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Most climate reports are bleak. Temperatures are soaring. Sea levels are rising. Companies are missingor abandoningtheir emissions targets. But a new report from the nonprofit Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit looks at the surprising amount of progress thats happened since the Paris climate agreement 10 years ago. Renewable energy has grown faster than every major forecast predicted in 2015. Theres now four times as much solar power as the International Energy Agency expected 10 years ago. Last year alone, the world installed 553 gigawatts of solar powerroughly as much as 100 million U.S. homes usewhich is 1,500% more than the IEA had projected. Investors are now pouring twice as much into renewables as into fossil fuels. One out of every five new cars sold is now an EV; a decade ago, that was one in 100. Even if growth flatlined now, the world is on track to reach 100 million EVs by 2028. Dozens of countries have net zero goals that are legally mandated, and comprehensive climate laws. Out of the worlds largest 2,000 companies, nearly 1,300 now have net zero goals in place. Ten years ago, the world was on track to hit a catastrophic 4 degrees of global warming by the end of the century. Now, projections have dropped to 2.6 degreesnot nearly enough, but a major step in the right direction. Typical climate reports, like the U.N.s Emissions Gap Report, focus on how far off track the world is. They say the same thing every time, basically: that were not doing enough, says John Lang, net zero tracker lead at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit. Thats one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is that we have made unbelievable progress, and weve laid the foundations for structural, sustained emissions declines over the next few decades. Ten years ago, projections about the growth of renewable energy were wrong in part because modelers underestimated how the scale of manufacturing in China could help drive costs down. Solar is now 66% cheaper than it was just a decade ago. In 2024, the cost of lithium-ion batteries fell by 20% in a single year. Globally, 91% of renewable energy projects are cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives. There are obvious challenges now, particularly the Trump administrations anti-climate push and supply chain bottlenecks from increased protectionism. Still, the markets more powerful than a man, Lang says. Renewable energy will continue to grow. In China, emissions have been dropping since March of last year. China is also exporting clean energy technology to other countries. In the U.S., 19 states representing half of the countrys GDP still have net zero targets in place. The story since 2015 is essentially around innovation, and through constraints, we’re going to see more innovation, he says. So despite the protectionism, I don’t see this unstoppable momentum slowing down. The world still has a very long way to go. The planet has already heated up by 1.3 degrees Celsius, and were seeing the catastrophic impacts, from more severe hurricanes and wildfires to dying coral reefs. Theres little chance that we can avoid heating up more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, one of the goals of the Paris agreement. But every tenth of a degree of warming matters, and theres still time to change the trajectory. This decade was always going to be about laying foundations, says Lang. It’s not as quick as the IPCC would like us to go. But the reality is that this is hard. I always think of Emmanuel Kants quote, From the crooked timber of humanity, nothing straight has ever been made. This is difficult stuff politically and culturally, and it is the biggest energy transition that humans may ever go through.
Category:
E-Commerce
United Parcel Service posted third-quarter results that handily beat Wall Street’s expectations and gave details about its turnaround efforts, including approximately 48,000 job cuts. Shares rose more than 7% in afternoon trading on Tuesday. UPS earned $1.31 billion, or $1.55 per share, for the three months ended Sept. 30. The Atlanta-based company earned $1.99 billion, or $1.80 per share, a year earlier. Removing one-time costs, earnings were $1.74 per share. That easily topped the $1.31 per share that analyst polled by Zacks Investment Research were calling for. Revenue totaled $21.42 billion, surpassing Wall Street’s estimate of $20.84 billion. UPS said in a regulatory filing that it has cut about 34,000 operational positions and closed daily operations at 93 leased and owned buildings during the first nine months of this year as part of its turnaround plan. The company also announced approximately 14,000 job cuts, mostly within management. It said that it is still looking to identify additional buildings to close. In April, UPS announced that it was looking to slash about 20,000 jobs and close more than 70 facilities as it drastically reduces the number of Amazon shipments it handles. At the time, the company said that it anticipated closing 73 leased and owned buildings by the end of June. The company noted that it was still reviewing its network and might identify more buildings to be shuttered. In January, UPS announced that it had reached a deal with Amazon, its biggest customer, to lower its volume by more than 50% by the second half of 2026. During UPS fourth-quarter earnings conference call in January, CEO Carol Tomé said that the company had partnered with Amazon for almost 30 years and that when its contract came up this year, UPS decided to reassess the relationship. UPS has realized cost savings of approximately $2.2 billion as of Sept. 30. It anticipates achieving $3.5 billion total year over year cost savings in 2025. Michelle Chapman, AP business writer
Category:
E-Commerce
ChatGPT wants to be your personal shopper. PayPal announced Tuesday that its digital payment system will be integrated into ChatGPT, inviting anyone who uses it to shop directly from the chatbot. Starting next year, ChatGPT users will be able to check out with a click through a PayPal account and connect directly with the tens of millions of sellers who rely on PayPals payments system. “By partnering with OpenAI and adopting the Agentic Commerce Protocol, PayPal will power payments and commerce experiences that help people go from chat to checkout in just a few taps for our joint customer bases, PayPal CEO Alex Chriss said in a press release. PayPals shares rose on the news, which was announced on the same day as the companys quarterly earnings report. PayPal is all-in on an AI-focused future of online retail. Beyond the new ChatGPT plans, the company is collaborating to create new AI shopping experiences with Google and partnering on free premium trials with AI search engine Perplexity. Chriss said on Tuesdays earnings call, adding that the company was better positioned than it was two years ago. With differentiated competitive advantages, clear strategic direction and building execution momentum, we believe we are exceptionally well-placed to win into the future. OpenAIs shopping mall PayPal is the latest partner to join OpenAIs e-commerce vision, but it isnt the first. In September, ChatGPTs parent company revealed that it would integrate Shopify and Etsy directly in what it described as first steps toward agentic commerce through an instant checkout platform built with Stripe. ChatGPT doesnt just help you find what to buy, it also helps you buy it, OpenAI wrote in a blog post on the announcement. The Etsy integration is already live, surfacing U.S. Etsy sellers directly in response to prompts in chat, like Find me blue and white teacups under $50. The Shopify partnership will bring major retailers into the mix, with products from brands like Glossier, SKIMS and Vuori woven into the chat. Earlier this month, it struck a similar deal with Walmart. For OpenAI, aggressively gobbling up the market with ChatGPT has been the name of the game, not monetization. The build first, profit later method a Silicon Valley special has gone swimmingly for the AI company so far and it boasts more than 700 million weekly active users. OpenAI shot out of the gate with a buzzy free product, collecting loyal customers and funneling power users toward tiered premium subscriptions, though it actually loses money on some of those paid plans. For OpenAI, e-commerce is a logical next step for revenue. Its also a direction that opens the door wide for advertising, which the company was one staunchly against but seems to be gravitating toward with recent hiring and its new corporate structure which was finalized this week. On the consumer side, the plunge into AI-powered shopping is poised to steer people away from Google as a first port of call and toward tailored results shaped by AI queries. That behavior shift is just one more way that AI continues to creep into every aspect of digital life, reshaping every interaction and transaction we make in the process.
Category:
E-Commerce
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