The Progress Playbook

By Oliver Gordon When it comes to being evicted from your home, it’s the wait that kills you. At least, that was Adama’s experience. She and her family had lived a comfortable four years in her modest flat in the El Clot neighbourhood of central Barcelona, until one day her landlord quadrupled her rent. Unable to pay, Adama appealed the eviction in the courts, arguing she had never previously missed a payment and the increase was unreasonable. The legal process was drawn out over almost three years.

By Oliver Gordon As you reach for the salt shaker at dinner tonight, pause for a moment to consider those fine white crystals. They may represent the final stage of a journey that starts in a harsh, unforgiving world few ever see. These crystals could well derive from the blistered salt flats of Surendranagar, in the western reaches of the Indian state of Gujarat.

A new Google data centre in Pine Island, Minnesota, will be powered by variable renewables and an iron-air storage system that’s set to become the largest battery facility in the world by capacity. The clean energy hub, to be developed by Xcel Energy, will include 1,400 MW of wind, 200 MW of solar and 300 MW / 30 GWh of long-duration energy storage provided by Form Energy. For context, the world’s biggest battery facility by capacity today is the 3.3 GWh Edwards & Sanborn unit in California.

By Fintan Burke, European Science Communication Institute The Swiss city of Winterthur plans to become carbon neutral by 2040. It has started to invest heavily in sustainable transport, namely its train stations and bus network. Although the city is well connected to other areas of the country, internally it faces several bottlenecks. Rail and bus passengers squeeze past each other when making connections. Its rail line bisects the city, creating choke points for traffic.

By Job Doornhof, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung / Clean Energy Wire Hundreds of residents of the German city of Frankfurt have made use of a scheme offering free public transport for one year in exchange for deregistering their car, according to figures seen by newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The scheme provides users with a free countrywide ‘Germany Ticket’ and was used nearly 750 times so far, the report said.

By Oliver Gordon On a sultry afternoon in Tomé-Açu, the agricultural heart of Brazil, farmer Zé Maria Pantoja strolls beneath the canopy of his 50-hectare agroforest. Tall, spindly açaí palms and hulking Brazil nut trees tower overhead, while fruit-laden cacao and cupuaçu bushes crowd the leaf-strewn ground below; the air thick with the scent of tropical plant growth and alive with bird chatter.

For the first time, wind and solar produced more electricity than all fossil-fired generators in the European Union in 2025, according to data collated by research group Ember. Wind and solar’s share of the electricity generation mix climbed to 30% for the year, while coal, gas and oil accounted for 29% of total output. All renewables made up nearly half (48%) of the mix, while nuclear’s share held steady at 23%. This meant non-fossil sources comprised 71% of electricity production.

Since China accounts for around 80% of global solar panel exports, tracking the country’s trade data is a useful way to monitor which nations are moving fastest to harness the power of the sun. While the Netherlands was the single-largest importer of Chinese panels in 2025, with 33.5GW entering the nation’s ports, we have excluded it from this ranking as most of those modules end up in other European countries. This means that developing nations led the way.

More than 100 US cities have now fully abolished parking mandates, according to a tally by the Parking Reform Network. “Each one of them represents a community that has chosen to prioritise people, housing, and small businesses over mandatory parking lots,” the non-profit group says. Shreveport is among the latest cities to make the move, and is the first in Louisiana to do so, while Baltimore is poised to follow suit, per the network.

By Julian Wettengel, Clean Energy Wire The European Commission has approved Germany’s plan to pay energy company LEAG up to 1.75 billion euros for the early closure of lignite-fired power plants under the country’s coal exit plan. The compensation covers lost profits and social costs to support employees as they transition to new jobs. Germany agreed to phase out coal power by 2038 at the latest.