What have we learned about climate progress in 2025? Quite a lot and some surprising victories and good news
Taking a look at the last year with a focus on the last quarter in terms of positive climate news.
(Image - wind turbines in action in the South West of England. Photo by me.)
Emissions are finally flatlining - downwards is next!
Ember Energy produced a report that showed that there was no meaningful growth in fossil fuel energy because renewables met all of the planets demands in 2025. We are headed for warming, yes, but we have now avoided the 4°C+ hell-scape that we were heading towards if we’ve taken no action. This is how it looks right now:
(Image - A graph showing the past path, the current path and where we could go on CO2 emissions. Via Axios.)
Plus there is still plenty to play for; remember every fraction of a degree of warming that we stop matters in terms of less climate chaos! As Hannah Ritchie reports:
The reality is that we will not cut emissions fast enough to avoid 1.5°C. But 2°C is still very much to play for. It will require a big step up in the world’s efforts (we’re currently headed for 2.5°C to 3°C under current policies), but if we get going, there is still some chance that we can limit warming to those levels. And as I always emphasise, even if we marginally fail, those efforts will in no way be wasted. 2.1°C means fewer impacts than 2.3°C, which means fewer impacts than 2.5°C.
Places where we are seeing the flatlining of fossil fuels include an oversupply of oil, which may mean that in 2026 the world could end up with 4M barrels per-day it does not need! Not only that but moving to renewables allows countries to decouple thier energy from the global suppliers, who are often far from paragons of virtue! (Here’s Moldova consciously decoupling from Russian energy control.) Plus there is a cascade effect; “If the world is supplied with 100% renewable energy, 50% of the global shipping traffic will be eliminated, coal oil and gas no longer needs to be transported”
We have the path to Net Zero
Yes indeed, the technology is here and growing; we just need to political will to accelerate the change that is already happening. That past link between economic growth and fossil fuels use is well and truly gone as these 35 countries’ economies are growing while the amount of CO2 they emit is dropping! This is why António Guterres, UN Secretary-General stated, “Thanks to the renewables revolution, the clean-energy economy is no longer tomorrow’s promise. It’s today’s engine of progress.”
(Image - Graphis showing 35 nations whos’ CO2 is dropping despite rises in GDP. Via here, via Global Carbon Project)
Zooming in a couple of countries in this list to update on news:
Denmark’s renewable revolution: A model for global sustainability
Norway says ‘mission accomplished’ on going 100% EV, proposes incentive changes
European Union
The EU continues to show why it has a huge global value in the fight against climate chaos - following on from its €100 billion investment into climate and clean energy announcement back in April, and despite political push-back it is still managing to make progress:
The European Commission proposed its target to reduce the EU’s net emissions by 90 percent by 2040, a waypoint between the goal of reducing net emissions by 55 percent by 2030 and achieving climate neutrality by 2050. However, pushback by member state governments is set to water down the target by including flexibilities, like international carbon credits.
America
Trump has only managed to slow, not stop renewables in the US, so despite a slew of cancelled policies, executive orders and a failing attempt to revive coal, solar installations for the year are still set to beat previous year, as Heatmap AM (Nov 5th) reported. This trend will continue into 2026 too because of the 668 energy projects under construction in the US, over 88% are related to renewable power. As Christiana Figueres, noted diplomat and climate diplomacy expert, remarked “Honestly, the decarbonization of the global economy is irreversible… Momentum is building into the point where it is simply unstoppable, with or without the United States.” Helping ensure the drive continues in the US, comes via California which is becoming a clean-energy super-power! This from Heatmap AM 25th Nov:
Over the last three years, California generated steadily more electricity from utility-scale solar farms while generation from natural gas-fired plants dropped. Gas still dominates the state’s power generation, but industrial solar generation more than doubled in the first eight months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2020, new analysis from the federal Energy Information Administration found. Between January and August of this year, natural gas supplied 18% less power than during the same months five years ago.
The Democratic party, now clearly the party of climate realism in the US, has made some impressive wins in the handful of US elections that happened in November, as Heatmap reported:
Democratic candidates swept to victory in key races with implications for climate change on Tuesday night. In Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger — who vowed to push forward with offshore wind, new nuclear reactors, and fusion energy — seized the governor’s mansion in the first major race to be called after polls closed. In New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill, who campaigned on building new nuclear plants and pressing the state’s grid operator, PJM Interconnection, to cut electricity prices, trounced her Republican opponent. In New York City, Democrat Zohran Mamdani, who said little about energy during his campaign but came out in the last debate in favor of nuclear power, easily beat back his two rivals for Gracie Mansion.
Australia
More great news as Australia is going all in on solar, which is no surprise given the local climate. But it is going so well down there that the government is making the power companies give away the excess energy to consumers for free! Also via Heatmap:
Australia launched a new plan to force energy companies to offer free electricity to households during the day to use excess solar power and push the grid away from coal and gas. The policy, called the “Solar Sharer” plan, aims to take advantage of the country’s vast rooftop solar panels. More than 4 million of Australia’s 10.9 million households have panels, and the capacity has overtaken the nation’s remaining coal-fired power stations.
United Kingdom
My home and there are still good things happening here. Firstly electric vehicles out-sold petrol vehicles for the first time in November this year. The Dogger Bank wind farm, under construction in the North Sea and due to complete in 2027 is estimated to bring in an economic benefit of £6.1 billion as well as generating 3.6GW of power - which is more than enough for around six million homes. While every islander in Orkney will gain as a new £62M project to build 18 turbines will become the world’s largest publicly owned windfarm! While another first from another windfarm; “[The] Sofia Offshore Wind Farm in the North Sea – it’s finished installing all of its recyclable wind turbine blades, the first time that’s ever been done at scale in the UK.” However UK energy bills continue to be high - this would be much worse without renewables, as David Toke reports, and is at its root a structural-market issue that needs fixing. If you are from the UK and reading this - go sign up for the community energy project, Up The Energy.
China
We can’t write about climate and energy in 2025 without looking at China. China now dominates global renewables in both production of the means of power generation and in the generation of power itself. (It didn’t have to be this way, but thanks to fossil fuel companies, it mostly is.) As The Economist reports, “The scale of the renewables revolution in China is almost too vast for the human mind to grasp. By the end of last year, the country had installed 887 gigawatts of solar-power capacity—close to double Europe’s and America’s combined total.” As I reported previously, what this means is that it looks like China’s CO2 emissions have actually dropped. It seems trend is continuing:
China’s electricity emissions are down 2% YoY, oil consumption down 5%, and overall emissions from all sources — electricity, transport, heating, industry — flat or falling, despite increasing demand and new coal plants. Clean energy and electrification did it.
(Image - A MW molten-salt power tower in Hami, China. Source: Csp.guru via Wikipedia)
Not only that but they are innovating in other areas of energy too; both fusion and now fission too, having built the worlds first thorium reactor, which will be using the far more abundant and less dangerous fuel than uranium.
New Technology News
Other new tech news for climate and energy includes:
There is a wave of M&A activity coming in the climate tech sector
Solar power at home-scale level you can just plug in and go? Yes please!
This tool helps connect your country’s industrial base with new climate tech outputs
Other Climate Links of Interest:
The cost of living rising is more often than not linked to the ongoing costs of not dealing with climate chaos. Link then in elections!
Another story in the ‘not stopping climate chaos is costing us a fortune’ bucket.
The Japanese government is supporting clean tech investment.
Oh and this is worth a listen:
Remember - there is a points of action page - turn hope into action!
PPS. Also this newsletter is both a personal project and represents my personal views and not that of any organisation or company. Comments and feedback are always welcomed!
PPPS. Where text is in italics, I am quoting it!
Thanks Tomas! Bringing the hopium into 2026!
It has nothing to do with any action it’s just a drop in prosperity time stop the climate emergency nonsense