in climate science are “being sold snake oil”. And on his blog, Irrational Fear, he cast doubt on the conclusions of earlier National Climate Assessments, and argued that it is not carbon dioxide, but increasing solar radiation, that has caused atmospheric warming.

3. Eurostar Orders Trains to Withstand 55°C (133°F) Heat

International train operator Eurostar has ordered heat-hardened trains that can cope with temperatures as high as 55°C (133°F), notes CNN. Eurostar—which operates exclusively in temperate regions of England, France, and Belgium—is concerned about future heatwaves.

“These trains will enter service in 2031 and run into the 2060s so it’s essential to be prepared for the future,” the spokesperson said. “It is currently very hot in several of our destinations. And we know that these conditions can make your journey less comfortable than usual…”

Book of the Week

Wilder: How Rewilding is Transforming Conservation and Changing the World | Millie Kerr

Conservation is usually seen in binary terms: either we preserve wildlands and the species within them, or we allow it all to be irrevocably destroyed. But there is a complementary path to mere preservation: actively restoring degraded land and its native species, a process known as rewilding.

In this book, wildlife journalist Millie Kerr scours the globe for rewilding success stories. From Argentina to South Africa to the Galápagos Islands, explore these inspiring tales of ecological rebirth. –DB

Buy Now: Bookshop.org 🇺🇸 | Bookshop.org 🇬🇧

Good Climate News

1. Global Oil Demand Will Decline in 2026

Global oil demand will fall for the first time since COVID, heralds Inside Climate News. The drop is driven by the effects of the Iran War and is expected to at least partially reverse next year, but some of the demand-saving measures may turn out to be more durable.

“…The events of the past few months in Iran will have an effect and are likely to hasten the secular decrease in oil demand that we think is coming at some point,” said Samantha Gross, director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. “I think this disruption has been big enough, and, honestly, scary enough, that it is likely to change behavior both on policies and on the part of consumers.”

2. Geothermal Startup Raises $134M

Innovative geothermal startup Quaise has raised $134 million in new capital, relays Canary Media. The Houston-based company—which uses advanced plasma torches to vaporize rock—aims to drill deeper than other geothermal companies, unlocking hotter temperatures and more power.

The fundraise comes as Quaise prepares to start drilling its first test well later this month for the Oregon plant, called Project Obsidian, which is slated to come online by 2030. “Our ambition is to power civilization with Earth’s most compelling energy source,” Carlos Araque, CEO and president of Quaise, said in a statement. ​“This round takes us from field-proven technology to first commercial revenues.”

If Quaise’s technology works, the company could become one of the most important in the history of humanity. –DB

3. EU to Mandate Heat Pumps for Public Buildings

The European Union (EU) will soon mandate clean electric heat pumps for all public buildings, details Euronews. These heat pumps will replace existing heating systems powered by fossil gas or coal.

Sanjeev Kumar, policy director at the European Geothermal Energy Council (EGEC), described a potential mandate for heat pumps in public buildings as "great news", noting that geothermal heat pumps are already the default option, providing an opportunity to use them in thermal heating and cooling networks.

Our Blue Marble

Athirappilly Falls | Kerala, India 🇮🇳

10°17′5″N 76°34′7″E

In Brief

🇦🇺 Australia: The Brown Huntsman (Heteropoda jugulans) is now the world’s fastest spider, having been recorded moving at a speed of 3.59 meters per second.

🇮🇸 Iceland: Iceland has begun killing whales again for the first time since 2023.

🇳🇬 Nigeria: Near-constant flooding in Lagos is taking a huge physical, economic, and psychological toll on residents.

🇪🇸 Spain: At least 12 are dead and 23 missing as wildfires in Spain turned roads into deathtraps.

Planetary Pulse

Planetary Health — Latest figures

CO2: 430.78 PPM (+.34% YoY)1 | Temperature Anomaly: +1.42 C

Forest Cover: 31.8% | Protected Areas: 12.3% (17.3% terrestrial, 10.01% marine)

Emissions per Capita: 4.89 (World) | 9.1 (China) | 13.1 (USA) | 6.1 (EU) | 2.1 (India)

Low Carbon Electricity: 43.1% | Low Carbon Energy: 19.8% | EV New Sales : 24.1%2

The Other 74%

• The last glacier in the Southwest Pacific (located in Indonesia) could be gone in a matter of months.

• Gray Whales (Eschrichtius robustus) off the Pacific coast of North America are starving due to the climate crisis.

• Scientists have used AI to create the first high-resolution map of global seagrass extent.

Meet the Endangered

Vaquita (Phocoena sinus)

The Vaquita (Spanish for ‘little cow’) is the most endangered marine mammal on Earth. It entered the Holocene an already rare species, filling a small ecological niche in the Gulf of California. It never numbered more than 5,000; it now numbers fewer than ten.

A porpoise, the Vaquita is the smallest of all extant cetaceans. The greatest threat to its survival is accidental extraction by fishermen aiming for a different endangered fish, the totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi). Its reproduction rates are feeble, increasing its vulnerability.

All attempts to breed the Vaquita in captivity have failed. The only hope for the species, therefore, is protecting the exiguous wild population. The Mexican government has created a Zero Tolerance Area to shield the porpoise from fishing vessels and deployed its naval forces to enforce the exclusion zone. El tiempo dirá. But it may already be too little, too late.

IUCN: Critically Endangered (CR)

Hula Painted Frog (Latonia nigriventer)

In the 1940s, scientists discovered the Hula Painted Frog along the shores of Lake Hula, in what was then Mandatory Palestine, now Israel. Subsequent research revealed that the frog belonged to a long-extinct genus known in Europe from fossils.

Shortly thereafter, the marshland surrounding Lake Hula was drained to make way for agricultural development. The Hula Painted Frog disappeared and was presumed extinct. Nocturnal, solitary, and fearful of humans, the sably piceous amphibian evaded detection until a park ranger discovered a single individual in 2011. This unique history gives the frog the rare status of both a living fossil and a Lazarus taxon.

The Hula Painted Frog is vulnerable due to its extremely limited native range and the desiccation of its remaining wetland habitat. It is also a favorite target for predators like herons and egrets, which are unusually common near Lake Hula.

IUCN: Critically Endangered (CR)

Sign up to get Earthview in your inbox:

Subscribe now

And consider a paid subscription to get premium analysis and support the work we do!

More than 90% of the power plants brought online in America in 2025 were solar, wind, or battery farms, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And the agency projects that these clean resources will account for 93% of new additions to the power grid this year.

2. Canada Pivots Hard Towards Fossil Fuels

Canada will scrap climate targets and fully embrace its role as a fossil fuel producer, explains CBC News. In a televised speech announcing the change, Prime Minister Carney was highly critical of the previous government’s pro-climate energy strategy.

The Carney government is also expanding exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and supporting another pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast."We can't afford to restrain the growth of an important part of our energy mix, oil and gas…”

Unlike Norway, Canada isn’t doing anything to make up for its high oil & gas sector emissions. If cutting oil & gas emissions is too politically divisive—it should cut elsewhere. –DB

3. Data Centers Would Explode PA Emissions

A new study has found that the proposed 14 GW of fossil gas-fired data centers would massively increase Pennsylvania’s carbon emissions, notes Inside Climate News. Nationally, at least 74 new gas-fired power plants are being planned to power data centers.

…the plants would together emit some 68 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually, part of a national trend that would result in a huge rise in greenhouse gas emissions amid global efforts to slow climate change. That bump would mean a 24 percent increase in Pennsylvania’s emissions [over 2022 levels].

Our Blue Marble

Remote Peninsula | Baffin Island, Canada 🇨🇦

70° 48′ 0″ N, 70° 43′ 0″ W

Good Climate News

1. Chile Reaches 20 GW of Renewables

Chile has hit 20 GW of total renewable generation capacity, heralds PV Magazine. This is made up of about 12 GW of solar, 6 GW of wind, and the remainder is a smattering of hydro and geothermal.

The CNE lists 185 renewable energy projects under construction, totaling 4,176 MW. Solar PV accounts for 3,768 MW, or roughly 90% of the pipeline. Wind projects represent 370 MW.

2. NY Hits 8 GW of Distributed Solar

New York has hit 8 GW of distributed solar capacity, relays PV Tech. The state is now ahead of schedule to reach its target of 10 GW by 2030.

Currently, there are more than 276,000 distributed solar projects operational across the state, with a further 2.7GW in development.

3. Home Batteries Booming Worldwide

Three giant Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) have joined forces to power data centers, details Yale Environment 360. Batteries are directly displacing fossil capacity, obviating the need for new fossil generation by making the grid more flexible, and enabling higher wind and solar penetration rates—each a boon to decarbonization.

Large battery projects, says a May report from the energy think tank Ember, “are increasingly cost-competitive and faster to build than new gas power plants.” And their carbon footprint is about 87 percent smaller than an average-size gas peaker.

In addition to making the grid cleaner and more flexible, home batteries give consumers backup power and resiliency. A win-win for everyone. –DB

Book of the Week

Concrete Botany: The Ecology of Plants in the Age of Human Disturbance | Joey Santore

Amateur botanist and host of the popular YouTube channel Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t Joey Santore gives the reader an in-your-face view of how the Anthropocene has ravaged natural ecosystems. Grasslands paved over with concrete. Invasive plants instantly dysregulating delicate ecological balances that took millions of years to evolve. Alas, human beings have indeed been the problem.

But we can also be the solution. We can foster native plants in our own backyards that help to restore the natural world to something closer to a healthy state. A rare environmental book with a path to concrete action. –DB

Buy Now: Bookshop.org 🇺🇸 | Bookshop.org 🇬🇧

In Brief

🇧🇩 Bangladesh: An important source of protein is withering away, as pollution has degraded fish catch yields in Kaptai Lake.

🇫🇷 France: Lawmakers have proposed a law to protect workers from heatwaves modelled on Spain’s model—which allows for mandatory timeshifting to cooler hours of the day and generous paid leave.

🇳🇱 Netherlands: The recent heatwave killed at least 480 people nationwide.

🇺🇸 United States: Ecologists are using rare fungi to help restore the rainforests of Palmyra Atoll—a remote island in the Pacific controlled by the US.

Planetary Pulse

Planetary Health — Latest figures

CO2: 430.78 PPM (+.34% YoY)1 | Temperature Anomaly: +1.42 C

Forest Cover: 31.8% | Protected Areas: 12.3% (17.3% terrestrial, 10.01% marine)

Emissions per Capita: 4.89 (World) | 9.1 (China) | 13.1 (USA) | 6.1 (EU) | 2.1 (India)

Low Carbon Electricity: 43.1% | Low Carbon Energy: 19.8% | EV New Sales : 24.1%2

The Other 74%

• The global ocean temperature reached a record high in June at 20.98°C.

• Seabirds off the coast of California are starving due to a prolonged marine heatwave.

• Australia’s seagrass meadows are under pressure due to climate change and chemical pollution.

Meet the Endangered

Hula Painted Frog (Latonia nigriventer)

In the 1940s, scientists discovered the Hula Painted Frog along the shores of Lake Hula, in what was then Mandatory Palestine, now Israel. Subsequent research revealed that the frog belonged to a long-extinct genus known in Europe from fossils.

Shortly thereafter, the marshland surrounding Lake Hula was drained to make way for agricultural development. The Hula Painted Frog disappeared and was presumed extinct. Nocturnal, solitary, and fearful of humans, the sably piceous amphibian evaded detection until a park ranger discovered a single individual in 2011. This unique history gives the frog the rare status of both a living fossil and a Lazarus taxon.

The Hula Painted Frog is vulnerable due to its extremely limited native range and the desiccation of its remaining wetland habitat. It is also a favorite target for predators like herons and egrets, which are unusually common near Lake Hula.

IUCN: Critically Endangered (CR)

Solar photovoltaic cells are perhaps the most revolutionary technology in the history of energy. By allowing humanity to generate cheap, low-carbon electrons using only the sun’s rays as fuel, solar PV is likely to be the single-most important tool to help the world achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

In 2025, the United States generated 8.5% of its electricity from solar—roughly in line with the global average. But within this continent-sized nation, there are quite a few over-achievers. Here are the top six US states ranked by share of electricity generated in-state by solar in 20251:

6. Vermont | ~17%

Tiny Vermont is the only state in the union that generates 100% of its electricity from renewable sources. Its electricity consumption, however, is around 80% renewable as it imports significant amounts of fossil gas-generated electrons from neighboring states.

To close that gap, Vermont is relying more and more on homegrown small-scale solar. Rooftop provides two-thirds of all solar generation and has plenty of room to grow with only 10% penetration.

5. New Mexico | ~17%

New Mexico is one of the sunniest states in America, but has historically lagged in the development of solar energy. No longer. By the end of 2025, solar’s share of in-state electricity generation had jumped from 8% to 17% in just two years.

The leap was due to a number of factors. Several large utility-scale projects came online to help fill the gap from retiring coal plants. A massive utility rate hike also increased interest in rooftop solar.

4. Hawaii | ~23%

America’s island paradise in the Pacific is a natural place for solar energy. Hawaii has no fossil fuel resources of its own. And importing fuel oil and diesel to power its aging fleet of oil-fired electricity plants is eye-wateringly expensive.

Faced with some of the highest utility bills in the country, Hawaiians naturally turned to rooftop solar. 45% of all single-family homes in Hawaii have solar panels—the highest rate of any state and ten times the national average.

Due to its isolation, however, Hawaii has more difficulty than most places integrating large amounts of solar production into its energy mix. Each of its six populated islands has its own grid. Solar’s intermittency thus cannot be balanced with firm imports from elsewhere. Storage, of course, is the solution. Batteries are quickly being deployed and could enable Hawaii to be nearly 100% solar powered in around a decade.

3. Massachusetts | ~26%

Massachusetts’ solar boom is driven more by policy than abundant resource. The state offers very generous solar subsidies, often paid as straight-up cash rather than via electricity bill credits.

With little spare land, the densely-populated Northeastern state has focused on rooftop solar. It’s also a pioneer in utility-scale installations on brownfield sites.

2. Nevada | ~34%

The bright lights of Las Vegas were once powered by coal, which until recently made up over half of Nevada’s electricity generation. Now they are increasingly lit with clean electrons harvested by massive solar farms along the city’s desert periphery.

Outside of Sin City, Nevada is a dry, mostly federally-owned desert that ranks among the sunniest places in the world. There is thus plenty of space to power the state’s budding metropolis with solar farms, and enough left over to make Nevada America’s solar export superpower—sending nearly 40% of its production to the much more populous state of California.

1. California | ~37%

In 2025, Texas officially took the crown of the state with the most utility-scale solar generation in TWh terms. But as a total share of electricity produced in-state, California remains the undisputed king of solar in the United States.

With large coastal cities and huge interior deserts, California has almost the perfect geography for the development of utility-scale solar. However, the state is no slouch when it comes to rooftop solar either—which is installed on around 25% of single-family homes and mandated for all new housing construction.

California relies on imports from other states to balance the intermittency of its solar generation—wind from New Mexico, nuclear and gas from Arizona, and hydro from the Pacific Northwest. Yet, like Texas, it is increasingly relying on utility-scale storage to timeshift solar consumption to the evening.

It was once predicted by so-called “energy realists” that no electric grid on Earth could function at more than 10% to 15% solar penetration. But solar now accounts for 37% of all electricity generated within California’s borders, and 28% of all electricity consumed. California has proved the doubters wrong.

Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides)

It has long been known that the giant redwoods and sequoias of California were the last remnants of a much larger redwood family, whose other members vanished from the fossil record tens of millions of years ago. So it came as quite a shock when, in 1948, one of these species - presumed extinct and known only from museum fossil collections - was found very much alive in south-central China.

The Dawn Redwood is shorter than its American cousins, growing to ‘only’ 51 m (167 ft) tall. It also grows much more quickly, reaching its mature height in about 50 years - compared to around 400 years for Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum). Both characteristics - along with its unusual status as a deciduous conifer that changes color in autumn - have made the newly resurrected species a popular ornamental tree around the world.

Ironically, so has climate change. The Dawn Redwood evolved at a time when temperatures and carbon dioxide levels were much higher. It is thus an excellent climate-resilient arboreal choice for parks or city streets.

Abundant elsewhere, this ancient tree remains endangered within its wild range due to habitat fragmentation and low genetic diversity. If it hadn’t been discovered and commercialized, this living fossil might have gone extinct in this century without anyone noticing.

IUCN: Endangered (EN)

Be sure to sign up to get Earthview in your inbox:

Subscribe now

And consider a paid subscription to get premium analysis and support the work we do!

Humans are the most heat-tolerant of all the great apes. We lack the thick coat of fur that envelops our chimpanzee and gorilla cousins. Our upright posture exposes us to less direct sun. And we have ten times the number of eccrine sweat glands, allowing for thermodynamically efficient liquid cooling. This thermal adaptability has served us well, allowing us to emerge from the forest, conquer the great African savannahs, and then the world.

Yet there is a limit. In conditions of high humidity, the human thermoregulatory system starts to break down at ambient temperatures of just 33°C (87°F). Beyond this level, our sweat glands fail to evacuate sufficient heat from the body and our core temperature rises. Our circulatory systems begin to give out at a body temperature of 40°C (104°F). And if it reaches 41°C (106°F), our tissues literally start to cook.

Such conditions were rare in the Pleistocene climate for which we evolved. But they are becoming more common as climate change accelerates. Just last week Europe was hit by a record heatwave in which at least 1,300 people are estimated to have lost their lives—an estimate that will certainly increase as more data rolls in.

“The rush really started on Wednesday, Thursday and ​the whole weekend, it was non-stop,” a French undertaker told Reuters on Tuesday. “At the weekend I received 150 calls, and had to say no to the 150 bodies … Families are ​calling us, nursing homes are calling us, police stations are calling us, municipalities are calling us.”

There are around 500,000 such heat-related deaths in the world every year. Most of these people do not die directly from heat stroke. Rather, extreme heat stress, more often, exacerbates an underlying health condition—like heart disease or kidney failure—to the point that it becomes fatal.

And fatalities are only the tip of the iceberg. Via this exact same mechanism, heatwaves do more than merely kill the elderly and the chronically ill. They make existing health conditions worse. Those who survive repeated heatwaves emerge weakened, sapped of their vitality, and impaired in their daily quality of life.

Even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, the amount of irreversible warming we’ve already inflicted on the planet is a global health emergency. Focusing solely on emissions reductions won’t work. We also must adapt to the new, hotter reality.

There are some very good adaptation ideas we should pursue—like engineering passive cooling into new buildings and planting trees for shade in urban areas. But passive cooling solutions cannot do it alone. Mechanical air conditioning has been found to reduce heat-related deaths by up to 75%.1 It must be part of the solution.

Sinon o faitz, vostres n´er lo dampnage

At present, however, air conditioning is relatively scarce on a global scale. Although nearly ubiquitous in certain places (North America, Japan, Australia, and—increasingly—China), only around 30% of the global population has access to air conditioning in 2026.

The vast majority of those who lack air conditioning live in the developing world, where the energy-intensive process is cost-prohibitive. Curiously, there are also hundreds of millions of holdouts in Europe, a very wealthy region that has—in stark contrast to its advanced economy peers—resisted the technology.

Part of this difference is climatic. Northern Europe has one of the mildest climates on the planet, and the need for air conditioning has historically been limited to just a handful of days a year. The portion of the United States most climatically similar to Europe—the Pacific Northwest—has until recently also had very low rates of air conditioning penetration.

But there is a rather substantial political difference too. Much of the European environmental movement and several of the continent’s left-wing political parties oppose air conditioning on supposed ecological grounds. This view holds that air conditioning is morally impermissible given it uses energy and energy represents around 75% of global carbon emissions.

“We can't install air conditioning everywhere. It's a false solution that makes the problem worse,” in the words of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of France’s largest left-wing coalition. The nation’s current environment minister, Monique Barbut, has said she is “horrified” by the idea of air conditioning becoming more widespread.2

This puritanical stance is grounded more in ideological fervor than sound, scientifically-guided reasoning. Firstly, there is nothing particularly moral about a policy that condemns vulnerable people to suffer and die unnecessarily. Indoor cooling is not a luxury good like international air travel, a second home, or (in much of the world) automobile ownership. It is a vital healthcare intervention and should be regarded as such.

And secondly, there is no inherent trade-off between expanding access to air conditioning and reducing carbon emissions. Air conditioners are powered by electricity, making it easy to run them on low-carbon sources of energy like wind and solar. This is very much unlike space heating, which is often powered by direct combustion of fossil gas or fuel oil via furnaces and boilers.

Additionally, ramping up air conditioning offers a remarkable opportunity to decarbonize space heating in temperate areas of the world—like Europe—that require both cooling in summer and heating in winter. Rather than install unidirectional air conditioners, European nations could (and should) install heat pumps.

Heat pumps are effectively air conditioners that can also work in reverse and provide heating as well as cooling. Europe has already launched a massive campaign to coax households into ditching fossil heating for clean, electric heat pumps—a necessary measure to reach climate targets. Combining these efforts with a push for universal air conditioning would effectively kill two birds with one stone—saving carbon emissions in winter and saving lives in summer.

Step into the sun

The drive for universal air conditioning can also breathe new life into the campaign for global universal electrification. Over 600 million people—mostly in Africa—lack access to electricity altogether. These people are also among the most vulnerable to extreme heat.

The most obvious way to deliver cooling services to these people is to accelerate the penetration of solar into rural Africa and pair that solar with air conditioning. These solar panels would have the added climate benefit of displacing dirty biomass or diesel, which—in most cases—would otherwise have filled the gap in time.

The costs of solar, battery storage, and air conditioning have all fallen dramatically in the past few decades. In the not too distant future, we can imagine NGOs installing combined solar/storage/AC units in at least one building in every village in Africa, ensuring cooling access to the most vulnerable on the hottest days.

Broadening air conditioning use helps to decarbonize space heating in the cooler, developed world, and accelerates electrification efforts in the warmer, developing world. Done properly, it can reduce global carbon emissions rather than increase them. It also has enormous public health benefits, improving both mortality and quality of life scores for millions.

Moreover, air conditioning—on a macroeconomic level—pays for itself. Extreme heat significantly impairs GDP through its effects on productivity. Air conditioning prevents these impairments, boosting overall economic growth.

We must stop regarding air conditioning as a luxury. Rather, we should view it as we do clean drinking water or sufficient food for survival. It may be premature or impractical to declare air conditioning a universal human right. But governments should certainly create policies that promote the widest possible access to the ambient air temperature our bodies require to survive and thrive.

Ligue 2 footballer Kenzo Kies also died after reportedly drowning in the Rhône River during the heatwave. In a statement, his club Guingamp said it was “saddened” to learn of the 21-year-old’s death.

As climate change accelerates, things are only going to get worse. The time for global, universal access to air conditioning is now. –DB

2. Early Heat Melting Swiss Glaciers

All of the snow accumulated by Swiss glaciers over the past winter could be gone by Monday, explains The Guardian. This loss is due to the combined effects of the current heat wave and an earlier one in May, both exacerbated by climate change.

We’re just seeing enormous ablation, ice melt rates and snow melt rates all over the Alps,” Glamos network chief Matthias Huss told AFP on Friday. “We are three months too early compared to a healthy state.”

3. Study Details Ocean Impact of 1.5°C

A new study has tracked 201 ocean impact events during the first year Earth surpassed the 1.5°C warming threshold, relays Oceanographic.

“This study provides a real-world snapshot of how marine ecosystems responded during an exceptional period of ocean warmth,” said Dr Shannon Klein, lead author and Research Scientist at KAUST. “One of the clearest findings was that impacts were not confined to traditional summer heat extremes. We found evidence of ecological disruption across seasons…”

Our Blue Marble

Rhine Falls | Switzerland

47°40′38″N 8°36′57″E

Good Climate News

1. EVs Overtake Petrol Cars in UK

Electric vehicles (EVs) have for the first time overtaken petrol cars in UK sales over a 12-month period, heralds Carbon Brief. The milestone was achieved in May.

The new analysis for the UK follows a similar milestone for the EU, with more BEVs having been sold in the month of December 2025 than petrol cars.

Outside the US, the EV revolution is happening more quickly than expected. –DB

2. Renewables Reach 30% of US Electricity

Renewables accounted for 30% of the United States’ electricity generation in the first quarter of 2026, notes Electrek. Wind and solar accounted for 21.8%, with hydroelectric power making up the remainder.

Renewables-generated electricity during the first four months of 2026 was 10.03% greater than in the same period in 2025…The electrical output of US coal plants fell by 11.6%, while nuclear power grew +0.5%. Electricity generated by natural gas plants grew by 2.8%.

3. Mega VPP Created to Power Data Centers

Three giant Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) have joined forces to power data centers, details Latitude Media. The new partnership from Sunrun, Renew Home, and Tesla will help the existing electric grid meet data center load growth, mitigating demand for new fossil-powered generation.

The three companies are planning to aggregate capacity from demand-side and energy-exporting devices, including home battery systems operated by Sunrun and Tesla, as well as smart thermostats operated and managed by Renew Home.

Book of the Week

The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late | Jess French

Plastics cause environmental and health harms at every stage of their life cycle, from extraction and production to use and disposal. Even plastic recycling creates enormous damage and isn’t ‘green’ by any reasonable definition.

In this handy book, Judith Enck of Beyond Plastics explains how the plastics industry has flooded the Planet with its toxic product and outlines a plan to fight back with strict regulation and truly circular alternatives. A perfect primer on the topic! –DB

Buy Now: Bookshop.org 🇺🇸 | Bookshop.org 🇬🇧

In Brief

🇩🇿 Algeria: Germany has signed a deal to import green hydrogen from the North African nation.

🇧🇷 Brazil: The global craze for the psychedelic drug ayahuasca is driving concerns of overharvesting in its Amazon home.

🇨🇴 Colombia: One of the most pro-climate national leaders in the world has been replaced by a new president who wants to start “fracking to the max”.

🇺🇸 United States: Former NOAA employees have created a new website that replicates the functionality of the Biden-era climate.gov.

Planetary Pulse

Planetary Health — Latest figures

CO2: 430.78 PPM (+.34% YoY)1 | Temperature Anomaly: +1.42 C

Forest Cover: 31.8% | Protected Areas: 12.3% (17.3% terrestrial, 10.01% marine)

Emissions per Capita: 4.89 (World) | 9.1 (China) | 13.1 (USA) | 6.1 (EU) | 2.1 (India)

Low Carbon Electricity: 43.1% | Low Carbon Energy: 19.8% | EV New Sales : 24.1%2

The Other 74%

• A marine expedition off the coast of Brazil has found 31 new species in only two weeks.

• Unplugged offshore oil and gas wells are poisoning protected waters in the UK.

• The European Union has pledged €338 million to fight illegal fishing, piracy, and ocean pollution globally.

Meet the Endangered

Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides)

It has long been known that the giant redwoods and sequoias of California were the last remnants of a much larger redwood family, whose other members vanished from the fossil record tens of millions of years ago. So it came as quite a shock when, in 1948, one of these species - presumed extinct and known only from museum fossil collections - was found very much alive in south-central China.

The Dawn Redwood is shorter than its American cousins, growing to ‘only’ 51 m (167 ft) tall. It also grows much more quickly, reaching its mature height in about 50 years - compared to around 400 years for Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum). Both characteristics - along with its unusual status as a deciduous conifer that changes color in autumn - have made the newly resurrected species a popular ornamental tree around the world.

Ironically, so has climate change. The Dawn Redwood evolved at a time when temperatures and carbon dioxide levels were much higher. It is thus an excellent climate-resilient arboreal choice for parks or city streets.

Abundant elsewhere, this ancient tree remains endangered within its wild range due to habitat fragmentation and low genetic diversity. If it hadn’t been discovered and commercialized, this living fossil might have gone extinct in this century without anyone noticing.

IUCN: Endangered (EN)

The Problem With Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late

By Judith Enck (with Adam Mahoney)

Plastics cause environmental and health harms at every stage of their life cycle, from extraction and production to use and disposal. Even plastic recycling creates enormous damage and isn’t ‘green’ by any reasonable definition.

In this handy tome, Judith Enck of Beyond Plastics explains how the plastics industry has flooded the Planet with its toxic product and outlines a plan to fight back with strict regulation and truly circular alternatives. –DB

Buy Now: Amazon

Bookshop.org 🇺🇸 | Bookshop.org 🇬🇧

(paid links)

Mariana Fruit Dove (Ptilinopus roseicapilla)

The Mariana Islands are home to one of the most colorful of all bird species, the Mariana Fruit Dove, whose vivid technicolor plumage - evolved for tropical camouflage - gives it the nickname ‘flying rainbow’.

The diet of the Mariana Fruit Dove is made up of 95% fruit. It especially prefers the local wild figs and papaya. Like modern humans, the species typically lives in nuclear family units, generates one offspring at a time, and relies on both parents for parental investment.

The greatest threat to the Mariana Fruit Dove is the Brown Tree Snake (Boiga irregularis) - an invasive species that feasts upon the polychromatic bird. P. roseicapilla has already gone extinct at the southern end of its range, and the Brown Tree Snake is working its way northward, threatening the dove’s remaining redoubts. Conservation efforts focus on snake control and breeding the dove in captivity for eventual repopulation.

IUCN: Near Threatened (NT)

Sign up to get Earthview in your inbox:

Subscribe now

And consider a paid subscription to get premium analysis and support our work!

Rainforests are defined as dense, closed-canopy forests with exceptionally high rainfall and no dry season. They are among the most productive ecosystems on the planet and function as engines of global biodiversity.

The best-known rainforests are tropical, but some of the largest are located in cooler, temperate regions. Here are the seven largest rainforests in the world by estimated surface area:

7. Chocó-Darien

~187,000 sq km

The Chocó-Darien Moist Forest is a remarkably intact rainforest that runs along Colombia’s Pacific Coast and extends through the Darien Gap into Panama. It is one of the wettest places on Earth, receiving upwards of 9 meters (354 in) of rain annually.

The Chocó-Darien is home to around 10,000 plant species, 20% of which are found nowhere else in the world. Its marquee fauna is the Colombian Spider Monkey (Ateles fusciceps rufiventris). The extreme rain and challenging terrain have protected the region from economic development, sparing the forest but also locking the population into extreme poverty.

6. Valdivian Temperate

~248,100 sq km

The Valdivian is one of the world’s two great temperate rainforests. Located in Southern Chile, the forest is bounded by the Andes on three sides and the Pacific on the other.

This isolation gives the forest an insular biogeography that conserves an ancient Gondwanan character. As such, the flora and fauna are more closely related to that of Australia and New Zealand than to the rest of South America.

Lacking large predators, the Valdivian hosts a large radiation of miniature wildlife like the Pudu (Pudu puda), a 43 cm (17 in) tall deer species, and Monito del Monte (Dromiciops gliroides), a tiny mouse-size marsupial closely related to its Australasian cousins.

5. Pacific Temperate

~295,000 sq km

The world’s largest temperate rainforest extends from the coast of Northern California, into the Pacific Northwest of the United States, north into British Columbia in Canada, and then through to Alaska.

The forest is home to the famous Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens)—the planet’s tallest and most massive tree. The Pacific Temperate has historically been heavily logged. Only tiny intact portions remain in its southern reaches, with progressively higher levels of preservation as one moves northwards.

The human geography of the forest is unusual. Most rainforests are in the developing world and marked by marginalization and high rates of poverty. The Pacific Temperate is located in one of the wealthiest regions on Earth, home to global brands like Nike, Microsoft, and—perhaps ironically—Amazon.

4. Borneo Lowland

~428,000 sq km

The Borneo Lowland rainforest is one of the world’s oldest; the island’s moat has allowed the ecosystem to exist relatively unchanged for 130 million years. Today, sadly, it is also among the most endangered.

Shared between Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei, the island of Borneo is about three times the size of the UK and is a treasure-trove of natural resources. Mining, oil extraction, and especially palm oil plantations have deeply fragmented and degraded the natural rainforest.

Indonesia has decided to place its new capital—Nusantara—on the fragile island, ensuring more development.

3. New Guinea

~786,000 sq km

The island of New Guinea is the second largest island in the world, after Greenland, and is split between Indonesia and the nation of Papua New Guinea. It hosts the third-largest rainforest on the planet.

Unlike the Congo and Amazon rainforests—which are dominated by large alluvial plains—the New Guinea rainforest is extremely mountainous. This terrain creates tiny micro ecosystems within each valley and a huge radiation of species.

The dense, fragmented forest also gave rise to an astonishing human radiation: it is the most linguistically diverse place on Earth and home to as many as 40 uncontacted tribes populated by human beings entirely unaware of modernity’s existence.

2. Congo Basin

~1,780,000 sq km

The second-largest rainforest in the world is shared between six nations: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon.

The Congo Basin Rainforest contains a peat bog—the Cuvette Centrale—storing a massive 30 billion tons of carbon. If drained, this bog would emit greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to three years of global fossil fuel emissions. More than any other rainforest, our climate depends on keeping the Congo forest intact.

The Congo Basin also conserves incredible African fauna, including all three species of Great Ape, the African Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), and the giraffe-like Okapi (Okapia johnstoni).

1. Amazon

~5,500,000 sq km

The largest rainforest on Earth has become synonymous with the ecosystem itself. Shared between Brazil and spanning eight other countries—the Amazon covers 35% of the South American continent.

The Amazon sprawls upon the alluvial plain of its namesake Amazon River, which cuts through the forest like an anaconda. It is home to half the remaining tropical rainforest in the world and 10% of all global species.

The Amazon is threatened with deforestation from cattle ranchers and soybean farmers. Its fortune waxes and wanes to the rhythms of Brazilian politics—with left-wing governments more likely to enforce conservation rules.

The Trump administration has abruptly canceled its plans to dismantle a vital network of ocean monitoring sensors, reports The Associated Press. The network was targeted because it helps climate scientists track ocean warming, but it has many other purposes, including weather forecasting and military applications.

“Dismantling the OOI was supreme stupidity, and we’ll keep fighting to ensure scientists, fishermen, and coastal communities can continue to utilize the critical data the OOI provides,” Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said in a statement.

The state of American environmental politics is unbelievably dumb. But even so, winning small battles can matter in the aggregate. –DB

Subscribe now

2. Oil & Gas ‘Seismic Lines’ Speed Up Climate Change

Thousands of lines carved into boreal peatlands for oil and gas surveying equipment disturb the ecosystem and generate methane emissions, explains CBC News. There are 345,000 kilometers (214,370 mi) of such lines in the Canadian province of Alberta alone.

The study found that methane emissions from these lines are almost three times higher in bogs and nearly two times higher in fens when compared with the undisturbed peatland.

3. Heat Wave Scorches Western Europe

Europe is being battered by yet another early summer extreme heat event, relays Euronews. Temperatures could reach around 40°C (104°F) in some regions of Spain, France, and Italy.

In France, authorities have banned the consumption of alcohol at the annual Fête de la Musique (Music Day) festival in Paris, where temperatures are expected to reach 35°C on Sunday. Parts of southern France and Spain are set to touch 40°C.

Our Blue Marble

Lake Fryxell | Antarctica

77°37′S 163°11′E

Good Climate News

1. California Gas Generation Down 60%

Fossil gas generation is down by 60% in California since 2024, heralds Utility Dive. Fossil gas capacity has actually increased, but these facilities are being used less often as wind, solar, and hydro imports have taken generation share.

Utility-scale solar generation overtook natural gas generation in the California Independent System Operator’s footprint over the first five months of 2026, according to a Tuesday report.

California is quickly disproving the “can’t run a grid without gas” crowd. –DB

2. Iran Bets on Small-Scale Solar

Iran is moving quickly to adopt small-scale solar, notes PV Magazine. Faced with attacks on its fossil energy infrastructure, residential and community solar + storage projects could make the grid more resilient.

Tarztalab recently unveiled 17 specialized solar energy training centres designed to help accelerate the development of solar power plants in Iran. SATBA has set a target of training 200,000 renewable energy specialists in the next five years.

3. $11 Billion Wind & Transmission Project Online

A combined wind energy and transmission project has begun delivering clean energy in the American Southwest, details Electrek. The SunZia project takes clean electricity generated by wind farms in New Mexico and delivers it to customers in Arizona and New Mexico.

The 550-mile high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line can move up to 3,000 megawatts (MW) of power from the SunZia Wind project in New Mexico to Arizona and customers across the western grid. That’s enough electricity for around 1 million US homes.

Book of the Week

What a Waste: Trash, Recycling, and Protecting our Planet | Jess French

An excellent resource for teaching children (ages 4-10) the basics of recycling. Perfect for passing green values onto the next generaation! –DB

Amazon

Bookshop.org US | Bookshop.org UK

In Brief

🇦🇺 Australia: Electric vehicles are booming Down Under, as cheap Chinese imports and high petrol prices drive huge EV sales.

🇩🇪 Germany: The Bonn Climate Change Conference took place last week in preparation for COP31 in Turkey this November.

🇫🇷 France: The heat wave will once again limit France’s nuclear output, as high river temperatures impair reactor cooling operations.

🇨🇭 Switzerland: The Swiss mountain town of Braunwald is permanently closing its ski resort as climate change makes the ski season too short to make a profit.

Planetary Pulse

Planetary Health — Latest figures

CO2: 430.78 PPM (+.34% YoY)1 | Temperature Anomaly: +1.42 C

Forest Cover: 31.8% | Protected Areas: 12.3% (17.3% terrestrial, 10.01% marine)

Emissions per Capita: 4.89 (World) | 9.1 (China) | 13.1 (USA) | 6.1 (EU) | 2.1 (India)

Low Carbon Electricity: 43.1% | Low Carbon Energy: 19.8% | EV New Sales : 24.1%2

The Other 74%

• The global High Seas Treaty has been in force for nearly six months.

• Fifteen countries have united to share data on illegal fishing.

• Ocean acidification is threatening the world’s food supply by degrading marine ecosystems.

Meet the Endangered

Mariana Fruit Dove (Ptilinopus roseicapilla)

The Mariana Islands are home to one of the most colorful of all bird species, the Mariana Fruit Dove, whose vivid technicolor plumage - evolved for tropical camouflage - gives it the nickname ‘flying rainbow’.

The diet of the Mariana Fruit Dove is made up of 95% fruit. It especially prefers the local wild figs and papaya. Like modern humans, the species typically lives in nuclear family units, generates one offspring at a time, and relies on both parents for parental investment.

The greatest threat to the Mariana Fruit Dove is the Brown Tree Snake (Boiga irregularis) - an invasive species that feasts upon the polychromatic bird. P. roseicapilla has already gone extinct at the southern end of its range, and the Brown Tree Snake is working its way northward, threatening the dove’s remaining redoubts. Conservation efforts focus on snake control and breeding the dove in captivity for eventual repopulation.

IUCN: Near Threatened (NT)

Scimitar Oryx (Oryx dammah)

There is perhaps no greater success in conservation history than the Scimitar Oryx. In 2000, this princely bovid was declared extinct in the wild, following centuries of decline in its North African homeland. But successful breeding programs allowed the animal to be reintroduced in 2016. The wild population is now estimated at 800.

The Scimitar Oryx was a treasured species in antiquity. Egyptians used the oryx in their funeral rites and named a province for it. Wealthy Roman households kept it for its meat and leather. Some believe the oryx is also the origin of the unicorn myth, as from certain angles it can appear to have one horn instead of two.

In a strange twist of fate, this ancient Old World species is now found predominantly in Texas. It was there that private trophy hunting ranches created breeding programs, which - in addition to amassing hunting stock - also provide vital genetic diversity for reintroduction efforts. An estimated 10,000 remain in the Lone Star State, vastly exceeding the numbers in the wild.

IUCN: Endangered (EN)

Sign up to get Earthview in your inbox:

Subscribe now

And consider a paid subscription to get premium analysis and support the work we do!

Deforestation destroys biodiversity and accounts for around 12% of global carbon emissions. In the 21st century, forests in temperate areas are relatively well-managed and capable of regrowth after disruption. Tropical deforestation, however, is more widespread and often permanent. It remains a major ecological crisis.

Here are the seven countries that experienced the worst deforestation in 2025, measured in hectares of primary forest lost:

Subscribe now

6. Madagascar 🇲🇬

~100,000 ha

An island micro-continent off the coast of Southeast Africa, Madagascar has some of the most unique endemic forests in the world. It is home to the majestic Baobab Tree (genus Adansonia) — famous the world over for its towering, skyscraper form.

Baobabs are generally too large to be cut down. Rather, they often survive like zombies, looming over the razed forests around them. Madagascar is one of the poorest countries on Earth. Tragically, its deforestation is mostly the result of slash-and-burn subsistence agriculture.

5. Peru 🇵🇪

~170,000 ha

While large, corporate ranches drive deforestation in neighboring Brazil, the story in Peru is quite different. Severe poverty in the Andes Mountains is driving migration into the country’s Amazon rainforest, where newcomers establish small slash-and-burn subsistence farms.

Illegal gold mines and coca farms are also major factors.

4. Indonesia 🇮🇩

296,000 ha

Indonesia is home to the third-largest rainforest in the world, but it has lost 21% of its total forest cover since 2000 — mostly to palm oil plantations and small-scale slash-and-burn agriculture. The crisis peaked in 2016, when the nation lost over 1,000,000 ha of forest in a single year.

Global outrage led to new supply-chain rules that forced better regulation. There has been a dramatic decrease in the deforestation rate. But recent signs point to an uptick in the past few years — this time driven by nickel mines and food plantations in Papua.

3. Congo (DRC) 🇨🇩

~500,000 ha

The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the poorest countries in the world, and the state has little capacity to enforce environmental protections. Unlike in most tropical forests — where there is a clear deforestation frontier — the story in the DRC is “death by 1,000 cuts” as small villages deep in the forest expand outward.

Despite having massive hydroelectric dams, the DRC lacks the electric grid needed to distribute its electricity generation across its enormous territory. As a result, most Congolese also rely on felling forests for charcoal.

2. Bolivia 🇧🇴

620,630 ha

Bolivia has lost 16% of its forest canopy since 2001, and — unlike most nations on this list — the situation is only getting worse. The culprit is industrial-scale agriculture in the Santa Cruz region, where soy plantations and cattle ranches are rapidly encroaching on the Amazon.

Strangely, this circumstance is encouraged by the government, which prioritizes the development of the country’s agricultural export industry over ecological concerns.

1. Brazil 🇧🇷

1,630,000 ha

Brazil is home to 60% of the Amazon rainforest, and as such is the custodian of the largest patch of intact tropical forest on Earth. It has lost 11% of its forest canopy since 2001 — driven almost entirely by industrial-scale cattle ranching and soy production.

Brazil has the state capacity to fight deforestation. But whether it has the political will depends entirely on which government is in office. Deforestation surged during the right-wing Bolsonaro government (2019-2023), but has plummeted under his left-wing successor Lula da Silva (2023-).

The current government has a target to reach zero illegal deforestation by 2030, but this depends entirely on the left staying in power after this year’s elections.

France has created three new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), reports Radio France Internationale. The MPAs — located in the Indian Ocean, Caribbean, and Mediterranean — will carry strict restrictions against human activity like fishing and tourism.

In Guadeloupe, the zone will protect coral reefs, home to sea turtles, while in the Bay of Audierne, off the coast of Finistère, the measures will protect a bird species known as the Kentish plover.

Subscribe now

2. Trees Store Less Carbon Than Thought

Trees may store less carbon in future than previously presumed, notes The Guardian. A new study has found that increased photosynthesis does not always lead to increased wood growth.

…wood growth was restricted to periods of low aridity and temperature, which are becoming rarer as the global rise in temperature makes heatwaves and droughts more common.

Yet another reason why ‘just plant more trees’ won’t work. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. – DB

3. Historic El Nino Threatens Droughts, Floods, and Fires

El Nino has begun and scientists are worried it could be the hottest ever, explains The Associated Press. The natural warming cycle is set to compound warming from climate change to create dangerous heat over the next 9 to 12 months.

Parts of western South America — where the first El Ninos were noticed decades ago — often get heavy rain and floods, along with an extra[-]warm summer. India faces more intense heat waves, while drought, wildfires and heat threaten Australia.

Our Blue Marble

Midui Glacier | Bomê County, Tibet, China

29° 28′ 18.56″ N, 96° 29′ 53.87″ E

Good Climate News

1. Solar Generates More Electricity Than Coal in US

The United States generated more electricity from solar than coal in May, notes Canary Media. It’s the first time that threshold has been crossed on a monthly basis.

In the late 2000s, facing hotter competition from increasingly abundant natural gas and a burgeoning renewable energy sector, coal-fired electricity output peaked in the U.S. It’s been all downhill from there.

2. Giant Solar Cell Factory Opens in Georgia

Q-cells has started producing solar cells at its massive manufacturing facility in the US state of Georgia, relays Latitude Media. Panels have historically been assembled in the United States, but only in recent years have other elements of the supply chain been re-shored.

The factory will be the only one in the U.S. to make every major solar panel component — ingot[s], cells, and wafers — under one roof. Production is still ramping up, but by the end of this year it is slated to have 3.3 gigawatts of capacity.

3. EVs Reach Two-Thirds of Vehicle Sales in China

Two-thirds of new vehicle sales in mainland China are now EVs, heralds The South China Morning Post. Fully battery electric (BEV) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) sales combined for 66.7% of the market in the first week of June.

“The Middle East conflict has given Chinese EV makers an unexpected shot in the arm,” said Eric Han, a senior manager at Shanghai consultancy Suolei. “Petrol cars may have run out of steam.”

China is fast becoming the next Norway, where 99% of new vehicles are EVs. This will have profound consequences for the oil market and climate change. – DB

In Brief

🇦🇱 Albania: Protests have erupted to protect pristine wildland from a Trump-backed hotel development.

🇲🇿 Mozambique: The first white rhino breeding population in decades has been established in the country, with the arrival of nine females from South Africa.

🇳🇿 New Zealand: Populations of the endangered Kōkako have exploded amidst a baby boom in the Hūnua Ranges.

🇹🇭 Thailand: Citizens in Northern Thailand are protesting against dangerous levels of heavy metal pollution in local rivers.

Planetary Pulse

Planetary Health — Latest figures

CO2: 431.71 PPM (+0.30% YoY)1 | Temperature Anomaly: +1.42°C2

Forest Cover: 31.8% | Protected Areas: 12.3% (17.3% terrestrial, 10.01% marine)

Emissions per Capita: 4.89 (World) | 9.1 (China) | 13.1 (USA) | 6.1 (EU) | 2.1 (India)

Low Carbon Electricity: 43.1% | Low Carbon Energy: 19.8% | EV New Sales : 24.1%3

The Other 74%

• The elusive Goblin Shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) has been caught on video in its native habitat for the first time.

• The NGO Ocean Cleanup is using special boats to intercept trash in rivers before it reaches the ocean.

• A 5.3-million-year-old whale graveyard has been found off the coast of

  Australia.

  ---

Meet the Endangered

Scimitar Oryx (Oryx dammah)

There is perhaps no greater success in conservation history than the Scimitar Oryx. In 2000, this princely bovid was declared extinct in the wild, following centuries of decline in its North African homeland. But successful breeding programs allowed the animal to be reintroduced in 2016. The wild population is now estimated at 800.

The Scimitar Oryx was a treasured species in antiquity. Egyptians used the oryx in their funeral rites and named a province for it. Wealthy Roman households kept it for its meat and leather. Some believe the oryx is also the origin of the unicorn myth, as from certain angles it can appear to have one horn instead of two.

In a strange twist of fate, this ancient Old World species is now found predominantly in Texas. It was there that private trophy hunting ranches created breeding programs, which - in addition to amassing hunting stock - also provide vital genetic diversity for reintroduction efforts. An estimated 10,000 remain in the Lone Star State, vastly exceeding the numbers in the wild.

IUCN: Endangered (EN)

Sign up to get Earthview in your inbox:

Subscribe now

And consider a paid subscription to get premium analysis and support the work we do!