Hey CATs,

Welcome to issue 303 of the ClimateAction.tech (CAT) Newsletter - your weekly summary of what's happening inside the CAT Slack community (join here and check out our onboarding checklist), and in the wider world of climate and tech.

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

Stay curious 😌💚🐱

CAT Community News

😸 Join us for our CAT Open Meeting on Tue, Feb 17

We'll share some organizer changes in an update and a celebration, we'll talk about ways in which you can get involved at ClimateAction.tech, and we'll have time for an organiser AMA. See details in the agenda on Outline.

RSVP on Luma: https://luma.com/1amq5au8

🎤 Have your say

#3-questions-and-ideas: F shared that the Green Software Foundation is updating their provider verification criteria for their green hosting status (blog post). And they're looking for feedback either by using the support form, or commenting on GitHub before February 28th

#random: J shared an opportunity to make your voice heard around what you think of AI tooling for software engineers via this survey which will be published in The Pragmatic Engineer.

🫴 CAT member offering

Kamal Kapadia (co-executive director of skillup.earth) is offering CATs a 20% discount on their Oxford-certified 14-week programme on Climate Solutions and Strategies designed for professionals in tech and beyond who want a rigorous, skills-based grounding in climate decision-making. Use the code with the code CAT20 to apply the discount and the deadline for applications is Feb 28th.

📅 CAT events

Sat, Feb 14 - CAT India meet up [online] - join #local-india to continue the conversation

Tue, Feb 17 - CAT open meeting [online] - updates to the CAT organiser team, open roles, and an AMA

Wed, Feb 18 - CAT Zurich drinks [in-person]

Fri, Feb 20 - Book Club: How AI Destroys Institutions (40-page paper) [online] - join #cat-book-club to continue the conversation

Tue, Feb 24 - Code Green London x CAT [in-person] - to stay up to date on these events, join #local-london

More local events were shared in #local-france, #local-uk and #local-switzerland

🍩 Community networking

Every 2 weeks, we match 2-3 CATs so you can connect over a quick 30-minute call. Join #cat-roulette, pick your region and wait for a message from Donut. The next round of matches will go out on Fri, Feb 20th. More info.

Media, events, and news

😺 CAT recommendations

▶️ CAT videos

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

DW Planet A: How this small German village got dirt-cheap energy prices

Germany's Feldheim went from an agricultural village to a clean energy role model — with its own renewable electricity grid and heating network.

Here's how it brought locals on board.

🎤 Podcasts

The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don't forget, if you're looking around, there's a list of podcasts maintained by CATs - and there's a full playlist of all the podcast episodes shared in this newsletter this year so far, on ListenNotes - catch up with last year's here!

All Things Policy: Can Tax Breaks Make India a Cloud Hub?

The Union Budget 2026-27 makes one of the most far-reaching moves we have seen so far to attract global cloud players to build and run their infrastructure from India. At the centre of this push is a 21-year tax holiday, available until 2047, for foreign companies that provide global cloud services using data centre infrastructure located in the country. But is that enough to make India a global cloud hub?

In this episode of All Things Policy, Anisree Suresh and Anwesha Sen discuss the implications of the tax holiday and crucial next steps for the data centre market in India from a policy perspective.

Green IO: #73 Gerry McGovern vs the Growth Death Cult

We're facing an existential environmental threat - but is there enough time to fight back against the increasing momentum of tech-related planetary collapse?  That's the 8 billion-person question. And here to help us answer it is a returning Gerry McGovern, back to share everything he's learned during the making of his new book, '99th Day: A Warning About Technology'. \n\nThroughout this insightful discussion, Gaël and Gerry wrestle with a central thought: Does technological advancement automatically mean societal and environmental decline? The pair discuss Gerry's unique writing style, his journey from rock'n'rolla to technology journalist, how he found his calling and hopes for the future.

Energ'ethic: The Modernisation Fund - A Structural Blind Spot in EU Climate Policy

The Modernisation Fund is often treated as a technical financing tool. In reality, it is one of the most structural instruments in EU climate policy.

In this episode, Marine Cornelis speaks with Morgan Henley, campaigner at CEE Bankwatch, about how the Modernisation Fund shapes energy systems in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on concrete examples from district heating, the conversation shows how funding design and governance choices lock in infrastructure pathways for decades. The episode examines why the Fund's low political visibility enables priority drift, how limited scrutiny reinforces incumbent interests, and why these dynamics matter most in countries with constrained fiscal space. Rather than focusing on technologies, the discussion centres on power, accountability, and the long-term consequences of how climate money flows.

Catalyst: The path to market for new nuclear reactors

Spurred by a suite of executive orders and investments from the federal government, new nuclear reactors are coming soon. Or the announcements are at least. The advanced nuclear sector has found itself in the spotlight as companies race to acquire licenses and permits aimed at achieving "criticality." But what do these milestones signify? And is hitting the deadlines even feasible?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Katy Huff,  former assistant secretary for nuclear energy at the Department of Energy and current associate professor at the University of Illinois. They unpack the wave of new nuclear announcements, the realities of navigating an arcane regulatory gauntlet, and what Katy considers a realistic timeline for new nuclear deployment.

📅 Submitted events

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

Wednesday Feb 18, 2026 - Naarm Solarpunk: Reclaiming the Internet for Humans

Our speakers reconnect to our hopes for the impact of the web, compared to platforms that remove our ability to connect to our communities. Share these ideas with others who care about using tech in service of Sustainable, Resilient and Just futures.

Thursday Feb 19, 2026 - Sustainable Tech Kickoff Social: Food, Drinks & Boardgames at Brân

Join us at Brân, Cardiff's Belgian beer and boardgames bar! This is an informal gathering to meet fellow group members and get to know each other over food and drinks. We'll have some simple games to help break the ice, but the focus is connecting with like-minded people.

Wednesday Feb 25, 2026 - Climate Tech Time

Climate Tech Time is the UK’s largest monthly gathering for climate tech, run by Climate Connection.

Tuesday Mar 03, 2026 - Make It Count: Sustainability Communication Workshop

The ultimate 90-minute workshop to get to grips with how you can make every sustainability conversation count.

✅ Start better conversations about sustainability ✅ Avoid the awkwardness or overwhelm ✅ Share your passion in a way that invites curiosity – not shutdown

📰 News Highlights

WEF: Why making AI sustainable by design is key to a greener future

AI-driven insights help the world meet sustainability goals, but powering the technology requires resources at daunting scales. By 2028, AI could use over half of data centre power demand and consume as much electricity a year as 22% of all US households. Sustainability must be embedded into AI's design, measurement and governance from the outset – not treated as an afterthought.

The Guardian: a California community rallied against a datacenter – and won

Over the past year, homegrown revolts against datacenters have united a fractured nation, animating local board meetings from coast to coast in both farming towns and middle-class suburbs. Organizers in Monterey Park took inspiration from other US cities to fight against the construction of a giant datacenter.

Time: The World Needs China's Climate Technology. That's the Dilemma

There's a Chinese expression—zuò shan guan hǔ dòu—which roughly translates to "Sit on the mountain and watch tigers fight." For attendees at this year's World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, this image was on full display.

PreventionWeb: How technology is helping communities across the globe adapt to climate change

As the planet heats up, and the impacts of climate change hit ever harder, supporting vulnerable communities to adapt to the new reality is becoming more crucial, say experts. Even if the world does rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions – which it is not – high temperatures and climate instability will persist for decades.

Climate technology is central to adaptation – allowing communities to, for example, predict and prepare for floods and droughts. A UN-led initiative is showing how much of a difference this can make to people's lives.

AgTech Navigator: EU launches world's first voluntary standard for permanent carbon removals in push to scale climate techOpens in new window

The European Commission has adopted the world's first voluntary certification methodologies for permanent carbon removals, setting a global benchmark aimed at accelerating the deployment and scaling of carbon‑removal technologies – and opening new commercial opportunities across the agtech sector.

Reuters: Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in EU power supply

Wind and solar power produced more electricity than fossil fuels in the EU for the first time last year, data published on Thursday showed, indicating the bloc's continued shift towards low-carbon energy despite resistance from some governments.

💚 Papers We Love 💚

Understanding Efficiency: Quantization, Batching, And Serving Strategies In LLM Energy Use

The paper analyzes how system-level deployment choices, rather than just model design shape the energy efficiency of large language model inference. Through experiments on multiple open-source models, it evaluates the impact of numerical precision, batching, and serving infrastructure on power use and latency. Findings show that lower-precision formats reduce energy mainly in compute-bound phases like prompt processing, but offer limited or negative gains during memory-bound decoding. Batching significantly improves efficiency by sharing compute and reducing overhead, though excessive padding can offset benefits. Most strikingly, optimized serving systems and traffic scheduling (e.g., continuous batching) can cut per-request energy by up to 100×, highlighting orchestration as a critical lever for sustainable AI deployment.

💼 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.

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