Zero: The Climate Race

The countries plotting the end of the fossil-fuel era

28 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

At COP28 in December 2023, the world committed to transitioning away from fossil fuels. Yet in the years since, there’s been little progress. A ...

Reform UK's plan to end decades of climate action

20 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Reform UK is currently the most popular party in Britain. If voted into government, it wants to end all subsidies for renewable energy, ban battery en...

Electrons will be central to the next era of geopolitical stability

14 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

With wars raging and supply chains blocked, we’re in an era of geopolitical chaos. This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi talks with Gerald Butts, chai...

The Iran war shows why clean energy is the more secure choice

07 May 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Everywhere you look, you see two types of technology existing side-by-side. One that runs on fossil fuels and one that runs on clean electricity. Ther...

A new world order is emerging. Can it tackle climate change?

30 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We are living in an increasingly divided world. It took two decades to get to the Paris Agreement, and then global cooperation really lasted only for ...

London’s mayor on lessons from one of the world’s greenest cities

23 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Sadiq Khan is about to complete 10 years as London’s mayor. He’s seen the city affected by Brexit, the pandemic and two energy crises. Tha...

Caution, not ambition, will shape the next decade of climate action

16 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the past month, we've seen two major plans from two of the world's biggest polluters. In March, China approved its 15th five-year plan, which gave ...

How the Iran war will reshape the future of energy

09 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Since the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global energy markets have been frenetic, prices swinging up and down with each new...

Climate tech makes Europe more resilient to Iran War shocks

02 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Will the Iran War finally be the moment where countries move to renewables en masse, or will they rely more heavily on fossil fuels? This week on Zero...

Here's Why: The Iran war resets the energy transition

30 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Here's Why is Bloomberg’s short explainer podcast, where we take one big news story and break it down in just a few minutes with help from ...

Zack Polanski’s plan to tax billionaires and make energy affordable

26 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Zack Polanski is challenging the notion that you can’t be Green and a popular politician. Since he became the leader of the UK’s Green Par...

Big Take: The energy crisis is speeding up clean tech adoption worldwide

24 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

As the war with Iran drags out and oil prices remain turbulent, it raises the question of whether — and how — prolonged conflict in the Mi...

The future of climate science without US support

19 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is responsible for collating our shared scientific understanding of how global warming is...

‘Everywhere I looked, climate change bled’ Abi Daré on writing climate fiction: Imagine Series

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the latest episode of Zero’s Imagine series, Akshat Rathi is joined by Abi Daré, winner of the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize. Abi is...

War with Iran is a nightmare for oil and gas. What does it mean for clean energy?

03 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Many consider a widespread war in the Middle East the worst-case scenario for the global oil and gas market. That war is here, and it could have wide-...

Lessons to avoid societal collapse, from 5,000 years of history

26 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Societal collapses happen more often than you think, and there’s much we can learn from the past to avoid or, at least, delay another one. This ...

(Sponsored Content) Evolving Money: Blue Chip Meets Blockchain

22 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Crypto has become increasingly integrated into the financial system, from the use of stablecoins for payments, to the trading of tokenized equities on...

Ethiopia’s fossil fuel car ban is a vision of the future

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In 2024, Ethiopia did something revolutionary. It banned the import of fossil fuel cars and cut tariffs on electric vehicles. This week on Zero, Aksha...

Do artists have a duty to be political? Imagine series

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

How can music be used to communicate the climate crisis and its solutions? This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi talks with Pulitzer Prize winning composer ...

Electricity is now holding back growth across the global economy

05 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Major economies around the world are grappling with electricity grids under stress from equipment bottlenecks and workforce shortages. What can be don...

George Saunders goes inside the mind of a climate denier: Imagine series

29 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What is the best way to tell a climate story? This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi speaks with Booker Prize-winning novelist George Saunders. His new novel...

Electrification – not decarbonization – is the climate story of 2026

22 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Decarbonizing energy is just one part of the climate story. The other half is electrifying as much as possible. That is why electrification, not decar...

Did we get climate finance all wrong?

15 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

For the last decade, since the Paris Agreement was signed, governments have been trying to nudge big financial players to move more money into climate...

America the bully becomes the supreme petrostate

08 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

President Donald Trump wants US companies to rebuild Venezuela's oil fields after the capture of Nicolas Maduro. This week on Zero, US Senator Sh...

Abundance or adequacy? The search for better climate futures

02 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Kim Stanley Robinson’s life project has been imagining utopias. He’s a science-fiction writer best known in climate circles for writing Mi...

Update: Have China's emissions finally peaked?

24 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode was originally recorded in July 2025, and updated in December 2025. Happy Holidays from the Zero team.  When exactly China’s e...

How cash-strapped Argentina became a bright spot for renewables

18 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Despite endless financial difficulties, Argentina has seen a remarkable increase in clean energy over the past decade. It has gone from practically ze...

Is this the end of Canada's climate ambitions?

05 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Canada elected Mark Carney as prime minister, there was hope that the country would pursue climate policies. That hope was crushed after Carney s...

How China’s engineering mindset won the clean-tech race

04 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book Breakneck, tech analyst Dan Wang argues China’s engineering mindset has given it an edge in all sorts of domains, including clim...

Bloomberg Australia: How Australia’s Climate Fight Was Rekindled

28 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Australia has suffered a major climate setback, losing its bid to host next year’s COP summit in Adelaide. At the same time, the Coalition has r...

Climate summits are working as they were designed: poorly

24 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last two weeks, tens of thousands of people took to the city of Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon river, for the annual United Nations climat...

Al Gore: Fossil fuel companies are destabilizing democracy and environment

20 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Climate solutions are here, they’re just not evenly distributed. So says former US Vice President Al Gore, who remains staunchly optimistic that...

Al Gore says 'We may have passed peak Trump'

18 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Former US Vice President Al Gore is one of the grandees of the climate world and knows just how much power America can wield on the international stag...

Exxon thinks it can count carbon better

12 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Most oil company CEOs have turned their back on COP30, but not ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, who this year attended his third COP conference in a row. ...

Searching for climate solutions in the Amazon

11 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

COP30 negotiations have officially started, and began with a fight about what to put on the agenda. While not completely unexpected for these enormous...

At COP30, the economic logic of climate action is up for debate

06 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

World leaders are gathering in Belem, Brazil, for the COP30 climate negotiations, but what will be achieved? Brazil hasn’t given much indication...

What did 10 years of the Paris Agreement actually achieve?

04 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Paris Agreement was a huge deal when it was signed in 2015 at COP21. But after 10 years and $10 trillion dollars invested into decarbonizing our e...

The world’s biggest consumers of electricity are hidden in plain sight

30 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Just three companies control the lion’s share of the $120 billion global market for industrial gases: Linde, Air Liquide & Air Products. And...

The ‘science’ behind economics explains the big problems we face

23 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From trade wars to skyrocketing tech valuations, governments and investors seem to be making economically irrational moves. As the world heads into an...

What climate tech is overhyped and what's not

16 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There's always big ideas in the climate technology space, but it can be hard to get your head around all the different types of technologies making wa...

US fossil fuels vs. Chinese clean tech, who’s winning on exports?

13 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There’s a battle underway to win the energy export market between the world’s two largest economies: The US wants the world to buy its fos...

Renewables promised to be cheap. Why aren’t people feeling it?

09 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The UK used to be a shining example of how to act on climate change. It created one of the world’s first climate laws in 2008, which bound the g...

Big Take: AI data centers use a lot of energy. You may be paying for it

06 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

AI needs a lot of energy — and a new Bloomberg investigation has found that those soaring costs are being passed on to consumers who live near d...

A return to coal? AI’s demand for gas turbines risks a new crisis: Bottlenecks Series

01 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Rising power demand from data centers for artificial intelligence has led to a shortage of the gas turbines needed to generate electricity. This short...

The extraordinary rise of electric cars in developing countries

25 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Something remarkable is unfolding in developing countries. From Nepal to Costa Rica, more people are buying electric cars than fossil-fuel vehicles, a...

Building monuments to the end of oil

18 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Monira Al Qadiri says she is pre-empting the end of oil and building monuments to it. As one of the most important contemporary artists of the Middle ...

Formula E shows the mind-boggling speed at which electric cars evolve

11 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You’ve heard about Formula 1, right? But do you know about Formula E, its plucky all-electric sibling? This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi talks wit...

Your questions answered: Is Donald Trump a climate warrior in disguise?

04 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we hear from you. Bloomberg Green’s Akshat Rathi answers questions from Zero listeners: Can a decline in trade help fight climate cha...

Big Take: How hot is too hot? The latest science on extreme heat

02 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Nearly half a million people die every year as a result of extreme heat. That’s more than the total from hurricanes, earthquakes and floods comb...

Best of: Kim Stanley Robinson imagines utopia in 2025

28 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson imagines the future for a living. And the future is very much upon us. Robinson’s seminal 2020 novel...

The 100-ton device that can stop blackouts in the renewables era: Bottlenecks Series

21 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In April, Spain suffered a nationwide blackout that lasted nearly a full day. It was a traumatic event for one of Europe’s fastest adopters of s...

Build small, grow fast: Can small modular reactors live up to the hype?

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Electricity demand is soaring, and some think the answer isn’t building bigger, but smaller. That’s the idea behind small modular reactors...

How rich countries can build cheap nuclear power again

07 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Electricity demand is booming, and it’s not just because of artificial intelligence. So much so that many are ready to revisit the idea of nucle...

How a bunch of students beat big polluters in the world's highest court

31 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 2019, a group of law students from Pacific island nations set in motion a case that made it to the world’s highest court: The International C...

Trump’s immigration policy is a nightmare for climate tech

24 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Everywhere you look, it seems like bad news for climate tech. Investments are down, the US government has cut incentives and startups are running out ...

How to fight against Trump’s attack on clean energy

17 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act cuts almost $500 billion in US clean-energy spending, just as the country was starting to get serious about its climate...

Trumponomics: Will Trump’s bill trigger a ‘Big, Beautiful’ energy crunch?

14 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we explore how the legislation’s attack on renewable energy may push up electricity bills and damage US competitiveness in AI. The ta...

Why militaries can no longer ignore climate change

10 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The world’s militaries are incredibly polluting, collectively accounting for some 5.5% of global emissions. Western economies are now gearing up...

(Sponsored Content) Stewards of Compassion: Doing Business With Compassion

06 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to do business with compassion? How can a company marry purpose with profit? We explore that and more with B.Grimm--the Thai conglom...

The UK now has a state-owned clean-energy champion. Can it succeed?

03 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When the UK handed the Labour party a parliamentary majority last July, it promised to build a new state owned energy company called Great British Ene...

What a venture capitalist does when climate tech loses its shine

26 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Climate tech is not the hot investor thesis it once was a couple of years ago. After several record breaking years, and billions of dollars being pour...

Have China’s emissions finally peaked?

19 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When exactly China’s emissions peak will make a big difference to the fate of the planet. That moment has come, according to Lauri Myllyvirta, c...

There aren’t enough cables to meet rising electricity demand: Bottlenecks Series

12 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

High-voltage electricity cables are in huge demand around the world, so much so that a lack of cabling has become a bottleneck throttling the clean en...

A skilled worker shortage is becoming an ‘existential’ problem for the energy transition: Bottlenecks Series

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Western economies need to electrify and fast, but where are all the skilled workers going to come from to install the heat pumps, solar panels and bat...

The device throttling the world’s electrified future: Bottlenecks Series

29 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

To slash emissions fast, the formula is simple: electrify everything and clean up the grid. But in practice, progress is slowed by all sorts of bottle...

How carbon removal pioneer Climeworks is tackling its first major layoff

21 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists are clear that meeting climate goals means ending carbon pollution and drawing down excess CO2 from the air. That’s why carbon-remova...

A trillion-dollar fund manager on climate investing in 2025

15 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Low-carbon tech investments reached $2.1 trillion last year. But with the whole world trying to work out how to navigate US President Donald Trump&rsq...

How Australia’s natural resources will shape global emissions

08 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Australia is in a unique place when it comes to the energy transition. It is the world’s largest exporter of coal and a leading exporter of gas,...

(Sponsored Content) Stewards of Compassion: The Origins of B.Grimm

04 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What connects Hamburg, the Thai Royal court and the conservation of tigers? A pioneering young pharmacist who wanted to do good in his new home of Tha...

Can Carney transform Canada from climate laggard to leader?

01 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week, Canadians elected Mark Carney, leader of the Liberal party, to be their prime minister. Carney is a newcomer to politics, but is well known...

Bloomberg Australia: Will it be a climate election yet again?

28 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Three years ago, Australia was on the verge of an election dominated by a wave of independent MPs who promised a climate change reckoning. But climate...

Why investors avoid developing countries, and how to change that: Moving Money

24 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Global investment in clean energy hit a record $2 trillion last year, according to BloombergNEF. But developing countries see only a sliver of that fu...

These 'beautiful' banks are expected to save climate finance: Moving Money

17 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Developing countries require trillions of dollars a year to transition to clean energy and build climate-resilient infrastructure. So where will the m...

How the financial system can work for climate, not against it: Moving Money

10 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Even with all the turmoil of the past few months, the energy transition isn’t taking a break. Last year, global spending on clean-energy technol...

Is Tesla’s EV supremacy in the rearview mirror?

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There is a lot happening in the world of EVs. In the US, Teslas are being hawked from the White House lawn, while in China, BYD has announced a batter...

Best of: Searching for climate solutions amid the AI hype

27 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Depending on who you ask, AI is either going to save the world or end it. The technology’s capacity for data-crunching and problem-saving can he...

How water scarcity is threatening the global economy

20 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Water scarcity is no longer a distant threat: By 2030, fresh water demand is expected to outpace supply by 40%. The effects of water stress will be fe...

In Barbados, Mia Mottley offers pragmatism and hope from a sinking island

13 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the time since she became Prime Minister of Barbados in 2018, Mia Mottley has become known as a moral force for action on climate change. The Bridg...

Big Take: A Warming Planet vs. Trump

10 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Since taking office in January, President Trump has set in motion a series of sweeping rollbacks on US climate policy. This comes at a time when gover...

It’s not just Trump. Canada’s climate policies face a bumpy road post-Trudeau

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As President Donald Trump heats up a North American trade war, Canada is already facing big challenges within its own government. Next week, the gover...

Why (almost) everyone hates ESG right now

27 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The world of ESG regulation and investing was already suffering a period of shaky confidence even before President Donald Trump returned to the White ...

As COP16 resumes in Rome, biodiversity funding is on the line

20 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Last October, delegates from around the world met in Cali, Colombia to discuss ways to protect the planet’s biodiversity. After a promising brea...

Green growth is expensive. The global economy can afford it.

13 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How do we keep climate action alive in a fracturing world? “Today we live in an age where we actually have the solutions– technologically,...

The UK’s £200 billion plan for carbon-free power by 2030

06 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The UK government has pledged to achieve 95% clean power by 2030. It's an ambitious, tough goal – and even tougher to accomplish while reducing ...

What happens to the energy transition with the US exiting the Paris Agreement?

30 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With President Donald Trump back in office, the US is leaving the Paris Agreement for the second time. Unlike in 2017, this withdrawal is set to have ...

Best of: COP30 president on how Brazil is looking to supercharge climate action

27 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Plans are already underway for COP30 to pick up the baton and tackle COP29's unfinished business. The 2025 climate conference is set to take place in ...

To understand Trump's climate moves in his second term, look to the Reagan years

23 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As Donald Trump returns to the White House, Akshat Rathi speaks to Yale historian Paul Sabin about whether recent presidential history might hold some...

Will the LA fires unleash a wave of climate migrants?

16 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As the blazes in Los Angeles continue to burn, those who have lost their homes are contending with the immediate need for shelter– and difficult...

Odd Lots: This is how China builds so much nuclear power

13 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the US right now, there is a lot of talk about a so-called "nuclear revival," though it remains to be seen whether that translates into action. Mea...

If 1.5C is dead, what happens next?

09 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In December, Europe’s Copernicus weather service announced that it was “virtually certain” that 2024 would be the hottest year ever....

Kim Stanley Robinson imagines utopia in 2025

02 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson imagines the future for a living. And the future is very much upon us. Robinson’s seminal 2020 novel...

Best of: How the humble refrigerator changed the world

26 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The “cold chain” that delivers our food is inconspicuous but vast. The US alone boasts around 5.5 billion cubic feet of refrigerated space...

TED Talks Daily : Capitalism broke the climate. Now it can fix it

19 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Capitalism can be blamed for worsening the climate crisis, says journalist Akshat Rathi, but it can also be used to drive the solutions to fix it. In ...

Cutting through the climate tech hype and looking for profit

12 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Reporter Akshat Rathi speaks to Eric Toone of Breakthrough Energy Ventures about what’s hype and what’s not in the world of energy startup...

What Thomas Edison’s legacy looks like in the 21st century

05 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

General Electric Co was officially founded in 1892, when several of inventor Thomas Edison's ventures were consolidated into one company. From then on...

COP29's last-minute deal is a miracle and a mess

24 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It went well past the official deadline, late into the night – but finally, COP29 ended with a deal. Hardly anyone felt victorious. Back from Baku, ...

Step aside, COP29. How Brazil is looking to supercharge COP30

21 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Plans are already underway for COP30 to pick up the baton-- and tackle COP29's unfinished business. Next year’s climate conference is set to take pl...

The White House’s outgoing climate czar weighs in on Trump

19 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

At COP29 in Baku, Akshat Rathi is joined on stage at Bloomberg Green’s live event by Ali Zaidi, President Biden’s National Climate Advisor. Zaidi ...

Big Take: COP29 confronts tensions over funding clean energy transition

17 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Climate leaders from around the world have convened in Baku, Azerbaijan for the UN’s biggest annual climate conference, COP29. And this year, it’s...

What is the Exxon CEO doing on a climate podcast?

14 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Reporter Akshat Rathi sits down with ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, who made his second-ever appearance at the United Nations climate conference. Woods ...