Weekly Climate Solutions Digest
Welcome
October arrives with a softer light. In the north, skeins of geese stitch the sky at dawn, and dew lifts like breath from fields. In the south, spring loosens buds and wakes bright wildflowers. It is a good week to notice how life moves and how we choose to move with it.
Across these stories, two themes stand out. We are electrifying the hard stuff, and we are aligning infrastructure with people and place. Green steel shows up in the bones of data centers, a buyers alliance steers concrete toward cleaner recipes, and giant haul trucks trade diesel for electrons. Storage climbs fast, giving the grid a steadier pulse. On water, Slovenia floats solar. On a river in Maine, a historic sale of dams opens a path home for salmon.
Policy and community pull alongside technology. Canada ties transit to housing. In Ghana, solar powers irrigation. In Mexico, partners push electric freight. In Guyana, an Indigenous village switches on its own solar grid. The through line is practical and intimate: build what works, where it matters, so more of us can share in the light. With that in mind, here is what moved this week.
Top Climate Solutions Of The Week
- Stegra will supply Microsoft data centers with hydrogen based green steel via certificates, a deal that helps scale near zero steel in Boden by unlocking offtake and private investment.
- State utility HSE will build a 140 MW floating solar farm on Lake Družmirje with EU support and a 2026 start, Europe's largest FPV project set to power about 35,000 homes by 2027.
- The US added 5.6 GW of batteries in Q2, with California, Texas and Arizona each over 1 GW, a record surge in grid scale storage that can serve peak demand for 3.7 million homes as Florida and Georgia emerge.
- Fortescue ordered 150 to 200 240 tonne battery electric haul trucks from XCMG, China's largest green mining export to date to replace diesel at Pilbara iron ore mines on the path to real zero by 2030.
- Canada launched a permanent $30 billion Public Transit Fund that standardizes competitive, unbiased feasibility studies, steering agencies toward battery electric buses and giving manufacturers stable long term demand.
- RMI and the Center for Green Market Activation launched the Sustainable Concrete Buyers Alliance, a book and claim procurement platform letting buyers like Amazon and Meta fund low carbon cement and concrete plants via environmental attribute certificates.
- The Nature Conservancy bought four hydro dams on Maine's lower Kennebec River for $168 million, a deal that sets up their removal to reopen historic salmon runs and restore river habitat.
- Ghana broke ground on a 1 MW solar plant to power the Dawhenya Irrigation Scheme, a Water Energy Food Nexus project funded by Korea that will displace diesel pumps and boost rice production.
- C40 Cities, The Climate Pledge and VEMO will deploy charging hubs for trucks in Mexico City, a Laneshift partnership to electrify freight, cut air pollution and meet the city's climate targets.
- Guyana commissioned a 217.4 kW solar microgrid for Batavia village, providing continuous power to 125 homes as part of a plan for 41 Indigenous community installations by 2026.
Taken together, these projects show a pattern that is both local and global: cleaner materials and machines, smarter policy and procurement, and communities building what they need.
If you are struggling...
If you feel worn thin by the news, if anger, fear, or numbness keep visiting, you are not alone. The world is heavy. You do not have to carry it perfectly to care. It helps to practice holding more than one thing at once: grief and gladness, effort and rest, limits and courage. Let go of the idea that only perfect people make a difference. You are allowed to be human and still help.
If your mind races ahead with what ifs, try seeing anxiety as a form of futurism. The same attention that spots risk can also spot openings. When worry surges, name one thing that could go right, then take one grounded step in the present. Drink water. Breathe. Touch something steady. From there, choose a small action.
Change is rarely one grand fix. It is silver buckshot, not a silver bullet: many small acts, aligned. Call your representative. Check on a neighbor. Give ten minutes, ten dollars, or ten kind words. Rest so you can return. Teach, vote, repair, share. Your piece matters, even if it is small. Especially if it is small. Today, choose one next right thing you can actually do, and do it gently. Tomorrow, choose again. You are not alone. Enough of us, together, is enough.
For people and planet,
Bri Chapman
brichapman.com