Fwd: Your Weekly Dose of Climate Hope: May 31, 2026
Neil Cutler
From: Climate Action Now <climateactapp+weekly...@substack.com>
Date: Sun, May 31, 2026 at 5:07 AM
Subject: Your Weekly Dose of Climate Hope: May 31, 2026
To: <neilcu...@gmail.com>
Our Sunday feature shares good news on climate action & resilience!Clean EnergyEmber calculates that in April 2026, across all of human civilization wind plus solar generated more electricity than fossil gas for the first time ever! Wind and solar generated 22% of global electricity that month, compared to gas at 20%. Notably, this was the first full month of the Iran War and Hormuz fossil fuel crisis, which has starkly exposed the vulnerability of combustion and accelerated clean electrification.
Türkiye, which will host the global COP31 climate talks in November 2026, is rapidly scaling up renewable energy. Wind and solar provided 22% of electricity generation in 2025, and there’s a rapid grid-scale battery build-out to match. The Kalyon Karapınar solar farm, Türkiye’s largest (so far!) was built on desertified ex-farmland, provides enough power for two million people and is known for its architecturally innovative central control building, a reflective prism with a courtyard oasis. Awesome work!
Our World in Data reports and visualizes that China added 497 terawatt-hours of new electricity generation in 2025, almost all from solar and wind. That’s new generation in just one year roughly equivalent to the output of the entire permanent electricity grid of Germany. The scale of electrotech build-outs is becoming truly epoch-making.
Maryland, New Hampshire, and Connecticut just became the 5th, 6th, and 7th U.S. state to allow plug-in solar, passing measures allowing installation without overwhelming red tape! And the California State Senate has passed another such plug-in solar accessibility bill on a 35 to 1 vote! If (when???) it’s approved by the House and Governor, the largest state market in America will unleash clean energy for all. Absolutely excellent news! Here’s an action.  Your Daily Dose of Climate HopePlug-in solar is progressing FAST, with major victories across America… 11 days ago · 32 likes · 3 comments
WildlifeA project to return platypuses to the Hacking River in a park south of Sydney began with the release of 10 individuals in 2023. Another 3 platypuses were released in 2025, and now another 4 in May 2026. With 17 reintroduced, 1 found dead, and 4 new puggles born in the wild, the estimated population now stands at 20. Great work!
The nesting season for sea turtles on the beaches of Florida runs from March through October. In 2026, the season has had a record-breaking start! The state’s FWC conservation commission reported that as of April 30, 2026, the Sunshine State had 1,008 nests of leatherback sea turtles, up by 4% from May 2025, 3 nests of Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, up from just 1 in May 2025, and a remarkable 1,450 nests of loggerhead sea turtles, up by 82% since May 2025. Green sea turtles nest later in the season, which is set to become a true banner year for chelonian restoration. Awesome!
In Patagonian waters off Argentina, researchers have discovered one of the largest deep-sea cold-water coral reefs ever found! It’s about 1,000 meters deep, made up mostly of the rare coral species Bathelia candida. Just one mound covers at least 0.4 km2, about the size of Vatican City, and there seem to be many more still unmapped! Restoration efforts have already begun in some patches damaged by fishing trawlers, installing substrates and 3D-printed coral replicas to attract fish and coral larvae colonists with transplants of coral fragments set to start next year. Superb work!
The great interwoven clonally reproducing bed of Poseidon’s ribbon weed seagrass (Posidonia australis) in Shark Bay just off Western Australia may be the largest single living organism on planet Earth. It’s over 4,500 years old and has grown to cover an area the size of Paris, France, and is a vital habitat site for dugongs, imperiled Indian Ocean manatee relatives. When a marine heat wave struck in 2011, about 25% of it, an area the size of Manhattan, was tragically lost in a world-record die-off. Community volunteers have been working for years to help restore the seagrass. And now, local Aboriginal Australian-led startup Tidal Moon is working to help restore Shark Bay and build an income-generating, ecosystem-supporting, and carbon-sequestering sea cucumber farm in the seagrass beds. They’ll hand-plant seagrass in barren patches with divers, and transplant heat-resistant seagrass fragments from shallow waters into deeper waters to build climate resilience. Fascinating work!
Innovation A group of architects based in Dhaka are teaching villages across low-lying and fast-developing Bangladesh how to build Khudi Bari, a new design of flooding-resistant tiny houses. They use local wood and bamboo, are elevated off the ground, and can be easily and quickly dismantled and relocated if necessary. Great adaptation work!
Australia signed the historic Falepili Union treaty with the low-lying and rising seas-imperiled atoll nation of Tuvalu in 2023. Over 65% of Tuvalu’s small population applied for Australian visas under the treaty terms in 2025. In 2026, the first cohort of 280 Tuvaluans have now been accepted and are making their way to Australia — the world’s first formally welcomed climate migrants. Simultaneously, an Australian-supported project is actively using dredging ships to push up seabed sand to form new elevated land, an effort which has already expanded Tuvalu’s landmass by 10%.
Agricultural yields for several vital staple grains have recently increased sharply in the fast-developing West African nation of Ghana, rising from less than 1.5 tonnes per hectare in the early 2000s to over 2.5 tonnes per hectare today. A major driver was a 2017 publicly funded initiative to distribute improved seeds, fertilizers, and other vital inputs. Improving agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most important tasks in the world to fight extreme poverty and build climate resilience, and this is a great blueprint on how it can be successfully done! Great news.
De-extinction startup Colossal has announced the hatching of 26 live baby chickens from their first-ever 3D-printed artificial eggs, a technological breakthrough that might someday enable the return of lost species like the giant moa whose chonky embryos could not survive in any living bird’s egg size. Extraordinary innovation work!
On May 20, 2026, an overwhelming majority of the human nations of Earth voted for a non-binding United Nations resolution (sponsored by Vanuatu) endorsing the famed July 2025 International Court of Justice advisory opinion which found that a clean and sustainable environment is a human right, that governments had a legal obligation to protect a stable climate, and that poor countries harmed by climate change could be entitled to reparations. Notably, 141 nations voted in favor and passed the motion, 28 abstained, and 8 nations voted against it, including infamous petrostates like Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the current U.S. regime. This resolution has no new legal effect, but it’s a powerful symbolic reminder that most of the world is on board with rapid clean electrification and striving to stabilize Earth! Do You Value Our Work?If you value our work, please help us continue it:
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