The battery boom is here!

🔋 Good news: The world installed 112 gigawatts of new grid battery storage in 2025, a tenfold increase from just four years ago, and Australia is quietly out front: one in every 25 homes now has a residential battery.

🌊 Not-so-good news: Islands in India's Hooghly estuary have already been lost to rising seas and erosion and their residents are now climate refugees. As one journalist put it: the engineers knew, the scientists warned, and the decision was made not to act.

💰 What you can do: Check whether your retirement savings are invested in fossil fuels. Free tools like Fossil Free Funds (US and Canada), Ethical Consumer (UK), and Market Forces (Australia) make it fast and easy to find out. Then, take action.

Thank you to Anne Cloud with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Voice Over for the Planet⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for narrating this edition of Talking Climate. 

Music by Bradley Myer.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.talkingclimate.ca

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Talking Climate with Katherine Hayho. Each episode, we explore how climate change is affecting the people, places, and things we love, and what we can do to make a difference. From science to solutions and stories that inspire, you're in the right place for real talk about real change. Two weeks ago, I mentioned how balcony solar is growing in popularity, and how, even though you can buy it at IKEA in some places, it's still not legal everywhere. For example, talking climate reader Paul wrote in with an update from Minnesota. Legislation that would have legalized plug-in solar devices didn't pass this year. But supporters say it has strong momentum and a revote is likely in 2027. If you live in Minnesota or another location where plug-in solar is not yet allowed, this is a great opportunity to use your voice to change that. If you live in the US, check out Plugin SolarUS. It's a handy resource that tracks plug-in solar laws across all 50 states and offers guides, savings calculators, and state-by-state updates. If you're curious whether plug-in solar is available where you live or are looking for a way to help catalyze local change that can make a real difference, it's a great place to start. This week, we're talking about record-breaking battery storage, India's climate impacts, and how to start impact investing. Let's dive in. Good news. 112 gigawatts of new grid battery storage installed across the planet. This represents almost 50% growth from 2024 and a tenfold increase from 2021. Half of that capacity was installed in China, and 16% in the United States. This year, the world is projected to install even more, 158 gigawatts. How does grid battery storage work? When the sun is blazing or the wind is blowing and solar panels or wind turbines are producing more power than we can use, storage banks that electricity instead of wasting it. Then when we need it most, on a hot evening when everyone gets home and cranks up the AC, it's right there, ready to go. These batteries make the grid more reliable and help push energy costs lower. They also replace gas-powered peaking plants that would otherwise be flipped on to generate electricity when it's needed most. Per capita, there's one country far out in the lead, though, and it's not China nor the US. It's Australia. There, more big battery power has been injected into the grid on a per capita basis over the past two years than in any other country on the planet, the Financial Review reports. And individuals are buying in too. Already one in every 25 homes in Australia has their own residential storage battery. And starting July 1st, homes with smart meters in New South Wales and Queensland will get three hours of free power every afternoon. A conversation article explains that it's a bid to shift electricity demand to when it's most available that most benefits households that are already electrified. Ray's story details how the government's river training project increased erosion of two inhabited islands in the Hooghly estuary. Yet a wall that would have protected these three islands from rising seas was proposed in 1981 but never built. Two of the three islands, Lohachara and Bedford, have already become uninhabitable due to a combination of erosion and rising sea levels. And a third island, Goramara, has lost 50% of its land mass to date and continues to lose 36 meters of shoreline a year. The people of Loachara are among the world's first climate refugees, Ray wrote to me. The documents establish that this was not a purely natural process. It was shaped by institutional decisions made over decades, followed by institutional denial. Here is a case where something could have been done. The engineers knew, the scientists warned, a wall was designed, and the decision was made not to act. Rising sea levels are not the only climate risk India faces. The country is exceptionally vulnerable to dangerous heat exposure. As the authors of a new study reported, we estimate that a single day of extreme heat causes approximately 3,400 excess deaths nationally. A five-day heat wave causes nearly 30,000. They estimated district-level excess heat deaths, concluding that Uttar Pradesh alone accounts for approximately 8,100 excess deaths during a five-day heat wave, and districts such as Ahmedabad Jaipur and Surat each exceed 250 excess deaths in a single event. These bindings highlight critical gaps in how societies protect people from climate impacts, and how, once again, they tend to fall disproportionately on those who have done the least to cause the problem in the first place. While most of us aren't deciding where billions of dollars get invested, we do make decisions every day about where our own money goes. If you're curious where to start, take a look at what you already own. Many people have no idea whether their retirement accounts, mutual funds, or EFTs are invested in fossil fuel companies, clean energy technologies, or something in between. Thankfully, there's a free tool that can help. It's called fossil free funds, and it gives funds to a fossil fuel grade of A through F. Then, once you have an idea of what grade your portfolio gets, you can take action. Invest Your Values has put together a handy guide as to what form that action can take, depending on who is in control of how your retirement portfolio is invested. We invest for retirement because we hope for a secure future for ourselves and our families. There's something powerful about knowing those same investments may also help build a healthier future for us all, don't you think? Thanks for listening to Talking Climate, narrated by Ann Cloud. For more resources, links, and actions you can take, check out the full newsletter at www.talkingclimate.ca. Until next time, keep talking climate.