DeBriefed 29 August 2025: Record wildfires; Solar myths factchecked; Climate veteran on COP reform
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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 Broken records FIRES: Wildfires have burned through more than 1m hectares of land across the EU, making 2025 the worst year on record, the Guardian reported. Blazes in the EU have burned four times as much land […]
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7 Pandas Tricks for Efficient Data Merging
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Data merging is the process of combining data from different sources into a unified dataset.
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Livescope Power Guide: Battery Types, Sizes, and Setups
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Garmin LiveScope has changed how people fish. Now, anglers can see fish and things under the water in real time because of clear sonar images. To get the most out of this new tool, you must have a reliable power source. The one you pick, how big it is, and how you set it up […]
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What Educators Need This Year, and How We’re Showing Up
This July, we marked a milestone, Climate Generation’s 20th annual Summer Institute! For two decades, this cornerstone event of the Teach Climate Network (TCN) has brought educators together to share teaching tips, instructional resources, and build community. Each year, the TCN Cohort Coalition and participants of the Summer Institute help shape the TCN offerings by […]
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MIT researchers develop AI tool to improve flu vaccine strain selection
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Every year, global health experts are faced with a high-stakes decision: Which influenza strains should go into the next seasonal vaccine? The choice must be made months in advance, long before flu season even begins, and it can often feel like a race against the clock. If the selected strains match those that circulate, the […]
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Factcheck: 16 misleading myths about solar power
Solar power is already providing the “cheapest electricity in history” and is expected to play a pivotal role in the global transition away from fossil fuels. The technology accounted for two-thirds of the world’s new electricity capacity and two-fifths of new generation in 2024, according to the thinktank Ember. Yet, this rapid expansion has triggered […]
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First CO2 injections mark milestone for Norway’s Longship CCS project
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Onshore storage tanks at the processing hub in Øygarden (image credit: Ruben Soltvedt) The first captured CO₂ has been injected into the subsea reservoir – 100km off the west coast of Norway – being used for Longship, the Norwegian government-backed carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, said to be one of the most ambitious in […]
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Can Africa Still Drill? What the ICJ Climate Opinion Means for Oil and Gas Exploration in Africa
In July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) adopted its advisory opinion on climate change. While the ICJ found that any State suffering from climate change can bring charges against others for their contribution to climate change, the opinion does not distinguish between the obligations of developed and developing States (except where treaty law […]
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Comment: Effective waste management in the age of e-waste
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Investing in the design of modular and repairable electronics extends product lifecycles and reduces the volume of e-waste generated. By Xavier Hubert, Head of Circular Economy, Global Services & Solutions with contract electronics manufacturer Flex Responsible management of e-waste is no longer about recycling or disposal. The focus is rapidly shifting from waste management to […]
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10 Useful NumPy One-Liners for Time Series Analysis
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Working with time series data often means wrestling with the same patterns over and over: calculating moving averages, detecting spikes, creating features for forecasting models.
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Cropped 27 August 2025: ‘Frustrating’ Amazon summit; Workplace heat hazards; Record European wildfires
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight. This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here. Key developments Amazon summit leaves observers ‘frustrated’ MISSING THE TARGET: The fifth summit of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization […]
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Warming due to tropical deforestation linked to 28,000 ‘excess’ deaths per year
Warming driven by deforestation caused an extra 28,000 heat-related deaths per year across Africa, South America and Asia over 2001-20, new research finds. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, is the first to look at human health impacts of warming caused specifically by tropical deforestation, as opposed to the burning of fossil fuels, its […]
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Guest post: China and India account for 87% of new coal-power capacity so far in 2025
China and India accounted for 87% of the new coal-power capacity put into operation in the first half of 2025, whereas other regions continued to move away from coal. These developments, highlighting a growing global divide between many countries phasing out coal power and a handful continuing to expand new capacity, are revealed in Global […]
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Guest post: Is climate change making UK droughts worse?
The year 2025 has seen exceptionally dry conditions in many parts of the UK. At the time of writing, a large area of England is officially “in drought” and hosepipe bans are in force for more than 8m households. This follows severe drought episodes in the summers of 2022 and 2018 – which raises the […]
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Simpler models can outperform deep learning at climate prediction
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Environmental scientists are increasingly using enormous artificial intelligence models to make predictions about changes in weather and climate, but a new study by MIT researchers shows that bigger models are not always better. The team demonstrates that, in certain climate scenarios, much simpler, physics-based models can generate more accurate predictions than state-of-the-art deep-learning models. Their […]
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LPG and its significance for off-grid homes and businesses
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The Flogas Avonmouth Terminal, repurposed from a former LNG peak-shaving facility. Avonmouth is now the UK’s largest above-ground LPG storage site, future-ready to store bioLPG. As the UK races towards the 2050 Net Zero target, rural communities risk being left behind. But the LPG sector’s infrastructure investments are shaping a renewable-ready sector for off-grid homes […]
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AI could stop hotels and restaurants wasting food, energy and talent: why aren’t they using it?
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Artificial Intelligence could slash waste, cut carbon emissions and ease staff burnout in the hospitality sector – yet many operators are barely scratching the surface, according to new research from the University of Surrey. The study, published in Sustainable Development, in collaboration with partners in Spain, seemed to find that AI technologies could give hotels, […]
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Indonesia equipped to act after global plastics treaty fails, say report authors
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Manual waste sorting in Indonesia (image credit: Algi Febri Sugita) While global leaders failed to agree on whether to stop the growth of plastic production, a group of UK researchers claims a new evidence-backed report gives Indonesia a 26-point plan to act now. The deadlock apparent at the talks’ conclusion, on 14 August, leaves progress […]