According to a new report from BloombergNEF, global clean power costs could fall between 2% and 11% this year, despite tariffs.

Even with potential trade barriers, the “Levelized Cost of Electricity” report estimated that clean energy costs for technologies such as wind, solar and battery storage will decrease 22% to 49% by 2035. Much of these cost savings are made possible through China’s rapid clean energy technology manufacturing capacity. According to the report, China can produce a megawatt-hour of clean energy at 11% to 64% lower costs than other markets.

A 2024 Global Energy Monitor report found that just the renewable energy capacity under construction in China last year was double the total of the same capacity under construction of all other countries combined. Last year, China also set records for installing the most wind and solar energy capacities, with an 45% increase in wind and 18% increase in solar.

Renewables are expected to become cheaper in 2025 and beyond. BNEF analysis shows new wind and solar farms are already undercutting new coal and gas plants on production cost in almost every market globally.

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— Jan Rosenow (@janrosenow.bsky.social) February 7, 2025 at 7:00 AM

The high clean energy technology capacity in China has lead some countries in Europe as well as the U.S. to enact or consider tariffs on products like solar panel components and electric vehicles. In May 2024, the Biden administration proposed tariff raises on solar cells, batteries, EVs and other products, and the first of those tariff increases went into effect last fall, Utility Dive reported. This week, the Trump administration further enacted a 10% tariff on China, NPR reported.

“China is exporting green energy tech so cheaply that the rest of the world is thinking about erecting barriers to protect their own industries,” Matthias Kimmel, head of Energy Economics at BNEF, said in a statement. “But the overall trend in cost reductions is so strong that nobody, not even President Trump, will be able to halt it.”

The current U.S. administration may soon move forward with tariffs on Mexico and Canada, which could also impact electricity prices and nuclear energy production in the U.S.

But despite these trade barriers, the report had a positive outlook for clean energy prices globally. Already, battery storage costs globally fell by one-third in 2024, and fixed-axis solar farm rates decreased 21%. Battery storage is expected to fall further from a benchmark of $104 per megawatt-hour to below $100 per megawatt-hour, and solar and wind energy generation is expected to decreased by 2% to 4%.

“New solar plants, even without subsidies, are within touching distance of new U.S. gas plants. This is remarkable because U.S. gas prices are only a quarter of prevailing gas prices in Europe and Asia. It really raises the bar on what is possible even in the current market,” said Amar Vasdev, lead author of the report. “This opens up the likelihood that solar will become even more compelling in the coming years, especially if the U.S. starts exporting liquified natural gas and exposes its protected gas market to global price competition.”

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Temperatures in the North Pole on Sunday reached 20 degrees Celsius above the average set between 1991 and 2020, after reaching 18 degrees higher than the average on Saturday.

With the rise, the temperature in the North Pole surpassed the point of freezing, or 0 degrees Celsius. One reading measured the temperature at 0.5 degrees Celsius, and the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service measured temperatures above -1 degree Celsius as far up as the 87th parallel in the Arctic.

“This was a very extreme winter warming event,” Mika Rantanen, a scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, told The Guardian. “Probably not the most extreme ever observed, but still at the upper edge of what can happen in the Arctic.”

According to Rantanen, the temperature could be between 20 to 30 degrees Celsius warmer than average, but the exact difference is difficult to judge in such a remote location.

“This was a very extreme winter warming event,” said Mika Rantanen, a scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute. “Probably not the most extreme ever observed, but still at the upper edge of what can happen in the Arctic.” #Arctic @mikarantane.bsky.social

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— Aarne Granlund (@aarnegranlund.bsky.social) February 4, 2025 at 1:53 PM

EU Copernicus Climate Change Service scientist Julien Nicolas told The Guardian that warmer air was flowing toward the North Pole because of a low-pressure system over Iceland as well as rising ocean temperatures in the Atlantic.

A study by Rantanen and colleagues published in 2022 found that the Arctic has been warming much faster than the rest of the world, an event known as Arctic amplification. Data and modelling revealed that the Arctic could be warming as much as four times faster than the rest of the world. The study authors noted that some areas within the Arctic are even warming up to seven times faster than the pace of average global warming.

According to data from the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service, the Arctic has warmed by around 3.3 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, compared to about 1.3 degrees Celsius of warming globally.

The rapidly increasing temperatures of the Arctic, even in the winter, have scientists concerned over ice melt, rising sea levels and emissions. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Arctic sea ice has been decreasing at a pace of 13% per decade since 1979.

A 2023 study, co-authored by Dirk Notz, a climate scientist at the University of Hamburg, determined that the Arctic could experience completely ice-free summers, even in low emissions scenarios, as soon as the 2030s.

“There is no negotiating with this fact, and no negotiating with the fact that the ice will disappear more and more as long as temperatures keep rising,” Notz told The Guardian. “We expect the Arctic Ocean to lose its sea-ice cover in summer for the first time over the next two decades. This will probably be the first landscape that disappears because of human activities, indicating yet again how powerful we humans have become in shaping the face of our planet.”

Already, the rising temperatures have lead the Arctic to become a source of carbon emissions, rather than a carbon sink, for the first time in 2024, according to a recent report from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

These problems are mirrored in the Antarctic, which recently reached alarmingly low ice levels and a heat wave, with temperatures over 10 degrees Celsius higher than average, over the Southern Hemisphere’s winter of 2024.

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A new study presented as part of the annual Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine meeting has revealed a link between microplastic bioaccumulation in the human placenta to preterm, or premature, births.

In the study, researchers analyzed 175 placentas collected at both term and preterm, or under 37 weeks of pregnancy, and measured the amounts of 12 different microplastics and nanoplastics, including polyethylene (PE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyurethane (PU) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), using highly sensitive mass spectrometry.

The results showed that preterm placentas had much higher levels of polycarbonate (PC), PVC and nylon 66 (N66) compared to placentas from term pregnancies. The findings suggested that despite shorter gestation periods, the placentas in preterm scenarios with higher levels of microplastics were accumulating those microplastics earlier in the gestation period.

“The finding of higher placental concentrations among preterm births was surprising because it was counterintuitive to what you might expect if it was merely a byproduct of the length of time of the pregnancy,” said Dr. Enrico Barrozo, lead author of the study and an assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.

While microplastics in the placenta have not been named as a cause of preterm births in the study, the researchers noted that the association warrants further research to better understand potential impacts on reproductive health. 

In the study, the research team determined that microplastic levels in the placentas were nearly 122 times higher than the amount of microplastics that have been previously detected in human blood.

“Our study hints at the possibility that the accumulation of plastics could be contributing to the occurrence of preterm birth,” said Dr. Kjersti Aagaard, senior author of the study, the Gulf Coast Division medical director and maternal-fetal medicine physician at HCA Healthcare and research professor at Boston Children’s Hospital, as reported by The Guardian. “Combined with other recent research, this study adds to the growing body of evidence that demonstrates a real risk from exposure to plastics on human health and disease.”

In addition to the link between microplastics and preterm births, another study published in 2024 revealed that one in 10 premature births in the U.S. could be linked to parental exposure to phthalates, chemicals commonly used in plastic production to make plastics more flexible.

More and more studies are unveiling risks of microplastics, especially in regard to how they can accumulate in human and animal bodies. In a separate study published this month, researchers found that microplastics ingested by mice were blocking the blood vessels and blood flow in the animals’ brains. While the researchers of that study noted that human and mice brains are different enough that the findings cannot conclusively be applied to humans, they did raise concerns over how microplastics could be impacting our brains.

Microplastics have also been detected in human testicular tissue, blood and lungs, but researchers are still working to understand how these chemicals can affect our health. 

In the meantime, there are ways to reduce microplastic exposure, including by not microwaving food in plastic containers, filtering drinking water, limiting seafood consumption and avoiding plastics containing phthalates.

The post Microplastics in Human Placentas Linked to Premature Births appeared first on EcoWatch.

In a new study, scientists are raising concerns over the ways that flea treatment chemicals for pets can leach into the environment and harm local wildlife. In light of the study, experts are calling on veterinarians to minimize preventative flea treatments to protect songbirds and insects impacted by the chemicals in these treatments.

Scientists from the University of Sussex published a study revealing that nests lined with fur were exposing blue tit and great tit songbirds to chemicals found in common veterinary drugs. The team tested for 20 total chemicals, of which they found 17 present, across 103 different nests.

The most common chemicals included fipronil, found in 100% of the nests, as well as imidacloprid (found in 89.1% of nests) and permethrin (also found in 89.1% of the samples).

Further, the research also revealed that nests with higher number of insecticides, higher concentrations of insecticides, or higher concentrations of fipronil, imidacloprid or permethrin specifically also had higher numbers of unhatched eggs or dead offspring.

“No nest was free from insecticides in our study, and this significant presence of harmful chemicals could be having devastating consequences on the UK’s bird populations,” Cannelle Tassin de Montaigu, lead author of the study and a research and associate fellow at the University of Sussex, said in a statement.

As The Guardian reported, some of the chemicals detected in the study have been banned in the UK and the EU, but not for use in veterinary drugs. Fipronil is banned for agricultural use in the UK and EU, and imidacloprid’s use for plant protection is banned in the EU and could soon be banned in the UK for agricultural use. 

In the meantime, experts, including veterinarians, are calling on reduced usage of veterinary drugs for flea and tick prevention. Neither experts nor the study authors are telling pet owners to forgo flea and tick treatments. As recommended by the British Veterinary Association, pet owners should skip year-round, blanket treatments of these chemicals and only use them as needed. 

“We are a nation of pet lovers and bird lovers, and it is extremely concerning to see the alarming levels of toxic pesticides in bird nests from veterinary drugs,” said Sue Morgan, chief executive of SongBird Survival, a charity that funded the study. “Pet owners will be upset to hear that in trying to do the right thing to support their pets with fleas and ticks, they could be harming our ecosystem, resulting in dead newborn chicks and unhatched eggs. As pet owners, we need to have confidence that we are keeping our pets well, without devastating impacts on our wildlife.” 

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), pet owners can prevent and treat fleas through other methods, such as regularly combing pet fur with a fine-tooth comb, and washing pets with warm water and common soaps that are pet-safe, which together can kill fleas without the added chemicals. The organization also recommended that pet owners regularly clean areas where pets sleep and rest, such as their beds or sofas, and minimize fleas by applying nematodes in yards and gardens.

The researchers and SongBird Survival are also calling on governmental agencies to conduct more risk assessments on how veterinary drugs impact the environment, and establish policies to address those risks.

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In a new study, scientists analyzed UK crops and how the country’s agriculture could be affected by climate change and predicted what could be the top crops by 2080.

Led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) in collaboration with the University of East Anglia (UEA), the study determined that a changing climate could mean that the UK will become more suitable for growing crops like soy, chickpeas, grapes, oranges and okra.

“Our climate is expected to change substantially over coming decades at a time when there will be rising demand for food due to population growth,” John Redhead, a spatial ecologist at UKCEH, said in a statement. “It is therefore essential that arable farming becomes more resilient; one possible solution is growing different crops that are more suited to the new local conditions.”

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At the same time, the region could become less suitable to growing its current crops, including oats, wheat, onions and strawberries, meaning agriculture could face significant challenges and high costs to adapt to growing different crops.

Scientists explored how suitable 160 different crops — both currently grown in the UK and ones that would be new to the area — could be under two different scenarios: 2 degrees Celsius warming and 4 degrees Celsius warming compared to pre-industrial levels.

Under the 2-degree scenario, strawberries and onions would become less suitable to growing in the UK, while in the 4-degree scenario, strawberries, onions, wheat, oats, and apples could see declining suitability for growing in various parts of the UK.

Some current UK crops would become more suitable in both scenarios, including maize and broad beans. New crops that could become more suitable for growing include sorghum, okra, horseradish, chickpeas, soy beans and even avocado (in a 4-degree scenario). The scientists published their findings in the journal Climate Resilience and Sustainability.

As the study pointed out, introducing more crops and diversifying local agriculture could improve soil health and lead to improved natural pest and disease control; plus, high suitability for proteins like soy beans and chickpeas could reduce meat consumption and related emissions. 

However, the team explained that introducing non-native crops could also lead to reverse effects, meaning these new plantings could lead to risks of new pests, disease outbreaks and negative impacts to pollinators. Transitioning to planting different crops would also come with high economic costs.

“Clearly, it’s unlikely to be feasible just to switch large-scale food production from Britain’s agricultural heartlands of southeastern England to Scotland, for example,” Redhead explained. “However, climate change is happening now, and its impacts will increase by 2080, so whatever action is taken will involve big challenges in terms of where our food comes from and the way our agricultural landscapes are managed.”

Already, extreme weather events linked to climate change are affecting agriculture in the UK and around the world. From October 2022 to March 2024, the UK recorded the wettest 18 months on record, as reported by Yale Climate Connections. According to UK’s House of Parliament, extreme levels of rainfall and flooding over the past two years could lead to decreased crop yields, including for staples like broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes and carrots, in 2025.

In February 2023, major supermarkets in the UK had to ration some produce, including tomatoes, lettuce and peppers, due to low supplies from extreme weather. The weather included higher-than-usual snow and rainfall in countries that UK sources some of its fruits and vegetables from in the winter months.

In fall 2024, the UK reported its second-worst harvest season ever recorded, with crops like wine grapes, wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape all experiencing declining yields because of periods of flooding and drought throughout the year.

It’s uncertain what the future of farming in the UK will look like, but with impacts from climate change already affecting crops, the agriculture industry will need to consider ways to build resiliency in the face of these changes.

“Major changes to agricultural systems and diets can take decades to implement and so our long-term projections provide important information well ahead of time for farmers, supermarkets, researchers, policymakers and the public on the opportunities, challenges and trade-offs involved in adapting to the impacts of climate change,” said Rachel Warren, co-author of the study and professor at UEA’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

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