Electric vehicle boom in India and other stories of the week

Akshat Rathi writes the Zero newsletter, which examines the world’s race to cut planet-warming emissions. He is the author of Climate Capitalism.

This week's list of curated climate and energy news. Please send feedback and reply in comments with links to stories that you found interesting.

500 million children see twice as many hot days as their grandparents. That's more than half of the children in 100 countries, according to UNICEF. (Listen to this week's Zero episode on what extreme heat does to health.)

Hurricane Ernesto leaves 680,000 homes and businesses in Puerto Rico without power. That's half of Puerto Rico in the dark yet again.

“God created Lusatia, but the devil made the coal underneath,” a visit he last German village to be cleared for coal mining. The last 200 inhabitants of the once-bustling Mühlrose are to be rehabilitated, with phasing out of coal only expected in 2038.

Don't bet against technologies that are becoming cheaper. A slow down in sales of electric vehicles means a rise in sales of battery for stationary storage.

India is bucking the trend of slowing down sales of electric vehicles. Both cars and two-wheelers are seeing a boom in sales in second-tier cities.

But hydrogen isn't doing so well. Almost 90% of planned hydrogen plants globally have no buyers with contracts to use the fuel.

The only place nuclear is doing well is... China. The world’s second-largest economy?is expected to leapfrog France and the US as the top source of atomic power. (The government is now confident that you can drive economic growth with green industry and help the climate at the same time.)

The world's largest battery is now working in China. China's total pumped hydro capacity is 55 GW with a goal to reach 120 GW by 2030. (And on next-gen stuff: China hosts 65% of widely cited technical papers on battery technology, relative to just 12% from the US.)

Solar is so cheap that tracking an explosion of its use requires clever sleuthing, such as satellite imagery, as this report on Pakistan's solar boom. Nation becomes third-largest destination for China’s exporters.

?Chart of the Week

Glen Peters expects to see a 0.6% increase in CO2 emissions in 2024, hitting a new record.