VEN – Good News on Climate Action – Blog

Researchers have developed a new chemical process that transforms discarded PET bottles into an efficient, durable carbon-capture sorbent—tackling both plastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions at once. By Anthropocene Team September 18, 2025 Researchers have developed a new chemical process transforms plastic waste into an effective carbon capture material. The method works with polyethylene terephthalate (PET),…

New study shows that as more people switch to EVs, it spurs investment in renewable energy—making the grid greener across a wide range of scenarios, regardless of policy shifts. By Sarah DeWeerdt September 23, 2025 Anthropocene Getting more electric cars on the road will result in a greener electric grid because increased electricity demand for vehicle…

Guarding lakes and forests from poachers, local communities in Brazil deliver massive conservation benefits—at less than $1 per hectare. By Warren Cornwall September 24, 2025 Anthropocene Celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Madonna and Jennifer Lopez have made headlines calling for protection of the Amazon rainforest. But anonymous local villagers are the ones playing an outsized role in…

Introducing the Drawdown Explorer Stopping the climate crisis requires more than a passive list of solutions, which is why yesterday, in front of a packed house at the Nest Climate Campus during Climate Week NYC, we launched our most ground-breaking project ever: Drawdown Explorer.  Built upon trillions of data points and thousands of hours of analysis…

The Colombian government, with the support of Vanuatu, will hold the first international conference on a treaty to phase out fossil fuels. The conference is scheduled for April 2026. The proposed Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty aims to support the rapid expansion of renewable energy, prevent the expansion of the coal, oil, and gas sectors, and…

Bird of the year is back – reminding us why joy matters in difficult times  25/09/2025 Graham Readfearn The red goshawk’s deep, powerful wings emit a faint thrum as it accelerates under the canopy towards its prey. Rainbow lorikeets are no slouches, but they’re no match for the speed and agility of Australia’s rarest bird…

By Jan Rosenow Professor of Energy and Climate Policy at Oxford University This is truly mind-blowing: Norway has gone from near-zero sales of non‑emitting battery electric vehicles to now close to 100% of all new passenger car sales—achieved in about 13 years. What makes this transformation remarkable isn’t just the headline number, but how it…

Lubomila Jordanova CEO & Founder Plan A │ Co-Founder Greentech Alliance Visit my websiteNew York Climate Week 2025 was record-breaking with over 45,000 participants and 900 events across the city from September 21-28. Under the theme “Power On,” global leaders gathered to accelerate climate progress ahead of COP30. Here are the key insights that emerged:…

The NSW Housing Pattern Book is part of a broader push to densify cities without resorting to high-rise towers – and it has struck a chord well beyond Australia Kelly BurkeSat 27 Sep 2025 in The Guardian An Australian government faced with a housing crisis has launched an inexpensive, quick-fix plan that has caught the…

After a comparably slow start ‘it’s going to snowball’ says one industry expert as prices become more competitive and charging infrastructure catches up Petra Stock and Luca Ittimani Tue 23 Sep 2025 The Guardian Electric vehicles are increasingly common on Australian roads. But are we about to see the promised boom in new EV models? What about…

Phoebe Weston in The GuardianEveryone wants to save the bees. Angelina Jolie put on a beekeeping suit for Guerlain and David Beckham proudly presented the King with a pot of honey from his bees in Oxfordshire. So many people wanting to do good have set up hives in their gardens or on roofs that they have…

Figure amounts to a $60bn fall by 2030 under any future scenario of emissions reduction in Australia, modelling predicts. Graham Readfearn Sat 20 Sep 2025 in The Guardian The value of Australia’s coal and gas exports is predicted to plummet by 50% over the next five years as global demand for fossil fuel falls, according…

Bob Burton: Coalwire The latest government data shows Chinese manufacturers have produced 550 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity in the year to date, with August production up by almost a fifth on a year ago. China’s prodigious solar production capacity is not only reshaping the domestic power sector but is also underpinning rapid shifts in the renewable…

A new analysis shows that oil made from corn husks, wood chips, and other waste could plug greenhouse gas-belching abandoned oil wells while sequestering carbon for about $152 per ton By Anthropocene Team September 11, 2025 There are hundreds of thousands of abandoned oil and natural gas wells in the U.S. These orphaned wells, most of…

Greg Jericho in the Guardian The wellbeing framework has become little more than a data dump – but at least it highlights how little stock we should put in productivity figures Thu 18 Sep 2025 This week, the Bureau of Statistics realised its latest series of Measuring What Matters in an attempt to assess things beyond the…

Program aims to replace liquid fuels – which make up a third of Australia’s emissions – with cleaner alternatives Image from: Z. Wang, B. Dong, M. Li, Y. Ji, F. Han Configuration of low-carbon fuels green marine power systems in diverse ship types and applications. Energ Convers Manage,  302 (2024), Article 118139, 10.1016/j.enconman.2024.118139 Dan Jervis-Bardy in The Guardian Tue 16 Sep 2025 The Albanese government will invest…

In a lab outside Boulder Colorado, engineers are reinventing one of the dirtiest industrial processes on Earth—by swapping fire for modern alchemy. By Stephen Robert Miller in Anthropocene magazine In a business park in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, across a road from a popular swimming lake and surrounded by craft breweries, a startup called…

The authors reveal the origin of nucleation activity of barium-based nucleation particles in the salt hydrate calcium chloride hexahydrate (CCH), a candidate for near room temperature thermal energy storage.

Bill McKibben in the USA in The Guardian We’re beyond Mel Gibson’s Mad Max era. We no longer need oil to make it through the apocalypse Sun 7 Sep 2025 As I write these words, the No 1 trending story on the Guardian is titled: “The history and future of societal collapse”. It is an…