Climate Generation was founded in 2006 after polar explorer Will Steger’s eyewitness account of climate change in the arctic. Will brought this story back to Minnesota after his experience observing the arctic ice shelf melting, and moved a community of educators, politicians, and climate change communicators to take action. Unlike this rather clean, uncluttered story of Will, my story as an observer of and advocate for climate change hasn’t happened in one place nor am I even able to make sense of it most days. My story paints a picture of a woman who has come to climate awareness and action through many isolated and seemingly unconnected experiences.
Around the time that Will was sharing his story for the first time, I was in my first year of undergrad at college. I was completely unaware of Will and his story. In fact, I didn’t learn about climate change until my second or third year in college. I don’t want to discredit my university, so I will admit that I probably heard about it in some science classes. However, I didn’t really learn about the human-dimensions, like the fact that people caused it, that people’s health is impacted by it, and that we have a responsibility to fix it, until my junior year. Can you imagine a student today going that long—until they were 22—without learning about climate change?
Most youth now, even if they don’t learn about climate change in schools, learn about it online through social media and through their friends. As an educator, youth learning about climate change out in the wild so to speak is scary because of all the misinformation and fear mongering that I know is happening out there.
I grew up bouncing between two predominantly politically conservative communities. My school-year home was in Texas within an education system that taught intelligent design and never talked about climate change. My summer home was in a rural farming community in Iowa which regularly observed the effects of changing weather patterns, but didn’t discuss the depths of climate change within their community. Over twenty-five years later, this experience is strikingly similar to students in some rural and conservative states today suffering from political decisions to remove climate change from schools.
On the farm was where my love of the earth was forged. Daily chores caring for pigs and cows and harvesting corn was where I began to understand peoples’ reliance on animals and the land for food. Hunting, fishing and trapping with my uncles and older cousins taught me the importance of stewardship of wild animals and the ecosystems they rely on. Because of our reliance and interdependence with the outdoors, my family was deeply steeped in conversation about weather. We would check the rain gauge every morning, talk with neighbors about the precipitation predictions for the next week, and worry about the forecast for droughts for the season. Unbeknownst to me, this culture was forming the foundation through which I would become a climate change advocate and educator.
When I graduated in 2009 from college, Climate Generation was three years old, An Inconvenient Truth had recently come out, a coalition of federal partners had recently developed the Climate Literacy Principles, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Fourth Assessment Report warning that serious effects of warming had become evident has just been released. At this time, nearly 50% of U.S. adults believed in climate change and were concerned about its potential impacts. I would say I was one of those, but I definitely wasn’t in conversation with anyone about climate change at the time.
After my summers on the farm, I had finished school and moved to Washington to complete a degree in Environmental and Conservation Studies at the University of Washington. Through my degree, I was trained as a field ecologist and after graduating spent 10 years working on agricultural farms studying the efficiency of bees and other pollinators on crops. My days were spent watching honeybees and native bees busily buzz from flower to flower doing the hard work of making our food. Bees are uniquely attuned and sensitive to weather patterns: they will become less active in cloudy conditions, hide under leaves during a wind burst, and stay in their underground homes during rain for days on end. Watching an insect, who is responsible for producing U.S. crops valued at $50 billion annually, respond to weather patterns this intimately always made me wonder and worry about the larger patterns of climate and how even the smallest of shifts would impact our pollinating insects, and therefore our food supply.
In the roughly 15 years since, the climate change community has made some huge strides in changing the way they communicate about climate change. These strides have increased public acceptance of anthropogenic climate change, up to about 70% across the U.S. now, as well as ushered in some amazing solutions-centered work. U.S. Americans have become more concerned about climate change, and denialism has stayed consistently low. Next Generation Science Standards, which heavily center climate change, were published and adopted or accepted in 42 states! And, in very recent years, the connection between science, education and social justice have become regular features in the education system, and are becoming more wide-spread knowledge in the education system.
In 2020, just three months before the COVID 19 pandemic hit, I was hired as Climate Generation’s Climate Change Education Manager. I had recently gotten my Masters in Education from Rutgers University, and I wasn’t ready to jump into the school setting. At the time, I was completely unaware of the connection between my life as a farm kid, a student who came up through a politically conservative educational system, and a field ecologist to this new role. I applied because I had wanted to apply my knowledge and skills as an educator to something that seemed important.
It’s only through my job at Climate Generation, and the deep relationships I’ve forged with our partners and my colleagues, that I’ve come to understand how our identities throughout our lives can prepare us to understand and overcome the challenges of living through a crisis, such as the climate crises. I am now happy to say that I am a contributing member of the climate change movement, and I’m truly grateful that I work alongside so many people working towards solutions together.
Lindsey Kirkland supports on-going climate change education programs for K-12 educators and public audiences. As the Education Manager, she also develops a vision for and provides strategic coordination for programs focusing primarily on professional development for teachers and informal educators. Lindsey is adjunct faculty at Hamline University and supported the development of their Climate Literacy Certificate, a contributing author of NSTA’s Connect Science Learning journal, and an active member of Climate Literacy and the Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) and the North American Association of Environmental Education (NAAEE) Guidelines for Excellence writing team. Lindsey has served as an environmental educator with the AmeriCorps program the NJ Watershed Ambassadors, worked as a naturalist and education program coordinator for the NJ Audubon Society, and assisted in program development for museums, universities, and new nonprofit organizations in the United States and Australia. Lindsey holds a BS in Environment, Conservation and Fisheries Sciences from the University of Washington in Seattle, WA and a MEd in Science Education from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. In her spare time, Lindsey enjoys spending time with her husband and her son.
The post An Educator’s Messy Journey into Climate Work appeared first on Climate Generation.
It’s been less than 20 years since baby food in plastic pouches first appeared on supermarket shelves. Since then, these convenient and popular “squeeze-and-suck” products have become the dominant packaging for baby food, transforming the way that millions of babies are fed around the world. But emerging evidence raises concerns that big food brands are feeding our children plastic pollution with unknown consequences, by selling baby food in flexible plastic packaging.
Testing commissioned by Greenpeace International in 2025 found plastic particles in the baby food products of two global consumer goods companies – Danone and Nestlé. The study suggests a link between the type of plastic the pouches are lined with – polyethylene – and some of the microplastics found. Tests also suggest a range of plastic-associated chemicals in the packaging and food of both products.
Sign the petition for a strong Global Plastics Treaty
Governments around the world are now negotiating a Global Plastics Treaty – an agreement that could solve the planetary crisis brought by runaway plastic production. Let’s end the age of plastic – sign the petition for a strong Global Plastics Treaty now.
Climate Change
U.N. General Assembly Embraces Court Opinion That Says Nations Have a Legal Obligation to Take Climate Action
The U.S. was among eight countries that voted against endorsing the nonbinding ruling that said all nations must take steps to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of a climate justice resolution championed by the small Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu. The resolution welcomes the historic advisory opinion on climate change issued by the International Court of Justice in July 2025 and calls upon U.N. member states to act upon the court’s unanimous guidance, which clarified that addressing the climate crisis is not optional but rather is a legal duty under multiple sources of international law.
The number of new coal-fired power plants built around the world hit a “10-year high” in 2025, even as the global coal fleet generated less electricity, amid a “widening disconnect” in the sector.
That is according to the latest annual report from Global Energy Monitor (GEM), which finds that the world added nearly 100 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-power capacity in 2025, the equivalent of roughly 100 large coal plants.
It adds that 95% of the new coal plants were built in India and China.
Yet GEM says that the amount of electricity generated with coal fell by 0.6% in 2025 – with sharp drops in both China and India – as the fuel was displaced by record wind and solar output, among other factors.
The report notes that there have been previous dips in output from coal power and there could still be ups – as well as downs – in the near term.
For example, nearly 70% of the coal-fired units scheduled to retire globally in 2025 did not do so, due to postponements triggered by the 2022 energy crisis and policy shifts in the US.
However, GEM says that the underlying dynamics for coal power have now fundamentally shifted, as the cost of renewables has fallen and low usage hits coal profitability.
China and India dominate growth
In 2025, coal-capacity growth hit a 10-year high, with 97 gigawatts (GW) of new power plants being added, according to GEM.
(Capacity refers to the potential maximum power output, as measured in GW, whereas generation refers to power actually generated by the assets over a period of time, measured in gigawatt hours, GWh.)
This is the highest level since 2015 when 107GW began operating, as shown in the chart below. This makes 2025 the second-highest level of additions on record.
The majority of this growth came from China and India, which added 78GW and 10GW, respectively, against 9GW from all other countries.
Yet GEM points out that, even as coal capacity in China grew by 6%, the output from coal-fired power plants actually fell 1.2%. This means that each power plant would have been running less often, eroding its profitability. Similarly, capacity in India grew by 3.8%, while generation fell by 2.9%.
China and India had accounted for 87% of new coal-power capacity that came into operation in the first half of 2025. The shift up to 95% in the year as a whole highlights how increasingly just those two countries dominate the sector, GEM says.
Christine Shearer, project manager of GEM’s global coal plant tracker, said in a statement:
“In 2025, the world built more coal and used it less. Development has grown more concentrated, too – 95% of coal plant construction is now in China and India, and even they are building solar and wind fast enough to displace it.”
Both China and India saw solar and wind meet most or all of the growth in electricity demand last year.
Analysis for Carbon Brief last year showed that, in the first six months of 2025 alone, a record 212GW of solar was added in China, helping to make it the nation’s single-largest source of clean-power generation, for example.
However, the country continues to propose new coal plants. In 2025, a record 162GW of capacity was newly proposed for development or reactivated, according to GEM. This brought the overall capacity under development in the country to more than 500GW.
China’s 15th “five-year plan”, covering 2026-2030, had pledged to “promote the peaking” of coal use, while a more recent pair of policies introduced stricter controls on local governments’ coal use.
For its part, in India some 28GW of new coal capacity was newly proposed or reactivated last year, bringing the total under development to 107.3GW and under-construction capacity to 23.5GW.
The Indian government is planning to complete 85GW of new coal capacity in the next seven years, even as clean-energy expansion reaches levels that could cover all of the growth in electricity demand.
Outside of China and India, GEM says that just 32 countries have new coal plants under construction or under development, down from 38 in 2024.
Countries that have dropped plans for new coal in 2025 include South Korea, Brazil and Honduras, it says. GEM notes that the latter two mean that Latin America is now free from any new coal-power proposals.
This means that both electricity generation from coal and the construction of new coal-fired power plants are increasingly concentrated in just a few countries, as the chart below shows.
Indonesia’s coal fleet grew by 7% in 2025 to 61GW, with a quarter of the new capacity tied to nickel and aluminium processing, according to GEM.
Turkey – which is gearing up to host the COP31 international climate summit in November – has just one coal-plant proposal remaining, down from 70 in 2015.
The amount of new coal capacity that started to operate in south-east Asia fell for the third year in a row in 2025, according to GEM.
Countries in south Asia that rely on imported energy are increasingly looking to other technologies to protect themselves from fossil-fuel shocks, such as Pakistan, which is rapidly deploying solar, states the GEM report.
In Africa, plans for new coal capacity are concentrated in Zimbabwe and Zambia, the report shows, with the two countries accounting for two-thirds of planned development in the region.
‘Persistence of policies’
While new coal plants are still being built and even more are under development, GEM notes that the global electricity system is undergoing rapid changes.
Crucially, the growth of cheap renewable energy means that new coal plants do not automatically translate into higher electricity generation from coal.
Without rising output from coal power, building new plants simply results in the coal fleet running less often, further eroding its economics relative to wind and solar power.
Indeed, GEM notes that electricity generation from coal fell globally in 2025. Moreover, a recent report by thinktank Ember found that renewable energy overtook coal in 2025 to become the world’s largest source of electricity.
GEM notes that coal generation may fluctuate in the near term, in particular due to potential increases in demand driven by higher gas prices.
It adds that gas price shocks, such as the one triggered by the Iran war, can cause temporary reversals in the longer-term shift away from coal.
According to Carbon Brief analysis, at least eight countries announced plans to either increase their coal use or review plans to transition away from coal in the first month of the Iran war. However, a much-discussed “return to coal” is expected to be limited.
GEM’s report highlights that global fossil-fuel shocks can have an impact on the phase out of coal capacity over several years.
In the EU, for example, 69% of planned retirements did not take place in 2025, due to postponements that began in the 2022-23 energy crisis triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to the report. Countries across the bloc chose to retain their coal capacity amid gas supply disruptions and concerns about energy security.
Yet coal-fired power generation in the bloc is now more than 40% below 2022 levels. Again, this highlights that coal capacity does not necessarily translate into electricity generation from coal, with its associated CO2 emissions.
Overall, GEM notes that “repeated exposure to fossil-fuel price volatility is as likely to accelerate the shift toward clean energy as it is to delay it”.
GEM’s Shearer says in a statement:
“The central challenge heading into 2026 is not the availability of alternatives, but the persistence of policies that treat coal as necessary even as power systems move increasingly beyond it.”
In the US, 59% of planned retirements in 2025 did not happen, according to GEM. This was due to government intervention to keep ageing coal plants online.
Five coal-power plants have been told to remain online through federal “emergency” orders, for example, even as the coal fleet continues to face declining competitiveness.
Keeping these plants online has cost hundreds of millions of dollars and helped drive an annual increase in the average US household electricity prices of 7%, according to GEM.
Despite such measures, Trump has overseen a larger fall in coal-fired power capacity than any other US president, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Meanwhile, according to new figures from the US Energy Information Administration, solar and wind both set new records for energy production in 2025.
Despite challenges with policy and wider fossil-fuel impacts, the underlying dynamic has shifted, says GEM, as “clean energy becomes more competitive and widely deployed” around the world.
It adds that this raises the prospect of “a more sustained decoupling between coal-capacity growth and generation, particularly if clean-energy deployment continues at current rates”.
The post New coal plants hit ‘10-year’ global high in 2025 – but power output still fell appeared first on Carbon Brief.
New coal plants hit ‘10-year’ global high in 2025 – but power output still fell
REPORT: The Hidden Risks of Plastic Pouches for Baby Food
U.N. General Assembly Embraces Court Opinion That Says Nations Have a Legal Obligation to Take Climate Action
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