Edition 07: March 10, 2025
As the United States continues to descend into chaos, it's important to remember that the rest of the world hasn't forgotten about climate action.
Global Biodiversity Summit Ends with Conservation Funding Pledge
Climate change isn’t the only environmental crisis the world faces — we are also losing biodiversity at an alarming rate. That’s why the United Nations hosts a biennial summit focused on protecting and restoring biodiversity. Back in 2022, this summit adopted the Global Biodiversity Framework which calls for protecting 30% of lands and waters by 2030. The most recent summit ended in Colombia last year without any formal conclusion, but an agreement was finally reached when the meeting reconvened in Italy at the end of February. This agreement calls for countries to commit at least $200 billion in conservation financing by 2030, but even that number is around $700 billion short of what is needed to effectively protect biodiversity. Governments, community stakeholders, and private industries alike are trying to find innovative ways to address this funding gap, and hopefully we’ll see more progress on that front by the next global biodiversity summit in 2026.
Source: Joanna Bailey writes for EuroNews
New Recycling Method Developed for Perovskite Solar Panels
Perovskite solar panels are lightweight, durable, and more affordable to produce compared to traditional solar panels. These panels are starting to be commercialized around the globe, and because of that, researchers in Sweden have developed an efficient way to recycle them. Traditional solar panel recycling requires industrial solvents made of harmful and expensive chemicals, but this new method uses a water-based solvent with more affordable and safe chemicals to recover up to 99% of materials. New panels made using only these recycled materials maintain an efficiency of 21% — which is slightly lower than the industry standard. The researchers behind this recycling method are now in the process of running further tests, and they hope it will be ready to be deployed at scale before waste from perovskite-based panels starts piling up.
Source: Rachel Williamson writes for Renew Economy
Portugal Set to Ban Deep Sea Mining
Demand for critical minerals is expected to skyrocket in the coming years because of the growing number of electronics that require them. The mineral extraction industry has been looking for more sources of these minerals to meet that demand, and now they are looking into deep sea mining. Deep sea mining is an emerging type of mineral extraction that aims to mine the seabed for critical minerals such as copper, nickel, and cobalt. Too little is known right now about what impacts deep sea mining could have on the environment, but what we do know is that it would be harmful to ocean ecosystems. That’s why environmental advocates have been trying to get countries to commit to banning deep sea mining before it can be commercialized, and Portugal has just become the 32nd country to make that commitment. They will ban deep sea mining across its territorial waters — including the biodiverse Azores Islands — until at least 2050.
Source: Natasha Donn writes for the Portugal Resident
Heat Pumps Outselling Gas Furnaces in The United State
Natural gas is a fossil fuel that is predominantly composed of methane — which is a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide in the short-term. It has been pushed as a heat and fuel source despite its known environmental and health impacts, and that’s why gas furnaces were the most popular type of heating system in the United States for decades. But that’s not the case anymore — Americans bought 32% more electric heat pumps than gas furnaces last year. Heat pumps are around 3-4 times more efficient than gas furnaces , and they do not contribute to climate change nearly as much as gas furnaces do. In fact, analyses have shown that if all Americans adopted heat pumps, it would be equivalent to taking 32 million cars off the road. With the rising cost of natural gas, more Americans are expected to make the switch when their furnaces need to be replaced, and that number will only increase if the Biden-era tax credits for them remain in place.
Source: Alison F. Takemura writes for Canary Media
Offshore Wind Turbines in The United Kingdom to Be Painted Black
Opponents of wind energy love to point out that wind turbines kill birds despite cars, windows, and cats killing far more on an annual basis, but that hasn’t stopped experts from coming up with solutions. Studies have shown that painting one wind turbine blade black can help reduce bird fatalities by 70%. This works by making the spinning blades more noticeable to flying birds by reducing motion blur. An estimated 4-18 birds are killed on an annual basis by each offshore wind turbine in the United Kingdom, and because of that, all offshore wind turbines in their territorial waters will be painted black as part of a four year trial aimed at reducing bird fatalities. This will be the first large-scale trial of this method, and it just proves once again that we can — and will — address the known issues with climate solutions.
Source: Rachel Keenan writes for The Guardian
Bison Return to First Nations Land for First Time in A Century
For centuries, European settlers in North America cut Indigenous communities off from their traditional practices and lands, and they nearly caused the American bison to go extinct because of it. These bison are sacred to many Indigenous communities — including the Birdtail Sioux Dakota Band in Southern Manitoba. They were recently gifted eleven bison by the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, and now bison have returned to their ancestral lands for the first time in over a century. Community elders are using these bison to teach the younger generations about dying cultural practices, and they hope raising these bison will help with food sovereignty as well as ecosystem restoration. The Birdtail Sioux Dakota Band isn’t the only Indigenous community working to bring back the bison — dozens across North America are either actively working or seeking funding for bison rematriation projects.
Source: Andy Corbley writes fro the Good News Network
New Seed Varieties Added to Doomsday Seed Vault
Climate change, conflict, and other human activities are severely threatening crop diversity around the world, and because of that, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was built in the early 2000s to safeguard as many seeds as possible. This seed vault was built deep underground on a remote archipelago in the Arctic Circle by the Norwegian government, and it currently protects over a million samples. Now the race is on to collect as many seed varieties as possible before we lose them, because unfortunately, climate change is making that more difficult each year. But the good news is that an additional 14,000 new seeds were recently added to the vault, and they include a wide variety of traditional and climate-resilient crops that researchers hope will help our global food systems thrive in a changing world for years to come.
Source: Ayurella Horn-Muller writes for Grist
Right to Repair Laws Gaining Popularity in The United States
Our elders were right — things just aren’t made to last anymore, and that is a direct result of planned obsolescence. Companies are purposely designing their products to break and then making it difficult to repair them in order for consumers to buy more of their products. This, in turn, has created a waste crisis while costing consumers untold amounts of money. Right to repair laws help address this by forcing companies to make repair parts, services, and instructions more freely available to the public, and all fifty United States have officially introduced right to repair legislation. So far six states — California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, and Oregon — have signed right to repair legislation into law, and these laws cover a wide variety of products ranging from consumer electronics to agricultural equipment. An additional twenty states are considering passing their own right to repair laws this year, and if the trend continues, federal right to repair legislation won’t be too far behind.