All those green politicos are about to watch their dreams go up in smoke. China and India dominate the globe's pollution and have no interest in slowing down, plus America's big tech is on an AI tear which will require massive new amounts of electrical generation.
Record-breaking: 2024 was the hottest year in recorded history.
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Jan 19, 2025
First came the hottest July in history. Then the hottest summer. Now, 2024 has officially been named the hottest year on record, according to a collective release of data from scientists in multiple countries and multiple organizations. They all agree on three things: First, the world has been warming up over the past century. Second, this has accelerated since the 1970s. And third, that the average global surface temperature reached new highs last year, with one model — ERA5, from the EU’s Climate Copernicus — reporting a 2024 average of 1.6 C above pre-industrial levels.
With temperatures breaking through the Paris Agreement’s target of 1.5 C, the age-old debates about who should shoulder the burden of change required to limit future warming — the public or private sector, the developed or developing economies — will once again rage into 2025.
At the center of that debate this year, is likely to be nuclear energy.
Last year, nuclear enjoyed something of a renaissance. Due to its insatiable AI demands, Big Tech is hungry for more energy-guzzling data centers, forcing the tech titans to look for larger, cleaner, more reliable options like nuclear. In 2024, Amazon, Google, and Oracle all invested in major nuclear projects, ranging from the infamous Three Mile Island power plant to small modular reactors. Nuke stocks like Vistra Corp and Constellation Energy soared as a result, momentum that they have carried into 2025 already.
Separately, some businesses around the world have started to roll back on green efforts, including the withdrawal of megabanks like Bank of America and Morgan Stanley from climate coalitions last week.
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