🌱 The Grumpy Optimists #163
War, oil, and the quiet end of coal's 100-year reign
Happy Tuesday. 👋
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 💚