Hey CATs,

Welcome to issue 304 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

🫵 Looking for new organizers - keep CAT going / help us thrive

Apply or nominate someone to join as our Comms / content organiser who maintains and improves our website, newsletter, social media presence, and internal knowledge base

Apply or nominate someone to join as our Partnerships organiser who builds a movement by developing relationships with other climate & tech groups (GSF, Green IO, GWF, etc.) and implements joint projects

You can see all open volunteering roles here and if you can't support us with your time, you can support us financially with one-off or recurring donations via OpenCollective.

📅 CAT events

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

🍩 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, Mar 6th. More info.

Media, events, and news

😺 CAT recommendations

▶️ CAT videos

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

PBS Terra: Climate Change Won't End the World. This Could.

Is this how civilizations end? As climate disasters intensify, some cities survive — and others collapse. So what makes the difference? In this episode of Weathered, host Maiya May investigates what history reveals about system collapse, failed cities, and civilizations that didn't survive climate shocks. Were they doomed? Or did they miss warning signs we're seeing today? With climate disasters and global warming accelerating, researchers Luke Kemp and strategic climate risk expert Laurie Laybourn break down the common patterns behind civilization collapse — and the 5 strategies that can help modern societies avoid the same fate.

🎤 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!

Catalyst: The rise of grid power electronics with Drew Baglino

For decades, the physical equipment underpinning the electric grid has remained largely unchanged: passive, "dumb" devices installed as far back as the 1970s that lack much real-time control. But today, in the face of skyrocketing energy demand, a new class of technologies has emerged.

In this episode, Drew Baglino, the founder and CEO of Heron Power, returns to the show to discuss his company's new generation of solid-state transformers, or SSTs. After a 17-year career at Tesla — where he led energy and powertrain development — Drew is now focused on replacing the grid's aging infrastructure with these advanced power electronics.

Environment Variables: New Hosts!

This Week in Green Software, Chris Adams is joined by new co-hosts Kate Goldenring and Tzviya Siegman to explore the latest stories on their radars. They unpack Microsoft's community-first AI infrastructure pledge, the rise of gas-powered data centers, and the hidden embodied emissions behind AI models and storage hardware. The conversation also dives into the energy cost of AI prompts, new research measuring real browser energy use, and emerging models like billing AI by the kilowatt-hour. Together, they examine how transparency, standards, and smarter engineering decisions can shape a more sustainable digital future.

Techologie: #103 Plug, baby, plug : les impacts du data center avec Cécile Diguet

À l'occasion du sommet Choose France, le 13 mai 2024, Emmanuel Macron avec sa phrase "plug, baby, plug", invitait des entreprises comme Microsoft et Amazon à implanter des data centers en France pour profiter d'une énergie bas-carbone. Mais sait-on ce qu'est vraiment un datacenter, ses conséquences environnementales, ses futurs impacts… sur notre futur.

At the 2024 "Choose France" summit, Emmanuel Macron, saying "plug, baby, plug!", invited companies like Microsoft and Amazon to establish datacentres in France, to take advantage of low-carbon energy. But do we really know what a datacentre is, its environmental consequences, its future impacts... on our future?

TechTank: What to expect from the India AI Impact Summit

India will host the latest in a series of global AI summits this month, marking the first of these convenings to take place in the Global South. The event will feature keynotes, panels, and an expo of deployable AI applications—all with a focus on impact. In this episode, guest host Brooke Tanner is joined by Brookings scholars Elham Tabassi and Cameron Kerry to discuss their expectations for the summit.

Climate Curious: Climate OG on how to stay optimistic in a "down cycle"

"We should be as optimistic as they [Big Oil] are," says economist, diplomat, key architect of the Paris Agreement, and climate heavy-hitter Laurence Tubiana. Having spent decades navigating the political domain of global climate policy, in this Climate Curious short she dives into why the current "down cycle" of climate action is reflective of fear in the fossil fuel industry and should be viewed with optimism; as well as how the secret to resilience is in listening to the people around you. Finally Laurence shares how the "golden moment" for fossil fuels is coming to an end, and how we can reclaim control over our own future.

Recorded live in London in conversation with co-hosts Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst at Climate Curious Live: The OGs Edition. 

📅 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 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

Wednesday Mar 25, 2026 - Climate Tech Time

If you work in climate tech and want to engage in meaningful conversations, this is the place to be. We also offer additional programming earlier in the day to deepen connections and provide more opportunities for collaboration.

Thursday Mar 26, 2026 - UX Jumpstart: Design products that drive real action for climate tech

Working on digital products leveraging environmental data? Join us for a practical 1-hour session designed for founders, technical, product or marketing leads working at the intersection of tech, climate, and data.

📰 News Highlights

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.

Wind and solar generated 30% of the European Union's electricity in 2025, just above the 29% supplied by fossil fuel power plants running on coal, gas and occasionally oil, according to data from energy think-tank Ember.

Startups Magazine: Carbon-aware scaling - the next competitive edge in SaaS

SaaS founders will always ask the same questions: how fast are we growing? What's our Cloud bill? What's our margin per customer? There is another question that should be viewed as equally important today though, but far fewer focus on: what does each customer actually cost in energy and emissions?

The Guardian: Global economy must move past GDP to avoid planetary disaster, warns UN chief

The global economy must be radically transformed to stop it rewarding pollution and waste, UN secretary general António Guterres has warned. Guterres said humanity's future required the urgent overhaul of the world's "existing accounting systems" he said were driving the planet to the brink of disaster.

Wired: Big Tech Says Generative AI Will Save the Planet. It Doesn't Offer Much Proof

A new report finds that of 154 specific claims about how AI will benefit the climate, just a quarter cited academic research. A third included no evidence at all. "People make assertions about the kind of societal impacts of AI and the effects on the energy system—those assertions often lack rigor," says Jon Koomey, an energy and technology researcher who was not involved in Joshi's report. "It's important not to take self-interested claims at face value."

ComputerWeekly: IT Sustainability Think Tank - Building the backbone of the UK's AI economy

When it comes to the environmental impacts of AI, should big tech firms or enterprises, and their IT departments, be expected to "do their bit" to limit the potential environmental fallout of the technology's growing usage?

Travel and Tour World: Nairobi Leads the Charge for Women in Conservation at GCTDF 2026

In a groundbreaking move for conservation and sustainable tourism, Nairobi, Kenya, will host the Women in Conservation Forum as part of the Global Conservation Tech & Drone Forum (GCTDF 2026). This influential forum, scheduled for 2 March 2026, promises to shine a spotlight on the pivotal roles women play in the realm of wildlife protection, eco-tourism, and sustainable conservation.

💚 Papers We Love 💚

HotCarbon 2025: Improving Impacts of Data Center Lifecycle

The globally growing data center energy consumption and their carbon emissions pose significant environmental challenges. In this context, discerning server fabrication and operational energy contribution to data center carbon footprint is key to identifying effective mitigation strategies. This study partitions server carbon footprints and proposes a novel 2D representation for analyzing data centers carbon impacts. It shows that reducing static power waste through future hardware with better energy proportionality is a priority to design and operate sustainable data centers

💼 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.

Vizzuality - Back End Engineer - 30.000 Eur to 49.000 Eur depending on experience - Permanent - Totally remote

We're on the lookout for a Back-End Engineer with experience and proficiency in NodeJS/TypeScript/Python and a strong DevOps mindset to join our team at Vizzuality.

We expect our engineers not just to write code, but also to deploy, operate, and maintain the infrastructure it runs on.

At Vizzuality, our purpose is to reach a fair and sustainable planet by creating tools that radically empower people to make positive changes now. We’re always looking for passionate people who strive to use their creativity and skills to make a difference in people’s lives and help make the world a better place.

Bioregional - Insights & Engagement Coordinator (Corporate Sustainability) - £28,500-34,000 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok

We're looking for a bright, organised and creative Insights & Engagement Coordinator who is passionate about sustainability and supporting businesses on their transformation journeys. Deadline: 9am Monday 2 March 2026

Support our work

You can support us financially on Open Collective.