January is finally over (hooray!), but 2026 has already been full of scary and hard-hitting events and news. So for a brief moment, we wanted to focus on what has been going well, via some good climate news stories. Recently, we spoke with Angus Hervey, who is a political economist and founder of Fix The News. Fix The News is an incredible newsletter/substack that is a firm favourite at TEDxLondon HQ. It focuses on sharing stories of progress and solutions and tries to reimagine how journalism might work if it wasn’t driven by click bait and negative headlines. As Fix the News describe it:
“It’s not just your imagination. The news really has become more negative. It’s making us all feel grim about the present, and hopeless about the future… This newsletter was founded on the simple idea that another form of journalism is possible.”
Over the years we have discovered that slow news, positive news, or solutions focused journalism is an integral part of building a “truer” worldwide view, that fights humans’ inherent negativity bias and reveals the stories of progress that are actually all around us. You can discover more about the power of solutions-based journalism with Jodie Jackson’s TEDxLondon talk, Beyond fake news: how to heal a broken worldview. Angus also explains the rationale behind Fix The News in his TED talk, The good news you might have missed. Angus says it best:
“This is not some weird attempt to cancel or balance out the bad news. If we want more people to devote themselves to the task of making progress, then maybe we should be telling more people that it’s possible to make progress. ”
So let’s get to the good news…
Angus joined Maryam and Ben for our first full length episode of the year, Climate success stories of the year 2025 and it was chock full with stories of climate winning. Here is a taster of a few of the big ones…
Renewable energy is knocking fossil fuels out of the energy system
Angus told us that for the first time in 2025 that solar and wind energy was leading the way:
“For the first time ever across a sustained period, solar and wind actually outpaced global electricity demand growth. They hit 17.6% of global electricity in the first three quarters of the year, up from 15.2% the year before. Renewables overtook coal as the biggest source of electricity globally, and three of the world’s four largest emitters: China, the EU and India are now seeing their fossil generation either flatten or fall.”
Part of why this is so significant is that for a long time there has been a debate in climate circles about whether renewable energy will just add to the energy supply or whether it can start effectively knocking out fossil fuel energy from the system altogether. This structural shift of replacing fossil fuels with renewables, explains Angus, is really key to whether we’ll hit our climate goals. And it’s in 2025 that we have started to see renewables really breaking through. Angus also pointed out this is partly about costs:
“95% of new solar and wind is now cheaper than new gas and coal. So solar and wind energy are the cheapest forms of electricity in human history. The reason that they are is because the price has plummeted so dramatically in the last few years… but also increasingly…the price of batteries plummeted as well.”
Energy security is driving a renewable revolution – especially in China
For Angus the biggest good news story in 2025 was how China is now a leader in renewable energy. He explains this is largely due to energy security – which is encouraging majority of nation states including China to move to renewables:
“With the exception of the United States, which is now a petro state, and the original petro states, every country in the world is now moving rapidly towards electrification and towards renewable forms of energy… And not because it’s the right thing to do, but because somebody else can’t stop the wind from blowing and the sun from shining in your country. So energy security is now increasingly the name of the game.”
Angus explained that for China to gain energy security, they invested heavily in coal power plants and took a ‘bet’ on renewable energy. China’s investment in coal power plants has been damaging. Since 2016, Angus shared, China has been responsible for about 90% of global emissions growth – that’s the equivalent of five Germany’s worth of emissions. However, as Angus shares, the situation has now flipped:
“China’s emissions have now been flat or falling for 18 months… Unless something really dramatic happens, China’s emissions are going to decline over the full year for 2025. That’s not because China’s economy tanked, but because… the structure of their energy system has started to fundamentally change. Coal dropped from 59% of their electricity to 53% in just two years…Their fossil demand in power generation fell by 2%.”
Angus does point out that coal power plants are still getting built, but aren’t getting used as much because renewables are a better option. The further impact of China’s energy transition, Angus goes on to share, is that it’s starting to change the structure of everybody else’s energy system too through exporting turbines and batteries at lower costs. This is great news considering how fundamental clean energy is to hitting international climate targets set out by the Paris Agreements.
A lot of people are, rightly, concerned about ensuring a just transition is exactly that – just – and that moving to a renewable energy future doesn’t add harm to individuals and communities (often who are already at most risk of the impacts of climate change and fossil fuel production). We know the importance of ensuring the hardware and tech for renewables is ethically produced. Indigenous rights activist, Galina Angarova, offers important perspectives on how we ensure this renewable transition doesn’t add harm. Listen to her episode, The inequality of mineral mining – and how to fix it.
How people are taking the energy transition into their own hands with solar
Did you know that Hungary, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Botswana all love solar? That’s right! Solar panels and solar energy are popping up in some of the most unexpected places and often these changes are being driven by everyday citizens. For example, Hungary got 40% of its electricity from solar in June. In Pakistan, you will spot solar panels all over – mainly put up by people on their own roofs and not led by specific policies or government pushes. Overall a third of Pakistan’s electricity system is now being run with solar panels.
In the African continent, Angus shares:
“Sierra Leone imported enough solar panels to account for something like half of its entire energy system in a single year. Imports are up sevenfold in Botswana, sixfold in Sudan. These aren’t like little pilot projects. This is grid scale stuff happening in places that we aren’t even watching. People have talked about this leapfrogging that Africa did with mobile phones and everyone’s been saying they’re gonna do it with solar for a long time, but it hasn’t really happened. But in 2025 it really started happening and it’s really exciting.”
Not only are these solar panels allowing countries and communities to increase their green credentials, but also these technologies are enabling some communities to access electricity for the first time. Being connected to affordable electricity hugely improves people’s quality of life and it’s very exciting to see such progress.
Finding good news in 2026
A huge thanks goes to Angus for bringing us these brilliant good news stories to help us step into the new year in a more positive way. A lot of these stories centred around energy transition and global politics, but Fix the News also includes a bunch of other stories around nature and conservation/restoration, legal wins, health wins, policy changes, activism successes and much more. For instance a few things that didn’t get into the episode were how sea turtles are bouncing back after decades of decline and community energy is booming in the UK. Get good news and more – make sure you sign up!
Naturally, at Climate Curious, we will keep bringing good climate news to you – both on the podcast and in our newsletter. Fun fact: the most listened to Climate Curious episode from last year was about a huge climate success, the magical totora reed plant. Thanks to the Uru Uru team and Gustavo Blanco in Bolivia, lots more of these Totora plants are being planted in polluted lakes in Bolivia.
If you’re looking for more positive news make sure you check out Positive News and Good Good Good. We hope this helps make 2026 a little easier and helps shift your media diet to be a bit more positive. Until next time – stay curious!
