Climate Change and You: Renewable energy overtakes coal for the first time while coral reefs reach tipping point
In this edition, we take a look at how renewables surpassed coal for the first time, a death sentence to coral reefs, and how climate change is making cities hotter.
Climate Change and You is a fortnightly newsletter written by Bibek Bhattacharya and Sayantan Bera. Subscribe to the newsletter to get it directly in your inbox.
Dear reader,
It is a rare occasion when I can begin this newsletter with some good news, so here goes. About a week ago, news broke that renewable sources, such as solar and wind, generated more electricity than coal for the first time ever. Climate and energy think tank Ember’s report found that electricity from solar and wind not only kept pace with the growth in global energy demand but also outpaced it by a further 9%.
Global electricity demand increased by 2.6% to 369 terawatt-hours (TWh) during the first six months of the year, surpassing the same period in 2024, said the report. The bulk of this rise came from the four biggest greenhouse gas emitters:
-China 198TWh (54%)
-USA 76TWh (21%)
-India 12TWh (3.3%)
-EU 9TWh (2.4%)
Meanwhile, solar- and wind-generated electricity came to 403 TWh. The report states that solar-power generation alone accounted for 83% of this increase in electricity demand. In absolute terms, solar’s global share of electricity generation rose to 8.8%, more than doubling since 2021. The share of fossil fuels decreased slightly, by -0.3% from 2024, with coal falling by -0.6%. It isn’t a lot, and certainly not anywhere close to what is required, but this was a historic moment nonetheless.
STATE OF THE CLIMATE
Coral reefs hit tipping point
While clean-energy victories should be celebrated, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the climate crisis is accelerating way faster than our feeble efforts can keep up. A study published in the journal Nature on 1 October shows that rising heat due to carbon dioxide and methane is reaching critical levels, enough to completely change four vital parts of the Earth's systems that support life on the planet: the Amazon rainforest, Greenland ice sheets, South American monsoon, and Atlantic Ocean currents. The study says any or all of them “may abruptly transition to alternative stable states", which means that once they tip over from the states that they have been in for millions of years, it will be difficult to support life—or at least human life as we know it—on the planet.
A separate study, the Global Tipping Points Report 2025, suggests that one vital component of the Earth system, coral reefs, may have already tipped over into long-term decline. The study is the work of 160 scientists from 23 countries and led by the University of Exeter, and states that warm water reefs are unlikely to recover from the heat bleaching events that have affected 80% of them since January 2023, unless we act urgently to end greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and bring the global mean temperature down to 1-1.2 degrees Celsius of heating. The world is currently at about 1.4 degrees Celsius hotter than pre-industrial levels, and, at present rates, will permanently overshoot the 1.5 degrees safety mark within a decade.
The report also states that other global systems, like the west Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, are melting at an alarming rate and are “perilously close" to their tipping points. As is the Amazon rainforest, buffeted by deforestation and rising heat, which may tip over into dying.
THE NEWS IN BRIEF
-Following US President Donald Trump’s disingenuous claim of climate change being a con job, Mint called on Indian policymakers to keep global climate action as a guiding light.
-Staying with Trump’s outrageous anti-science stance, here’s an excellent rebuttal from Bloomberg’s Mark Gongloff.
-Climate scientists have always been at pains to point out that the story of climate change is also the story of our relationship with water. In this opinion piece for Mint, journalist Soumya Sarkar writes about how India’s growth depends on a predictable water supply, but this resource is becoming increasingly scarce.
CLIMATE CHANGE TRACKER
The climate crisis is disrupting animal migrations
Despite our human-centric worldview, it is important to understand how our continued use of fossil fuels is changing the lives of animals all around us for the worse. A report from earlier this month examines the various ways in which animal migration patterns are being disrupted by an increasingly warmer planet.
The report from the Convention of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) follows a workshop where over 70 international experts found that animals across the board are facing altered ranges and shrinking habitats. This is happening in a variety of ways: be it shorebird nesting times in Alaska being misaligned with their food source of seasonal insects, or land-use changes throwing Indian elephants off course, or Himalayan species being forced into smaller and smaller niches as the mountains get hot, or whales being forced to take dangerous detours while migrating. Our actions are playing havoc on the animals we share the planet with.
PRIME NUMBER
25
The largest capital cities in the world are now experiencing 25% more hot days than they did in the 1990s. The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) analysed heating patterns in 43 of the most populous capitals. Between 1993 and 2024, the number of hot days (with temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius) has sharply increased. The number of total hot days experienced by the 43 cities in 2024 cumulatively amounted to 1,612 days, up from 1,058 days in 1994.
Baghdad and New Delhi experienced the biggest rise, on average, of 33 and 29 days, respectively. Delhi now experiences nearly 160 days of high heat. However, this is a growing phenomenon, even in cities that have never experienced such heat. European capitals like Rome and Madrid have seen an increase in 13 and 22 hot days, respectively. A capital like Seoul, which had never experienced such daily highs before, now sees an average of 6 days of high heat.
BOOK OF THE MONTH
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
One of the great geniuses of human beings is our ability to tell stories, and when faced with such a critical time—an intersection of climate change, artificial intelligence, absolute corporate power, and the slow death of global institutions—it is stories that show the way to possible futures for mankind, both the wonders and the horrors. Ray Nayler’s 2022 novel—set in the near future, where many of the things I mentioned above have come to pass—is both a cautionary tale and one of hope.
Nayler’s premise is simple: When human civilisation has lost its way, how will it react when we finally meet aliens? These aliens will not be from another planet far away, but will be one of our neighbours from the animal kingdom, developing consciousness and starting to tell stories of their own. The Mountain in the Sea is both a thriller and a profound meditation on the nature of consciousness. This is a novel that you just can’t miss.
That’s it for this edition of Climate Change and You, dear reader. Sayantan Bera will be back in a fortnight with the next instalment.
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