My new book — Clearing the Air — comes out in the US on February 19th 📚
Goodreads is running a giveaway, in case you want to enter and have a chance of getting a free copy!
@mitpress.bsky.social
www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...
My new book — Clearing the Air — comes out in the US on February 19th 📚
Goodreads is running a giveaway, in case you want to enter and have a chance of getting a free copy!
@mitpress.bsky.social
www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...
If you’re looking for some holiday reading, my new book — Clearing the Air — is on offer at £1.99 on Kindle for the next 24 hours.
Hope you enjoy!
www.amazon.co.uk/Clearing-Air...
Thank you, Dave! Really appreciate you following along.
That's very generous. Yes, Our World in Data is a non-profit, and donations really mean a lot. I am biased, but my teammates really do great work, and I learn a lot from them. That also supports my writing elsewhere.
The relentless march of ever-falling battery prices continues.
🎁🔗 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
The Warming Stripes have been an iconic way to communicate temperature data. On the latest episode of the podcast, we got to speak to their creator, @edhawkins.org.
As a fellow data viz nerd, this was a fun one.
The latest episode of our podcast:
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p...
Here is the report from CREA too: energyandcleanair.org/publication/...
05.12.2025 13:52 — 👍 10 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 1
What happened on energy and climate in China this year?
A summary of the data, mostly drawing on the latest report from Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (by @laurimyllyvirta.bsky.social & team).
My latest Substack:
www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/chinese-em...
As of today, there are more electric cars than diesel cars in Norway.
03.12.2025 18:55 — 👍 178 🔁 42 💬 8 📌 6
In high school, only 2 other girls in my year chose physics as their science subject. Most girls chose chem or biology. Climate obv involves chem, but probably more physics.
In uni, there were very few other women in engineering courses. Chem eng was more popular, but not many in civil, electrical
Thank you!
Less sure about climate science (probably because it’s quite physics-based, and of the 3 sciences that skews more male?)
The energy field has a strong focus on engineering and construction, which again, are more male-dominated.
I think this has been slowly changing.
My top genres from Spotify: 1. Pop Rap 2. Grime 3. EDM 4. Indie 5. Indie Folk
When people see me working with headphones on, they probably assume I'm listening to calming classical or focus music.
In reality, I'm blaring rap and grime.
Top artists: 1) Taylor Swift 2) Bad Bunny 3) Olivia Dean
At a few book events, I've been asked why individuals should care much about their own personal actions on climate when Taylor Swift flies around in her private jet all the time (this was at the height of her tour).
Funnily enough, she is the most-listened to artist among my audiobook listeners 😄
I remember looking at demographic data of my followers on Twitter/X a few years ago, and it was very male-skewed (80/20, if I remember rightly).
Interesting to see the differences for my audiobooks.
Pie chart showing that 54% of listeners were male; 42% female; 3% non-specified, and 1% non-binary.
Just discovered that Spotify does a "Wrapped for Authors" on their audiobook demographics for the year.
Fun!
In my experience, climate/energy stuff is usually quite male-skewed, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that my book listeners weren't skewed *that* much!
This is a legitimate scientific revolution in meteorology.
Also, to be clear, these models are not the AI LLMs that most people are familiar with. They are machine learning algorithms trained on observations (actually reanalysis).
Graph showing: Nepalese passenger car imports by type: Monthly
The Nepalese EV transition.
In simple terms, brown on this graph is India's share and blue is China's share.
The trigger? India effectively halted all imports of petroleum into Nepal in 2015, an "undeclared blockade", which was "masked as constitutional concern".
robbieandrew.github.io/carsales/
A stacked area chart showing the total population (split by World Bank region) living in extreme poverty, defined as living below the International Poverty Line of $3 per day. Shown from 1990 to 2025, with World Bank projections from 2026–2040. The data is adjusted for inflation and cost of living differences. Rapid progress against extreme poverty in recent decades has slowed and is projected to end. In 1990, 2.3 billion people lived in extreme poverty. Since then, the number of extremely poor people has declined by 1.5 billion people. The number of people in extreme poverty is projected to decline, from 831 million people in 2025 to 793 million people in 2030. After 2030, the number of extremely poor people is expected to increase. The data source is Lakner et al (2024), updated using the World Bank PIP (2025). The chart is licensded CC BY to Our World in Data.
In the last decades, the world has made fantastic progress against extreme poverty. In 1990, 2.3 billion people lived in extreme poverty. Since then, the number of extremely poor people has declined by 1.5 *billion* people. 🧵
17.11.2025 11:24 — 👍 129 🔁 60 💬 4 📌 11How are you not laughing the entire way?
17.11.2025 14:21 — 👍 6 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Still I think the next first year of falling emissions outside of some crisis (e.g. COVID) is important to wave as a flag of “emissions are down, we can’t let them go back up again. Let‘s get a move on”
14.11.2025 20:26 — 👍 12 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The first year of falling global emissions after the peak (whenever that is) will probably also be fairly small, and within the bounds of uncertainty in emission estimates.
So you‘d probably want multiple years of data to be confident.
I still think that is possible, but 🤷🏼♀️
I also agree with Glen that you’d only confidently know that it was the peak in 2028 or 2029 or something, if emissions had continued to fall multiple years in a row (+ signs that the decline is structural)
I took the historical data from here: www.iea.org/data-and-sta...
Notes say it is DC. 2024 figures roughly align with IEA’s “average additions to 2035 are 540 GW, which is similar to levels in 2024”
Agreed they will slow and eventually stop growing, but I am doubtful we are there now (at a global level).
12.11.2025 17:56 — 👍 17 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0
The red line is how much solar PV has actually been added globally each year, up to 2024.
Black line represents the IEA's assumptions of how much solar will be added each year, to 2035, in its "Current Policies Scenario". Basically, solar has been growing strongly, but it assumes this growth stops.
It's worth reiterating that the IEA are quite explicit that this is not a "business-as-usual" scenario. They try to explain what it does and does not represent here: www.iea.org/commentaries...
Scenarios are useful for testing assumptions. The problem is that nuance is often lost in translation.
This is a simple chart based on the Current Policies Scenario assumption that "Annual solar PV capacity additions average 540 gigawatts to 2035, similar to the level in 2024."
www.iea.org/reports/worl...
Good thread from Dave about the new IEA "Current Policies Scenario" making a lot of the headlines.
Here is a very quick mock-up I made of what this scenario assumes for solar PV additions through to 2035, with historical context.
I'll let you decide whether this seems likely.
RIP Quentin Wilson. A great communicator and advocate for electrified transport.
His calm way of calling out misinformation and trying to cross the divide will be sorely missed.
A nice tribute video from: @bobbyllew.bsky.social
youtu.be/NlTalT3faSM?...
A couple of years old now, but maybe this one?
www.vox.com/the-highligh...
China's new climate targets made it clear that policymakers are still leaving the door open to a rebound in emissions in the next few years, despite a recent falling trend and clean energy growth rates that will keep emissions falling if sustained.
06.11.2025 05:10 — 👍 24 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 1