On Oct. 2, the U.S. Department of Energy said it was terminating 321 awards supporting 223 projects, touting about $7.56 billion in taxpayer “savings” press release. But an Inside Climate News analysis using USAspending data suggests the savings are overstated: after excluding expired awards and subtracting funds already paid out, potential cuts from the Oct. 2 list are closer to ~$4.87 billion, and a leaked, broader list of 327 additional targets shows apparent immediate cuts of ~$7.84 billion—not the headline totals. Hydrogen hubs figure prominently; for example, the Gulf Coast HyVelocity hub is authorized for “up to” $1.2 billion but only about $22 million has been obligated for planning project page. The policy fight lands amid market tailwinds for renewables: wind and solar helped push global renewables past coal in H1 2025 Ember report, and the IEA still sees global renewable capacity roughly doubling by 2030 IEA.
A new peer-reviewed review in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources concludes that most carbon offset programs have delivered little real climate benefit, citing persistent problems with additionality, leakage, permanence and double counting. The paper synthesizes 25 years of research and argues that quality issues are systemic rather than the result of a few “bad apples” Are Carbon Offsets Fixable?. A separate meta-analysis in Nature Communications estimates that fewer than 16% of investigated credits correspond to genuine emission cuts Nature Communications study. Meanwhile, atmospheric CO₂ set new records in 2024, with Mauna Loa’s May average reaching 426.9 ppm NOAA. The voluntary carbon market’s value fell 61% in 2023 as buyers questioned credit quality Ecosystem Marketplace 2024. Reforms led by the Integrity Council’s Core Carbon Principles aim to raise standards ICVCM CCPs.
Jasmine McKenzie has become a first responder for people who rarely feel welcome in official disaster systems. As hurricanes batter the U.S. Southeast, the South Florida organizer and founder of the McKenzie Project loads cars with food, generators, clothes, and medicine and drives toward the storm’s wake. Her Hurricane Response Team — nicknamed the HRT Hub — aims to reach transgender Floridians who can’t safely access shelters or aid. A recent profile by Yale Climate Connections highlights how discrimination and paperwork hurdles compound risk for trans people, and how community care is closing deadly gaps When a hurricane hits, she shows up for those left behind. McKenzie and other advocates argue that the skills trans communities use daily — mutual aid, navigation of bureaucracy, and resource-sharing — are exactly what broader disaster response needs.
Former Reddit chief Yishan Wong has pivoted from social media to forest restoration with Terraformation, a Hawaii-based startup now testing a $25-per-month “tree subscription.” Unlike $1-to-$2 tree pitches that often just cover planting, the fee is meant to fund years of care for native, biodiverse forests on Hawaiʻi Island, with photos and updates sent to subscribers Tree planting by subscription, a new business from the former CEO of Reddit. Researchers say the higher price aligns with reality; as UC Santa Cruz ecologist Karen Holl puts it, “You might be able to plant a tree for a dollar, but you can’t grow a tree for a dollar” Planting trees is no panacea for climate change, says ecologist. Terraformation, backed by well-known tech investors, has long focused on corporate projects but is now inviting individuals to join in Reddit's former CEO wants you to buy a subscription for trees, Terraformation Subscriptions.
Solar power has crossed a psychological and economic line. A new analysis from the University of Surrey finds that, in the sunniest markets, utility-scale solar can deliver electricity for as little as £0.02 per unit—cheaper than coal, gas or even wind, thanks to decade-long cost declines and rapid scaling. The study also reports an 89% fall in lithium-ion battery prices since 2010, making solar-plus-storage competitive with gas plants and turning sunlight into a more reliable, dispatchable resource. The authors caution that grids in places like California and China already struggle with midday surpluses, so smarter networks, better forecasting and stronger regional links are essential. Read more via ScienceDaily, the University of Surrey and the open preprint on Authorea.
For the first time on record, renewable sources produced more electricity than coal in the first half of 2025, a milestone highlighted by Ember’s mid-year analysis and corroborated by independent coverage from Reuters. The gains were driven largely by solar and wind growth in China and India, which more than covered global demand increases. Yet progress isn’t uniform: the IEA’s new outlook trims its global forecast and cuts the U.S. growth projection by nearly half amid policy rollbacks. The result is a split-screen picture—renewables advancing worldwide while key Western markets wobble—suggesting a fragile but real turning point. For context, see New York Times coverage.
At a wetlands summit near Victoria Falls, U.S. ecologist Gillian T. Davies pressed a radical idea: give wetlands legal rights so courts can protect them before they’re damaged, a strategy gaining traction from Ecuador to Panama. Despite decades of pledges, wetlands keep disappearing—faster than forests—eroding natural flood buffers and carbon stores. Indigenous leaders have long framed nature as a living community; now more Western scientists are joining, bringing data to craft laws and win cases. Politics still slow progress: a Sri Lankan push to encourage “rights of wetlands” was sidelined, and diplomatic squabbles dominated the meeting. Yet momentum is building, as reported by Inside Climate News: The Scientists Making the Case for Nature’s Rights.
An Indigenous land defender, Efraín Fueres, was killed during protests in Ecuador, a stark example of a grim global trend: on average, three environmental defenders are killed or disappear each week. The unrest erupted after the government scrapped a diesel subsidy and imposed a sweeping state of emergency, with reports of troops in communities and communications blackouts. President Daniel Noboa has also moved toward rewriting the constitution, a step critics say could weaken protections for nature and Indigenous peoples. The case highlights how conflicts over land, mining and austerity collide with human rights. See reporting by Inside Climate News, corroborating updates from AP News, and global context from Global Witness.
Forest carbon credits promise to fund healthier, more resilient forests while offsetting emissions—but many programs still fall short. In a new interview, Clean Air Task Force scientist Rebecca Sanders-DeMott explains why today’s protocols often overstate climate benefits and what to do instead. She highlights four pillars that determine credit quality: durability, additionality, leakage, and long-term monitoring and verification. The proposed fixes include using up-to-date risk maps, revisiting baselines regularly or measuring them with comparison forests, tailoring leakage assumptions to local markets, and tightening monitoring as new tools emerge. Some registries and state programs are already moving, and buyers are demanding higher-quality credits, according to Yale Climate Connections.
A new analysis of chemical “tree rings” in long-lived clams points to mounting instability in a key North Atlantic current that helps regulate global climate. The study finds that freshwater influx has been disrupting the subpolar gyre since the 1950s, weakening the circulation that ferries heat northward and shapes weather across Europe and beyond. Researchers say the signal adds to mounting evidence that multiple Earth systems are edging toward dangerous tipping points. Coverage of the findings is available at Inside Climate News, while the peer-reviewed paper appears in Science Advances. A related review of destabilization signals across several tipping elements was published in Nature Geoscience.
A new analysis from Imperial College London’s Climate Damage Tracker, reported by Yale Climate Connections, finds that human-driven warming measurably intensified Super Typhoon Ragasa. At landfall near Yangjiang, Guangdong, on September 24, climate change increased the storm’s winds by about 7% and its rainfall by 12%, together lifting the overall damage by an estimated 36%. The storm killed at least 29 people and caused losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to insurance broker Aon. The study also shows such intense winds are now 49% more likely than in a cooler, preindustrial climate, shortening their expected return period from roughly 33 to 17 years. Heavy rains that once occurred every 8.8 years are now expected about every 6.7 years.
Spain and Portugal’s catastrophic 2025 wildfire season unfolded under heat and drought that scientists say were supercharged by human-driven warming. A new rapid attribution analysis finds the hot, dry, windy “fire weather” fueling the blazes is about 40 times more likely today and roughly 30% more intense than in a cooler, preindustrial climate. As fires swept Galicia, Asturias and northern Portugal, officials and media reported massive fatalities, including firefighters and residents, underscoring how climate-amplified extremes translate into deadly outcomes. Spain also recorded its hottest summer on record, compounding risks for responders and communities, according to the state weather agency AEMET.
