By Laura Chung , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Australian sales of electric vehicles overtook gas-powered cars for the first time in August, official data shows, with experts saying that higher oil prices resulting from the U.S. war with Iran was one of the main reasons for the shift. ...slowly, electric cars have become more popular as costs have come down thanks to Chinese imports and improvements in charging infrastructure. The fuel shortages that resulted from the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz earlier this year added another reason for people to make the switch: energy security. “What began as a climate and technology story is increasingly becoming an energy security story,” said Hussein Dia, a professor of transport technology at Swinburne University in Melbourne....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/world/australia/electric-cars-iran-war-gas-australia.html . 

By Dan Gearino , Keerti Gopal , Marianne Lavelle , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: The D.C. appeals court decision is the first blow to a series of Trump administration orders to maintain coal power in spite of high costs and harm to health....  Full article at https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11092026/court-rules-against-trump-order-to-keep-costly-michigan-coal-plant-running/ .

By NRDC Nature's Voice Fall 2026 issue.  Excerpt: This past April marked the first time ever that wind and solar power accounted for more electricity generation than gas worldwide, with the two renewable sources responsible for 22 percent of global electricity generation versus 20 percent from gas. …just five years ago, in aApril 2021, gas accounted for nearly twice the electricity generation as wind and solar. As for the United States, May was the first month that solar provided more power than coal.  From https://issuu.com/nrdc/docs/nature_s_voice_fall_2026 . 

By Ian James , Los Angeles Times.  Excerpt: A newly passed California bill would let farmers in water-stressed regions convert fallowed fields to solar arrays without paying steep exit fees on long-standing farmland protection contracts. The measure targets Central Valley and Central Coast lands facing strict groundwater pumping limits, offering a lifeline for growers as climate change deepens droughts. Supporters say shifting unproductive cropland to clean energy will help California meet its 100% renewable power goal, while farm groups warn of losing valuable agricultural land....  Full article at https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2026-09-02/farmland-solar-bill . 

By Johannes Wessely et al, Science.  Summary by Bianca Lopez: Mountain-dwelling plant species are shifting upward with climate change, leading to concerns that species already at the highest elevations will go extinct due to warming or competition with species that encroach from below. Wessely et al . identified local extinctions across 16 European mountain regions using vegetation plots that were resampled multiple times across two decades. Species losses occurred more often at the lower-elevation portions of their ranges and were more frequent in years preceded by faster warming. Upward range shifts increased species richness but at the expense of higher-elevation species, with potential for extinction debts stretching into the future. Abundance declines predicted species losses, indicating that declines in species cover could be a useful indicator for future extinction....  Full article at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aed2974 . 

By Sead Fadilpasic, BGR.  Excerpt: When you hear the word Romania, what first springs to mind is probably medieval castles or the legendary Count Dracula. Now, you can add renewable energy to the list. According to Balkan Green Energy News, Romania will finally become home to the largest solar power project in the entire EU. Rezolv Energy, the company behind the project, got the green light from the Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority to move forward with constructing a massive solar site in Romania's Arad province: the Dama Solar. Spain's Iberian Peninsula solar panels already produced a surplus of energy in 2026, and England is investing heavily in solar farms. Now Europe has a new green energy haven, it seems. Valued at approximately 520 million euros, this single facility will take up over 2,400 acres of land in the northwest and will be powerful enough to deliver peak capacity of as many as 1.3 gigawatts. For reference, Germany's Witznitz, currently the biggest facili...