Climate Good News
Around the world people are taking the initiative
to mitigate climate change. Here are some good news briefs
compiled by the Climate Issue group of the LWV of Bellingham/Whatcom.
- All articles summarized by Jayne Freudenberger, chair, LWVBWC climate committee
Nonpolluting, Quiet Shipping
This is a wonderful breakthrough in shipping and why is the United States so far behind? Imagine all electric ships in the Salish Sea … no noise, no pollution and no fear of oil spills. Most of the ships in the Salish Sea sail under foreign flags. Even if other countries take the lead in electrifying them, we will benefit. — JF
China
An all-electric bulk carrier ship, the Gezhouba, was launched from Yichang in the Hebei Province of China in October 2025, accelerating the electrification of inland shipping on the Yangtze River. The ship is nearly 130 meters long, has a maximum capacity of 13,000 tonnes, is powered by 24 MW of lithium-ion batteries, and “selfparks” with automatic berthing. State-owned media reports that the Gezhouba has a range of 500 kilometers on a single charge and can be recharged with rapid battery swapping. At the time of its launch, it’s the world’s biggest-yet all-electric cargo ship!
The Gezhouba isn’t an isolated case. In July 2025, the Yujian 77, an all-electric cruise ship, set out from Xiamen Bay, and, in December 2025, world-leading Chinese battery maker CATL announced that they were seriously moving into shipbuilding.
For context, in 2024 China accounted for 53.3 percent of all global commercial shipbuilding, with South Korea at 29.1 percent, Japan at 13.1 percent, and the United States at just 0.1 percent. China’s state-owned CSSC corporation built more commercial ships by tonnage in 2024 alone than the entire U.S. shipbuilding industry has built since the end of World War II.
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https://www.csis.org/analysis/are-us-policies-eroding-chinasdominance-shipbuilding?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
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Electrifying a Vertical Village in NYC — Even High-Rises Can Convert to Cleaner Energy
From the outside, 420 Beekman Hill in Midtown East looks like your standard Manhattan co-op: a 110-unit tower of white brick built in the 1960s, topping out at 13 stories. But, its familiar façade masks an innovative upgrade that’s brought the building to the cutting edge of energy efficient technology. As one of the first co-ops in Manhattan to fully electrify its heating and cooling systems with heat pumps, it serves as a model for cities looking to make older housing stock more sustainable.
Prior to electrification, the building’s system ran on gas powered steam — one of the least efficient methods of heating and cooling, explains Carl Thompson, Beekman Hill’s resident manager.
Several things fell into place to create this seeming miracle — a savvy resident architect, a forward thinking co-op board and good timing with available state and city grants. Buildings are the top contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in New York City, even above transportation.
Beekman Hill’s old, steam based equipment included a large steam-absorption system to generate cooling, plus a heat transfer mechanism to make domestic hot water. By 2022, this system was on its last leg and the co-op board was deciding what to do next. At first, the board considered a natural gas-based boiler and A/C system. But Randy Gerner, a resident and board member who also happens to work as an architect, had another idea.“
Could we possibly update to heat pumps, systems similar to the ones I’ve been using in my new buildings,” Gerner says. He knew they would soon face fines if they didn’t hit the city’s heat emissions reduction requirements. So why not electrify their clunky system now? Among the co-op board, the proposal met virtually zero dissent.
Gerner’s decades as an architect at his New York-based firm which has extensive experience in multifamily high-rise buildings in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens — many of which incorporate climate-friendly upgrades gave the residents confidence. Among the most challenging parts of the project was financing it; the process took almost eight months.
They were helped by the NYC Accelerator, a program of the Office of Climate and Environmental Justice that offers free assistance for energy efficiency upgrades. Between grants and Con Edison, they came up with the almost $2 million — costing each resident $15,000 up front or a bit more if taking a longer time.
During construction, a huge crane placed 10 heat pumps on the roof. And then began the work on getting the proper piping to each resident. And yet, the project caused minimal disruption to residents’ daily lives. All construction happened behind the scenes in stairwells and using cranes on the street, and the individual heating and cooling units in people’s apartments remained unchanged. Residents never lost heating or cooling service during peak months. And, there’s an added layer of efficiency at Beekman Hill: in the summertime, instead of expelling hot air into the atmosphere, the system recaptures this heat to generate the building’s hot water sustainably.
Best of all, the building’s energy consumption meter is now proof of what electrification can accomplish. During peak summer months, the building was previously using up to $20,000 worth of ConEdison steam and electrical energy each month, Gerner says. Now, it’s using roughly $12,000 worth of electrical energy during the hottest summer months.
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This article was published as a collaboration between Reasons to be Cheerful and Skylight, which tells stories about the New Yorkers leading the clean energy transition in their own homes.
“To Electrify This Manhattan Tower, It Took a Vertical Village” by Marlowe Starling, Reasons to be Cheerful: https://reasonstobecheerful.world/new-york-electric-co-opapartment-building-bright-future/
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El Nino Is Brewing
As President Trump dumps the Endangerment Act, and global warming is accelerating, we look to other countries and cities to take climate initiatives. — JF
These three good climate news snippets come from “El Nino Is Brewing” by Bill McKibbon, Feb.16, 2026 on Substack.
Africa is emerging as the fastest growing solar market on earth. Historically, South Africa dominated solar imports in Africa, at one point accounting for roughly half of all panels shipped to the continent. The latest data show its share has slipped below a third as demand surged elsewhere. Last year, 20 African nations set new annual records for solar imports, as 25 countries imported a total of at least 100 megawatts of capacity.
Boston’s housing authority is figuring out how to install window-based heat pumps in city owned apartments. It’s a new type of heat pump that’s compact, hangs over a windowsill and plugs into a standard 120 volt outlet — no HVAC technician or electrician required.The units aren’t widely available to the public yet, but the Boston Housing Authority is piloting them in the Hassan Apartments, a 100-unit complex in Mattapan for seniors and disabled adults. The 50-yearold building is one of many older structures across the Northeast with an energy-gobbling heating system and no air conditioning — factors that make it a prime candidate for a climate retrofit.
In Indonesia, a surge in electric vehicles (EVs) means that the government may not need to turn over millions of acres of forest for biofuels plantations. The switch in Southeast Asia has been less celebrated, but is becoming breathtakingly rapid. EVs in Thailand are already cheaper than the fossil-powered equivalent, and made up about a fifth of the market last year. In Singapore, they accounted for a Chinese-style 45 percent, and 32 percent in Vietnam. The pivot in Indonesia, the fourth-most populous country with 285 million people, has been even more dramatic. In 2020, less than one in every 350 cars sold was electric. In December, that number stood at more than one in three. A recognition of the transformation underway could give the nation cleaner air, a less ravaged environment, stronger fiscal and current accounts, and more jobs — all while reducing the risk of catastrophic climate disasters, like the floods that claimed the lives of 1,201 people in Sumatra last month. It’s a good bargain.
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https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/an-el-nino-is-brewing.
