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Hey everyone, it’s Thursday, the inbox is twitchy, and FutureProof is back.
This week is about inevitability.
Not ambition. Not signalling. Just systems crossing thresholds and refusing to go backwards.
The big five:
Climate forecasting sharpens as Europe’s digital Earth twin moves from theory to use.
India industrialises on clean energy, skipping the fossil phase on pure economics.
Higher EU carbon prices make pollution an increasingly bad business choice.
AI leaves the lab, taking on aviation fuel, app building, and virtual worlds.
EVs go fully mainstream, from Norway to Southeast Asia, wherever price decides.
Also this week: Australia sails past 50% renewables without its grid collapsing, China’s clean energy sector pulls GDP growth forward, electric ferries quietly set endurance records, and Spain decides social media platforms shouldn’t get a free pass on harm anymore.
Plus a new blog post on why building decarbonisation is now a strategic business issue, a Climate Confident episode on how bad design is killing good climate projects, and a Resilient Supply Chain deep dive into turning excess inventory into value instead of landfill.
Let’s get into it.
Climate
Earth Gets a Digital Twin (And It’s Already Smarter Than Ourselves)
Europe is building a full-fat digital twin of Earth using AI and supercomputers, delivering climate and extreme-weather forecasts at resolutions that finally match the messiness of the real world. This isn’t sci-fi. It’s operational, expanding, and already being used to optimise renewables and grid stability.
Key highlights
A 3D global climate model with grid points just 5 km apart, far sharper than today’s systems
Already powering pilots for renewables optimisation, grid stability, heat mapping, floods, droughts, and wildfires
Built under the EU’s €500m Destination Earth programme, moving to wider real-world use this year
Why This Matters: Better climate models don’t just improve forecasts. They turn climate risk from an abstract future problem into something planners, grid operators, and cities can actually act on, before the damage is done.
Kismet: The same EU programme is also developing virtual human twins to model organs and disease progression, meaning the tools sharpening climate forecasts today could end up helping predict pandemics tomorrow. 👉 Full story here
India Skips the Coal Phase (And Does It on Price, Not Piety)
India is industrialising without the fossil-fuel detour taken by China and the West, leaping straight to solar, batteries, and electrification because they’re simply far cheaper. Similar to Africa skipping landlines for mobile phones, but this time the prize is lower emissions, energy sovereignty, and faster growth.
Key highlights
At comparable income levels, India uses ~40% of the coal per person that China did, with coal demand already nearing its peak
Solar plus storage now costs about half as much as new coal, flipping the old industrial playbook on its head
EVs are scaling fast: over 60% of three-wheeler sales are electric, and oil demand per capita is unlikely to ever hit China’s historic highs
Why This Matters: This isn’t a climate sacrifice story. It’s a proof point that late-industrialising economies can grow faster, cleaner, and more securely by building on electrons instead of imports and smoke.
Kismet: At $11,000 GDP per capita, India is generating more solar electricity than China did at the same stage of development, so the classic “pollute first, clean up later” model may already be obsolete. 👉 Full story here
Polluting in Europe Just Got Pricier (And That’s the Point)
EU carbon prices are edging higher again, with analysts now expecting CO₂ to average around €93 per tonne in 2026 and break €100 by 2027, as free allowances keep shrinking and the emissions cap tightens. Volatile? Yes. Directionally clear? Also yes.
Key highlights
Analysts now see EU carbon prices averaging €92.65/t in 2026 and €107/t in 2027, up on earlier forecasts
Prices remain jumpy in the short term thanks to gas markets, but long-term pressure is upward as free allowances are phased out
From 2027 onward, tighter caps mean prices finally start to reflect the real cost of decarbonisation, not political patience
Why This Matters: Carbon pricing only works when it bites. Higher, more predictable CO₂ prices tilt investment decisively toward clean tech and make “doing nothing” the most expensive option on the table.
Kismet: At €100 per tonne, carbon costs alone can add over €90/MWh to coal-fired power, making coal power prohibitively expensive, while solar plus storage is now ridiculously cheap by comparison. 👉 Full story here
AI News
AI Takes on Aviation’s Hardest Problem (And Actually Makes Progress)
AI, automation, and biosensors are dramatically speeding up the development of synthetic jet fuel, using engineered microbes to produce high-energy aviation fuels that batteries can’t currently replace. This is AI aimed squarely at one of the hardest-to-abate sectors on the planet.
Key highlights
AI-driven automation boosted biofuel output 5× in weeks, not years, by systematically optimising microbial genetics
A biosensor trick turned a microbe’s bad habit into an advantage, surfacing strains that produce up to 36× more fuel
Together, these methods could shrink fuel-strain development timelines from a decade to under a year
Why This Matters: Aviation doesn’t decarbonise by wishful thinking. If sustainable aviation fuels are going to scale, they need breakthroughs in speed, cost, and reliability, and this is exactly that kind of step-change.
Kismet: A similar AI-automation loop could potentially be applied to cement, chemicals, and steel, meaning aviation might just be the first hard-to-abate domino to wobble. 👉 Full story here
App Building, Minus the Gatekeeping
OpenAI has launched the Codex app for macOS, a new command centre that lets people manage multiple AI coding agents in parallel, supervise long-running tasks, and ship real software without living inside a terminal window. This feels like app development lowering the waterline.
Key highlights
A desktop app that lets you run multiple coding agents at once, review their diffs, and steer projects over days or weeks
Built-in support for automations and reusable skills, so agents can handle everything from bug triage to deployments
Available across plans, with temporarily higher rate limits, and designed to work alongside IDEs rather than replace them
Why This Matters: This isn’t just a productivity boost for developers. It opens the door for analysts, product managers, and curious builders to turn ideas into working software without years of formal training.
Kismet: One Codex demo built a full 3D racing game from a single prompt, burning through millions of tokens autonomously, hinting that “software teams” may soon be something you assemble, not hire. 👉 Full story here
Virtual Worlds Are Suddenly Everywhere (And Not Just at Google)
Google’s Project Genie lets users create and explore AI-generated, interactive worlds in real time, but access is currently limited to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the U.S. What makes this more interesting is that it’s not an outlier. I featured World Labs a few weeks back in the newsletter, a startup building similar world-model tech from a very different starting point.
Key highlights
Project Genie (Google DeepMind) generates explorable worlds on the fly, simulating motion, physics, and interaction as you move
World Labs is focused on photorealistic, physics-aware 3D environments aimed at robotics, spatial AI, and embodied intelligence
Big labs and startups are converging on the same idea: world models as a core AI capability, not a novelty
Possible use cases
Training & safety: rehearse accidents, emergencies, and edge cases without real-world risk
Climate & infrastructure planning: test floods, heatwaves, transport flows, and evacuation strategies
Robotics & autonomy: train machines in endlessly varied environments instead of brittle simulations
Education & design: explore history, cities, or future scenarios by walking through them
Why This Matters: When multiple players converge on the same capability at once, it’s usually because the underlying tech is ready. World models are becoming the sandbox where decisions get tested before reality pays the price.
Kismet: Language models taught AI to talk; world models may be what finally teach it cause and effect. 👉 Full story here
Electromobility
Norway Cuts EV Incentives… And Fossil Car Sales Still Flatline
Even after scaling back EV tax incentives for higher-priced models, Norway sold just 98 diesel cars in January. Meanwhile, 2,084 electric cars rolled off forecourts, keeping EVs at 94% of all new car sales. At this point, choosing a fossil car feels… antisocial.
Key highlights
EV incentives were capped for higher-priced models, marking Norway’s “mission accomplished” phase
Just 134 fossil and hybrid cars sold nationwide, versus 2,084 EVs
EVs have dominated Norwegian sales for so long that they’re now the unquestioned default
Why This Matters: This is what happens when a transition sticks. Policy nudges the market, habit locks it in, and social norms finish the job.
Kismet: In Norway today, buying a new fossil car is increasingly viewed like lighting a cigarette in a NICU ward: technically possible, socially baffling. 👉 Full story here
Cheap EVs Flip the Script Across Southeast Asia
As low-cost EVs flood the market, Southeast Asia is electrifying fast, across two-wheelers and four-wheelers, and largely for one simple reason: they’re cheaper to buy and cheaper to run. In Indonesia, a $12,000 electric car is already making long-planned biofuel strategies look economically absurd.
Key highlights
In Indonesia, more than one in three cars sold in December were electric, up from virtually zero just a few years ago
Thailand now sees EVs cheaper than petrol cars, with electrics at ~20% of sales; Vietnam ~32%, Singapore ~45%
The real quiet revolution is in two- and three-wheelers, where EVs are rapidly becoming the default for urban mobility
Why This Matters: This is leapfrogging on a massive scale. Cheap EVs cut oil imports, clean up city air, reduce fuel subsidies, and avoid deforestation (!), all while delivering better economics for consumers.
Kismet: Indonesia’s EV surge is now moving faster than its planned biofuel rollout, meaning electrons may save more rainforest than ethanol ever could. 👉 Full story here
It’s Not Just Cars. Ferries Are Going Electric Too.
The Candela P-12, the world’s first serial-production electric hydrofoiling ferry, has just completed a 160-nautical-mile journey from Sweden to Norway. That’s the longest electric passenger sea voyage ever recorded, and it wasn’t a stunt. It was a proof point.
Key highlights
The P-12 covered 160 nautical miles over three days, lifting onto hydrofoils to cut energy use by 80%
Total electricity cost for the entire journey: just over €200
Avoided megawatt-scale port infrastructure by using standard DC fast chargers and a mobile charging setup
Why This Matters: Maritime electrification isn’t limited to short hops or showcase routes anymore. With the right design, electric vessels can go farther, faster, and cheaper than conventional ferries, without waiting for ports to rebuild themselves.
Kismet: At 25–30 knots on electricity, the Candela P-12 quietly exposes the real bottleneck in maritime electrification: not batteries, but imagination. 👉 Full story here
Clean Energy
Economics 1. Politics 0. Renewables Trump Fossil Fuels (Pun Intended!).
Despite political noise and performative outrage, renewable energy keeps breaking records because the maths no longer cares who’s shouting. Wind and solar expanded again in 2025 across all major economies, while fossil fuel power largely stalled. Markets did what markets do.
Key highlights
In 2025, wind and solar generated more electricity in the EU than fossil fuels for the first time
Global renewable power capacity grew again, with solar leading everywhere that cost curves are allowed to function
Fossil fuel electricity demand flatlined globally, including in China and India, thanks to record renewable deployment
Why This Matters: This is no longer an environmental argument. Renewables are winning on price, energy security, and speed of deployment. Even governments hostile to climate policy struggle to slow something that saves money.
Kismet: Renewables have now set new global records for over two decades in a row, making opposition to them feel less like policy and more like old man yelling at spreadsheets. 👉 Full story here
Clean Energy Is Powering China’s Economy. Literally.
China’s economy didn’t just grow in 2025. It was dragged forward by clean energy. Solar, wind, EVs, batteries, grids. Together, they delivered more than a third of China’s total GDP growth, turning climate investment into an economic growth engine rather than a cost centre.
Key highlights
Clean energy contributed over 11% of China’s total GDP in 2025, roughly the size of the entire Canadian economy
EVs, batteries, and solar alone drove more than 90% of all new investment growth
Without clean energy, China would have missed its 5% GDP growth target by a mile, landing closer to 3.5%
Why This Matters: This is the part many countries still haven’t clocked. Clean energy isn’t a climate tax. It’s an industrial strategy. Nations that fail to invest now are quietly pricing themselves out of future growth.
Kismet: If China’s clean-energy sector were its own country, it would already rank as the 8th largest economy in the world and it got there in just three years. 👉 Full story here
Half the Grid. No Blackouts. Critics Now Very Quiet.
Australia just crossed a milestone that was supposedly impossible: renewables now supply more than 50% of electricity, matching and at times overtaking coal. Prices fell, batteries surged, and the grid didn’t fall over. It’s not a blip. It’s a line crossed.
Key highlights
Renewables exceeded 50% of generation in the December quarter, even as electricity demand rose
Wholesale power prices fell ~44% year-on-year, while battery output nearly tripled
Coal and gas dropped below half of the mix, pushing grid emissions to a record low
Why This Matters: For years we were told grids would collapse at 20%, then 30%, then 40% renewables. Australia just sailed past 50% during heatwaves and peak demand. The argument didn’t age well.
Kismet: Five years ago renewables were 26% of Australia’s grid. Ten years ago, under 15%. The real limit, it turns out, wasn’t physics. It was imagination. 👉 Full story here
Social Media
Spain Takes on Social Media. Tech Billionaires Throw Tantrums.
Pedro Sánchez has announced plans to seriously curb social media’s power in Spain. Think enforced age limits for under-16s, criminal liability for platform executives who allow harmful content to spread, and an end to the “algorithmic shrug” defence. The reaction from tech billionaires was instant and entirely predictable.
Key highlights
Spain plans to ban under-16s from social media, with platforms required to actually enforce age verification
Platform executives could face criminal responsibility for hate speech and illegal content amplified by their algorithms
Elon Musk and Telegram’s Pavel Durov responded by calling Sánchez everything from a tyrant to a threat to freedom, which rather made the government’s point for them
Why This Matters: This shifts the debate from “free speech vibes” to accountability. If platforms shape public discourse, profit from outrage, and harm minors, governments are no longer willing to pretend that’s someone else’s problem.
Kismet: Sánchez’s response to the backlash was pure Cervantes: “Let the techno-oligarchs bark, Sancho. It’s a sign that we are riding on.” When billionaires panic, regulation might finally be landing where it hurts. 👉 Full story here
Latest blog post
Buildings Are a Business Risk Now, Not a Climate Abstraction
This week’s blog post is about boards, balance sheets, and bad assumptions, not pipes and plant rooms. I argue that building decarbonisation has crossed the line from “ESG ambition” into hard-nosed business strategy, driven by regulation, energy volatility, and asset risk rather than climate virtue.
Key highlights
Buildings are now one of the largest unmanaged emissions and cost risks in corporate portfolios
Regulations like Local Law 97 turn inefficient buildings into financial liabilities
Electrification isn’t about perfection. It’s about locking in lower volatility for decades
Why This Matters: This is aimed squarely at decision-makers. If you own, lease, or manage buildings and you’re still treating them as passive assets, you’re already behind.
Kismet: In many cities, the fastest way to cut corporate emissions isn’t changing suppliers. It’s fixing the buildings you already own. 👉 Full story here
Climate Confident:
This Week on Climate Confident: Why Bad Design Is Killing Good Climate Projects
This week’s Climate Confident episode goes somewhere very different. I sat down with Drew Maggio from Highmark Building Efficiency to talk about why perfectly good decarbonisation projects fail in practice, and how to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.
Key highlights
Why oversizing heat pumps for rare cold days is blowing budgets and killing projects
How treating heat as waste instead of a resource is costing cities millions
Real-world lessons from New York, where space, legacy systems, and regulation collide
Why This Matters: This episode is about execution. The tech works. The economics work. But bad assumptions and lazy design choices are still slowing everything down.
Kismet: Less than 3% of winter hours in New York justify the way most heat pump systems are sized. The rest is myth, habit, and inertia. 🎧 Listen to the full episode
Resilient Supply Chain:
When Excess Inventory Stops Being Waste and Starts Being Value
This week on the Resilient Supply Chain podcast, I spoke with Gordon Zellner, CEO of Evergreen Trading, about a business model that helps organisations deal with excess inventory, idle assets, and surplus equipment without dumping it, discounting it, or writing it off. It’s clever, pragmatic, and refreshingly non-preachy.
Key highlights
Why excess inventory is inevitable, even in well-run organisations, and freezing is often the worst response
How companies convert surplus assets into usable capital via media spend, instead of landfill or fire-sale losses
Real-world examples, from perishable PPE to corporate jets, that show how horizontal thinking beats siloed disposal
Why This Matters: Most sustainability wins hide in plain sight. Reducing write-offs, avoiding landfill, and recovering value isn’t just greener, it’s better business, especially in volatile markets.
Kismet: One company’s “excess assets” in this episode turned out to be three corporate jets. Sustainability doesn’t always start with recycling bins. Sometimes it starts with a balance sheet. 🎧 Listen to the full episode
Coming Soon to the podcasts
In the coming episodes I will be talking to Keith O’Flynn, Group Supply Chain Sustainability Manager Sisk, and David Sellers, Principal Architect, Hawaii Offgrid.
Don’t forget to follow the podcasts in your podcast app of choice to ensure you don’t miss any episodes.
Featured Chart(s)
You know that “The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain”? Well not any more! Here in Seville we’re used to it being sunny practically every day, but this winter has been the cloudiest, wettest, windiest winter in living memory.
The upside of that is that the countries reservoirs (Embalses) are at their highest evels in decades.
We do relatively well here in Spain when it comes to food waste. It may be something to do with the culture of sobremesa
Another one from the correlation ≠ causation files
Misc stuff
One for the Simon & Garfunkel fans!
I’m surprised their little feet can even reach the pedals!
Did you know?
LOL!
Engage
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Finally, since being impacted by the tech layoffs, I'm currently in the market for a new role. If you know someone who could benefit from my tech savvy, sustainability, and strong social media expertise, I'd be really grateful for a referral.
If you have any comments or suggestions for how I can improve this newsletter, don’t hesitate to let me know. Thanks.
*** Be aware that any typos you find in this newsletter are tests to see who is paying attention! ***
And Finally
Damien Hearst is now doing pop-up installations in the wild?
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