Global demand for renewable energy is surging so why make solar panels, wind turbines and EVs dearer for western consumers?

With historic heatwaves sweeping across the US and other parts of the northern hemisphere, June is expected to be the 13th consecutive month of record-breaking global temperatures. The primary cause, of course, is the enormous amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Despite the existential threat posed by rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, emissions continue to increase at a faster pace than previously anticipated.

On one front, however, progress in the fight against the climate crisis has exceeded expectations. Amid the global shift from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles and the accelerated adoption of solar and wind power, demand for renewable energy is rapidly rising in the US and the EU.

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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Money is emotional. Financial therapists can help make sense of these feelings, from budget plans to money scripts

Not many people seem to feel happy about their financial lives right now. In the US, 63% of Americans cited money as a “significant stressor” in their lives, according to the American Psychological Association’s 2023 Stress in America report. Among those aged 18 to 34, that number went up to 82%. In the UK, a November 2023 poll found that a third of adults had felt anxious in the past month because of their personal financial situation, and 9% reported feeling “hopeless”.cdxnmgh

There are concrete reasons for this anxiety. In the US, high inflation has given consumers a grim outlook on the economy, and a cost of living crisis has seized the UK.

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© Illustration: Ruby Ash/The Guardian

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© Illustration: Ruby Ash/The Guardian

Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT are finding widest use at big companies, but there is wide expectation that the impact will spread.

© Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times

Last week's EU parliamentary elections have resulted in big wins for right (and far-right) parties across the continent, with inflation- and migration-driven campaigns seeing late surges in support from Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy to Geert Wilder's Party of Freedom to the extremist (and Nazi-curious) Alternative for Germany. Most notable was the unprecedented success of Marine Le Pen's hard-right National Rally in France, whose demolition of the ruling centrist coalition was so complete that President Emmanuel Macron has unexpectedly dissolved the legislature and called for snap elections later this month in a high-stakes bid to disrupt the national-populist wave. Not all is grim for the left -- socialist parties held their own in multiple nations, proudly illiberal Viktor Orban's Fidesz fell short of projections against a rising Péter Magyar, and France's two-round system has reliably kept the far-right out of power. Still, this week's results have massive and troubling implications for climate change, Ukraine, and a swath of other critical issues.

Beijing’s dominance raises economic and security concerns, and tensions will be high as top climate diplomats meet this week.

© Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The president’s visit to Wisconsin celebrated the investment by Microsoft in a center to be built on the site of a failed Foxconn project negotiated by his predecessor.

© Tom Brenner for The New York Times