Climate & Energy · Thursday, 13 August 2026

01 · Briefing · what happened

The world keeps setting heat records even as clean energy wins

Climate & Energy 4 min 15 sources

Another summer of shattered temperature records lands the same week solar becomes the world's biggest new power source. The heat tracks the carbon already in the air, not this year's emissions.

3.3F

hottest US July

above the 20th-century average, a 132-year record

2.5C

Europe's warming

vs a 1.4C global average since fossil-fuel burning began

129bn

tonnes of Greenland ice lost

in 2025 alone, per the State of the Climate report

5th

European heatwave since May

a heat dome parked over the continent again

At a glance

July was the hottest month ever recorded in the US, in data going back 132 years.
Britain is on course for its hottest summer ever; Europe is in its fifth heatwave since May.
A new State of the Climate report finds oceans set records for the third year running.
All of this lands the same week solar became the world's biggest new source of power.
The heat tracks the carbon already in the air, not the amount added this year.
Record clean-energy build-out slows how fast the pile grows; it does not shrink the pile.

Forces in play

Accumulated heat High↑

record oceans, record US month, Europe warming twice as fast as the world

Clean-energy build-out Building↑

solar now the world's biggest new power source; Europe's largest battery online

Weakening carbon sinks Building↑

Siberian methane doubled in a decade; some northern forests now emit more than they soak up

Fossil demand Steady→

AI data centres set to lift fossil-fuel use faster than green power near-term

In play American Meteorological Society / NOAA — released the 2025 State of the Climate report Solar industry — became the world's dominant new source of power Europe — warming twice as fast as the planet; fifth heatwave since May AI data centres — flagged as a near-term boost to fossil-fuel demand

How it unfolded

Through summer five European heatwaves, hottest US July, UK on track for its hottest ever
This week State of the Climate report confirms 2025 records; Asia bakes; Typhoon Dolphin floods China
Same week solar confirmed as the world's biggest new power source; Scotland's giant battery starts up
Ahead heat keeps rising for years even as clean energy builds, until emissions near zero

Where this points

Watch whether global emissions stop growing this decade - warming will keep climbing until the yearly flow of carbon falls near zero, not merely lower.

Full briefing

The world is having another record-breaking summer, and a major new report confirms it is not a blip. July was the hottest month ever recorded in the United States, in data going back 132 years [1]. Britain is on course for its hottest summer since records began [2]. Europe is baking through its fifth heatwave since May [3], and across Asia the ground itself is cooking [4]. The strange part: this is happening in the same weeks that clean energy is booming. Solar just became the world’s biggest new source of power [5].

The heat, in numbers

The 2025 State of the Climate report came out Monday from the American Meteorological Society, led by US government scientists. It found the oceans hit record temperatures for the third year running [6]. The Greenland ice sheet lost about 129 billion tonnes of ice, enough to build a cube of ice three miles on each side [6]. The report named continued fossil-fuel burning as the main driver of record-high levels of heat-trapping gas in the air [6].

The daily reality matched the data. July in the contiguous US ran 3.3F (1.8C) above the 20th-century average, beating records set in the 1936 Dust Bowl and in 2012; Wyoming had its hottest July ever [1]. Britain’s summer so far averages 16.48C, nearly 1.9C above normal, with 37 separate heatwave days somewhere in the country [2]. Slovakia hit a national record of 42C, and Poland was forced to shut two power plants when rivers ran too warm to cool them [7].

Europe cooks fastest

Europe is now warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. It is about 2.5C hotter than before the mass burning of fossil fuels, against a global average of 1.4C [8]. The continent sits close to the fast-warming Arctic and has lost the cooling haze of old air pollution, so heat builds harder [8]. This week a “heat dome” parked over the continent again. That is a lid of high pressure that traps hot air in place, feeding wildfires and drying rivers to their beds [3]. A separate drought has spread across much of the continent [9].

In Asia the same summer bit hard. Hong Kong logged its highest temperature ever, and Japan added a new “cruelly hot” warning category [4]. In South Korea a farmer dug up potatoes that had effectively boiled in the soil [4]. A new study in Nature finds the young will live far more of their lives under extreme heat than their grandparents did [10]. The burden is landing unevenly, and mostly on those who did least to cause it [10].

Clean energy is winning - and the heat still rises

Here is the puzzle. Solar power, after five decades of research, has quietly become the world’s dominant new source of electricity [5]. Europe’s largest battery just switched on in Scotland, storing cheap power for when it’s needed [11]. Yet the planet keeps getting hotter. The reason is not that clean energy is failing. It is that warming tracks the total carbon already piled up in the air, not the amount added in any single year. Record clean-energy build-out only slows how fast we add to that pile; it does not draw it down. (The lesson below explains why.)

There are darker threads in the accounting. A new analysis warns that the surge of AI data centres will, in the near term, do more to boost fossil-fuel demand than green power [12]. And nature’s own clean-up crew is faltering. Siberian methane emissions have doubled in a decade as warming thaws the ground and feeds fires [13]. The State of the Climate report noted that some northern forests and tundra now release more carbon than they absorb, a drain starting to clog [6].

What it means for you

The near-term effects are already on the bill and the map. Warm rivers shut power plants exactly when heat spikes demand for cooling [7]. Drought hits harvests and food prices [9]. And the heat is not spread evenly; the youngest and poorest carry the most of it [10]. The switch to clean power is real and accelerating [5][11]. But the warming already locked into the air is why it will keep getting hotter for years even as we build. The extreme weather is widening too. Typhoon Dolphin flooded eastern China this week, forcing over a million people to evacuate [14], while global electric-car sales kept rising nearly everywhere except North America [15].

02 · Lesson · why it matters

Why turning the tap down still overflows the bath

Warming tracks the carbon already in the air, not the amount added this year, so a smaller yearly flow still raises the level.

How it works

Burning fuel adds carbon to the air (the tap)
That carbon piles up and stays for centuries (the tub fills)
Nature drains only a little each year (a tiny plughole)
Warming tracks the level in the tub, not the flow from the tap
So even a smaller flow keeps the level - and the heat - rising
Only near-zero emissions lets the level finally stop climbing

The twist

Cutting emissions is slowing the tap, not draining the tub - the water keeps rising until the inflow drops below the tiny outflow.

Where you've seen this

A bathtub

turn the tap down and it still overflows, just later

A budget deficit

a smaller deficit still grows the total debt every year

Plastic in the ocean

less dumped each year still means more plastic out there than before

The catch

The tub does drain a little - cut emissions to near zero and the level slowly stops rising, which is exactly why net-zero, not merely lower, is the real target.

Full lesson

Two true things that seem to fight

This week gave us a puzzle. Solar power became the world’s biggest new source of electricity. Batteries the size of small towns switched on. Electric cars keep selling almost everywhere. And yet July was the hottest month ever recorded in the United States, Britain is heading for its hottest summer, and Europe is on its fifth heatwave since May.

If clean energy is winning, why is the heat still climbing? Both things are true at once. The reason they can be is one of the most important ideas in the whole climate story, and once you see it, a lot of confusing headlines snap into focus.

The bath and the tap

Picture a bathtub. The tap pours water in. That is emissions: the carbon we put into the air each year by burning coal, oil, and gas. The water in the tub is the total carbon already up there, built up over more than a century. The heat we feel tracks the water level in the tub, not how hard the tap is running.

Now the crucial part. The tub has only a tiny drain. Oceans and forests soak up roughly half of what we emit each year, but the rest stays in the air for centuries. So the tub fills far faster than it empties. Turn the tap down a bit and the water still rises, just more slowly. It keeps rising until the tap is nearly off.

That is the difference between a flow and a level. Emissions are a flow, arriving each year. Warming follows the level, the accumulated stock of everything we have ever added. Cutting the flow slows the fill. It does not lower the water.

Why “emissions fell” is not “problem solved”

This is where the news gets misread. A country cuts its yearly emissions and announces progress, and the announcement is real. But less carbon added is still carbon added. The level in the tub still goes up. Slower fill, higher water. The heat keeps climbing.

So a genuinely good year for clean energy and a genuinely bad year for temperature records can land in the same week, and neither one is a lie. Solar winning means the tap is easing. The heatwaves mean the tub is still filling. Both readings are correct because they are measuring different things.

The drain is starting to clog

There is a harder twist. That tiny drain is not fixed. This week a major report noted that some northern forests and tundra now release more carbon than they soak up. Siberian methane has doubled in a decade as the thawing ground and its fires give off gas that once stayed locked away.

A forest that used to help empty the tub can flip and start filling it. When the drain clogs, more of each year’s flow stays in the tub, and the level rises faster for the same tap setting. The system we were counting on to help is quietly doing less.

The real bar is zero, not lower

This is why scientists insist the goal is net-zero, not merely less. “Lower emissions” still fills the tub. Only when the yearly flow drops to about what the drain can carry does the level finally stop climbing. Below that, and very slowly, it might even start to fall.

That reframes what today’s clean-energy boom is really doing. It is not cooling the planet. It is bending the flow downward toward the point where the level can level off. That is the necessary work. It is just not the same as reversing the heat, and confusing the two leads to both false comfort and false despair.

The whole, and where we sit in it

The tub was filled by everyone who came before us, mostly in the richer parts of the world, and the water does not know who poured it. It sits over all of us. A new study this week found the young will spend far more of their lives in extreme heat than their grandparents. The poorest carry the most of a level they did least to raise.

That is the humbling shape of it. No single country’s good year drains the tub, and no one alive gets to stand outside it. We are all downstream of a level built over generations, and the most any of us can do this year is turn a tap. Understanding that is not despair. It is the difference between measuring the right thing and the wrong one, and it is where honest decisions start.

03 · Lab · your turn

Run the tap

Rehearse why cutting emissions slows the fill but only near-zero stops the water - and the heat - from rising.

04 · Hope · carry this

The tap is finally being turned down. Filled by people who could not yet see the bath, we are the first generation who can - and every year we ease it, the water rises slower.