Energy in Demand News, February 8-9, 2026

There is mixed news on climate-related philanthropy this week.  Michael Bloomberg’s donations on climate action have topped $3 billion over a decade, “including a recent boost to contributions to the UN’s climate body, as broader financial support slides in the Trump era,” reports the Financial Times. “The 83-year-old pledged nearly $270mn to two climate initiatives around the UN COP30 summit late last year through his Bloomberg Philanthropies organisation, according to FT analysis, with the funding coming from his family foundation and donations as an individual.” The article notes that others have taken the opposite approach. “Jeff Bezos’s philanthropic Bezos Earth Fund has ended its support for the Science Based Targets Initiative after an $18mn three-year grant expired.  …UK hedge fund billionaire Chris Hohn’s philanthropic arm of The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation has also stopped giving grants to US green groups… Several other US charities and philanthropies told the FT they have played down their focus on climate change since the start of Trump’s second presidency.” How do they explain this to their children?

BP is facing new investor tactics in climate pressure campaign. “BP is under pressure from a group of shareholder activists and pension funds to justify its surge in upstream oil and gas spending, after the British energy group’s pivot away from renewable energy, according to the Financial Times. “Nest, the UK’s largest workplace pension scheme by membership, Publica, the Swissfederal pension fund, and a  coalition of four British local authority pension funds, have jointly filed a resolution… for BP to set out how the company takes “a disciplined approach to capital expenditure in order to generate an acceptable return on capital” for its new oil and gas projects. …Diandra Soobiah, director of responsible investment at Nest, said BP had ‘underperformed for the past decade, including the period they were prioritising oil and gas production’. She continued, ‘Now they have dropped their renewables strategy, investors need to be reassured that any expansion to their upstream oil and gas portfolio will be governed by robust capital discipline and generate sustainable returns.’” Unsurprisingly, BP declined to comment on the FT’s reporting.

Norway is reporting strong sales for electric vehicles, The Guardian reports. In the month of January, only seven new petrol-powered cars were sold. There were also 29 hybrid and 98 diesel cars sold. But there were over 2000 electric vehicles sold last month. The secretary general of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association, Christina Bu, said the data for 2025 “certainly doesn’t mean the job is over”. “Two out of three people still drive fossil-fuel cars,” she told the Norwegian public broadcaster, NRK. “If they are to have the opportunity to choose electric cars, we must be just as ambitious in 2026.” Importantly, we are seeing gains in other regions: “Small and wealthy northern nations have led Europe’s transition to cleaner transport, but they are being joined by populous emerging markets such as China and India. Data published last month show that Turkey has also caught up with the EU in its adoption rate for BEVs [battery electric vehicles], and in absolute terms its electric market is bigger than Norway’s.”

Among many excellent events related to sustainable energy, check out EiD’s reflections on the past week’s eceee Zero Carbon Industry event held in Rome.

Other events are coming up – you can see the latest list in a post this week. If you know of an upcoming event that EiD readers should know about, please contact us.

In planning travel over the upcoming weeks, here are some useful ideas to help you along:

• The Man in Seat Sixty-One explains how to travel comfortably & affordably by train or ferry, rediscovering the pleasure, romance & adventure of the journey.
• Check out the Good Night Train website for the unique way to travel through Europe while you sleep. See EiD’s recent post on why Europe’s night-train renaissance has derailed.
• World Walks provides us with walking holidays in Europe.
• For those who want to combine hiking with food and wine in Europe and Australia, check out the Hedonistic Hiking website.  Watch their slide presentation for available tours in 2026.
• Cycling for Softies provides us with the 15 best cycling holidays in Europe in 2026.

Bill Maher (b. 1956),  an American television host, comedian, actor and political commentator, will make you sit up and smile this week: “Maybe every other American movie shouldn’t be based on a comic book. Other countries will think Americans live in an infantile fantasy land where reality is whatever we say it is and every problem can be solved with violence.”

EiD welcomes your views about this week’s selection of posts on the zero-carbon energy transition:

• New EEA report on how unprepared European citizens are for coping with impact of climate change
• Britain’s buried climate security warning
• More on the recent JRC report on assessing the impact of energy efficiency
• As global temperatures rise, what will the Winter Games look like in another century?
• Blog by Rose Morrison – From reactive to resilient: how European businesses are reimagining energy security in an era of climate volatility
• The current disruption to global order promises profound impacts on the global response to climate change
• Vienna’s radical parking reform: fewer cars, more green space
• Renewables continued to grow in 2025 and set records, while fossil fuel consumption for electricity generation stagnated
• Who really shapes Australia’s climate policy debate?
• The ‘Homogenocene’: how human activity is making life on Earth more alike

Please send your comments on any of the posts. Please recommend EiD to your friends and colleagues.

If you know anyone who would like to receive this weekly notice, please invite them to  were contact EiD at energyindemand@gmail.com. It is not available on the WordPress website.