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There was good news and bad news about our global climate this week.
First, some good news – because a lot of readers probably need a bit of good news this week. According to the climate think tank Ember, the European Union generated more electricity from the sun than from coal in 2024 (11% vs 10%). What’s more, wind power tops natural gas (17% vs 16%).
These are milestone developments and represent an encouraging trend as humanity faces the global climate crisis. A quick review of the science explains why.
Global temperatures have been rising because humans keep pumping greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere, in particular carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.
Oil, gas, and coal had been just sitting there, holding carbon in the ground and not hurting anything, for millions of years. Then, we humans came along and extracted and burned them, releasing that carbon into the air.
Higher global temperatures from the burning of fossil fuels are driving the global climate breakdown. This is affecting millions of people around the world in the form of extreme weather, food insecurity, and more. And producing energy from fossil fuels is dirty business, with air pollution having a massive toll on the health of nearby communities.
Generating more of the electricity we need using renewable power sources like solar and wind, and generating less by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, signals the EU appears to be generally moving in the right direction on this. They need to move much faster, but emissions are decreasing.
So, yes, good news.
However, regular readers of this Daily Brief know all too well how the old “good news, bad news” thing goes...
The bad news is, world temperatures are still rising: 2024 was the hottest year on record globally. Last year was also the first to see average global temperatures exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
That figure – 1.5 degrees Celsius – is important, because that was the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement, the landmark international treaty aiming to limit the rise of global temperatures. It was humanity’s target, and we just blew right past it.
And the bad news keeps coming…
As part his pile of damaging new executive orders, US President Donald Trump announced the US would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, as he did in his first term as president. He also said he would declare a national energy emergency and increase oil and gas production in the United States.
That’s terrible news for us all, of course, and the ramping up of production will hit communities on the fencelines of oil and gas facilities even harder. Remember the Daily Brief’s look at Cancer Alley, for example.
Simply put, Trump’s moves run counter to reality and common sense. The actual emergency is the climate crisis, a global problem that requires global solutions, especially now that earlier targets were missed. The very last thing governments should be doing right now is putting more greenhouse gases into the overheating atmosphere.
Governments have a human rights obligation to address climate change. They should be phasing out fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy. Some governments seem to be aware of reality and are acting accordingly. Others not so much.