Renewables on the Rise
2025 was a good year for renewables! Following a 19% increase in solar capacity, wind and solar power produced more electricity in the European Union (EU) than fossil fuels for the first time. Wind and solar generated 30% of the EU’s electricity in 2025, ahead of the 29% generated by fossil fuel power plants running on coal, gas or oil.
In the UK, a record number of renewable projects were given the go-ahead in 2025. Planning approvals for battery, wind and solar power in the UK have risen by more than 400% over the past five years. This will significantly increase the UK’s capacity to generate and store clean electricity. As well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy will also allow the UK to move away from the turbulent fossil fuel market where prices and supply fluctuate as a result geopolitical instability.
Energy Dashboard is a fantastic website which allows you to see how electricity in the UK is currently being generated: https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live. You can also view a map of the distribution of the largest generation and battery storage sites in the UK: https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/map
Wetter Winters in the UK
January has been a very wet month across the UK, including in the North East, with persistent spells of heavy rain and strong winds. Overall, the UK recorded 17% more rainfall than the long-term average for January.
Above average rainfall in November and December meant that the ground had become so saturated that even moderate rainfall had a greater impact. Flooding was seen across the UK, particularly in Northern Ireland and South-Western England who experienced one of their wettest January’s on record.
The reason is simple physics: warmer air holds more water vapour, meaning heavier downpours. Professor Hayley Fowler from Newcastle University was interviewed by the Guardian. “We’ve seen a rapid increase in warming and that has a huge knock-on effect on rainfall. It’s directly attributable to fossil fuel burning and the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, so it’s going to continue until we stop.”
Hidden Power of Fungi
Dr. Toby Kiers is an evolutionary biologist and Professor at Vrije University, Amsterdam. She has been awarded the 2026 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement for her research into mycorrhizal fungi, which has fundamentally advanced understanding of the living systems beneath our feet.
Mycorrhizal fungi are vast underground networks of microscopic threads that link plant roots together, allowing plants to exchange water, nutrients and carbon, and store carbon in soils. Kiers research has revealed the scale of these networks influence: plants allocate an estimated 13 billion tonnes of carbon each year to mycorrhizal fungi, making them significantly more important to global climate regulation than we initially thought.
Dr. Kiers is committed to ensuring that underground biodiversity is recognised and protected. She co-founded SPUN, the society for the protection of underground networks, an international organisation dedicated to mapping and safeguarding mycorrhizal fungal biodiversity worldwide. Together with her team she helped create the world’s first underground atlas, a high resolution digital map that can be used by scientists, conservationists and policymakers to identify and protect these critical underground ecosystems.