By Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Global fossil fuel emissions are on track to soar to record highs in 2025 and show no signs of declining overall, although there are indications of a recent slowdown in China’s emissions, researchers said on Wednesday. This year, nations are projected to emit roughly 38.1 billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide by burning oil, gas and coal for energy and by manufacturing cement, according to  data from the Global Carbon Project . Those sources are the largest contributors to human-caused climate change. The total is roughly 1.1 percent more than the world emitted in 2024. Not everywhere saw a large increase. Emissions appear to have stayed nearly flat in China and Europe, but rose significantly in the United States and much of the rest of the world. ...A relatively small number of countries account for most of the world’s emissions, with China responsible for 32 percent, the United States at 13 percent, India at 8 percent an...

By Colleen Howe , Reuters.  Excerpt: BEIJING, Nov 12 (Reuters) - China's energy administration said on Wednesday that it will push renewable energy use beyond the power sector over the next five years, aiming to better absorb the country's booming wind and solar output. Provinces and power producers should help local governments to build up their industrial bases for green hydrogen, green ammonia, green methanol, and sustainable aviation fuel during the next five-year plan from 2026-2030, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said in its opinion document on integrating new energy. Green hydrogen ... can serve as a low-carbon fuel for heavy industry and transport, power industrial processes or vehicles, and as a feedstock for ammonia and methanol, which are used in fertilisers, shipping and elsewhere. The department encouraged coastal areas to explore using offshore wind to produce hydrogen, a still nascent production method. The document also called for using renewables to p...

By  Erin Douglas ,  Inside Climate News .  Excerpt: This mosquito species is native to tropical and subtropical climates, but as climate change pushes up temperatures and warps precipitation patterns, the  Aedes aegypti   —  which can spread Zika, dengue, chikungunya and other potentially deadly viruses — is on the move. It’s popping up all over the Mountain West, where conditions have historically been far too harsh for it to survive. In the last decade, towns in  New Mexico  and  Utah  have begun catching  Aedes aegypti  in their traps year after year, and just this summer, one was found for the  first time in Idaho . ...as climate change allows the  Aedes aegypti  to move northward, survive at higher elevations and stay active for longer into the fall, dengue virus is fast emerging as one of the most dangerous of the world’s diseases transmitted by mosquitoes and  ticks , researchers say.......

By Somini Sengupta  and  Brad Plumer ,  The New York Times.  ' Excerpt: As the United States  torpedoes climate action  and Europe  struggles to realize its green ambitions , a surprising shift is taking hold in many large, fast-growing economies where a majority of the world’s people live. Countries like Brazil, India, and Vietnam are rapidly expanding solar and wind power. Poorer countries like Ethiopia and Nepal are leapfrogging over gasoline-burning cars to battery-powered ones. Nigeria, a petrostate, plans to  build its first solar-panel manufacturing plant . Morocco is creating a battery hub to supply European automakers. Santiago, the capital of Chile, has electrified more than half of its bus fleet in recent years. Key to this shift is the world’s new renewable energy superpower: China. Having  saturated its own market  with solar panels, wind turbines and batteries, Chinese companies are now exporting their wares to energy-hungr...

By Max Bearak , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...Fatih Birol... has led out of obscurity over the past decade, the International Energy Agency [IEA]. ...Mr. Birol likes to joke that he is “the world’s most boring man.” He certainly exudes a kind of bureaucratic plainness. But he has also deftly led the I.E.A. through a decade during which energy has re-emerged as a geopolitical weapon. The debate over how to address climate change is upending economic and diplomatic relations around the world — right as the Trump administration works to reverse a global push for a transition to renewable energy by producing, consuming and exporting as much fossil fuel as it can. Mr. Birol, for his part, has repeatedly offered the fossil fuel industry a kind of “adapt or fail” warning, particularly as solar power grows at a pace that even the I.E.A. underestimated. ...The organization’s members, mostly Western countries, have increasingly turned to it for guidance, even if the I.E.A. has occasionall...

By Alan Gould, GSS. Excerpt: The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP) to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international effort to dramatically reduce human caused climate change. The Quaker Youth UN Ambassadors Program has organized a delegation to COP30 from the US, tropical Africa, and the Middle East. Most of the delegation are credentialed remote observers rather than actually on the ground in Belem, Brazil for COP30 which is November 10 through 21. If you are interested in participating in virtually connecting up with these ambassadors, please contact Frank Granshaw.  Here is the portal: A Virtual Observers Guide to COP30 , the 2025 UN Climate Conference https://sites.google.com/view/virtualobserversguidetocop30 .