Welcome back to another edition of the Grumpy Optimists. This week there’s no event to recap or insights from fellow Grumpy Optimists, but there is plenty of great news from around the world.

Let’s dig into it!

👀 News to make you feel good

🐟 Dutch court rules bottom trawling in the Dogger Bank is unlawful. The District Court of The Hague has ruled that Dutch bottom trawlers can no longer fish the country’s largest marine protected area without a permit and a full environmental assessment. It is the first known European ruling to confirm that governments have a legal duty to regulate trawling’s impact on offshore Marine Protected Areas. The case was brought by Doggerland Foundation, ARK Rewilding Nederland, ClientEarth and Blue Marine Foundation, and they’re already pushing the EU and UK to apply the same logic.

💭 My thoughts? The phrase that keeps coming up in the coverage is “protected means protected”. For two decades, MPA has been more of a polite label than a legal constraint. This ruling makes it a constraint. It’s pretty mental we’ve got to this point, surely?

☀️ India’s top solar state blocks a 3.2 GW coal project for a second time. Rajasthan’s electricity regulator has refused, again, to approve a 25-year coal contract sought by the state utility. The reasoning is simple: the state’s own resource plan only needs 1,905 MW of additional coal capacity by 2035-36, far less than the 3,200 MW sought, and a plant that size would have burned 40,000 tonnes of coal a day. While other Indian states are locking in long coal contracts, Rajasthan is betting that solar, batteries and a bit of nuclear will get there first.

🔋 The world is installing grid batteries at a blistering pace. 112 gigawatts of grid battery storage went in worldwide in 2025, up 48% on 2024 and ten times the level installed in 2021. BNEF forecasts another 158 GW in 2026. To borrow Canary’s framing: first came the solar, now the batteries have arrived.

💭 My thoughts? For years the stock objection to renewables was “fine, but what about when the sun doesn’t shine”. The infrastructure to answer that question is now being built faster than almost anyone forecast five years ago. The interesting bottleneck has moved from generation to dispatch, and even that is closing fast.

🧱 Basalt could be the key to greener and cheaper cement. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara and Brimstone Energy have shown that swapping limestone for basalt could cut cement emissions by 25% on average grid electricity, and up to 80% in theory. Cement is around 4.4% of global emissions, and most of those come from the chemistry of heating limestone, not the energy used to do it. Basalt has no embedded carbon, and there’s enough of it near the surface to supply global cement production for hundreds of thousands of years. The output is still standard Portland cement, so it drops into the existing supply chain.

🚛 Electric trucks are taking off in China. Electric trucks now make up 20% of new commercial vehicle sales in China after sales tripled in 2025, with monthly sales hitting 24,000 in March. Diesel is up 35% and LNG up 53% since the Iran war began, Bloomberg reports payback on the higher upfront cost is now as little as a year. The math now makes sense.

🌫️ Coal pollution is cutting solar power output worldwide. New research from Oxford and UCL, published in Nature Sustainability, mapped 140,000 solar PV installations and found that aerosols from coal-fired power plants reduced global solar output by 5.8% in 2023. That’s 111 terawatt-hours of lost generation, equivalent to the annual output of 18 medium-sized coal plants. The losses run at about 74 TWh a year, roughly a third of the annual gains from new solar capacity. Not so happy, but it shows the knock on impact.

🏝️ Australian solar company signs deal to help “entire country” quit diesel. Sydney’s Smart Commercial Energy has signed an MOU with the small Pacific island state of Nauru for 18 MW of solar and 40 MWh of battery storage. Nauru currently burns around 8 million litres of imported diesel a year to power 13,000 people, with all the cost and emissions that implies. The Pacific islands most exposed to sea level rise are also the places paying the highest premium for fossil power. I love this story.

⛏️ A former Scottish colliery is being turned into a solar and battery hub. The National Mining Museum Scotland, on a site that closed in 1981 and is now one of the best preserved Victorian-era collieries in Europe, is installing around 100 kW of solar and a lithium-ion battery the size of a small shipping container. Excess generation will be exported to the grid as a revenue stream to help secure the museum’s future. They’re crowdfunding £450,000 to make it happen.

This episode was written after the joy of Leeds United winning in the 95th minute on Sunday. What a day. Today’s song choice is White Flag by Dido. See you next week!

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Grumpy Optimists. This time, not only are we looking at some positive news, but we’re also recapping the event I hosted last week.

There’s a lot to cover, so let’s dig in.

🗺️ The Grumpy Optimists Event Recap

Last Thursday I hosted a Grumpy Optimists event at the Lucky Saint pub. While there were drinks flowing and great conversations, I also made everyone participate in a bit of organised fun, writing about the future.

The premise was simple: forget 2026 for two hours and time travel to 2035 as an optimist. We looked at the world through 4 lenses: a 15-year-old, a CEO, a regulator, and nature itself. The conversations were fantastic, the energy delightful and the ideas inspiring. I thought it would be a shame to not share them with you.

Let’s look at what the scribbles, words and drawings made.

🛹 The 15-year-old

The 15-year-old in 2035 is outside. Phones are out, third spaces are in. Youth clubs are back and somehow cool again. Allotments are normal. Classrooms have “nature + climate” written on the door, outdoor teaching is the default, and the kids are less stressed and learning better for it.

Fast fashion is gone. Seasonal eating is normal. Sustainable clothes are just clothes.

The phrase that stuck with me was “no eco-anxiety”. A generation that grew up with climate as fact, not threat. That’s a different kind of childhood from the one I’d imagined a few years ago.

Best line on this page: “Nothing is cooler than nature.”

🏢 The CEO

The 2035 boardroom looks nothing like the one I sit in today. Sustainability metrics carry the same weight as financial ones in performance reviews. Nature has a seat at the table. Board meetings happen outside. Carbon and nature literacy is a baseline CEO requirement, not an optional add-on.

“Profit and loss is the same conversation as cost of inaction.” Patagonia-style 1% of profits to charity is normal. Customers expect supply chain transparency, and companies provide it. Solar and ground-source heat pumps stopped being sustainability stories and became how you keep energy costs down.

One person wrote “Paul Polman Junior x 100,000”. For those of you who don’t know, he was the CEO of Unilever who really pushed for the climate agenda in the 2010s. A hero.

I loved this one as it’s all I try to do with my work at Zevero.

🏛️ The regulator

This was the most detailed page of the night.

I loved the ideas of citizens’ assemblies operating at the local level by default. Indigenous voices and ancestral knowledge are built into regulation, not bolted on as a consultation step. Farmers are given a seat at the regulatory table to help change how we grow food. A just transition that comes from the shop floor up, not the boardroom down.

The new laws went deep. A processed food and meat tax. Mandatory food waste reporting, an end to deforestation and palm oil. Mental health and nature days as standard for every business. Every green claim third-party validated with data and tax that scales with emissions.

None of this is really that wild, it’s just about whether we actually care enough to put it into action.

🌳 The forest

If a forest could write a postcard back to 2026, this is what it said: “Thank god they did something.”

The forest of 2035 is in the city, it’s microforests in towns, no-mow in parks. We create a less manicured, more diverse and more alive interaction between humans and nature. More birdsong, more pollinators and more seaweed farming came up too. Fewer cows where they shouldn’t be, often destroying grassland.

One drawing had the Gulf Stream still functioning, with “ICE STILL HERE” written underneath.

🧵 Cross-cutting themes

Five things came up on more than one page, which feels significant.

1. Nature gets a literal seat at the table. Boardroom, council, regulator. This was the single most repeated image of the night. This is already happening with brands like Faith in Nature.

2. Decentralisation. Power flows down to councils, communities, streets, allotments, classrooms to make change.

3. Education as infrastructure. Carbon and nature literacy mandatory at every level, from the CEO to the 15-year-old knowing about climate.

4. The end of greenwashing. Third-party validation, supply chain transparency, mandatory reporting.

5. Letting go. Fast fashion, palm oil, processed food defaults, eco-anxiety. This is the shift from assuming humans are extractors rather than stewards of the world.

Overall, the event was incredible. I’m grateful for those who came and I look forward to hosting the next one…you’re all invited.

👀 News to make you feel good

🌍 New signs the Iran war is boosting clean energy. Axios pulled together early signals from China, South Korea and the EU showing the war is accelerating the energy transition globally. South Korean EV sales more than doubled in March year on year, solar panel imports were up 137%, and EU leaders say they will get more aggressive on electrification because the war made it expensive not to.

🇪🇺 European rooftop solar demand has doubled since the war began. Octopus Energy reports UK heat pump sales up 51% and solar up 54% in three weeks of March. OVO Energy’s April sales in solar and heating were ten times higher than a year earlier. Enpal’s CEO Mario Kohle summed it up: “This is about European resilience.”

🇳🇱 Amsterdam becomes the first capital city to ban meat and fossil fuel adverts. Since 1 May, billboards, tram shelters and metro stations have been stripped of ads for petrol cars, airlines, cruises, beef, chicken, pork and fish. The BBC describes one busy tram stop where the chicken nuggets and SUVs have been replaced with a poster for the Rijksmuseum and a piano concert. Edinburgh, Sheffield, Stockholm and Florence are moving the same way, and France has it nationwide.

💭 My thoughts? Lawyer Hannah Prins calls this a deliberate “tobacco moment” for high-carbon food. The smoking ban felt impossible until it didn’t. The norm is shifting.

🛢️ Can we loosen the grip fossil fuels have on our lives? According to the IEA, chemicals derived from oil and gas make up 90% of all raw materials, with petrochemicals accounting for 14% of oil demand. The Guardian walks through realistic alternatives across the big three of fertilisers, plastics and textiles: green ammonia, seaweed-based bioplastics, natural fibres. As Cip Hamilton at the Australian Marine Conservation Society puts it: “We cannot recycle our way out of a crisis driven by overproduction.”

🐟 Ghana declares its first ever Marine Protected Area. 703 square kilometres off the Greater Cape Three Points coast, covering critical fish breeding grounds and coastal wetlands, after 15 years of advocacy led by Ghanaian NGO Hen Mpoano. A community-led MPA pulling Ghana closer to the global 30x30 goal, despite USAID funding cuts last year that nearly derailed the project.

This episode was written after a soul-charging weekend in Lewes, lots of time in nature and an appreciation for life. My music recommendation for this week is Better (Solace) by Mantra, a real pick me up song.

See you next week!

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

I took the day off yesterday for the bank holiday here in the UK so apologies for this episode being a day late!

It has been a busy one and somehow the Lucky Saint event on Thursday has crept up faster than I expected. Looking forward to actually being in a room with some of you. If you have been on the fence, there are still a handful of spots left. You can still sign up here. If you can’t make it, do make sure to change your RSVP!

👀 News to make you feel good

📊 Renewable energy just broke a 100-year-old streak. According to Ember’s 2026 Global Electricity Review, renewables produced 33.8% of the world’s electricity last year, edging out coal at 33%. That is the first time those lines have crossed since 1919, when most of the world’s power still came from hydro. Solar alone covered 75% of the rise in global demand, fossil fuel generation fell for the first time outside the pandemic, and battery deployment grew 46% in a year. A century of coal dominance ended quietly last year, and the line on the chart is not going back up.

💭 My thoughts? This is a phenomenal piece of analysis from Ember and as ever, records are being broken when it comes to renewable energy. It’s pretty clear, this is the way to the tide is going.

🇮🇷 Investors pile into clean power as Iran war drives push for energy security. Similar to the story above, more than $3 billion poured into renewable energy ETFs globally in April, the biggest monthly net inflows in five years. With Brent crude up to $126 a barrel, the case for solar, wind and grid investment is being made on sovereignty grounds rather than climate ones. Ørsted up 37% YTD, Nordex 67%, GE Vernova 65%, Siemens Energy 50%.

🇨🇴 Countries end Colombia fossil fuel summit with focus on next steps and financing. 56 countries gathered in Santa Marta for the first international summit dedicated solely to phasing out fossil fuel production, after a similar push was blocked at COP30 in November. No binding outcome, but as one delegate put it, this was the first time in 30 years of climate negotiations where countries gathered specifically to talk about how to end fossil fuel supply rather than just cut emissions.

🇫🇷 France unveils plan to ditch all fossil fuels by 2050. France are leading the charge on the phasing out of fossil fuels. Their 14-page roadmap sets specific deadlines: coal out by 2030, oil by 2045, gas by 2050. Two-thirds of new cars electric by 2030, gas boilers banned in new buildings by the end of this year, solar capacity tripled by 2035. Analysts say no other country has put a comprehensive end-date on fossil fuel use, which forces every other government to argue against a clear plan rather than for the absence of one.

🔋 Renewables and batteries drive down fossil fuel use in Australia despite record electricity demand. Australia’s grid sailed through a record-hot summer with rooftop solar covering most of the demand surge. Gas generation hit its lowest level since 1999, battery capacity doubled year-on-year, and renewables are now 46.5% of the National Electricity Market, up from 42.5%. Batteries are starting to do the evening peak job that gas plants used to, at lower cost.

🚗 Labor extends EV tax break to encourage cheaper vehicles amid soaring fuel prices. With petrol above $2.50 a litre in Australia and EVs now 15% of new car sales (double last year) since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the Albanese government is keeping its full FBT exemption for EVs until March 2027 before winding it back to a 25% discount on cheaper models. The scheme was projected to cost $605m over seven years and is now tracking at $10.1bn. Cheaper EVs sell themselves when petrol is expensive.

🌼 From neat lawns to wild havens: how No Mow May is transforming England’s gardens. Plantlife’s campaign has gone from niche to mainstream, with councils, schools, parishes and a growing share of the UK’s 23 million gardens going unmown for the month. Their citizen science shows that leaving lawns alone produces a tenfold rise in the nectar available to pollinators. I loooove this.

🐋 Rescuers release humpback whale that was stranded off German coast. Timmy, a young male humpback who had been stuck in the shallow Baltic near Wismar since early March, was finally released into the North Sea on Saturday. Two German entrepreneurs funded a private rescue, used a barge to move him out to deeper water, and slathered him in zinc ointment for his Baltic-induced skin condition. Authorities had given up. He should now be heading north toward the Arctic.

🥝 Kiwis released near New Zealand’s parliament as project hits 250th bird. On Tuesday night, the Capital Kiwi Project quietly released its 250th bird into the hills above Wellington, a place kiwi had been absent from for over a century. Earlier in the day they were carried into Parliament’s banquet hall for a celebration before being driven out to the bush. The project covers 24,000 hectares, runs more than 5,000 stoat traps, and Wellington’s wild kiwi now have a 90% chick survival rate.

💭 My thoughts? Stories like this are why I keep writing the newsletter. We are so used to species disappearing from our landscapes that the idea of one quietly walking back in still feels almost transgressive. The birds did not get the memo about extinction.

🦆 Wildlife arriving at new Great Fen wetland in Cambridgeshire. 25 hectares of arable farmland (about 60 football pitches) have been transformed into mere, channels and reedbeds at the Great Fen, near Ramsey. Lapwings have already turned up to scope out the new feeding ground, and the muddy edges should be a feast for waders like redshank and snipe. The broader Peatland Progress project will eventually link Woodwalton Fen and Holme Fen, two of the last fragments of ancient fen, into a single restored landscape.

👀 One to watch

🛰️ NASA’s “your name from space” tool. NASA has built a slightly ridiculous, very lovely tool that spells your name using overhead satellite shots of natural features that happen to look like letters. We have used overhead nature shots at Zevero since our first brand guidelines, so this one scratched a particular itch. Worth a click for the visual alone.

My music recommendation for the week is Porcelain by Moby. I hope you all have a great week.

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Welcome back to the 162nd edition of The Grumpy Optimists. This week I have two updates before we get into it. One cool, one an update for the event I’m hosting on 7th May.

🎆 One, I got on the Forbes 30 under 30 list for social impact!!

This is not something I was expecting or aiming for, but it’s cool to see the hard work paying off over the last 5 years.

🎫 Two, I’ve made some updates to The Grumpy Optimists event.

I’ve had a lot of people saying they’d love to go but can’t get the time off. So the lovely people at the Lucky Saint have given us the room until close.

The event will now be from 5.30pm onwards with a 6pm start time. You can find more info and request a spot here. Be quick, there aren’t many left!

Sign up to the Grumpy Optimists event!

⚡ Cheap is the new clean

⚡ Why cheap power could matter more than clean power in the push for net zero. A decade ago the argument for renewables was moral. Now it’s economic. The BBC lays out how falling costs, rather than climate policy, are doing most of the heavy lifting on emissions. Not the most romantic framing, but arguably the one that sticks.

💭 My thoughts? Years of climate comms tried to make people care about the right thing. Turns out the best decarbonisation strategy is to make clean power the cheapest option and let human self-interest do the rest.

🇬🇧 Reeves looking to break link between gas cost and electricity prices. The UK’s marginal pricing model means gas sets the electricity price even when renewables dominate the grid, which is why bills stay punchy on sunny, windy days. The Chancellor is reportedly eyeing reform to decouple the two. If she pulls it off, it would be one of the most consequential electricity market changes in a generation. You can read a deep dive from Carbon Brief here.

🧺 Households could get free electricity for doing washing on sunny weekends. Britain’s grid operator is expanding the Demand Flexibility Scheme so that when renewables flood the system, providers can pay households to use more electricity, not less. British Gas, Octopus and Equiwatt are all in. Smart-meter households could get free electricity, cheaper rates, or gift-card points on sunny, windy weekends when the grid has more clean power than it knows what to do with.

⚛️ Rolls-Royce signs deal with UK to deliver fleet of small modular nuclear reactors. Rolls-Royce SMR has signed a firm contract with Great British Energy – Nuclear to deliver the UK’s first three small modular reactors at Wylfa in North Wales. It follows the company’s selection as preferred technology partner in June 2025 and sits inside the government’s “Clean Energy Superpower” plan, backed by £2.5 billion of public money plus a £599 million facility from the National Wealth Fund. Wylfa has been on every UK nuclear wish-list for nearly two decades. This is the first time there’s a contract, a technology, and a supply chain attached to it.

🦪 More than 15 million oysters to be released in the North Sea for UK rewilding project. Native oysters were once so abundant you could walk sections of the British foreshore on their shells. Then we ate them. This reintroduction is one of the more ambitious marine rewilding efforts this country has tried, and the knock-on effects go well beyond the oysters themselves. A single oyster filters up to 200 litres of seawater a day. Do the maths on 15 million.

🌲 Defensive rewilding: wetlands and forests as border infrastructure. New research from the University of East London introduces the concept of “defensive rewilding”: deliberately restoring peatlands, forests and wetlands along contested borders to shape terrain in ways that slow or redirect military advances, while also storing carbon and rebuilding biodiversity. The authors frame it as a response to the growing “guns versus climate” trade-off, pitching restored ecosystems as a genuine force multiplier rather than a nice-to-have. Peatlands come out as the standout example. Their soft, low-bearing ground is notoriously hard for even light armoured vehicles to cross, and they happen to be one of the most effective long-term carbon stores we’ve got. The study draws on First World War flooding and, more recently, Ukrainian floodplains slowing armoured advances.

💭 My thoughts? For decades we drained wetlands, felled forests, and straightened rivers to make land productive. Now we’re restoring them because they stop tanks. The climate case didn’t win on its own. The security case came to the rescue. I’ll take the outcome and skip the philosophy lecture.

🎵 Music recommendation for the week is Bleachers, you and forever.

Have a great one!

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Welcome back to another edition of The Grumpy Optimists. I took the week off last week to enjoy the Easter longer weekend and refresh my mind and body. I feel great for doing so, there might be something in this four day work week hey?

Before we get into positive news for the week, I’d love to remind you all I’m hosting a free event on the 7th of May in central London at the fantastic Lucky Saint pub. The event will be based on bringing people who care about the planet together to talk about how we can imagine a better future.

There’s only 40 places available and the last poll I did had a great response, so please request a ticket below. I’d love to meet some of you in person!

Sign up to my event here!

There’s a lot about energy and nature this week so I’ve separated them out. I’ve also got an incredible read for you as you head into the week.

⚡ The numbers are moving

🌍 Record 692 GW of renewables added globally in 2025. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) yearly report shows a 15.5% increase in renewable energy in 2025, adding 692 gigawatts (GW) of capacity and 85.6% of the total global power added in 2025. That puts global renewable capacity at 5,149 GW, accounting for nearly half of all global power capacity at the end of 2025.

🇬🇧 UK wind and solar saved Britain £1bn in gas imports in a single month. Carbon Brief analysis shows March 2026 was a record month for combined wind and solar on the British grid, up 28% year-on-year. Wind generation alone rose 38%, pushing gas output to its lowest March level ever recorded. At Iran-war-inflated prices, that avoided generation equated to roughly 18 fully loaded LNG tankers.

💭 My thoughts? The framing of renewables as an energy security play rather than a climate one is doing a lot of heavy lifting right now. Politicians who spent years blocking wind farms are suddenly very interested in domestic generation. Cynical? Maybe. But if it gets turbines in the ground, I’ll take it.

🇮🇳 India’s CO2 emissions grew at their slowest rate in two decades in 2025. Just 0.7% growth, down from 4-11% in the preceding four years. Power sector emissions actually fell 3.8%, the first drop outside Covid since 1973, driven by a year in which India added 47 GW of solar and 6.3 GW of wind. The contradictions remain: the country is also planning massive coal, steel and cement expansion. But the direction of travel in power is striking.

🇪🇺 IMF says France and Spain are structurally well-positioned for the energy transition. A March 2026 IMF working paper highlights Spain as a case study in what early bets on renewables deliver: 56% renewable electricity share, with Spain’s central bank crediting the grid shift for a 40% reduction in electricity prices. France’s low-carbon nuclear base provides a different but complementary structural advantage. The IMF estimates the transition requires sustained investment of 2-3% of EU GDP annually.

⚡ 97% of business leaders now support the shift to renewables. The We Mean Business Coalition’s latest survey finds near-unanimous corporate backing for the energy transition, driven overwhelmingly by energy security, risk reduction, and financial returns rather than climate commitments. Worth noting: this isn’t the usual suspects. It’s a broad cross-sector coalition. When the economics start doing the talking, the conversation changes pretty fast.

☀️ Government approves UK’s largest ever solar farm. The 800MW Springwell Solar Farm in Lincolnshire got the green light on April 8, covering an area equivalent to 1,700 football pitches and expected to power over 180,000 homes a year. It’s the 25th nationally significant clean energy project approved since July 2024. We need to say no to NIMBYs more in this country.

🐦 Nature doing its thing

🌱 Nature loss is now a business and security risk, not just an environmental one. The UK government’s latest Nature Markets Framework makes this shift explicit: private investment, biodiversity net gain, and land use planning are now being treated as economic infrastructure, not green afterthoughts. The framing has changed. Nature is no longer just something to protect at the margins of a planning document. It’s a systemic risk that finance and business are being asked to price in.

🦒 40 migratory species gain new global protections, as giraffe numbers quietly rise 20%. The UN’s migratory species conference wrapped in Campo Grande, Brazil on March 29, adding cheetahs, snowy owls, giant otters and thresher sharks to protected lists, alongside new action plans for jaguars and Amazon catfish. Buried in the proceedings: combined giraffe populations rose from 113,000 to 140,000 between 2020 and 2025, attributed directly to previous coordinated actions under the same convention. BirdLife called the bird outcomes a “major breakthrough.”

🌊 10% of the world’s ocean is now officially protected. IUCN announced this week that 10.01% of the ocean is now within designated protected and conserved areas, a milestone six years late under the old Aichi targets but a milestone nonetheless. Over the past two years, an area larger than the European Union has been brought under protection. The honest caveat from IUCN themselves: coverage still needs to triple by 2030, and most existing MPAs are not actively managed.

🦅 Golden eagles set to return to England for the first time in 150 years. A Forestry England feasibility study published today identifies eight potential recovery zones in northern England capable of sustaining golden eagle populations. The government has backed it with £1m in funding, and juvenile birds could be released as early as next year. The species was wiped out in England during the Victorian era, with the last individual dying in the Lake District in 2016. In southern Scotland, conservation work has already boosted numbers to record levels, and satellite tracking shows young birds are already exploring northern England on their own.

🎧 This week's recommendations

I have two recommendations for you this week.

🎵 I really want my music recommendation to be Justin Bieber at Coachella, but instead I’ll give a banger from 2012, I Need by Maverick Sabre.

📚 My reading recommendation for the week is a beautiful, beautiful article about how everything is a win when the goal is to experience. I’ve sent this to about 10 people this week and it’s beautiful.

Have a great one, George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Welcome back to this week’s episode. Last week was a big one for me and the company I help run, Zevero. We announced that we raised another $7 million to help scale our mission and I was shortlisted for Green Business’ Entrepreneur of the Year. How cool?

‼️I also have other interesting news for you I am hosting a The Grumpy Optimists event on the 7th May in London! I’d love to meet you all.

Register for The Grumpy Optimist Event!

News to make you feel good this week

💨 Great Britain breaks its wind generation record, again. On March 25, wind hit 23,880 MW, accounting for 53.5% of the electricity mix at peak. Gas was squeezed to just 2.3%, the lowest since April 2024. Clean energy now provides around 60% of UK electricity, up from 3% in 2000. I feel like I’m constantly finding articles like this and long may it continue.

📈 IEA signals the clean tech market could more than double to $3 trillion by 2035. Currently worth $1.25 trillion, the market size of technology like solar panels, batteries, EVs and heat pumps is approaching the size of the global crude oil market.

💭 My thoughts? I wonder how collective voices can help amplify the value of the clean tech market. We all know the value that the oil lobby has, how can we do the same for clean tech?

⚖️ Policy corner

🏠 Heat pumps for all new homes and plug-in solar in green tech drive. The UK’s Future Homes Standard will require heat pumps in all new homes from 2026, and Ed Miliband simultaneously announced plug-in solar panels, already common in Germany, will be made available in the UK for the first time. This alongside the next renewables auction has also being pulled forward to July shows that the the Middle East energy crisis is doing what years of climate advocacy could not. It’s creating genuine political urgency around domestic clean energy.

🇮🇳 India updates its climate targets: 60% non-fossil power by 2035. While some critics are arguing this is weak, I think we need to see the positives in this. Shock. Buried in the detail is the fact that India has already hit its previous target of 50% non-fossil power capacity five years ahead of schedule. Analysts think the new 60% goal will be met by 2028. While the ambition is soft it appears to be a classic case of underpromise and overdeliver.

🚌 Australia’s fuel crisis is accelerating the electric bus transition. With diesel hitting record prices as the Middle East conflict disrupts supply, Australian state governments are fast-tracking EV bus orders. In Australia, just 1% of buses are electric, compared with 80% of the urban fleet in China, a quarter in the Netherlands and 12% in the UK. The argument for electrifying public transport used to be climate. Now it is also fuel security and basic economics.

🌿 Nature doing its thing

🐋 Scientists film sperm whales working together to help one of their own give birth. In July 2023, researchers from Project CETI were tracking a sperm whale off Dominica when eleven whales bunched together near the surface. They launched drones. A calf was born and the group, including non-relatives from two separate family lines, worked together to lift the newborn to the surface so it could breathe. Published this week in Science and Scientific Reports, it is the first quantitative evidence of cooperative birth assistance outside humans and primates. Scientists say the behaviour may predate the last common ancestor of toothed whales more than 36 million years ago.

🦋 Monarch butterfly population up 64%, the largest recovery since 2018. The butterflies occupied 7.24 acres of Mexican forest this winter, up from 4.42 the year before. Scientists put the minimum safe threshold at 15 acres, so the risk of extinction hasn't gone away. But this is the second consecutive year of growth after a near-catastrophic low in 2023/24, driven by conservation work on the ground, better weather and a sharp reduction in illegal logging in the reserve.

🦅 Rewilding in Scotland delivers dramatic gains for birds and pollinators. New research from the Northwoods Rewilding Network, more than 100 landholdings across Scotland, found that bird species are up 261% and breeding territories up 546% on rewilded land compared to neighbouring conventionally managed sites. Bumblebees and butterflies are up more than tenfold. Spotted flycatcher, cuckoo and woodcock, all in national decline, are relatively common on rewilded sites. The researcher who analysed the data described the results as “astonishingly clear.” Several sites combine nature recovery with active farming and tourism. It does not have to be either-or.

My music recommendation for the week is Spanish Sahara by Foals, a great, great tune to start the week with. Speaking of, have a great one!

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

As oil prices climb past $100 a barrel and gas prices in Europe have risen 60%, now is a better time than ever to think about clean energy as energy independence. The 2022 energy crisis helped accelerate the shift towards renewables, and while the context isn’t ideal, it will go down in history as an important period for renewables.

There’s still a lot of great news to leave you feeling optimistic for the week, but before we get into it, I’m organising a couple of fun events to try and bring The Grumpy Optimists together in London. I’d love to hear if you might be interested to learn more…

⚡ The numbers keep moving

🌍 The world added a record 814 GW of wind and solar in 2025. Global wind and solar capacity crossed the 4 terawatt mark for the first time, with solar installations up 17% on 2024 and wind up a whopping 47%! Solar alone accounted for 647 GW of that.

💭 My thoughts? This shows that renewables really are taking over and growing exponentially.

⚡ Wind and solar generated a record 17% of US electricity in 2025. Utility-scale solar was up 34% year on year, according to new EIA data. This is happening under a president who keeps insisting renewables don’t work.

☀️ Cuba set a solar power record, then broke it the next day. The country generated 800 MW of solar one afternoon, then hit 900 MW the following day. However, this is against a backdrop of ongoing blackouts. Let’s hope that solar can be a solution here.

⚖️ Policy corner

⚖️ 24 US states sue Trump over the repeal of the Endangerment Finding. The 2009 Endangerment Finding is the legal foundation for virtually all US greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act. The Trump administration repealed it in February. Shock. California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and 20 other states filed suit on Thursday calling it unlawful and scientifically indefensible. Every single legal challenge to the Finding since 2009 has failed.

💭 My thoughts? Half the country is now in open legal resistance to federal climate rollback. The undisputed champion of fossil fuels moved to erase the legal basis for climate regulation entirely, and 24 attorneys general said no the same week.

🇪🇺 Von der Leyen announces a €30 billion ETS Investment Booster for clean tech. With Middle East conflict pushing European energy prices through the floor of what anyone expected, the Commission President responded with a new €30 billion fund for industrial decarbonisation, financed by ETS allowances, first-come first-served. The ETS itself is also under review. The crisis is, perversely, doing what years of policy advocacy could not.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Wales signs a renewable energy sector deal targeting 100% clean electricity by 2035. The Welsh government has committed to 78 specific measures to accelerate wind, solar, marine and hydro, including streamlined planning and workforce training. The announcement was made on Anglesey (very near where my family live). The cabinet secretary cited the Middle East conflict directly, framing energy independence as the rationale.

🏭 Industry moving

🚗 The Middle East conflict is making the economic case for EVs. With oil past $100 a barrel, Transport and Environment published analysis showing petrol drivers are five times more exposed to energy price shocks than EV drivers. Europe’s 7.7 million electric cars are already cutting oil imports by 126,000 barrels a day. The case for EVs as an energy security play has always been there. Suddenly it’s the argument that’s actually cutting through.

🌳 SBTi tightens its deforestation rules for corporate climate targets. The Science Based Targets initiative updated its Forest, Land and Agriculture guidance this week, closing loopholes and tightening no-deforestation commitments for any company submitting targets from 2026 onward. The land sector represents 22% of global emissions so this is big.

🧱 Lego is installing 40,000 solar panels at its first US factory. Over 30,700 ground-mounted panels across 80 acres, plus 10,000 on the roof, targeting 100% renewable electricity on site. The factory building is partly constructed from mass timber, which stores rather than emits carbon, and is aiming for LEED Platinum certification. LEGO are driving forward a lot of climate ambition, but, they still produce plastic blocks. This is important, especially given today’s film recommendation.

This week I have 3 things to note.

1. My music recommendation is a delightful remix of Sweet Disposition.

2. My TV recommendation, albeit not so optimistic, is The Plastic Detox on Netflix. It’s f*cked.

3. I spoke at an event last week about the future of sustainability. If you’d like to get the slides, send me a message and I’ll get them to you.

That’s all folks - have a great week!

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Spring is doing its thing at the moment and the sunshine is great for the soul and very very much needed.

The good news is there are plenty of optimistic stories from around the world to bring to you, so let’s dig in.

📊 Reaching net zero by 2050 ‘cheaper for UK than one fossil fuel crisis’. The Climate Change Committee found this week that the total net cost of reaching net zero by 2050 is roughly £100bn. That’s approximately what the UK paid during a single fossil fuel price shock after Russia invaded Ukraine. They also modelled a future equivalent crisis in 2040. What this shows is that if we stay dependent on gas, household bills rise 59%. With policies to support net zero, they rise 4%.

💭 My thoughts? We’re living through another fossil fuel spike, this one driven by conflict in the Middle East, and the CCC just handed politicians the clearest possible argument for going faster. It’s a win-win for the planet and for energy security.

Perhaps a similar argument that gets levelled is that we should be drilling in the North Sea. This report from Carbon Brief showcases why that’s not really the solution. You can read more here.

💨 Construction finishes on a major offshore wind farm, the first during Trump’s tenure. Vineyard Wind completed construction off Massachusetts this weekend, becoming the first major US offshore wind project to finish during Trump’s second term. This is the same project the administration tried to halt in December on national security grounds. Federal judges said no. A second halted project, Revolution Wind, started sending power to the New England grid for the first time on Friday.

🏭 Construction on Milford Haven hydrogen production plant to begin. A £50m green hydrogen plant has been given the green light in Milford Haven, built on the site of a former oil refinery. It’s one of the first projects from the UK’s Hydrogen Allocation Round to reach this stage, with commissioning targeted for early 2028. Turning a refinery site into a hydrogen hub is not nothing.

📋 90% of companies no longer in CSRD scope plan to maintain, expand sustainability reporting. The EU scaled back its CSRD requirements last year, removing thousands of companies from scope. A survey this week found 90% of those companies are keeping or expanding their sustainability reporting anyway. The infrastructure is built, the teams are in place, and walking it back is harder than it looks.

🏦 Japan lenders see rising demand for ESG finance as decarbonisation investment grows. Japanese banks are reporting rising demand for ESG-linked financing as corporate investment in decarbonisation picks up. Not a flashy story, but Japan’s financial sector moving in this direction at scale matters.

🇸🇬 Singapore sets climate risk management expectations for banks, investors, insurers. Singapore’s financial regulator has set formal climate risk management expectations across its banking, insurance and investment sectors. Part of a steady drumbeat of financial regulators embedding climate into the plumbing, regardless of what’s happening at the political level elsewhere.

♻️ Romania’s recycling revolution lifts off. Romania’s deposit return scheme launched in November 2023 with a recycling rate of around 11%. It now sits at 94%, with over 8 billion containers returned. The CEO of RetuRO said “You go to Romania now, you don’t see a bottle anywhere.” The UK launches its own version in October 2027 but it’s proving to be very problematic.

🌲 ’It has changed my life’: how a dose of nature is treating mental illness. A London charity called Dose of Nature is prescribing time outdoors as a direct treatment for mental illness, and an LSE randomised controlled trial backs it up. 64% recovery rate versus 50% for standard NHS talking therapies, with social welfare benefits estimated at eight times the cost. GPs are going as far as referring patients directly. I don’t know about you, but I am a huge believer in spending time in nature, it’s actually something I don’t feel like I do enough living in central London. Take this as a reminder to get outside today!

🦋 ’Extinct’ large tortoiseshell butterfly spotted across southern England. The large tortoiseshell, classed as regionally extinct in Britain since the 1980s, has been photographed across Kent, Hampshire, Sussex, Dorset, Cornwall and the Isle of Wight. Caterpillars have been found feeding on trees in the wild since 2020, which means these aren’t just tourists blown over from the Netherlands.

That’s all for this week folks. My music recommendation to take you into the week is Walking Through The Water by John Vincent III. Have a great week all.

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Welcome to this week’s The Grumpy Optimists. The brief moment of sunshine here in the UK last week has helped lift my mood so it’s a good day to have a good day.

This week two big numbers landed that I think belong together: UK emissions hit their lowest point in over 150 years, and clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025. I’ll come back to both. But first, let’s get into the stories.

👀 News to make you feel good this week

🇬🇧 UK emissions fall 2.4% in 2025 as coal hits a 400-year low. UK greenhouse gas emissions are now at their lowest level since 1872. Coal use has dropped to levels not seen since 1600, when Elizabeth I was on the throne and Shakespeare was writing Hamlet. Most of this is structural: the last coal power station closed in 2024, the steel industry has been contracting, and gas use is at a 34-year low. The UK’s emissions are now 54% below 1990 levels while GDP has grown 84% over the same period. That statistic deserves to be repeated more often.

🇨🇳 Clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025. China’s clean energy sectors contributed $2.1 trillion to the economy last year, equivalent to roughly 11% of GDP. If those sectors were a country, they would be the 8th largest economy in the world. Without them, China would have missed its 5% growth target entirely. EVs, batteries and solar are no longer a climate story in China. They are the economy.

💭 My thoughts? The story of the energy transition is increasingly an economic one. The countries and companies moving fastest on clean energy are not sacrificing growth. In many cases they are driving it. The argument that we can’t afford to act is running out of runway.

🌍 Nature and people

🌊 Brazil’s hiking trails are becoming a tool for conservation. New long-distance trails through Brazil’s biomes are connecting communities to wild landscapes and giving local economies a reason to protect them. Tourism and conservation are not always natural allies, but when they are, it tends to stick.

📸 Underwater Photographer of the Year 2026. Sharing just because it’s cool and worth seeing.

👩 Twelve women carrying the flame for climate action despite the headwinds. Yesterday was international women’s day so I thought it was a great time to share this story from Reuters about twelve women leading climate action globally right now. Worth reading this week in particular.

🏭 Industry moving

🧴 L’Oréal signs deal to turn captured CO₂ into packaging. A startup called Dioxycle uses carbon electrolysis to convert captured industrial emissions into ethylene, the building block of polyethylene plastic. L’Oréal has signed a multi-year deal to use the output in its packaging. This is the kind of thing that sounds niche but matters: packaging plastics are a huge Scope 3 emissions source for consumer goods companies. Replacing fossil-derived plastic with captured-carbon plastic is not a silver bullet, but it is a real piece of the puzzle.

🌞 Nigeria launches $750 million mini-grid solar initiative. A World Bank-funded programme aiming to provide electricity access to 17.5 million Nigerians through 1,350 solar mini-grids. About half of Nigeria’s 230 million people have no reliable grid access. This programme aims to replace 280,000 diesel and petrol generators with clean alternatives. The scale is significant and the model, private sector-led with public subsidy, is increasingly the template for energy access across Africa.

🇰🇷 Korea plans mandatory sustainability reporting from 2028. Another major economy moving towards mandatory climate disclosure. The direction of travel globally is clear, even if the pace varies.

🎬 One to watch

And finally, the LinkedIn post your algorithm probably surfaced but you might have scrolled past: this one is worth a look.

It’s about a Dutch campaign called NK Tegelwippen that encourages people to rip up paving tiles and replace them with plants. Sounds small, but it adds up: since launching, citizens and cities have removed more than 50 million tiles.

Why it matters? Around half of gardens in the Netherlands are paved, which increases flood risk, raises temperatures by up to 10°C and wipes out space for birds, bees and plants.

The clever bit: cities compete to remove the most tiles. Current leader Venlo, with more than 270,000 tiles removed. My favourite fact is that “Green residents” go 20-25% less often to the general doctor, with things like depression and migraines. Wild!

That’s it for this week. Music recommendation for the week is Without Your Love by The Paper Kites and Julia Stone, it’s been a real sing in the shower number this week.

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Welcome back to another edition of The Grumpy Optimists. The end of February has become a milestone for me. Two years ago, on 29 February, I sold Zevero so it could grow into what it is today. We have grown from 5 people wanting to make climate action easier to a team of over 50 around the world with clients as big as Tokyo Government.

I started this blog nearly six years ago as a way to write and show that I can do hard things. I wanted to work in climate and thought that if I wrote about it consistently enough, it might open a door. The irony is that it did, just not in the way I expected. Instead of helping me get a job, it helped me start a company with my co-founder.

I think a lot about how easily that might not have happened. If I had overthought it. If I had worried too much about whether anyone was reading. If I had not asked myself, what is the worst that can happen?

I am very aware that optimism is easier when you have the privilege to absorb failure. But optimism, especially about climate, is not naivety. It is not ignoring reality. It is choosing to believe that progress is possible, and then behaving as if that belief matters.

So thank you, reader, for being a grumpy optimist, for thinking about the world we can create rather than the world we currently have.

👀 News to make you feel good this week

🌍 Nature fighting back

🐟 Waitrose to suspend mackerel sales due to overfishing concerns. Waitrose has paused sales of mackerel over concerns that current fishing levels are unsustainable. Retailers rarely take voluntary steps like this unless the science is clear and the reputational risk is rising. It signals how biodiversity and ocean health are starting to shape mainstream commercial decisions, not just NGO campaigns.

What I love about this is that Waitrose are making a bold decision. They don’t need to stop selling mackerel, but by doing so, they also raise attention to wider issues of overfishing.

🦅 No trees, no food, shot for fun, yet Serbia’s imperial eagles are making an improbable return. Once close to extinction due to habitat destruction and hunting, Serbia’s eastern imperial eagles are coming back. Years of habitat restoration, nest protection and conservation enforcement are bearing fruit. Wildlife recovery is rarely instant. It is the result of persistent, often unglamorous work over decades.

💭 My thoughts? Stories like this are the reason I started this newsletter. Extinction feels inevitable right up until it isn’t. The birds didn’t get the memo.

🌊 ‘The river won’: campaigners in the Brazilian Amazon stopped the privatisation of a waterway. A coalition of indigenous communities and environmental groups successfully blocked the sale of a major Amazon river to private interests. The case shows how local activism can defend critical natural assets against commercial pressure. The kind of win that rarely makes front pages, but absolutely should.

🐦 Berry boom brings hope for New Zealand’s once-doomed kākā. A strong berry season combined with long-term conservation programmes is supporting the recovery of New Zealand’s native kākā.

⚡ Energy shifting beneath the surface

🌋 ‘Magic beneath the surface’: pioneering geothermal plant launches in Cornwall. A new geothermal plant in Cornwall is tapping heat from deep underground to generate electricity for homes, a UK clean energy first. Unlike wind and solar, geothermal provides constant baseload power regardless of what the weather is doing. It has been a long time coming, and Cornwall is a genuinely exciting place to prove the model.

⛏️ Trump has overseen more coal retirements than any other US president. New analysis shows coal plant retirements have accelerated during Trump’s presidency, driven largely by economics rather than any policy ambition. Cheap renewables continue to outcompete coal. The structural shift in the US power mix is market-led, not politically led.

💭 My thoughts? The undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal Donald Trump can’t even stop the decline of coal and the rise of renewables.

🏎️ Toyota to build circular factory in Poland to recycle end-of-life vehicles. Toyota plans to build a facility focused on recovering materials from end-of-life vehicles. Circularity is shifting from pilot projects to industrial scale, which is the only scale that actually matters.

👟 Nike sources 100% clean electricity for Japan operations. Nike has transitioned its Japan operations to 100% clean electricity. For context, Japan’s grid emits roughly 0.45 to 0.50 kg of CO₂ per kWh, compared to around 0.20 kg in the UK and closer to 0.05 kg in France. In other words, decarbonising in Japan avoids more than double the emissions per unit of electricity compared to much of Western Europe. I’m lucky enough to spend a lot of time in Japan, so this one hit home!

🥛 Minor Figures launches powdered milk to cut emissions. Minor Figures have developed a powdered version of their product, dramatically reducing the emissions associated with shipping liquid (which is mostly water). It is the kind of unglamorous supply chain innovation that does not get much attention but makes a real dent. Less liquid, less weight, fewer lorries, lower footprint.

📋 UK Sustainability Reporting Standards: what you need to know. The UK has launched its latest standards in climate reporting. This is big news for corporations in the UK and one I’ll be hosting a webinar about soon. 👀

🎬 Dirty Business — Channel 4. There’s a reason the working title for this show was “Isle of Shite.” A three-part drama about Britain’s sewage scandal, built around real victims and campaigners who spent decades trying to make people care. The facts were always there. Surfers Against Sewage has been campaigning since 1990. The harm was documented. Nothing moved at scale until the emotional reality landed somewhere people couldn’t look away from.

That’s what good storytelling does that data never quite can.

💭 My thoughts? Most of the issues covered in this newsletter suffer from the same problem: the evidence is overwhelming and nothing moves fast enough. Storytelling is one of the most underrated tools we have for closing the gap between knowing and actually caring.

That’s all from me this week. This week’s music recommendation is Look At That Woman by ROLE MODEL.

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Last week it felt like good climate news was everywhere. This week I had to look a little harder.

That said, the stories I did find shared something interesting. A recurring theme kept appearing: resilience.

If you strip away the political noise at the moment you find something more structural is happening. Countries you might not expect are investing in renewable energy. Cities are redesigning streets to cope with heat and pollution. Car batteries are being used to power homes. We are even restoring species that have been absent for nearly two centuries.

Climate action is increasingly being integrated into society, into the everyday. That’s a reason to be optimistic.

Although, if I have missed any great resilience stories, I would love to see them in the comments.

👀 News to make you feel good this week - resilience edition

🇨🇺 US sanctions, power cuts and climate crisis: why Cuba is betting on renewables. Facing repeated blackouts, ageing grid infrastructure and fuel shortages, Cuba is accelerating investment in decentralised solar installations. Rather than relying solely on large central power stations, the country is deploying smaller, distributed systems that reduce strain on the grid and improve energy reliability.

What began as a response to crisis is becoming a structural shift in how power is generated and consumed. In this context, renewables are not just about emissions reduction. They are about stability and independence.

🇫🇷 Paris announces Europe’s largest urban detoxification project. Paris plans to remove cars from historic avenues, plant hundreds of trees and expand traffic free school streets. Beyond emissions reduction, the initiative directly addresses urban heat, air pollution and public health risks that are intensifying with climate change. More shade, fewer vehicles and safer streets increase a city’s ability to cope with heatwaves and extreme weather while improving everyday quality of life.

💭 My thoughts? Climate resilience in cities is not abstract. It is cooler streets, cleaner air and infrastructure designed to withstand hotter summers.

🚗 GM announces lease programme for powering your home with your EV. General Motors is launching a programme that allows EV owners to use their vehicles to power their homes. Vehicle to home technology effectively turns cars into mobile battery units. During outages or peak demand periods, stored energy in cars can be redirected into households. This shifts EVs from being purely transport assets to distributed energy infrastructure.

💭 My thoughts? Once storage is embedded in everyday assets, grid resilience becomes decentralised. I listened to this podcast from Tortoise media and found it incredibly useful to understand how we can run an entire grid on renewables.

🔋 China’s water battery breakthrough can last 120,000+ cycles. Researchers in China have developed a water based battery that could last more than 120,000 charge cycles, dramatically extending operational life compared to conventional lithium ion systems. If scalable, it could reduce long term storage costs and ease material constraints. More durable storage strengthens grids as renewable penetration rises.

🌬️ UK backs biggest English onshore windfarm in a decade. After years of political hesitation, the UK has approved major onshore wind projects, marking the strongest push in a decade. Expanding domestic renewable generation reduces reliance on imported gas and buffers the economy from international fuel price shocks. Onshore wind remains one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation available.

🐢 Floreana giant tortoise reintroduced to Galápagos island after almost 200 years. Conservationists have reintroduced giant tortoises to Floreana Island nearly two centuries after they were wiped out. As keystone species, tortoises help regulate vegetation and restore ecological balance. Their return strengthens long term ecosystem stability.

💭 My thoughts? Climate action is not only about cutting emissions. It is also about rebuilding natural systems that can endure.

📚 Also worth your time

🇨🇳 China is becoming a green superpower as Trump retreats from climate leadership. Industrial scale clean tech investment is reshaping global economic power.

⚡ Chris Stark: The economics of clean energy ‘just get better and better’. The cost curves continue to move in one direction.

🇬🇧 River Thames site gains bathing water status after community pressure. Citizen campaigning pushes water quality standards higher.

🤝 UK and California deepen ties on clean energy. Subnational alliances are shaping climate momentum beyond national politics.

Today’s song recommendation is Tems, Burning. An absolutely brilliant tune for a kitchen playlist. Well, hopefully not what’s actually happening in the kitchen.

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

There are weeks where finding six genuinely good climate stories feels like hard work. Right now, the challenge is the opposite. I am cutting stories rather than searching for them. That does not mean everything is fixed. Far from it. But it does suggest that beneath the political noise, structural progress is quietly building.

Speaking of positive stories, last week I spent 20 minutes talking about the future of packaging emissions. Riveting, I know. But to me, it genuinely was. If that sounds like your idea of a good time, email me at george@zevero.earth and I will send you the slides.

👀 News to make you feel good this week

🇨🇳 Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been flat or falling for 21 months. New Carbon Brief analysis shows China’s carbon dioxide emissions have been flat or declining for nearly two years. Record solar and wind deployment is now growing faster than electricity demand, limiting coal growth and signalling structural change. For the world’s largest emitter, this is not a marginal development. If sustained, it marks a genuine inflection point in global emissions trajectories.

💭 My thoughts? If China decisively bends the curve, global carbon maths changes quickly. The only thing that matters now is durability.

🇮🇳 India says it remains committed to its climate goals. India has reiterated its commitment to delivering on its climate targets, highlighting rapid renewable deployment and continued investment in clean infrastructure. A fast-growing economy increasing clean capacity at scale is a major signal for the global transition. This is growth and decarbonisation running in parallel.

🌍 Global economy must move past GDP to avoid planetary disaster. UN chief António Guterres has called for moving beyond GDP as the primary measure of economic success. GDP ignores environmental degradation, resource depletion and inequality. As climate impacts intensify, alternative metrics that embed planetary boundaries are gaining credibility.

💭 My thoughts? We optimise what we measure. GDP has optimised extraction. A different scoreboard changes behaviour.

🇺🇸 The US story is more complicated than the headlines

🇺🇸 Trump EPA moves to roll back key climate rule. The Trump administration’s EPA has moved to repeal the 2009 “endangerment finding”, a cornerstone of US federal climate regulation. The decision signals a clear shift in federal posture and introduces legal uncertainty. However, analysis suggests the immediate emissions impact may be more limited than headlines imply, given existing market dynamics and state-level policies already in motion.

🧪 Scientists and states push forward on US climate action. At the same time, coalitions of states, cities and scientific institutions are mobilising to safeguard climate progress. Much of US decarbonisation is now driven by state mandates, corporate procurement and falling clean energy costs rather than federal directives alone.

💭 My thoughts? The US story is no longer just Washington. It is governors, grids and gigawatts. Structural change is harder to unwind than political rhetoric. So while you may think that we’re in a position where the US is screwed, it perhaps isn’t as bad as it could be.

⚡ Economics are shifting

⚡ Australia’s renewables boom delivers power price payoff. Australia’s rapid buildout of wind and solar is pushing down wholesale electricity prices. Greater renewable penetration is reducing fossil fuel exposure and softening volatility. Clean energy at scale is beginning to show up in consumer bills.

🌞 Google expands its solar power portfolio. Google continues investing heavily in solar to power growing data centre demand. Long term power purchase agreements are accelerating renewable deployment and reshaping energy markets. Corporate procurement remains one of the strongest transition levers globally.

🏪 The practical transition

🥯 Brooklyn bagel shop cuts costs and emissions with plug in batteries. A New York bakery installed battery storage to avoid peak demand charges, storing cheaper off peak electricity and using it during busy periods. The result is lower bills and lower emissions.

💧 Spain turns an engineering headache into a turbine free hydropower source. Spanish engineers have developed hydropower solutions that avoid conventional turbines by rethinking existing infrastructure. Incremental innovation across existing systems can unlock meaningful clean energy gains.

🌳 China’s tree planting turns desert edge into a carbon sink. Extensive afforestation around the Taklamakan Desert is restoring degraded land and absorbing carbon. Long term policy coordination has reshaped entire landscapes.

Lastly, today’s music hit of the week is Marlon Funaki’s ‘when sunday comes around’. A nice song to bring you into the week.

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Here’s the news to make you feel a bit better about the state of the world this week.

Welcome to another edition of The Grumpy Optimists. If you’re feeling like the climate news cycle is relentless, here’s your reminder that progress is happening. From Africa’s solar boom to China’s clean energy revolution, from snails making a comeback to soil holding the key to flood prevention.

This week’s roundup is packed with stories that show what’s possible when we invest in solutions, support regenerative practices, and give nature a chance to recover.

Let’s dive in.

👀 News to make you feel good this week

🎉 Zevero acquires Inhabit. The company I co-founded, Zevero, has officially acquired sustainability service provider Inhabit, bringing expert climate advisors and a strong portfolio of European clients onto the platform. Sam and the team are incredible humans and have some great customers and I’m excited to get this one over the line and see how we can grow together.

Quick note, we’re looking for more deals to help us grow…so if you know somebody I’m all ears.

☀️ Africa records its fastest year of solar growth as installations rise 54% year-on-year. Africa installed approximately 4.5 GW of new solar PV capacity in 2025, representing a 54% year-on-year increase and marking a sharp acceleration across regions. The number of countries installing 100MW or above essentially doubled from 4 to 8, showing that solar deployment is spreading beyond early leaders. South Africa led with 1.6 GW, followed by Nigeria (803 MW), Egypt (500 MW), and Algeria (400 MW).

💭 My thoughts? What’s remarkable here is the diversification. This isn’t just about a few big markets anymore, it’s about solar becoming accessible and economically viable across the continent. The fact that distributed capacity (rooftop and commercial) now represents 44% of installations shows this is being driven by real demand from households and businesses, not just government-led projects.

🇬🇧 UK renewable energy just had its best January ever. January 2026 marked a record-breaking month for UK renewable energy, with wind, solar and hydro providing 64% of Britain’s electricity generation. Wind power alone generated 11.9 TWh, smashing the previous January record by over 20%. Gas-fired generation fell to just 19.5% of the total mix, while coal generation remained at zero for the entire month. Progress is happening.

🇨🇳 Clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025. Solar power, electric vehicles, and other clean-energy technologies contributed a record 15.4 trillion yuan ($2.1 trillion) in 2025 – some 11.4% of China’s GDP. That’s comparable to the entire economy of Brazil or Canada. Clean-energy sectors contributed more than 90% of the rise in investment. EVs and batteries were the largest growth drivers, delivering 44% of the economic impact.

💭 My thoughts? This is massive. Without clean-energy sectors, China would have expanded by 3.5% instead of 5.0%, missing its growth target entirely. The scale of investment here – $1 trillion in clean energy versus $260 billion in fossil fuels – shows where the smart money is going.

🌊 Trump-halted offshore wind project to proceed. Despite earlier political headwinds, a major offshore wind project that was previously halted is moving forward, demonstrating the resilience of the renewable energy transition even in challenging political environments.

🌾 Why soil coverage matters for flood prevention. A simple demonstration from Climate Farmers shows how soil health affects flooding. Bare soil sheds water and erodes, dead cover absorbs some, and living cover allows water to infiltrate and drain. Supporting farmers to build soil cover could significantly reduce flood damage while improving resilience.

💭 My thoughts? This is a solution hiding in plain sight. We talk a lot about flood impacts, far less about degraded soils that make them worse.

🐌 Bermuda snail thought to be extinct now thrives after a decade’s effort. Once reduced to fewer than 200 individuals, the greater Bermuda snail has been brought back from the brink. After a decade of coordinated conservation work, more than 100,000 snails have now been bred and released, with stable populations established across six protected sites.

🐑 China’s desert solar farms are creating unexpected oases through “solar grazing”. In China’s Gobi Desert, massive solar installations are doing double duty, generating clean energy while reversing desertification. The shade from solar panels creates cooler microclimates and reduces water evaporation, allowing vegetation to flourish beneath them.

🌊 Norway bans deep-sea mining until 2029 in major policy reversal. Norway has halted all deep-sea mining exploration and development in Arctic waters until at least 2029, marking a dramatic U-turn for one of the industry’s strongest proponents. The decision came after sustained pressure from environmental groups, scientists, and green opposition parties. The government will also end public funding for mapping deep-sea minerals, effectively stopping the world’s first attempt at commercial seabed mining before it could begin.

♻️ Modern Milkman to collect unwanted electronics and toys with deliveries. Modern Milkman is expanding its doorstep delivery model to collect unwanted electronics and toys at the same time. By using existing delivery routes, the scheme makes reuse and recycling easier for households while reducing the need for separate collection services. A small operational change, but one that removes friction from circular behaviour.

🏗️ EPDs now searchable in one place, helping the built environment decarbonise. Emidat has made it possible to search and compare Environmental Product Declarations from around the world in one place. By the way, EPDs are basically emission footprints. This makes it easier for sustainability teams to access comparable, third-party verified data to make better decisions on what materials are the lowest carbon.

This week’s music recommendation is a beautiful track by Sienna Rose called ‘Into the Blue’. For many (mainly those in the Northern Hemisphere), January and February can feel pretty blue, which is understandable. I have been thinking a lot about finding comfort in winter, and Wintering by Katherine May is a great introduction to that mindset. That said, I am still very much dreaming of lighter mornings and longer evenings.

Have a great week!

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Last week I was joking that I’m supposed to be the grumpy one here, but UK newspapers are really giving me a run for my money. New analysis finds that, for the first time, editorial opposition to climate action now outweighs support – a pretty wild place to be after the hottest year on record.

It’s also exactly why this newsletter exists. The more our media leans into culture‑war framing, the more important it is to keep pointing at the boring, tangible, quietly optimistic stuff that’s actually happening.

With that in mind, let’s dig in to the latest episode.

👀 News to make you feel good this week

🗞️ UK newspaper opposition to climate action overtakes support. As I mentioned in the intro, UK newspaper editorials are now more likely to oppose climate action than support it, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. The shift is driven by a handful of high-circulation titles (guess who), despite continued public concern about climate impacts.

💭 My thoughts? What is striking here is the widening gap between media narratives and material reality. Emissions trajectories, investment flows, and deployment numbers continue to move, even as coverage becomes more adversarial.

☀️ UK solar deployment continues to rise. New UK government data shows solar capacity continuing to grow, with deployment spread across both rooftop installations and larger projects. The pace is not dramatic, but it is consistent, and it persists despite planning friction and grid constraints. This is also a common critique of NIMBYs who say we should not put solar on fields but on rooftops. The simple answer is we need both.

🚆 I took a 12-hour train home from France. I shared a post about choosing the train over flying and the response was unusually thoughtful. Lots of people reflected honestly on their own travel choices, flight counts, and where they draw the line between ideal behaviour and practical reality.

🧱 Swift bricks to be installed in every new Scottish home. All new homes in Scotland will include swift bricks, supporting urban biodiversity and helping reverse declining bird populations. I love small regulatory tweaks that quietly lock nature into buildings by default.

🚗 EV sales in Europe surpass petrol for the first time. Electric vehicle sales have overtaken petrol car sales across Europe, marking a major milestone in transport electrification.

🌬️ UK joins major European wind farm project. The UK has joined eight other European countries in a large offshore wind initiative aimed at expanding capacity and improving energy security. Projects like this matter less for their symbolism and more for their scale and coordination. They reflect a growing recognition that energy security and climate goals are now tightly aligned.

🐦 National Trust creates new island for birds. The National Trust has sunk three decommissioned barges in the Blackwater Estuary to create a new artificial island for birds. The structures will be filled with dredged mud and topped with gravel to form a safe habitat above the highest tides. The project will add 0.55 hectares of new habitat for species including curlew, avocet and little tern. It is also designed to protect nearby saltmarsh, an important natural carbon store, from erosion.

⚡ Australia’s grid now relies on renewables as much as coal. Renewables now match coal’s contribution to Australia’s electricity grid, a shift that would have seemed unlikely not long ago given the country’s fossil fuel profile and its politics three or four years ago.

🥕 Amsterdam becomes the first capital to ban meat advertising. Amsterdam will ban meat advertising in public spaces as part of its climate and public health strategy. The policy mirrors earlier restrictions on tobacco and fossil fuel promotion.

💭 My thoughts? Treating meat more like other public‑health risks in ad policy is a big cultural signal about where food and climate are heading.

That’s all from me this week folks. Two things to shout out for the week. One, I had a great gym session with the team at Rally on Tuesday, some very sweaty pictures you shall not see. Two, my music choice for the week is an indie banger.

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Welcome back to another week and another roundup of some positive climate news. There’s a lot to cover, from grids and green homes to choc-free chocolate and 10,000 companies locking in science-based targets. A good week to remember that underneath the noise, the transition keeps grinding forward.

Looking forward to another big week. Have a good one folks. Oh and before you read this episode, do think about sharing it with a friend, colleague or family member. It really helps fuel my ego and boosts my dopamine - so thank you in advance.

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👀 News to make you feel good this week

🇮🇳 India’s budget and the grid that can actually handle all those renewables. India’s 2026 budget debate is shifting from “more solar and wind” to “how on earth do we move and store all this clean power”, with industry calling for serious investment in transmission, battery storage and grid readiness instead of just more generation targets.

⚡ US green energy growth that’s “hard to kill”. New reporting shows that, despite political swings and noisy pushback, US green energy deployment keeps climbing, supported by policy tailwinds and simple economics.

Once supply chains, factories and jobs are in place, it turns out “rolling back” clean energy is a lot harder than talking about it.

⚡ France has so much clean power it has to pay to export it. France is producing more electricity than it consumes, to the point where power producers are sometimes paying to export surplus – a weird but revealing side-effect of a low-carbon-heavy system with strong nuclear and growing renewables.

💭 My thoughts? All three of these stories point to the same thing: clean energy is no longer the hard part, and the real challenge is moving, storing and integrating power once it is already flooding the system.

🔬 Solar cells keep quietly getting better. Perovskites, a new class of solar material that can be printed cheaply rather than baked like silicon, have gone from a lab curiosity to a serious contender in just over a decade. Their efficiency has jumped from around 3% in 2009 to 25%+ today, with tandem versions stacked on silicon topping 30% in lab tests, well beyond standard solar panels. Researchers are also cracking the durability problem, pushing stability from hours to thousands of operating hours under heat and light. It’s all too smart for me, but it sounds great!

🏡 £15bn to make UK homes less leaky and less expensive. The UK’s new Warm Homes Plan promises £15bn over five years for solar panels, heat pumps and batteries, with grants and low-interest loans designed to make green tech accessible beyond the wealthiest households.

Done right, that’s millions of homes with lower bills, less exposure to gas price shocks and a quiet rooftop solar boom baked into policy. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Reform…

🏭 10,000 companies now have science-based targets. The Science Based Targets initiative has just hit 10,000 validated companies, up from 1,000 in 2021 and adding nearly 3,000 in 2025 alone, with particularly rapid growth in Japan and the wider Asia region. That doesn’t mean all 10,000 are climate heroes, but it does mean targets aligned with 1.5°C pathways are moving from fringe to default in corporate strategy.

🏢 Is corporate climate ambition dead, or are we just in an era of greenhushing? Nestlé’s chief executive has openly blamed President Trump’s stance and backlash for the company going quieter on sustainability communications, underlining how politicised the space has become in the US. The flip side: even as some brands go quieter in public, the SBTi milestone shows the underlying machinery of targets, reporting and transition plans is still accelerating.

🍫➕🌱 Can we make chocolate more affordable and better for the planet? Chocolate is incredible. If you disagree with that, please unsubscribe from this blog. It’s climate impact, on the other hand, a cause for concern. Not only that, but extreme weather and interrupted harvests have caused prices to rise significantly in the last few years. Prefer, a company developing cocoa-free and cocoa-light chocolate alternatives, is testing a different approach, with pilots in places like Singapore aimed at easing both “chocflation” and deforestation by creating cocoa from fermentation. Genius.

🌱 So you want to work in climate? This came up on my LinkedIn feed again this week and I remembered how great of a resource Nicole Kelner put together. So, if all of this makes you want to move into the transition rather than just read about it you should check out the roles in the link here.

That’s all for this week folks. Here’s my song choice for the week, unsure why, but it’s been played a lot the last few weeks. It’s hard not to want to bop.

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Happy belated New Year, welcome back to the first dose of grumpy optimism of 2026 and the 150th issue of all time. Wild. It’s been over 5 years since I started writing this blog and built Zevero. In that time a lot has changed, but my appetite to find optimism in the world has not.

I spent the first full week of the year snowboarding in France. Coming back on a 12-hour train with a sore coccyx from the first few days and plenty of fun in powder over the remaining days. One thing that is clear about people who ski or snowboard is that with the changes in snow conditions over the last 10-15 years, you really can’t deny climate change.

I don’t know about you but I’m optimistic about 2026. I have big plans with Zevero and my life.

Before you dig into the good news this week, I’d love to know, what goal have you set that will make 2026 a great year for you? Here’s just two of mine.

• Complete my 70.3 Ironman in Zell am See

• Be more analog and purposeful with my time (I’ve spent too much on moleskins to not make this stick)

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👀 News to make you feel good this week

🐠 Restoring coral reefs could boost seafood yields by 50%. Research from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute shows that allowing overfished coral reef populations to recover could boost sustainable seafood yields by nearly 50%. The study found that recovery could generate between 20,000 and 162 million additional sustainable fish servings per country annually, enough to meet recommended seafood intake for up to 1.4 million additional people per year. Countries with higher malnutrition indexes stand to benefit most from recovered reef fish stocks.

⚡ UK secures record-breaking 8.4GW of offshore wind capacity. The UK has approved a major offshore wind farm capable of powering around 12 million homes by the end of the decade. This €22 billion investment is a major step toward the UK’s Clean Power 2030 goals and will support an estimated 7,000 new jobs while strengthening domestic energy security. This comes after last year’s failed auction, signalling that offshore wind is investable again.

💭 My thoughts? The real challenge isn’t generation anymore – it’s grids, planning, and system readiness. If those don’t move faster, we’ll miss the benefits, and consumers won’t see the full value of green energy. But this is still a massive win after 2024’s disappointment.

🌬️ Wind farms cut power prices by almost a third in 2025. The average price of electricity traded on day-ahead markets last year was around £83 per megawatt-hour, but could have been as high as £121 per MWh without British windfarms limiting the role of gas power plants in setting prices. The saving of around £38 per MWh amounts to a price cut of 31%. This builds on savings of 25% in 2024, showing the growing impact of renewable energy on energy bills.

📊 Nathaniel Bullard’s energy transition charts. If you want a clear-eyed view of the energy transition, Bullard’s charts remain some of the best out there. They show steady progress across renewables, electrification, and clean energy investment, but also how slow and uneven that progress really is when viewed at system level. The transition is happening, just not in a neat, linear way.

💭 My thoughts? These are a useful reminder that neither hype nor despair is accurate. The energy transition is grinding forward, constrained by capital, infrastructure, and politics. That perspective feels especially important when narratives swing wildly from breakthrough to backlash.

🦜 How a ‘dysfunctional’ English farm became a biodiversity hotspot. The Knepp rewilding estate in Sussex has recorded a 900% increase in breeding birds in just 20 years. Imperilled species such as the turtle dove and nightingale, which have experienced shocking declines across much of the UK, saw their numbers increase by 600% and 511% respectively at Knepp. Butterfly numbers have doubled in some areas, while dragonflies and damselflies have increased by nearly 900%.

💭 My thoughts? “We have gone from a depleted, polluted, dysfunctional farmland to one of the most significant biodiversity hotspots in the UK,” said Isabella Tree. This shows what’s possible when we work with nature rather than against it.

🌊 High Seas Treaty enters into force. The landmark High Seas Treaty, formally known as the Agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction, entered into force on 17 January 2026. This historic agreement provides a framework for governance of about half of our planet’s surface and 95% of the ocean’s volume. It will make it possible to establish marine protected areas in the high seas, regulate the exploitation of marine genetic resources, and assess the environmental impact of current and future human activities. The Agreement has been ratified by 81 Parties, including the EU and 16 of its Member States.

🗺️ New map reveals landscape beneath Antarctica in unprecedented detail. Scientists have created the most complete, detailed map of Antarctica’s “underbelly” ever made, revealing thousands of previously undiscovered hills and ridges beneath the ice. The new approach combines satellite data with physics to understand what the continent looks like beneath ice that’s up to three miles thick in places. A more detailed understanding of these landforms could improve computer models of how Antarctica might change in future – crucial for predicting sea-level rise.

💼 How to make your workplace more eco-friendly. From ride-to-work challenges to waste-conscious catering, making your office more environmentally minded doesn’t have to be a slog. The Guardian’s latest piece offers practical tips on everything from rebooting the commute (encouraging cycling and remote work) to getting waste systems in order and don’t forget to turn off the lights. Transport is one of the fastest ways to cut emissions in the workplace, and even cycling twice a week can really help lift staff morale and health while reducing emissions.

🍽️ Singapore university trials carbon-labelled meals on campus. A university in Singapore is piloting carbon labels on campus meals, giving students visibility into the emissions associated with different food choices. The aim is not to restrict options, but to make carbon a normal part of everyday decision-making, much like calories or price.

💭 My thoughts? This is information design done well. Carbon labels will not transform diets overnight, but they help normalise the idea that emissions sit behind ordinary choices. Over time, that cultural shift matters more than any single intervention.

🌱 The world’s first biodiversity-focused VC fund. A new venture capital fund is explicitly targeting biodiversity, marking a shift away from carbon-only climate investing. Unlike emissions, biodiversity is local, complex, and hard to measure, which is exactly why it has historically struggled to attract capital.

💭 My thoughts? This feels overdue. If capital cannot learn how to value nature properly, we will keep optimising the wrong things. This is early, experimental, and risky, but that is what meaningful innovation usually looks like at the start.

📦 Union coffee switch all D2C packaging to recyclable. Packaging is a nightmare to get right. Over the last few years we’ve seen brands adopt ‘biodegrable’ plastics for things like coffee, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually going to break down. I’ve seen a lot of brands shift away from this, with Good and Proper Tea going back to traditional plastic that can actually be recycled and now Union shifting to paper-based packaging.

AI and Energy: A Complex Picture

I’m also keeping a close eye on the AI and energy story. We’ve seen rapid demand for energy from AI usage. That comes with it some good and a fair bit more bad right now. However, we are increasingly seeing major corporations look to boost renewable energy production in order to maintain AI growth while limiting emissions. Meta recently unveiled a series of major nuclear energy deals to power U.S. data centres and Toyota are building wind turbines to power data centres in Japan. Meanwhile, Trump is pushing tech companies on power costs as AI data centres demand more energy. It’s a reminder that AI may reshape sustainability efforts in 2026, but the energy demands are real and need addressing.

💭 My thoughts. There’s a lot here that’s genuinely encouraging. But almost every positive signal comes with a constraint attached. Energy. Infrastructure. Time.

That’s all from me folks. Here’s to a week of progress, both big and small. This week’s music recommendation is a very vibey jazz number that made its way to the holiday playlist.

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Welcome to the final Grumpy Optimist newsletter of the year before I take a few weeks away for Christmas and a trip to the Alps in January.

Fun fact, I’m flying there (£80 with British Airways) but getting the train back (£225!!!). It just goes to show how many people might take the slow travel route if the price was a tad more even. Anyway, this week there’s some good news on night trains and plenty more.

To everyone who celebrates, I hope you have a great Christmas and to all a happy New Year. I’m incredibly grateful for the ongoing love and support from people after bringing this blog back. I’m excited for 2026 and I hope you are too.

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👀 News to make you feel good this week

🌍 Seven quiet wins for climate and nature in 2025. This BBC piece highlights underreported progress across climate policy, ecosystem restoration and conservation. The wins span renewable energy quietly overtaking coal in parts of the world, major steps forward on ocean protection, wildlife recoveries, landmark legal opinions on climate responsibility, and real-world ecosystem restoration already delivering results.

🌬️ Green light for wind farm to power one million homes. The UK has approved a major offshore wind farm capable of powering around one million homes after regulators concluded the climate and energy benefits outweigh environmental concerns. It marks another step forward for large-scale renewables as grid demand continues to grow.

🇧🇷 Brazil commits to rapid energy roadmap deadline. Brazil has set ambitious deadlines for expanding renewables and upgrading its energy system. The plans signal serious intent from a country that plays an outsized role in both energy and biodiversity.

⚡ Samsung offers free electricity to households that cut usage. Samsung is partnering with energy providers to offer free or discounted electricity to customers who buy certain appliances and connect them to smart energy platforms. The schemes are designed to lower bills while shifting demand away from peak periods.

💭 My thoughts? This works because it aligns incentives. It’s also a great way to get more efficient items while also reaping benefits. Kudos for Samsung on this and helping minimise their downstream emissions.

📊 New York mandates GHG reporting for large emitters from 2027. New York has finalised regulations requiring large emitters to report their greenhouse gas emissions annually from 2027. The rule underpins the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and is designed to improve transparency, accountability and enforcement as emissions limits tighten.

🏦 BlackRock loses €5.9bn mandate over ESG stance. Dutch pension fund PME has pulled a €5.9bn mandate from BlackRock, citing concerns that the asset manager’s ESG approach no longer aligns with its sustainability ambitions. The decision reflects growing scrutiny from asset owners over whether managers are backing climate commitments with action.

🚆 European Sleeper launches night train to Milan and Switzerland. European Sleeper is expanding its night train network with a new route linking cities including Amsterdam, Brussels, Switzerland and Milan from 2026. It offers a lower-carbon alternative to short-haul flights while making overnight rail genuinely viable again.

💭 My thoughts? As I mentioned above, night trains are great, but they just need to be cheap enough to make sense. The company is currently fundraising to help create more routes too.

🛰️ Satellites help tackle landfill methane leaks. Satellite technology is making it easier to detect methane leaks from landfill sites in near real time. Better measurement means faster fixes for one of the most potent greenhouse gases.

🦜 Chile moves to create national park at edge of world. Chile plans to create a new national park protecting vast subantarctic forests, peatlands and coastline at the southern tip of South America. Covering a large stretch of Patagonia, the move will safeguard endangered species and strengthen long-term conservation efforts.

🦊 Abandoned oil refineries are becoming unlikely havens for wildlife. As industrial sites are abandoned, wildlife is reclaiming some former oil refineries, turning them into unexpected biodiversity hotspots. It is a reminder of nature’s resilience when given space.

📹 Videos to watch

🎥 The water bottle trend has gone too far. One of my favourite YouTubers, Matt D’Avella, looks at how the water bottle trend has shifted from sustainability to lifestyle excess. It shows that even sustainable items or products can get caught up in the world of overconsumption. A great video to highlight how crazy the world is.

That’s all from me folks. This week’s music recommendation is actually a delightfully peaceful guitar video. Here’s to wishing I could play an instrument.

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Welcome back to another week of positive climate news stories. This week it’s a good one. A lot of positive stories from around the world.

If you’re from the northern hemisphere and you’re getting sad from the dark winter months, I have good news, this Sunday is the shortest day of the year. It’s up from here!!

I also have a quick shout out to a good friend and even better man, Will Orchard and his new blog Beginnings. Last week, Will and I played squash at 7.30 in the morning, he recorded it and interviewed me across the course of the session. If you wanted to get to know the man behind this blog, hi btw, then do check it out.

Beginnings

George Wade | Zevero Co-Founder | Squash

It’s the dark yet mild morning of Monday 8th December. The week immediately following George’s 29th birthday and the week commencing my 27th. I found a slightly awkward slot under my arm for the rented rackets and waited for George to dismount from his Lime Bike before a welcome hug. Of course…

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5 months ago · 1 like · Will Orchard

That’s all from me, let’s get into some positive climate news, shall we?

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👀 News to make you feel good this week

🎄 Natural vs. artificial Christmas tree, what’s better? The real takeaway is that the “right” tree is rarely the biggest lever. Keeping what you’ve got for longer, and focusing on food waste and diet shifts, tends to matter far more. A nice reminder to spend less time perfecting the small stuff, and more time doing the big, boring wins consistently.

🕊️ White storks nest at Dagenham country park in rewilding project. White storks are set to return to East London as part of a major urban rewilding push. The project aims to restore wetland habitat and reconnect communities with nature, with storks returning first and beavers planned to follow later. It’s biodiversity, climate resilience, and local pride bundled into one visible story.

🦪 A vast oyster reef is about to transform the English coast. Europe’s largest restored oyster reef is being built off the Norfolk coast, with millions of native oysters returning to the seabed. Oyster reefs filter seawater, improve water quality, and create habitat for loads of marine life. It’s a practical, nature-based solution that improves ecosystems while strengthening coastal resilience.

⚖️ Trump offshore wind halt illegal, judge rules. A federal judge struck down a directive used to slow new wind permitting and leasing. It’s a meaningful win for project pipelines, investor confidence, and the broader signal that process matters. Not everything is solved, but this is the sort of ruling that unblocks real-world deployment.

💭 My thoughts? Clean energy momentum is increasingly “institutional”. That is good. It makes reversals harder.

🔋 World’s largest “green battery” comes to life in India. A giant hybrid project pairs huge solar and wind capacity with pumped storage, turning renewables into firm, dispatchable power. This is what “renewables + storage” looks like at serious scale, not as a pilot. It’s a proof point that clean power can be reliable, not just clean.

🌬️ 25 years of British offshore wind. UK offshore wind has gone from a small early project to a major pillar of power generation in one generation. The story is engineering, scaling, and supply chains maturing fast, not just “more turbines”. It’s also a reminder that long-term policy consistency compounds.

📈 10 Years Post-Paris: How emissions decoupling has progressed globally. A growing share of the global economy is now managing to grow while cutting CO₂. The report suggests decoupling is no longer theoretical, it’s happening at scale across many countries and regions. The challenge is turning “more decoupling” into outright, sustained emissions declines globally.

💭 My thoughts? This is the evidence base optimists need, but also the warning label: progress is real, and still not fast enough.

🏛️ Shell facing first UK legal claim over climate impact of fossil fuels. A new UK legal claim argues climate impacts should translate into corporate accountability. Regardless of outcome, it shows how fast climate litigation and attribution science are evolving. It’s another pressure line pushing companies to align with climate reality faster.

🇪🇺 EU reaches agreement to cut GHG emissions 90% by 2040. A big signal on long-term direction, with a clear mid-century pathway implied behind it. Targets are not delivery, but they shape investment, regulation, and corporate plans. The direction of travel remains towards faster decarbonisation.

🌊 Google signs ocean-based carbon removal deal with Ebb Carbon. More demand is flowing into carbon removal approaches beyond “traditional” offsets. Ocean-based removal is still early, but deals like this help fund learning curves and verification. It’s another marker that buyers are getting more serious about durable removal.

🧩 The best good climate news of 2025: states lead the way. A round-up of US state-level clean energy wins focused on affordability, grid upgrades, and holding polluters accountable. It’s a good reminder that progress keeps happening even when national politics is messy. Local policy is where a lot of delivery actually gets done.

💼 95% of business leaders see climate transition as growth opportunity. A striking signal shift: climate transition is being framed as opportunity, not only cost or compliance. That mindset unlocks capital, innovation, and faster internal decision-making. It’s a useful counterweight to the doom-and-gloom cycle.

That’s all from me this week folks. This episode was written after a weekend of blue sky, cold hands and a great work Christmas party. This week’s music recommendation is a nice background one…FKJ - Piano.

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

Welcome back to another week of the Grumpy Optimists. You may have noticed that I wasn’t in your inbox last week, it was my birthday and I thought I’d treat myself to the whole of Sunday away from a laptop. Shocking, I know.

Since then, I’ve had a busy few weeks wrapping up the year with Zevero and planning for a big 2026…more on that soon 👀. I’ve also spent some time in the countryside, hit a 91 sleep score on my Garmin for the first time in forever and feel recharged ready for a busy few weeks before Christmas.

I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Refer a friend

👀 News to make you feel good this week

🌋 AI helps uncover major new geothermal system in Nevada. AI doesn’t get the best press for its climate impact, rightly so, but I also believe it has incredible powers to create positive climate action. This example of a startup using AI to locate a hidden geothermal system in Nevada with no surface indicators is exactly that. It’s the first discovery of its kind in more than 30 years. The models reduced failed wells and increased accuracy in picking productive sites, lowering exploration risks and unlocking new clean baseload energy potential.

🌞 Solar panels on farms can improve crop yields and resilience. New research shows that agrivoltaics can boost crop yields by reducing heat stress, retaining soil moisture, and creating cooler microclimates. Surprisingly, crops benefit even when the panels are not generating electricity. It is a powerful example of dual land use making agriculture more climate resilient.

💭 My thoughts. In this case, food and energy systems do not need to compete for space at all. This is a win for both farmers and the grid. Take that NIMBYS.

🌀 Ozone hole over Antarctica shrinks to smallest since 2019. The ozone hole this year was the smallest and shortest lived since 2019, closing earlier than usual. Scientists attribute long-term improvements to the Montreal Protocol, although natural variability still plays a role. It is a rare global environmental success story.

🥛 The oat milk problem: why ship 90 percent water. My good friend in climate, Adam, found out about a very cool product, oat milk powder…90% of oat milk in a carton is just water, this means we are effectively shipping water around the world at huge emissions cost. Concentrated or powdered formats could dramatically reduce supply chain footprints. We’ve already done it with cleaning products, we may as well do it with other items too.

🐾 Ultra rare white Iberian lynx caught on camera in Spain. A white coated Iberian lynx, named Satureja, was photographed in southern Spain. The colouring is neither albinism nor classical leucism, making it exceptionally rare. Once critically endangered, the species has improved enough for such genetic diversity to reappear.

📘 EFRAG publishes simplified sustainability reporting standards. European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) has released a simplified version of the ESRS framework to reduce reporting burden on smaller firms. It keeps core transparency but removes unnecessary complexity.

💶 EU invests more than €5 billion in net zero technology. The EU has announced more than €5 billion in new funding for hydrogen, industrial decarbonisation, and net zero technology projects. The focus is on scaling solutions already showing commercial promise.

👟 UK watchdog bans Nike and Lacoste ads over misleading claims. Regulators banned ads from Nike, Superdry and Lacoste for overstating sustainability benefits. The ruling points to a tougher stance on green claims and rising expectations for transparency. If you work in marketing, you better get ready to back up your facts and be ready for the updated regulations. You can chat to me more about that here…

🌍 Africa moves toward a global Wildlife for Climate Declaration. African leaders are pushing nature based solutions up the global agenda. At COP30, Zimbabwe and Gambia backed plans for a Wildlife for Climate Declaration to launch at COP31. The commitment builds on the African Union’s Gaborone Declaration, which recognises wildlife as a vital ally in climate action. From elephants dispersing seeds to blue carbon ecosystems along coasts, wildlife drives natural carbon storage. Yet new research warns of a continent-wide decline in these animal populations.

🧱 LEGO rolls out recyclable paper-based bags to replace plastic. LEGO has started replacing plastic bags inside its sets with recyclable paper-based alternatives. The change removes thousands of tonnes of plastic waste annually. It’s not perfect, but it’s progress. If only it wasn’t for all of those plastic bricks.

That’s all from me folks. Signing off with my Spotify wrapped top Artists so you can see the Granola Boy that I am. Last year it was Coldplay, so we’re making progress.

I want to know, what was your number one song of the year? Consider it being added to a Grumpy Optimist playlist…a couple of good options from me

1. “Ben Howard – Keep Your Head Up”
Something I wish people in London would do more often while walking rather than being on their phones.

2. “Bon Iver – Holocene”
Because you can’t listen to this and not want to be in nature.

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚

I’m back in the UK and already missing the blue skies and warm weather of Tokyo on this cold and dark Sunday evening. But, I’m back and ready to take the learnings and inspiration back to the office tomorrow.

Quick plug. I’m hosting a webinar on Tuesday at 2pm GMT on building a business case for sustainability. Whether you work in sustainability or you’re trying to get your company to act, I’ll walk through how to get management on board. You can sign up here. It will be fun and useful, I promise.

For now, let’s dig in to some positive climate news before I fall asleep at 7pm with jet lag

👀 News to make you feel good this week

🧊 Ancient microbes frozen for 40,000 years thaw, revive and devour carbon. Scientists have discovered ancient microbes that revived after tens of thousands of years and immediately began consuming carbon. Their behaviour challenges assumptions about carbon cycles in thawing permafrost and suggests the Arctic could respond in more complex ways than expected. A surprising reminder that climate feedback loops are rarely simple.

🇩🇰 Denmark announces one of the world’s most ambitious climate targets. Denmark has unveiled new climate goals that far exceed the pace of wider EU action, committing to deeper emissions cuts and major investment in clean industry. The government argues that early leadership will strengthen its competitiveness as global markets decarbonise. It is a rare example of a country choosing to accelerate, not delay.

♻️ Designing the reuse economy: how architects can build supply chains, not just buildings. Architects are shifting from designing single-use buildings to thinking in circular systems, building networks for reclaimed materials rather than relying on demolition. This approach could dramatically reduce construction emissions while reshaping supply chains around reuse. It’s a practical route to embedding circularity in the built environment.

💨 UK wind farms generate record levels of power. The UK generated a record amount of wind power in November, driving fossil-fuel use to unusually low levels. Strong offshore and onshore output showed how resilient the country’s renewable infrastructure has become. These records are happening more frequently as build-out continues.

🏙️ Mayors coordinate climate action ahead of UN summit. More than 300 mayors met in Rio to coordinate practical plans for extreme-heat response, green infrastructure and local adaptation. The group aims to push national governments by showing what meaningful action looks like on the ground. Cities continue to act even when national politics slow things down.

💭 My thoughts: when I was in Tokyo, one of the meetings I had was with our client, none other than Tokyo Government. It made me realise the scale that cities can have to drive decarbonisation, both in their own assets and the wider ecosystem.

🔥 Essex couple slash heating bills with a data-centre in their shed. A couple are piloting the UK’s first “HeatHub”, a tiny data centre that warms their home using heat from 500 mini-computers. The system, developed by Thermify and UK Power Networks’ SHIELD project, captures waste heat from data processing and feeds it into their hot water and heating. Their monthly bills have dropped from £375 to around £40. The household also uses solar panels and a battery, further lowering costs. The HeatHub units could eventually form a distributed low-carbon data network.

💭 My thoughts. A neat example of using waste heat that already exists instead of burning more gas. If this scaled, small distributed data centres could double as hyper-local heating infrastructure. It’s the kind of practical, modular climate solution that feels surprisingly underrated and shows that the transition to net zero doesn’t always require building vast new systems from scratch.

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🤔 News to make you think

⛰️ ”Nothing we do is sustainable”. Patagonia, a company that is legally structured to serve the planet - all profits from the company now go to a non-profit called the Holdfast Collective to fight climate change and protect nature - has come out and taken aim at it’s own business model for being unsustainable.

Their emissions are up, they use labour that does not pay the living wage and they are heavily reliant on synthetic materials. It does however show clear transparency. The company is also using its business, voice, community to support grassroots movements, and its profits to fund environmental efforts via its new owner structure.

It’s an interesting read, I love the transparency but it does also show the challenges of decarbonising in a high-consumption world.

If you’re a consumer of their products, the takeaway is clear: a purchase from Patagonia may support mission-driven business, but that does not mean zero impact. The report helps set realistic expectations and shows the challenges all clothing businesses face.

That’s all from me this week folks. I’ve done a whole lot of sleeping this weekend and I’m looking forward to getting stuck back in to some climate work again this week before I turn 29. Crazy. Maybe I’ll take the day off for it next week, who knows.

My music recommendation is Peace, Good Jeans. A throwback to being a 16 year old indie boy again.

George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚