December 8, 2024

🌍 CAT Newsletter 249 - 2024-12-08

👉 Latest newsletter

CAT 249 - 2024-12-08

Hey CATs,

Welcome to issue 249 of the ClimateAction.tech (CAT) Newsletter - your weekly summary of what's happening inside the CAT community, and in the wider world of climate and tech. New to CAT or looking to re-discover the community? Try out our onboarding checklist.

Remember you can unsubscribe from this newsletter at any time - the link is at the bottom.

Stay safe & healthy 😌 💚 🐱

CAT Community News

🎉 CAT 2024 celebration event

It's happening! Our last event of 2024 is taking place next week! Join us on via Zoom on Tue, Dec 10 for our CAT 2024 – year in review and celebration. More info

Related to this, we've had some great project highlights in in our CAT member PAWS deck (PAWS = Projects, Actions, Wins, Stuff you learned at CAT)

• P created an open source search tool to help people discover open-source code in the climate space
• I worked on an open resource list on the topic of Permacomputing
• A, T, M and I made the Sustainable Web Interest Group part of the W3C ecosystem and are gearing up for some updates to the Web Sustainability Guidelines next year
• S practiced 'green your craft' skills with a a low-carbon website
• S jumped into some 'advocating & influencing' action by holding a talk at the first ever ESG summit in Scotland
• A and M created a starter pack for Sustainable IT on Bluesky
• In G's 2024 Green IO podcast episodes, a whopping 35% of guests were CATs
• H and M published issue 8 of Branch magazine

And it's not too late to share your project, action, win, or stuff you learned at CAT! Just add a slide to the CAT member PAWS deck. The presentation will be shared publicly (on our blog and on LinkedIn) and celebrated in our CAT 2024 – year in review event.

🧠 Knowledge base deepdive

Greener Games: A sprinkle of playfulness can make complex topics easier to digest. Use your CAT Slack account to log into the CAT knowledge base and explore the growing list of climate-related online & board games. And help a fellow CAT learn something new through play by adding your own gaming recommendations.

🍩 Community networking

Channel host @Brett Duboff reminded us that the last match of 2024 will go out on Fri, Dec 13th. Then there'll be a break, with #cat-roulette returning on Fri, Jan 10th. More info about CAT Roulette

⏸️ Upcoming break

Volunteers and organizers will be taking a break from Dec 21st to Jan 5th. There will be no newsletters in this time.

Media, events, and news

😺 CAT recommendations

▶️ CAT videos

10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to climate related issues.

PBS Terra: Arctic Warming Is Out of Control. But Can We Fix It?

Arctic sea ice is melting at record levels throwing global weather into chaos and contributing to extreme warming. There are three MAJOR climate systems that may be approaching their tipping points, and their future depends, in part, on the existence of Arctic sea ice. But, the Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet, and summer sea ice could disappear within our lifetimes. So, scientists and engineers are scrambling to figure out a way to slow the loss of sea ice. Can they do it in time? What will it cost? And, should we be studying it at all? Stay tuned as we explore a promising new technology that has high hopes of cooling the Arctic, just when we need it the most.

🎤 Podcasts

The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don't forget, if you're looking around, there's a list of podcasts maintained by CATs

Zero: What Thomas Edison's legacy looks like in the 21st century

General Electric Co was officially founded in 1892, when several of inventor Thomas Edison's ventures were consolidated into one company. From then on, it was a behemoth. But now that's changed: A break-up that began last year has concluded with GE splitting off into three separate companies. Scott Strazik is the CEO of GE Vernova, which focuses on wind turbines, nuclear power, and carbon capture, as well as grid solutions such as software and batteries. Strazik joins Zero to talk about how the company is in the "early innings of an investment super cycle," and how it intends to overcome difficulties in offshore wind. 

Solving for Climate: Dr Sasha Luccioni - The climate cost of AI

Despite the inexorable growth of Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT or Midjourney in the past couple of years, painfully little is known - or at least publicised - about their carbon impact. However, Dr Sasha Luccioni is on a mission to change that. Hannah and Rob talk to her about how she's trying to maximise the benefits of AI, while minimising its hidden climate costs. Why is AI development such a black box? And could AI be part of the solution to the climate crisis?

Outrage And Optimism 276. Action On Plastic Pollution with Ellen MacArthur

This week, Christiana, Tom and Paul tackle the latest on the global plastics treaty (known as INC-5), which ended last week without a deal. Why were countries unable to agree a deal despite the huge amount of public concern about plastic pollution? What pathways remain for an agreement in 2025? And why is it so important to maintain focus on plastic from a climate point of view?  Dive into the challenges and explore potential solutions with the team.

Green IO #49 - How to actually do Green Software in my company? with Annie Freeman

Have you ever heard "The complaint of the lonely sustainability champion"? Its IT sector version?

Here it is: "I listen to the Green IO podcast and others as well, I read newsletters and articles from CAT, GWF, Boavizta, Greenit.fr, GSF, etc. But I'm isolated as a green software champion. I have the feeling that I cannot achieve much by myself. How could we actually do green software in my company?"

This episode is all about sharing one concrete use case of someone, Annie Freeman, who achieved to build and deploy an internal tool monitoring carbon emissions in a SaaS company, Xero, with more than 4M users of its accounting software across a dozen countries. (Go Annie! :green_heart:)

Environment Variables - The Quantum Entanglement of Software Sustainability with Wilco Burggraaf

In this episode of Environment Variables, host Anne Currie speaks to Wilco Burggraaf, a lead green practitioner and architect at HighTech Innovators, for an engaging discussion on integrating sustainability into software development. Wilco shares his journey into green software, the inspiration behind his innovative workshops, and his efforts to build a vibrant green tech community in the Netherlands.

📅 Submitted events

Want an event listed here? Use this event listing form to submit the details so we can add it in the newsletter.

Mon Dec 09 2024 - Selective Analytics : Redefining the Future of Self-Service Analytics

Discover Selective Analytics, the next step beyond self-service BI, and explore the transformative power of the Mobile Selective Cloud. Simplified architecture improves performance, sustainability, reduces cloud dependency, and empowers users and businesses while reducing costs.

Tue Dec 10 2024 - The RIPE Green Tech Hackathon

Join the next RIPE NCC hackathon focused on Green Tech this December! This time, our goals are to develop tools, policies and protocols to reduce the environmental impact of Internet infrastructure. Apply now to join and help us organise this Sustain-a-thon!

Sat Dec 14 2024 - Event Submission EOIs > Climate Action Week Sydney

Climate Action Week Sydney empowers individuals, organisations and groups to independently host events while leveraging our mission, platform, and brand. From industry to government, schools to community leaders, and entrepreneurs to investors.

Mon Mar 10 2025 - Climate Action Week Sydney CAWSYD'25

March 10-16 2025 Mobilising All-of-Society Climate Action; Protecting and Leveraging Nature; Supporting the Industrial Transition; Sustainable and Resilient Cities; Financing a Viable Future and Regenerative Futures #CAWSYD'25

📰 News Highlights

Bloomberg: A Quarter of New Cars Sold in the UK Were Electric in November

One in four new cars registered in the UK last month were fully electric, a transportation research group said, touting the new figures as evidence that the country's EV sales mandate is working.

The figures represent the highest monthly market share for EVs in nearly two years, according to New AutoMotive, which published the data. The November number is ahead of the 22% target that manufacturers need to hit this year under the country's EV sales quota.

November's results bolster the case made by clean-energy advocates such as New AutoMotive, who have opposed auto-industry efforts to water down the UK's EV mandate.

CAAD: Generating A(I) Crisis: Big Tech Breaking Climate Commitments to Chase AI Hype

Today, the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition (CAAD) releases GENERATING A(I) CRISIS: The impact of "generative AI" and machine learning systems on corporate accountability and power system decarbonisation. The report demonstrates how the world's largest tech companies, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia, are abandoning their emissions targets in order to expand artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems.

The expansion of AI is a climate problem being sold as a climate solution, already causing serious spikes in energy use that are polluting communities and driving up electricity costs. 

The Register: Day after nuclear power vow, Meta announces largest-ever datacenter powered by fossil fuels

Richland Parish, an idyllic rural area in northeast Louisiana, USA, is set to host a gigantic new Meta datacenter. But instead of being powered by one of the on-site nuclear power plants Zuckercorp has previously advocated for, the facility is opting to drive its AI computing workload, with more than 2.2GW of new combined gas generation capacity. Two combined cycle gas generators will be on premise and one located elsewhere. (Editorial note: All the datacentre capacity in Ireland made up slightly less than 1GW in 2024).

RMI: The Rise of Batteries in Six Charts and Not Too Many Numbers

Battery demand is growing exponentially, driven by a domino effect of adoption that cascades from country to country and from sector to sector. This battery domino effect is set to enable the rapid phaseout of half of global fossil fuel demand and be instrumental in abating transport and power emissions. This is the conclusion of RMI's recently published report X-Change: Batteries. In this article, we highlight six of the key messages from the report.

Green Web Foundation: Green IO Talk summary - Start at the end

This post is a summary of the talk "Start at the end" given by Hannah Smith at the Green IO Paris conference on 5 Dec 2025. You can download a pdf copy of the slides.

At the end of this post you'll also find two lists:

1. Various places where people are finding positive stories of the future, crowd-sourced from giving the same talk for the RIPE NCC Green Tech Hackathon and then at Green IO Paris.
2. Various activities that adults like to do to play.

Heated: Indigenous peoples snubbed at plastic pollution summit

Last week's United Nations plastic treaty negotiations were supposed to result in a global treaty to safeguard frontline communities from the plastic waste crisis. Not only did the talks fail to produce a treaty, they systematically ignored the voices of Indigenous peoples most impacted by plastic pollution—a snub which led to an act of successful defiance at one of the summit's plenary events.

Frustration rippled throughout the one-week conference in Busan, South Korea, where delegates from more than 170 countries failed to reach a consensus on how to address the 350 million tons of plastic waste generated every year. Negotiators couldn't cross the divide between countries that supported limiting plastic production and oil-rich countries that vehemently opposed it.

Jobs

Remember only jobs listing salary ranges are listed here - to get your job listed, you need to list a salary range. Folks can still look in the #jobs channel. Remember: if you're looking for advice finding a role, check our #climate-careers channel.

Green Angel Ventures - Support and Development Engineer - £24,000 - £28,000 - Permanent - Totally remote

Green Angel Ventures is the reference early stage investor for UK climate innovation. We specialise in the fight against climate change.

The Support and Development Engineer is responsible for maintaining and improving IT systems and processes, for helping build them to support future growth, and for supporting our staff members. The role is quite broad, and will change over time.

Elemental Impact - Entrepreneur in Residence: Community Impact (Contractor) - $150/hr - Contract - Flexible - remote ok

We are looking for someone who is deeply knowledgeable about the experience of building a responsible community engagement practice in or for a climate tech company or similar context within corporate, and who can be a diligent partner for our entrepreneurs!

Icebreaker One - Senior Account Manager - Up to £600/day, up to 3 days/wk until April 2025 with option to extend - Contract - Totally remote

IB1 is a non-profit with a mission to make data work harder to deliver net-zero outcomes. We convene stakeholders across sectors to develop systems of data governance called Trust Frameworks. These increase trust in decision-critical data in order for money and resources to be deployed more confidently to accelerate decarbonisation and boost biodiversity.

The Senior Account Manager is responsible for identifying, targeting and landing sales then implementing excellent customer service to clients and members to ensure exceptional delivery that builds long term relationships and secures repeated renewals

Commons - Lead Front-end Engineer - Levels 3-6, $129K – $205K • 0.1% – 0.25% - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok

We're looking for a lead front-end engineer who has experience building ReactJS consumer-facing software. We're looking for someone who loves building delightful user experiences and will be responsible for design and delivery of some of Commons' most important features.

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