DeBriefed: Earth’s first ‘tipping point’; Climate adviser interview; How warming affects children’s health
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Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed. An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change. This week Earth’s first climate ‘tipping point’ reached CORAL IN CRISIS: A new report warned that the world has reached its first climate “tipping point” as global warming pushes warm-water coral reefs towards an irreversible decline, the Press Association […]
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Governmental Climate Duties in Comparative Perspective: Civil, Common, and European Legal Traditions
Climate change presents one of the most disruptive challenges for contemporary legal systems. One aspect of climate change as a legal problem that is especially disruptive concerns the determination and extent of the duties of governments to address its causes and consequences. In this post, I analyze landmark climate litigation cases through a comparative lens, […]
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7 Feature Engineering Tricks for Text Data
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An increasing number of AI and machine learning-based systems feed on text data — language models are a notable example today.
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3 Ways to Speed Up Model Training Without More GPUs
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In this article, you will learn three proven ways to speed up model training by optimizing precision, memory, and data flow — without adding any…
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China Briefing 16 October 2025: New export controls; IEA China projections; Provincial ‘Doc 136’ progress
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing. China Briefing handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here. Key developments New export controls ‘SWEEPING’ CURBS: The Chinese government issued “sweeping export controls on rare earths and related technologies”, the Financial Times reported, with the set of […]
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The Carbon Brief Interview: UK Climate Change Committee’s Emma Pinchbeck
Emma Pinchbeck has been the chief executive of the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) since November 2024. The committee is a statutory body created under the Climate Change Act 2008 and is the official adviser to the UK government on climate change mitigation and adaptation. In this role, the CCC delivers regular progress reports to […]
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The Role of International Human Rights Law in Climate Reparations
As the climate crisis accelerates, it has become increasingly clear that its consequences are not distributed equally. Marginalized and vulnerable communities, particularly Indigenous peoples, low-income nations, and small island states are disproportionately affected despite contributing the least to climate degradation. This disparity has spurred calls for climate reparations: a framework for redress and compensation for […]
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Biodegradeable PCBs demonstrate operation at GHz frequencies
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Disinfection system installed at a facility owned by South East Water A collaboration between the University of Glasgow and Jiva Materials has demonstrated biodegradable “Soluboards” capable of operating at GHz frequencies. The advance holds forth the promise that eco-friendly materials could replace conventional, non-recyclable PCBs in wireless devices. PCBs account for up to 40% of […]
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Method teaches generative AI models to locate personalized objects
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Say a person takes their French Bulldog, Bowser, to the dog park. Identifying Bowser as he plays among the other canines is easy for the dog-owner to do while onsite. But if someone wants to use a generative AI model like GPT-5 to monitor their pet while they are at work, the model could fail […]
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Global wildfires burned an area of land larger than India in 2024
“Extreme” wildfires emitted more than 8bn tonnes of carbon dioxide during the 2024-25 “global fire season”, according to a new report. The annual “state of wildfires” report from an international team of scientists finds that fires burned at least 3.7m square kilometres of land – an area larger than India – between March 2024 and […]
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Blending neuroscience, AI, and music to create mental health innovations
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Computational neuroscientist and singer/songwriter Kimaya (Kimy) Lecamwasam, who also plays electric bass and guitar, says music has been a core part of her life for as long as she can remember. She grew up in a musical family and played in bands all through high school. “For most of my life, writing and playing music […]
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Remembering Professor Emerita Jeanne Shapiro Bamberger, a pioneer in music education
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MIT Music and Theater Arts fondly remembers the legacy of Professor Emerita Jeanne Shapiro Bamberger, who passed away peacefully at home in Berkeley, California, of natural causes on Dec. 12, 2024 at the age of 100. For three decades at the Institute, Bamberger found ways to use computers to engage students and help them learn music. […]
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Apple backs 650 MW wind and solar build in Europe
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The group’s renewable energy projects include the newly operational Castaño solar array in Spain. New solar and wind projects will add 650 MW of renewable energy capacity to European electrical grids, “to match the electricity European customers use to power Apple products”, as the consumer electronics giant framed the move, announced on 14 October. The […]
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Analysis: Only half of Chinese provinces finalise key ‘Document 136’ renewable rules
Only half of China’s provinces have finalised new rules for pricing wind and solar power, according to Carbon Brief analysis. Local governments are required to have published final plans to reform the way wind and solar power is priced in their jurisdiction before the end of this year. This follows the release of a central […]
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Scottish Green Energy Awards announces 2025 shortlist
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The awards ceremony will take place in Edinburgh on 4 December. The Scottish Green Energy Awards has announced (on 10 October) the 2025 shortlist for this annual celebration of the renewable energy industry. This year’s awards, organised by industry body Scottish Renewables, will bring together more than 1,650 guests from across the energy spectrum to […]
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From Crisis to Care: Narratives of Repair in the Cordilleras
The reality of L&D is increasingly being recognized in international climate negotiations, academic discourses, and policymaking. Although mitigation strategies and adaptation efforts are being implemented on various scales and in diverse forms around the world, the devastating impacts of the warming climate are already being experienced by numerous communities. Unfortunately, it is historically marginalized sectors […]
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Optimizing food subsidies: Applying digital platforms to maximize nutrition
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Oct. 16 is World Food Day, a global campaign to celebrate the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization 80 years ago, and to work toward a healthy, sustainable, food-secure future. More than 670 million people in the world are facing hunger. Millions of others are facing rising obesity rates and struggle to get healthy […]
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Checking the quality of materials just got easier with a new AI tool
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Manufacturing better batteries, faster electronics, and more effective pharmaceuticals depends on the discovery of new materials and the verification of their quality. Artificial intelligence is helping with the former, with tools that comb through catalogs of materials to quickly tag promising candidates. But once a material is made, verifying its quality still involves scanning it […]