Renewable Tuesday: Greenlash Edition

We have gotten used to Greenwashing by corporations and politicians claiming to do something about Global Warming simply by excusing their malign actions. Now we are starting to hear about greenlash, a social and political backlash against efforts to rein in emissions.

One word sums up climate politics in 2025: Greenlash

While greenlash might sound like a very American phenomenon, it actually took off in Europe. The EU was an early adopter of comprehensive climate policies, and also saw the first big wave of greenlash. That opposition was mainly driven by specific economic burdens — Germany’s plan to switch to energy-efficient heat pumps caused an uproar as homeowners worried about the costs, for example. In the United States, the greenlash gathered more fuel from Trump-style populism and the culture wars.

With a tumultuous 2025 coming to an end, dictionary editors have been digging through the lexicon for words that capture its spirit. Their picks — “AI slop,” “rage bait,” and the essentially meaningless phrase “6-7” — point to a world that’s very online, and not doing much better for it. For us at Grist, greenlash stood out as the word of the year, marking a moment when climate change was yanked off the political priority list.

Global Warming Catastrophes

A yearly checkup on the region documents a warmer, rainier Arctic and 200 Alaskan rivers “rusting” as melting tundra leaches minerals from the soil into waterways.

British PM Teresa May didn’t believe in Global Warming [Note: Professional Denialists deny this.] until she went walking in Switzerland and saw the melting glaciers for herself. Ötzi the Iceman found in a glacier cut no ice with her.

Reconstruction

Retreating Swiss glacier spurred May’s new 2050 climate goal

The Good News

🎩 2thanks

Heatmap: Google Is Cornering the Market on Energy Wonks    

Bloomberg e-mail:

Investors have piled into climate-friendly assets this year despite policy and regulatory rollbacks in the US and Europe, as artificial intelligence drives a boom in energy infrastructure demand.

Global green bond and loan issuance has reached a record $947 billion so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence. That’s as stock market gauges for renewables are set for their first annual gains since 2020, outperforming the S&P 500 by a wide margin, while shares of power-grid technology companies remain in favor.

The flows are notable in a year when US President Donald Trump backed fossil fuels and dismantled clean-energy subsidies and legislation. Europe also has rolled back some of its toughest environmental rules amid concerns about growth and competitiveness.

Another Bloomberg e-mail:

The International Court of Justice issued a first-of-its-kind ruling in favor of climate action, which promises to transform the way that NGOs and campaigners hold governments to account. In July, the court determined that countries risk being in violation of international law if they don’t work towards keeping global warming to the 1.5C threshold agreed upon at the Paris climate conference in 2015.

Yale Climate Connections: 

Coming soon: More climate change coverage

In 2026, we’ll continue delivering our people-first reporting on extreme weather in both English and Spanish, making lifesaving information available to people in both languages. We’ll be covering the continued rise of renewable energy, the communities that are building resilience, and the people who will never give up on fighting for a safe climate.

We’ll also be keeping close tabs on the midterm elections and the Trump administration’s attacks on climate science, reporting – without euphemism – what other news organizations can’t or won’t tell you.    

And we have some exciting things in the works for the new year – which, with your help, we hope to make a reality.

Here’s a peek at a few of them:

Continuing to expand our radio network, reaching more Americans in rural and red states with the truth about climate change
Expanding our outreach on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, helping more young people get the facts
Piloting an extreme weather alert project that gets lifesaving guidance to people during heat waves

Another Bloomberg e-mail: “All of the above” switches sides

An “all of the above” energy strategy was Republicans’ default position for years, even as it acted as a shield to protect fossil fuel interests. But they’ve largely abandoned it as President Donald Trump has remade the party into one of full-throated support for fossil fuels.

Now, Democrats are trying “all of the above” on for size, using it to position themselves as the party of affordability.

The governor-elect of Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, ran on an all-of-the-above energy policy in the country’s top location for power-hungry data centers. Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro calls himself “an all-of-the-above energy governor” while running a key swing state. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s recent embrace of natural gas is part of her plan to boost “reliable and clean” power, in a textbook example of all of the above.

Biden pushed both oil, to cripple OPEC; and renewables, to replace coal, oil, and gas. Now even Saudi Arabia reluctantly endorsed ending the burning of fossil fuels at COP30, although without using the words.

No New Nukes

I have a better deal for you—a bridge, real cheap, already built and carrying traffic.

Denial and Obstruction vs. Resistance and $$Real Money$$™

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Why 2026 Could Be the Year of Expensive Natural Gas

Almost half of home heating is done with natural gas, and around 40% — the plurality — of our electricity is generated with natural gas. Data center developers are pouring billions into natural gas power plants built on-site to feed their need for computational power. In its -260 degree Fahrenheit liquid form, the gas has attracted tens of billions of dollars in investments to export it abroad.

Is this Exxon’s new climate delay tactic? | Zero: The Climate Race

A Different Level of Idiocy

Data Centers and Natural Gas Are Bending the Climate Transition Curve, IEA Says

All of this is mirrored in the International Energy Agency’s 2025 World Energy Outlook, released Wednesday, which reflects a stark portrait of how America’s development of artificial intelligence and natural gas has made it distinct from its global peers. In combination, the effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the U.S.’s world-leading artificial intelligence development have meaningfully altered the group’s forecasts of global fossil fuel usage and emissions.

Much of the report compares two different scenarios for global energy usage and emissions — one looking at what governments are actually doing, and the other at what they say they want to do. The difference between the two is in the pace of the renewables buildout, and especially the pace at which fossil fuels’ place in the energy supply is wound down, if it is at all.

The group’s latest World Energy Outlook reflects the sharp swerve in U.S. policy over the past year.