🥵 Texas handled record electricity demand in the heat thanks to solar and batteries
High temperatures pushed electricity demand in Texas to record levels in late July. The old record was broken two days in a row. Still they did not need to ask residents to conserve electricity. Such calls have otherwise been common during the hottest months in recent years.
💸 Africa's own payment system reaches 28 countries: transfers in seconds instead of days and billions in saved fees
Payments between African countries have previously taken days and gone through US dollars and banks in New York. With PAPSS, the money moves in seconds, in local currencies. The detour via the dollar is estimated to cost around 5 billion dollars a year in avoidable exchange fees.
🌏 Global greenhouse gas emissions have almost stopped growing
Emissions rose 0.2 percent compared with the first half of 2025. Between 2015 and 2023, they grew by an average of 1.1 percent per year. China and the United States, the world's two largest emitters, saw their emissions fall by 0.3 and 0.4 percent respectively.
🌊 After decades of drought, groundwater south of the Sahara has risen by 13 feet
The Sahel is the semi-arid belt south of the Sahara, stretching around 500 miles wide from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east. More than 150 million people live there. In the 1970s and 1980s the region was hit by severe drought. Now the area has more water than it has had for decades.
🔥 The world has never burned this little since measurements began
Wildfires in Europe and North America are more extensive than before. At the same time, the global figures show a different picture. During the first half of 2026, global emissions from fires were the lowest ever measured, according to the European climate center Copernicus.
📉 HIV infections and AIDS deaths at lowest level in over 30 years
Seven countries have reduced new infections by almost 80 percent since 2010. New prevention medicines offer protection close to that of a vaccine.
🚗 Transport emissions are falling in Australia, thanks to EVs
Australia's transport emissions fell for the second consecutive year outside the pandemic, driven by growing EV sales and lower petrol consumption. The country's total greenhouse gas emissions dropped 2.1 percent in 2025 and are now 24.5 percent below 2005 levels.
☀️ Solar replaces coal as the world's largest source of electricity within six years
Solar overtakes coal as the world's largest source of electricity generation within six years, according to research firm BloombergNEF. Solar is the cheapest source of new electricity generation. Coal costs almost twice as much.
🏊♀️ 50 years ago no one dared dip a toe in the Detroit River, now people fish, paddle and swim there
Friends of the Detroit River is now launching the 14th and final priority habitat restoration project in the Detroit River. Thirteen are already complete. Every spring, millions of fish move up through the river to spawn.