Solar, wind and other renewables generated more electricity than coal-fired power plants over the first six months of 2025, the Guardian reports, adding that this was for the “first time”. Citing a report by thinktank Ember, the newspaper says: “The world generated almost a third more solar power in the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2024, meeting 83% of the global increase in electricity demand. Wind power grew by just over 7%, allowing renewables to displace fossil fuels for the first time…China and India were largely responsible for the surge in renewables, according to the Ember report, in contrast with the US and Europe, which relied more heavily on fossil fuels.” The Associated Press reports that in the first half of 2025, “solar and wind generation combined grew by more than 400 terawatt hours, which was more than overall global demand increased in the same period”. BBC News notes that coal was still the world’s largest source of generation in 2024. The Daily Mail, Sky News and the Times of India also cover the story. 

Meanwhile, the Financial Times ties its coverage to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that it says shows a “surge” in wind and solar helping renewables add 4,608 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity by 2030, some 5% lower than thought last year. The newspaper says this is largely due to the agency halving its forecast for the US – from 500GW of new capacity by 2030 to 250GW. It continues: “The IEA also upgraded its forecast for India’s renewable energy growth by 10% putting it on track to become the second-largest renewables growth market globally after China. The forecast for green energy in the Middle East and north Africa was also upped by 23%, helped by Saudi Arabia rolling out wind turbines and solar panels.” Bloomberg says the IEA “slashed in half its forecast of US renewable energy growth by 2030, even as the rest of the world races to double its green power capacity over the same period”. 

The UK’s opposition Conservative party [currently third in the polls] has pledged to cut energy prices by scrapping carbon pricing and wind subsidies, BBC News reports. The outlet continues: “The Tories are promising that scrapping the two schemes would knock a combined £165 off the average household energy bill.” The Press Association says that shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho “told members that scrapping the carbon tax would ‘instantly’ cut bills by almost £8bn”. According to BusinessGreen, the Conservatives “announced they would remove the ‘carbon tax’ on energy bills by rolling back the UK’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and axing the Carbon Price Support (CPS) mechanism introduced by former Tory chancellor George Osborne.” It says that the party offered no evidence to support its claims, nor any alternative approach, adding: “The analysis was immediately contested by energy experts and green groups, which warned the moves risked stymying investment, undermining energy security, and leaving the UK more reliant on fossil gas that has been the primary driver of high energy costs in recent years.” The Daily Mail and the Daily Express also cover the story. 

MORE ON UK

• BusinessGreen covers new analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, which “suggests last year’s wholesale electricity price could have been up to 33% higher without contribution from wind power generation”. In its coverage of the report, E&E News reports that “wind power is starting to weigh on wholesale electricity costs by reducing the amount of time the price is set by more expensive gas power plants”.
• The Press Association reports that Scottish first minister John Swinney “said storms like Storm Amy are an ‘illustration of the climate problem’ which show the need for action”.
• The i newspaper has a “big read” on “the four problems Kemi Badenoch can’t avoid at first Tory conference as leader”. The first listed problem is an “intense backlash from within the party” to her stance on climate policy.
• Autocar reports that changes to the way the costs of the electricity network are shared, the so-called “targeted charging review” introduced by energy regulator Ofgem, could “stunt” the growth of the UK’s EV charging network. 
• The Financial Times reports on its frontpage that the UK has become the “largest international market” for Chinese carmaker BYD. The Daily Telegraph says BYD “is poised to overtake Vauxhall in Britain after its UK sales surged by tenfold”.
• The Times says chemical firm Ineos is “cutting a fifth of its Hull workforce, citing ‘sky-high’ UK energy costs as well as China’s ‘anti-competitive practices’”. [The Sunday Times reported over the weekend that Ineos had “frozen hiring as it focuses on reducing a debt pile of more than €11bn”, resulting from an “acquisition spree”.]

A group of solar energy companies, unions, NGOs and homeowners have filed a lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its decision to cancel $7bn in grants, which were “intended to help low- and moderate-income families install solar panels on their homes”, the New York Times reports. According to the newspaper, the lawsuit accuses the EPA of “illegally revoking the money under the Solar for All program without congressional approval”. The Associated Press says: “They say the Trump administration’s termination of the program was illegal and they want a federal judge to direct the EPA to reinstate it. The programme is affiliated with another $20bn in green funding also terminated under president Donald Trump that EPA administrator Lee Zeldin had characterised as a fraudulent scheme fraught with waste. The EPA said in an email [on] Monday that it does not comment on litigation.”

MORE ON US

• Inside Climate News covers a report by two NGOs, which it says finds that 25 of 37 nominees for key government agencies requiring Senate approval “had ties to polluting industries, including oil and gas and mining”.
• The Hill reports that “a Navajo tribe-owned company bid $186,000 to lease 167m tonnes of coal on federal lands in southeastern Montana on Monday in the biggest US coal sale in more than a decade”. 
• The Washington Post reports that “Trump officials are making their next moves in a campaign to undercut the solar industry” by “leaning on trade measures in an attempt to further strangle the industry, while delaying permits for renewables projects”. 
• The New York Times reports that the Maryland Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday on “whether or not local communities can sue oil companies over their role in climate change”. 
• CNN reports that “the end of the $7,500 federal tax credit for EVs is expected to send sales plunging in the coming quarters and perhaps years” 

China’s exports of electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels, batteries and other “carbon-cutting technology” hit a record $20bn in August, according to a new report by thinktank Ember, Bloomberg reports. The outlet says that “the US, which has positioned itself as a major fossil fuel exporter, sold $80bn in oil and gas abroad through July, the last month with data available. China exported $120bn in green technology over the same period”. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) covers the same story, saying that China’s clean-tech exports to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) increased by 75% during the first eight months of 2025. 

MORE ON CHINA

• China has joined the Andean Community, a South American trade bloc “as an observer in a move analysts said would strengthen its strategic foothold in the region and help power industries ranging from artificial intelligence” to EVs, SCMP reports.
• Reuters: “China bets on Europe for self-driving tech expansion.”
• China has assembled the world’s “largest single-unit floating offshore wind power system”, with a capacity of 16 megawatts (MW), according to SCMP.
• PV-magazine reports that super typhoon Ragasa, which recently made landfall in China, has caused “extensive damage to solar energy infrastructure”.

In an article for the Times, former Conservative leader William Hague criticises his party’s approach to climate change, writing: “Repeal of the Climate Change Act must go with a good alternative plan that reduces emissions through innovation, for the ‘climate denial’ that has spread on the right of politics will soon seem like the greatest incompetence of all.” Elsewhere, Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee writes that “Britain needs the Conservative party”. Toynbee argues that “we may miss them if they are replaced with something worse,  and that party leader Kemi Badenoch is choosing “the annihilation path”. She writes that by “committing to leaving the European convention on human rights and abolishing the Climate Change Act, she actively repels lost Tory voters”. Toynbee adds that former Conservative prime minister Theresa May “is appalled at Badenoch’s ‘catastrophic mistake’” in pledging to abolish the Climate Change Act and notes that “a majority of 2024 Tories worry about the climate”. 

MORE COMMENT

• Journalist and former Green Party co-leader Adam Ramsay writes in the Guardian that there is “good and bad news for [current leader] Zack Polanski: the Green conference was a joy, but now hopes are stratospheric”. 
• Columnist Tom Harris writes in the Daily Telegraph that “the Green Party conference captured everything wrong with the modern hard-Left”. 
• Bloomberg opinion columnist Lara Williams writes that “greenhushing, in which companies quietly get on with the task of decarbonising without boasting about it” is “coming for carbon removal”.
• For the Wall Street Journal climate-sceptic Steve Koonin calls on the US government to “stop funding the National Academies’ climate studies until they shed the political conformity”. 

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Ayesha Tandon, with contributions from Henry Zhang and Wanyuan Song. It was edited by Simon Evans.

Subscribe for free.