[Feb 3-9'25] 🌡️ Climate Currents

From Electric Slime to a $3B Climate Bill Solution.

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Weekly Climate 🎉

References: [1], [2], [3], [4] and [5].

---

‼️News you can’t miss

Here’s one important scary/bad (🙀), good (😻), interesting (😼) and fossil (💩) news item.

🙀 #Climate Aid: Trump administration freezes $500 million in critical climate aid, endangering developing nations' climate resilience projects.

😻 #Polluters Pay: New York leads climate action by requiring fossil fuel companies to pay $3 billion annually for climate damage repair.

😼 #Green Technology: Scientists develop electricity-generating slime that could revolutionize medical bandages and robot skin.

💩 #Fossil Fuel Subsidies: Despite phase-out pledges, G7 fossil fuel subsidies surge to $1.36 trillion, with U.S. leading the increase.

---

👩‍⚕️ Status: Climate & Science

Let’s look at how we’re doing this week!

#Global Warming: January 2025 was the hottest January on record, surprising scientists during La Niña conditions. Factors like reduced air pollution may be accelerating global warming, complicating predictions for future temperatures and challenging climate goals set by the U.N.

#Climate Science: Researchers discovered that Greenland's ice moves in unexpected ways, producing tiny "ice quakes" due to impurities, challenging previous assumptions about glacier movement and potentially impacting sea level predictions.

---

📰 The 7 Grand Challenges

⚡️Decarbonize Electricity

Clean electricity is the one do-or-die challenge we must solve.

#Energy Crisis: Electricity demand in the U.S. is rapidly increasing, driven by manufacturing and data centers, leading to significant wait times for grid power. Immediate solutions include on-site power generation and demand management technologies, while long-term strategies require substantial investments in infrastructure and regulatory reform.

#State Energy: Fossil fuels are resurging in Illinois, with coal and gas plants delaying retirements despite a climate law aimed at increasing renewable energy. High demand from data centers is exacerbating the situation, hindering progress towards clean energy goals and raising health concerns due to increased emissions.

#Green Technology: Researchers at the University of Guelph have developed a natural slime that generates electricity when squeezed, with potential applications in medical bandages to enhance healing, synthetic skin for robots, and energy-generating flooring. The slime's structure can also change under an electric field, which may aid in targeted drug delivery.

🏘 Reduce impact of urban and rural areas

Lowering the impact of urban and rural areas.

#Electric Vehicles: BYD has rapidly risen to become the third best-selling auto brand globally, significantly increasing its share of the electric vehicle market and competing closely with Tesla as it looks to expand further in 2025.

🛁 Clean non-electrifiable activities

Some activities we do today can’t be electrified, these must be cleaned some other way.

#Plastic Waste: Many consumer products labeled as made from recycled plastic are often downcycled into non-recyclable items, contributing to landfill waste rather than a sustainable recycling cycle. Experts debate the definitions of recycling and downcycling, emphasizing the need for clearer terminology and accountability in plastic waste management.