What mattered this week

China’s doing more for the climate than ANYONE: 2026 cleantech exports cancel out Brazil 🤯

But they are the bad guys? The solar, batteries and EVs China ships this year will avoid 450m tonnes of CO2 abroad. Equal to Brazil. (Carbon Brief)

But, but - got to be nasty, really? Export controls on 12 key solar technologies. You can buy the panels. Not how to make them. (TaiyangNews)

Meaning? The world's climate rescue plan is made in China.

Brussels orders Europe to plan for 3°C

Three isn’t much? No, it’s huge. And will hurt. Now every member state must plan for it. (ESG Today)

Why? €200bn of climate damage since 2022. It’s real. (EUbusiness)

War makes fat cats fatter. Surprise.

How much? World’s paid $468bn extra for fossil fuels since Feb. (Reuters)

Who wins? BP profits hit $8.6b Shell's doubled to $10.8bn. These are QUARTERLY 🤤🤤🤤

Who pays? You!

One thing to worry about

The Dolomites are melting and old bombs are coming out of the ice.

The Italian army has defused 250 grenades and shells, frozen for a century, after hikers kept finding them. More every summer. (AP; Gizmodo)

One thing to be optimistic about

Remember: The entire energy transition needs minerals that weigh less less than one year of coal (@angrycleanenergyguy).

If you’ve got more time…

If we use more electricity, we pay less? Not a bad idea…

Britain's electricity is expensive because we use too little of it says Sam Dumitriu: Build the grid (and make data centres pay for it).

• Britain uses 16% less electricity than in 2000. Fewer customers, higher price per unit - the grid still costs the same (or more actually)

• 50GW of data centres are desperate to connect. Microsoft gave up on a £2bn investment in Essex when it slipped to the 2030s.

• Fix: auctions, like the 3G spectrum in 2000. That raised £22.5bn.

• At $100bn a year per GW, OpenAI could pay off Hinkley Point C in 68 days.

Worth thinking through.