Worldwide Good News About Climate & Renewables

Synopsis of all the top stories from around the globe in March 2026.

UK Emissions: A new analysis found that in 2025, greenhouse gas emissions in the UK fell to the ​​lowest since 1872. Coal use in the country was cut in half, dropping to levels last seen in 1600; and gas use fell to the lowest level since 1992. Notably, oil use also fell by 0.9 percent, thanks to more than 700,000 new electric vehicles, electric vans, and plug-in hybrids. Emissions in the UK are now 54 percent below 1990 levels.

Innovative Solution: Norwegian company can store summer solar power for use in winter.

It aims to tackle long-duration storage across seasons, one of the greatest challenges facing renewable energy systems.

US Wind: A vast wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts has just started providing clean energy to 350,000 homes - expected to save customers an estimated $500 million annually by displacing more expensive power - following a failed attempt by the Trump administration to halt its construction. It was one of five offshore wind projects that Trump halted for spurious “national security” reasons. Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five to resume construction. Hallelujah!

Backup to Backbone: It’s happening. Batteries are replacing gas on major grids in the US and Australia, shifting from backup to backbone. Projects are increasingly undercutting gas peakers, signalling a structural change in grid reliability, says BloombergNEF.

DIY Balcony Solar: In more than half of US states, lawmakers have introduced legislation that would boost adoption of small plug-in solar panels that sit on apartment balconies and plug directly into household outlets.

Green Economy: The Confederation of British Industry says that the UK’s green economy grew by 10.2 percent in the last year, outpacing the nation’s broader economy, which grew by just 1.3 percent in 2025. This follows separate research which found that clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025.

Bill Gates Goes Nuclear: The US has taken a step toward a 21st-century renaissance in civilian nuclear power as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given the go-ahead for Gates' Natrium Gen IV reactor to begin construction - the first such approval for a US reactor in a decade.

54: Year-over-year percentage increase in solar installations in Africa in 2025, according to the Global Solar Council.

Solar Tube: London's tube trains will soon be part-run by solar power - and no, this isn't an early April Fools'. Transport for London is the largest single electricity consumer in London, and is part of the mayor's ongoing bid to be using 100 percent renewably-sourced electricity by 2030.

Renewables Boost: First Putin, now Trump. Every cloud has a silver lining.

US Coal: During Donald Trump’s presidency, the US experienced the largest drop in coal-fired power capacity of any presidential term. According to Carbon Brief, the US’s ageing coal plants have been rendered uneconomic by cheaper gas and renewables. This follows research showing that renewables overtook coal as the world’s leading source of electricity for the first time last year, representing a “historic shift” in the global energy transition.

UK Geothermal: England's's first geothermal power plant is now operational, providing a completely new type of renewable electricity using hot water from deep underground.

Texas Solar Crown: Texas has passed California to become America's leader in utility-scale solar. Data for 2025, just released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, shows that Texas generated 58,634 gigawatt-hours from utility-scale solar, enough to pull ahead of California’s 53,713 gigawatt-hours. But if we look at the sum of utility-scale and small-scale solar, California remains ahead.

First Solar EV: The first Aptera, a futuristic aerodynamic three-wheel, two-seater, solar-powered car that may change the way road transport looks in the future, has just rolled off the production line in the US.

Global EV Adoption: The global adoption of electric vehicles helped save between 1.7 and 2.3 million barrels of oil per day in 2025, according to BloombergNEF. THe further good news is that the momentum doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

Green Mandate: Developers will be required to install solar panels and heat pumps in all new homes in England from 2028 as part of updated planning requirements published by the British government.

24/7 Solar Power: A massive project in Abu Dhabi that aims to prove that 24/7 solar power is possible is due to become operational next year. By combining the solar array with an enormous amount of battery capacity, the facility is expected to be able to store enough power generated during daylight hours so that between 750,000 homes can be powered 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This will help to address one of ​the critical flaws with solar power - its intermittency. What is the point of pouring billions of dollars into solar farms, critics have often asked, when they are unable to deliver power when the sun is not shining?