Thanks to the increase in renewable energy, more than a hundred countries have managed to cut their fossil fuel imports:
As well as increasing the need for fossil-fuel imports from other countries, switching renewables for fossil fuels would require significantly higher energy usage “due to [fossil fuels’] lower conversion efficiencies”, the IEA notes. Each gigawatt-hour (GWh) of renewable power produced has avoided the need for 2-3GWh of fossil fuels, it explains.
For the Netherlands this meant that instead of having to import 69 percent of fuel needed to provide energy, only 31 percent was needed. And all this despite the abysmal state of the electricty networks, ill prepared for the growth in renewables and the sometimes active resistance of successive rightwing governments to it.
Speaking of renewables, this year marks the first time that reneweables globally have generated more electricity than coal has:
The world’s wind and solar farms have generated more electricity than coal plants for the first time this year, marking a turning point for the global power system, according to research.
A report by the climate thinktank Ember found that in the first six months of 2025, renewable energy outpaced the world’s growing appetite for electricity, leading to a small decline in coal and gas us
Soil dug up during the reconstruction of the Toronto waterfront, as part of the ongoign effort to restore the wetlands that had been destroyed there a century ago, turned out to be full of life still:
The samples that came to Riskin had themselves been the source of disbelief three years before, when heavy machinery was excavating vast amounts of dirt and debris from Toronto’s waterfront in an effort to re-route the Don River.
When one of the bulldozers was halted by thick green shoots, the machine operator soon realized that the sedges and cattails looked nothing like the other weeds at the site.
Scientists soon knew they were witnessing something both unexpected and profound: seeds and plant scraps, trapped underground for more than a century, had roared back to life.
The peat bogs and wetlands had been buried under nearly 25ft of dirt and gravel more than a century ago, in an attempt to pacify the remaining scraps of wild around what is now one of North America’s largest cities.
An EU proposal for mass surveillance of online & mobile chat has been defeated thanks to German withdrawal of support for the new law:
In a major breakthrough for the digital rights movement, the German government has refused to back the EU’s controversial Chat Control regulation yesterday after facing massive public pressure. The government did not take a position on the proposal. This blocks the required majority in the EU Council, derailing the plan to pass the surveillance law next week.
Finally, to help you into the weekend, this is the legendary blues concert that Granada TV recorded in 1964 in Manchester. Featuring Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Cousin Joe Pleasant, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee:
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