Climate is the overwhelming story of our generation. This email reports the science, often frightening, and the tech, mostly encouraging. Please share. Free sign-up here.

What you need to know

UK: wind biggest power source for last 6 months

How big? Nearly 40% of Q1 electricity, ahead of fossils at 36%.
Wind growing globally? 2023 was biggest year for new wind - installs up 50% to 117GW (“3x UK power”) across 54 countries
Read more: Reuters on UK; GWEC on global growth

Happy 70th birthday to solar 🎂 

Who do we thank? Americans, of course - Bell Labs. Launched 25th April, 1954.
And how did it become cheap? Jimmy Carter’s 1970s subsidies; Germans industrialising production in the 2000s, and Chinese scale 2010 onwards.
Read more: Origin story (NREL); How solar become cheap (Hass)

Amazon biggest buyer of green power last year

Why this matters? Companies are pushing sustainability up their supply chains. The big boys are leading.
Your challenge? To follow - what are you doing?
Read more: Bloomberg

One thing to worry about

78% fewer flying insects in the UK since 2004 (Independent & Buglife).

One thing to be optimistic about

The world’s largest solar plant is being built in India. FIVE TIMES BIGGER THAN PARIS. At peak 30GWe, enough to power the whole UK.

Think it won’t happen? Adani has already commissioned the first 2GWe - 6m panels. (NDTV)

If you’ve got more time, watch this…

On Spain’s Atlantic coast, the sea is dying.

Higher rain is desalinating seawater, killing clams. Lower north wind mean less plankton. Ocean acidity up. Dolphin deaths are skyrocketing. Fishermen have no livelihood.

What happens when we heat the world? The ecology we rely on crashes.

Watch the first couple minutes of this, and then a little from 5:30.

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