By Elisabeth Pain , Science.  Excerpt: Since 2019, the Institute of Biology and Chemistry of Proteins (IBCP) in Lyon, France, has retrofitted the building for greater energy efficiency, raised freezers’ temperatures 10°C, and reduced the need for autoclaving by 1 month’s worth of cycles per year. The institute increasingly orders consumables in bulk, recycles polystyrene packaging, and gets small lab equipment repaired rather than replaced. Every year it also organizes a contest for researchers to clean out their freezers so it doesn’t have to buy new ones. Thanks to these efforts and more, IBCP reduced its carbon footprint by about 13% between 2019 and 2023. ...These grassroots efforts are part of a larger movement across France. At its forefront is  Labos 1point5 , a collective of some 600 researchers who believe science should lead by example when it comes to reducing society’s carbon footprint. ...more than half of the carbon footprint of most French research laboratories ...

By Tim Appenzeller , Science.  Excerpt: This year, renewables surpassed coal as a source of electricity worldwide, and solar and wind energy grew fast enough to cover the entire increase in global electricity use from January to June,  according to energy think tank Ember . In September, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared at the United Nations that his country will cut its carbon emissions by as much as 10% in a decade, not by using less energy, but by doubling down on wind and solar. And solar panel imports in Africa and South Asia have soared, as people in those regions realized rooftop solar can cheaply power lights, cellphones, and fans. To many, the continued growth of renewables now seems unstoppable—a prospect that has led  Science  to name the renewable energy surge its 2025 Breakthrough of the Year....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/breakthrough-2025 . 

By Chris Baraniuk , WIRED .  Excerpt: ...workers began adding a secret, light brown powder to water as they mixed up a special fluid that can store energy.... Their goal was to achieve a mixture 2.5 times denser than water. ...Pumped hydro first emerged in the late 19th century . During subsequent decades, countries including the US and UK built lots of large plants, though construction had waned by the 1990s . The tech was originally designed to complement fossil fuel power plants, making use of excess energy they produced. But today grid operators increasingly value pumped hydro plants as workhorses able to mediate highly variable wind and solar assets. They can fill in shortfalls in electricity generation or soak up surplus energy within minutes, and store it for short or long periods....  Full article at https://www.wired.com/story/pumped-hydro-energy-storage-is-having-a-renaissance/ . 

By Hannah Richter , Science.  Excerpt: NEW ORLEANS— Alarm spread fast today among climate scientists here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU): President Donald Trump’s administration, they learned, was going to try to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), one of the world’s premier climate and weather research centers. The news, delivered last night via a post on X from Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, had come with no prior warning from the White House or from NCAR’s funder, the National Science Foundation (NSF), says Antonio Busalacchi, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), a consortium that manages NCAR. Vought’s  post  asserted that NCAR is “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism,” and said the center’s “vital activities,” such as weather research, would be moved to another entity or location....  Full article at https://www.sc...

By Brady Dennis . The Washington Post.  Excerpt: The rate of sea-level rise along U.S. coastlines has more than doubled over the past 125 years, according to  a new analysis  that examined data from scores of tide gauges from around the country. The findings stand in contrast to a wide-ranging, widely criticized  assessment  of climate science that the Trump administration released this summer. Chris Piecuch, a sea-level scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said he undertook his analysis in response to that Energy Department report, whichhe and others argue uses cherry-picked data to conclude that “U.S. tide gauge measurements reveal no obvious acceleration beyond the historical average rate of sea-level rise.” ...That assessment also underscores that some places, such as the Pacific Coast, have experienced little sea-level rise compared with places such as the gulf coast. Some spots in Alaska have even seen an overall decrease as sea-level rise is...

By Grace van Deelen , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: The 20th annual Arctic Report Card reveals new highs in temperature and new lows in sea ice, as well as an uncertain outlook for the availability of federal data. ...After 2 decades of the U.S. government producing the annual report, however, datasets and resources used to create it may be under threat as federal science agencies lose staff and plan for funding uncertainties....  Full article at https://eos.org/articles/amid-the-arctics-hottest-year-arctic-science-faces-a-data-deficiency .