Sustainability by numbers | Hannah Ritchie | Substack (@hannahritchie.substack.com.web.brid.gy) Bsky - nopzon.com

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Posts by Sustainability by numbers | Hannah Ritchie | Substack

An end to cervical cancer is possible And some countries are already on track to do so.

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The UK is cutting its aid budget to the lowest level in decades After pledging to increase the budget to 0.7% of GNI, the government is cutting it to 0.3%.

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Technology can cut plane contrails by two-thirds. Getting airlines to use it isn't so easy Flights that followed an avoidance path cut contrails by almost two-thirds. But getting dispatchers and pilots comfortable with these routes will be crucial.

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Will Africa still be energy-poor in 2050? Projections suggest that electricity consumption across the region will still be incredibly low decades from now.

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Does China have a huge electricity advantage over the United States? China uses most of its electricity for industry, while the US consumes it in households and commercial services.

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Does that use a lot of energy? [Update] An interactive tool that lets you compare the energy consumption of various products and activities.

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My book is published in the US today, and I'm shortlisted for the Unwin Award Three things for today.

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Does that use a lot of energy? An interactive tool to get a sense of scale for energy consumption.

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Do subsidies make meat much cheaper? A little, but not much. Certainly not enough to make them cheaper than meat substitutes.

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The changing (and perhaps surprising) geography of diabetes Diabetes is growing much faster in South Asia and Africa than in Europe or North America.

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We could produce a lot of electricity on the land used for biofuels About enough to meet current global electricity demand.

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Are bees booming or dying off? Bees are more than just honeybees.

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Many people are individually optimistic but think the world is falling apart Most people are personally optimistic, but socially pessimistic. This can be a drag on collective progress.

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The low life expectancy of Americans is not just about deaths among young people Even those who reach 65 are at a disadvantage relative to peer countries.

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Five(ish) charts that give some context to Venezuelan oil It has the world's largest reserves, produces comparatively little, and has a type of oil that the US needs.

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Some changes to Sustainability by Numbers in the new year What's coming up in 2026?

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Can we break the human development-environment trade-off? The opportunity to build a human-nature relationship that is not zero-sum.

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What happened on energy and climate in China this year? Emissions flatlined; clean power pushed out coal; and oil for transport falls again.

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Will oil and gas consumption keep rising through 2050? Unpacking some of the assumptions behind the IEA's policy scenarios.

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What happened to global carbon emissions this year? Emissions from fossils are up, emissions from land use are down.

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Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen again in 2025 Progress on deforestation, but increased threats from wildfires.

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Artificial intelligence could dramatically improve weather forecasting An AI-based model outperformed every other in forecasting the Indian monsoon this year. This helped millions of farmers.

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How unprecedented is power demand growth in the United States? Electricity generation is expected to rise. But will it grow much faster than it did in the past?

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Eliminating contrails from flying could be incredibly cheap Could we halve aviation's climate impact at a fraction of the cost of sustainable aviation fuels?

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The world is on track for record harvests this year What do the latest projections expect for global food production and yields of different crops?

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My new book — Clearing the Air — is published in the UK today A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change — in 50 Questions and Answers

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The Electrotech Revolution: Some insights into a new way of thinking about the transition From burning old sunshine to using it in real-time.

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Which countries are scaling solar and wind the fastest? The leaderboard is quite different depending on what metric you look at.

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What's the carbon footprint of using ChatGPT or Gemini? [August 2025 update] A new study from Google suggests its Gemini LLM uses around 0.24 Wh per text query. That's the same energy as using a microwave for one second.

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How much do electric car batteries degrade? Many electric cars will still have more than 80% of their initial capacity after 200,000 miles.

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