Interesting Ideas

Sarah Finch is among six recipients of the Goldman Environmental prize, awarded to honour grassroots activists around the world

The woman whose campaigning set a legal precedent in the UK that stopped thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions has been awarded one of the world’s most prestigious environmental prizes alongside five other women from around the globe.

A supreme court ruling in a case brought by Sarah Finch has been cited in decisions against new oil concessions in the North Sea, the UK’s first new deep coalmine for 30 years and even plans for new large-scale factory farms.

Iroro Tanshi, a Nigerian conservation ecologist who launched a successful, community-led campaign to protect endangered bats from human induced wildfires;

Borim Kim, a South Korean activist who won the continent’s first successful youth-led climate litigation, finding her government’s climate policy to be in violation of the rights of future generations;

Alannah Acaq Hurley, a leader of the Yup’ik Indigenous people led a campaign that stopped what would have been the continent’s largest open-pit mine, in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region;

Yuvelis Morales Blanco, a youth activist who mobilised others in her Afro-descendant community in Puerto Wilches against two drilling projects, preventing the introduction of commercial fracking into Colombia;

Theonila Roka Matbob, of Papua New Guinea, whose campaign forced Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest mining company, to sign an agreement to address devastation caused by its Panguna mine.

Research casts doubt on plans by UK government to offer subsidies for carbon capture attached to the power source

Burning wood for power generation can be worse for the climate than burning gas, even when the resulting carbon dioxide emissions are captured and stored, new research has shown.

The findings cast doubt on plans by several governments, including the UK, to offer subsidies or other financial support for carbon capture attached to wood-burning power.

Zoological Society of London commissions poet laureate for animation to mark its 200th anniversary

Over its two centuries, acclaimed writers and artists have found inspiration at London zoo, from Edwin Landseer’s Trafalgar Square lions, to AA Milne’s naming “Winnie” after resident bear Winnipeg, and Sylvia Plath’s poem Zoo Keeper’s Wife.

Plath’s husband, Ted Hughes, who would become poet laureate, worked at the zoo briefly as a dish washer, an experience said to have helped fuel his inspiration for The Thought-Fox.

I am about to board a flight to Guangzhou. I will get to see the latest in “Physical AI” from XPENG, including their ARIDGE flying car, IRON humanoid robot, VLA 2.0 intelligent driving system, and new EV models, like the GX. After a couple of days, I continue on to ... [continued]

The post Headed to China: Is There Anything That You Would Like Me to Explore? appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Sarah Finch’s fight against drilling led to a landmark ruling on fossil fuel emissions – and a leading environmental prize

It started with a notice in the local newspaper and ended with winning one of the world’s most prestigious environmental prizes. In 2010, Sarah Finch was flicking through the local planning notices when one caught her eye: a proposal to drill for oil at Horse Hill in Surrey, just outside Crawley, over the border in West Sussex, 6 miles (10km) from her home.

Surrey is not the kind of place one expects to find the oil industry. It’s a county of little villages, farms, woods and commuter railway stations. Its semi-rural landscape stretches off towards the horizon in a typically English green patchwork. It is difficult to envision it littered with nodding donkey pumpjacks and gas flares.

Seville could see 34C this week and parts of Brazil could hit high 30s, while storms forecast in southern Africa

Over the course of this week, temperatures in Spain are expected to soar well above the seasonal average. Daytime temperatures could reach about 30C in Madrid on Tuesday, 10C above the norm, while Seville may experience 34C, about 9C above its late April average. An area of low pressure situated out in the Atlantic will allow for a south-westerly flow, introducing warm air from north Africa. In addition to this heat, a notable dust plume is expected to travel northwards from the Sahara, covering the skies above Iberia and south-western France, which may lead to some particularly orange or red skies at sunrise and sunset.

In Brazil, high temperatures are forecast for the states of São Paulo, Paraná, Mato Grosso do Sul and Santa Catarina over the next few days, eventually spreading into Minas Gerais. Here, daytime maximum temperatures are expected to reach the high 30s celsius later in the week, about 5-10C above the seasonal average.

A month after the Chicago Auto Show, much of the industry conversation stayed predictable. Hybrids, facelifts, incremental gains. Safe ground. Then Toyota slipped in something more revealing: the bZ Time Attack Concept. This is not a styling exercise or a preview of a future model. It is a stress test. ... [continued]

The post bZ4x Time Attack Is Toyota Racing Prototype appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The answer is: No. Next question. Okay, fine. Let’s do this properly. Somewhere in a government conference room — air conditioning on full blast, bottled water for every seat, a PowerPoint deck that took three consultants and two months to produce — somebody connected these two dots and felt brilliant ... [continued]

The post Will Banning Social Media for Minors Actually Help Reduce Carbon Emissions? appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Data shows 224,000 new EVs were registered in March, with Norway leading way in terms of switching

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Sales of electric cars soared 51% in continental Europe last month, amid a rise in petrol and diesel costs driven by the Iran war.

Data shows that 224,000 new electric vehicles (EVs) were registered in March, and 500,000 across the first three months of the year – a 33.5% increase on a year earlier, according to analysis of national sales data in 15 countries by New AutoMotive and E-Mobility Europe, a trade body.

For the first time in the history of Turkey, the combined sales of electric and hybrid vehicles have surpassed traditional internal combustion engines, claiming over 51% of the market in the first quarter of the year. At the center of this seismic shift is Togg, the national mobility brand that ... [continued]

The post Togg Maintains Turkish Market Leadership, Expands In Germany Confident Of Diaspora Support appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Electric bikes (aka e-bikes) are super popular these days. They help people ride bikes further and for more purposes, and they help get more people onto bikes. That extra boost of power that’s available via ebikes gives the bike industry a big boost. But I hadn’t really thought about how ... [continued]

The post American Bike Patrol Services — E-Bikes for Police, Coming to Hawaii appeared first on CleanTechnica.

After writing about some of the worst foods for climate change, which are beef and dairy products, farmed shrimp, lamb, and pork, I wondered if vegetable oils too have a high carbon footprint. It turns out, they do, according to this article about a 2022 study: ““Whilst vegetable oils might ... [continued]

The post Are Vegetable Oils High Carbon & Bad For Climate Change? appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Conservationists in Denbighshire ‘angry and heartbroken’ after Nant-y-Ffrith site emptied during breeding season

More than 1,000 toads may have died after a reservoir important to the local ecosystem was drained by a water company, conservationists in north Wales have said.

Volunteers at Wrexham Toad Patrols help toads returning to the Nant-y-Ffrith reservoir on the Llandegla moors in breeding season, this year assisting 1,500 of the amphibians to cross busy roads to help protect the declining species.

As the rising number of vessels in the icy waters increases the risk of environmental disaster, scientists are scrambling to find potential solutions

Last winter, inside the subarctic Churchill Marine Observatory in Canada, scientists embarked on an experiment they hoped would result in a gamechanging remedy for polluted Arctic waters. They released130 litres of diesel into an ice-covered pool filled with raw seawater pumped in from Hudson Bayand added oil-eating microbes. The technique had been used successfully during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the scientists wanted to see if they could break down oil in colder waters.

The microbes were sluggish in response and the population showed little change after the first three weeks, says Eric Collins, a microbiologist at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, who led the project. But that did not last. “When we went back eight weeks later, we saw that there was a big change,” Collins says. “One particular bacterium grew to a very high abundance in the tanks and it was clear that it was feeding on the oil.” But two months is too long to wait should an oil spill occur. Time is of the essence.

Royal Enfield has officially moved past its century-long reliance on internal combustion with the commercial debut of the Flying Flea C6. This inaugural electric model from the world’s oldest motorcycle manufacturer in continuous production represents a strategic pivot toward sustainable urban mobility. The launch, which took place in Bengaluru this ... [continued]

The post Royal Enfield Launches The Flying Flea, Its First Electric Motorcycle appeared first on CleanTechnica.

A new green hydrogen proposal calls for hundreds of all-in-one, modular e-fuels facilities to leverage green hydrogen for locally produced, sustainable military fuels in Europe.

The post Defense Supplier Pitches Green Hydrogen For Military Electrofuels appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Speed is a distraction. The real battle in electric racing happens where no camera can follow — inside the algorithms, the thermal curves, and the split-second decisions that determine whether a championship is won or lost before the car even crosses the finish line. The ABB FIA Formula E World ... [continued]

The post The Race Nobody Sees: Formula E’s Madrid Round Is a War of Invisible Margins appeared first on CleanTechnica.

VinFast has addressed the critical pillars of supply and infrastructure by integrating its retail network with an aggressive energy ecosystem. As of April 2026, the company is shifting from administrative planning to the physical deployment of vehicles and energy infrastructure, positioning the Philippines as its primary testing ground for large-scale ... [continued]

The post VinFast Partners With 14 More Motorcycle Distributors, Aiming For A Major June Launch appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The planning minister will shortly decide whether to approve a Sydney aged care development on a site at risk of serious flooding

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An aged care development in Sydney’s inner west is looming as a key test of the New South Wales government’s plans to rapidly boost the housing supply.

The proposal for seniors housing at Junction Street in Forest Lodge, including a 12-bed aged care facility and 71 independent living units, is being assessed under the state significant development pathway after closing to public submissions in October last year.

In Poland, 80,000 people still work in coalmines – the last in the European Union that is fully committed to the energy transition. Once active mines are being converted to other uses, and yet coal is being extracted at record rates worldwide, and with the Iran war pushing up oil and gas prices, some in Poland are asking whether it is worth completely phasing out this fossil fuel

Coal dust is fine; it seeps into the pores of the skin. That is why a thin black line permanently traces the outline of Rafal Dzuman’s eyes, as if he were wearing makeup. Team leader of the G-2 mining crew, 49-year-old Rafal Dzuman has been descending every day to 700 metres below ground for at least 20 years, at the Murcki-Staszic coalmine in southern Poland. Opened in the mid-17th century and today owned by the Polish giant PGG, the mine sits on the southern outskirts of Katowice, and still extracts about 23,000 tonnes of coal a day.

Katowice, Poland: Miners exit the lift after working in the coal-mining tunnels at the Murcki-Staszic Mine (PGG Group), located on the southern outskirts of the city. Coal mining began here in 1657; today, the mine’s daily production stands at about 23,000 tonnes