Present: Colin, Mike, Jan, Anna, Ann, John, Susan, Tom, Cate, Mike, Apologies: Ruth, Andy, Debbie, Jackie
- Minutes of the meeting, 17th Nov. These were available on line and were agreed
- 2025 – What was Good and what was Bad in terms of progress on climate change.
We looked at what AI had suggested as a list of the good and the bad and then chose our own list as follows:-
Good News
Policy and International Agreements
- COP – Good that there is still some conference of the parties: Progress however slight.
- High Seas Treaty Entered into Force: should enable some Marine Protected Areas but lack of ratification to date by USA, China and Russia of concern.
- Landmark Legal Ruling: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a significant advisory opinion helps the process move forward that could clear the way for nations to sue one another over climate change impacts. But still a way to go.
- UK National Emergency Briefing on Climate and Nature, 27/11, Westminster: A creative attempt to present a wake up call to MPs and others – good source material for future meetings. A film may be made from the event. Note a video of the event will be shown at the Transition Chichester AGM on Tues 20th Jan 5.30 to 8pm. All welcome.
Technological Developments
- Renewables Surpassed Coal: Wind, solar, and other renewable sources collectively overtook coal as the world’s leading source of electricity generation. This was largely driven by a massive expansion of clean energy in China, which also saw its CO2 emissions fall for the first time and the nation imported less oil despite rising output.
- Advances in Energy Storage: The UK began building the world’s largest liquid-air-battery storage facility to store clean energy, and breakthroughs were made in solid-state battery technology, promising higher energy density and faster charging for electric transport. Battery storage improvements are beginning to change future projections in the energy market and the interconnected nature of electrical industrial tech is also driving this. All this will act as a big incentive to electrify transport and manufacuring processes.
- AI for Climate Solutions: Artificial intelligence and machine learning have been increasingly applied to climate challenges, including predictive weather modeling, smart grid optimization, and precision agriculture. But energy requirements if data processing centres a big minus for AI.
Scientific and Ecological Discoveries
- Gene Variant for Heat-Resistant Rice: Chinese researchers discovered a naturally occurring gene variant that protects rice yield and quality from excessive heat, a major breakthrough for global food security as temperatures rise.
- Endangered Species Comebacks: Decades of conservation efforts led to the green turtle being moved from “endangered” to “least concern” on the IUCN Red List, and India doubled its tiger population, demonstrating the effectiveness of targeted conservation.
- Arctic Insights: Research in the Arctic uncovered new health risks from melting ice and thawing permafrost, and also showed how global warming is affecting weather patterns far from the poles.
Locally
- CDC approved its Climate Action Plan 2025-30. As a group we were instrumental in getting more adaptation items in the plan. Not a brilliant plan but good to have it.
- 14th Nov. event, “What on Eath Happens Next” was well received but left us thinking about how to carry forward the ideas from that meeting. Discussed in item 5.
- We discussed the solar farm proposal at South Mundham which hopefully will be agreed by the Planning Inspector but it also highlighted the need to prepare also more positive publicity and support for such schemes.
Bad news
- “New Era of Climate Extremes”: Scientists from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group declared the world entered a “new era of climate extremes,” where once-rare weather anomalies are quickly becoming the norm. Climate change was found to have made 17 of the 22 extreme weather events analyzed in 2025 more severe or likely. The three-year average (2023-2025) exceeded the critical 1.5°C warming threshold for the first time. This occurred despite a natural cooling phase (La Niña), underscoring the severity of human-induced warming
- Widespread and Deadly Extreme Weather: The year was marked by devastating events that killed thousands and displaced millions:
- Heatwaves were identified as the deadliest extreme weather events, causing an estimated 4,700-16,500+ deaths in Europe alone during the summer.
- Intense floods and storms battered parts of Southeast Asia, Pakistan, India, and the US, causing massive loss of life and property damage.
- Destructive wildfires scorched areas in Southern California, Greece, Turkey, and Canada, partly due to prolonged drought conditions.
- Powerful hurricanes and cyclones, such as Hurricane Melissa (Category 5) in the Caribbean and Cyclones Senyar and Ditwah in Asia.
- Continued Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Policy Shortfalls:
- Concentrations of the three key greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide) continued to rise to record levels.
- The COP30 climate talks in Brazil ended without an explicit plan to transition away from fossil fuels.
- Negotiations for a global plastic treaty ended for a second time without a final deal, revealing persistent divergences.
- Ocean and Ice Melt Crises
- Arctic winter sea ice extent reached its lowest maximum on record, while glaciers globally experienced their largest single-year ice loss on record, contributing to accelerating sea-level rise.
- A UN report highlighted the emerging risk of ancient pathogens being reawakened as glaciers melt.
4. Looking Ahead 2026
Colin thought the race to electrify across the world had made a good start in 2025 and looked poised to surge ahead in 2026. He showed parts of a YouTube video entitled “Stop worrying about clean energy, start electrifying everywhere.” This is a “Cleaning Up Podcast ( Episode 238) and features a discussion between Lord Adair Turner and Baroness Bryony Worthington who are key pundits in the global energy scene. They concluded that there was a growing change in the energy market which is moving quickly to a high penetration by renewables over the next few years.
5. Local Initiatives
We discussed the follow through from the event on the 14th November. Mike felt there was as yet not sufficient to get hold of and there was a general discussion about what kind of actions are likely to get more attention locally. Colin mentioned that he hope to raise this at the Transition Town Chichester AGM onTuesday 20th January.
6. AOB – none
Date of Next Meeting Weds 4th February, 2pm to 4pm Friends Meeting House
CRM 13/1/26 v1