| BloombergNEF's annual Pioneers competition for innovative startups is currently accepting applications. The awards have been run for more than a decade, and the challenge areas for 2025 include decarbonizing light industry, improving climate adaptation and building next-generation energy storage. You can read more about this year's winners. Duke Energy Corp. said this week it's planning to extend the life of its largest coal-fired power plant, pushing aside its climate goal to shutter all facilities that burn the dirty fuel by 2035. The utility said it plans to operate its massive Gibson Station in Indiana through 2038, according to a presentation about its resource plan for that state posted on its website Thursday. The company previously said it would shutter the plant by 2035, in line with its broader plan to be entirely coal-free by that year.  Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg Some US utilities are struggling to meet ambitious climate goals set before electricity forecasts began spiking amid tech giants' move to build new data centers for artificial intelligence. FirstEnergy Corp. announced earlier this year it was abandoning its 2030 target for slashing greenhouse gas emissions because it couldn't replace some coal plants in time. Meanwhile, the UK shut its last coal-fired power plant this week. For the government to succeed with its climate plans, stations burning natural gas may be next. The costs of capturing carbon emissions are also on the rise. The UK government said on Friday it will spend as much as £21.7 billion ($28.5 billion) over 25 years to capture and store CO2 emissions from two industrial areas in Britain. In Japan, pressure is building to curb methane. Twenty-two Japanese utilities and trading houses are joining an initiative that aims to leverage their buying power to curb methane emissions from liquefied natural gas supply chains. It's one of several global efforts to curb the harmful greenhouse gas. When Hurricane Helene barreled ashore last week, it caused devastating flooding across the southeastern US, including in the Shore Acres area of St. Petersburg, Florida. The neighborhood saw 6 feet of storm surge, which flooded roads and homes. It was far from the first time. Shore Acres, where roads are just 2 feet above sea level at their highest point, sits in one of the 10 ZIP codes with the greatest number of "severe repetitive loss properties." It's a designation used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to refer to primarily residential buildings that have received at least four flood insurance payouts totaling $20,000 or more, or at least two totaling more than the building's market value. Severe repetitive loss (SRL) properties are a growing category. NRDC identified about 40,000 of them in 2022, in an estimate that associated the majority of SRL properties with their rough dates of designation. That was up from about 10,000 SRL properties in 2000, a sharp increase that highlights the burden extreme rainfall and flood risk is placing on homeowners, landlords and insurers.  A search and rescue team member inspects a building in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Bat Cave, North Carolina, on Oct. 1. Photographer: Sean Rayford/Getty Images Antarctica had less winter sea ice in 2024 than any year except 2023. The sea ice maximum was the second lowest on record this year and the lowest last year, pointing to the influence of climate change. Calling the downward movement in the past two years "dramatic," Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the university's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, said in a statement that it "points more than ever to effects from a record-warm ocean" on the polar region.  Sea ice seen from NASA's Operation IceBridge research aircraft in the Antarctic Peninsula region in 2017. Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images North America Every corner of the US is being hit by disaster. Across the US, natural catastrophes are becoming more expensive and more common. Global warming is supercharging the atmosphere with more water and energy, fueling increasingly violent weather. Bloomberg Green has mapped out where the damages are exceeding more than a $1 billion. Extreme rain is becoming more frequent. Torrential rains have triggered floods, and landslides have killed hundreds of people and displaced millions across parts of Africa, Europe, Asia and the US in recent weeks. A state of emergency was declared in the New Zealand city of Dunedin on Thursday as the nation's meteorological service warned that more than a month's rain could fall in a day. Yet in Brazil, long periods without rain are becoming the norm. The world's bread basket is experiencing its worst-ever drought, providing a microcosm of how climate change is turning lives and whole economies upside down. What if major economies all just agreed to quit fossil fuels — together? To date, 13 countries have signed a fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty. The biggest is Colombia, which has a $40 billion economic transition plan to build up green sectors and replace oil and gas revenue. Now Colombia is hoping to recruit other large economies to follow suit. During a conversation at Climate Week in New York, Akshat Rathi sat down with Colombia's environment minister, Susana Muhamad, and Brazil's chief climate negotiator, Liliam Chagas, to talk about what it will take for more nations to become leaders on climate change. Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday. | 
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