People Change:
Europe suffered 50,000 heat related deaths during the 2026 summer.
American medical researchers have developed an AI tool that can estimate a person’s biological age and predict their survival from cancer using a single facial photograph.
Microsoft has released an AI medical diagnostic tool which claims to be more than twice as accurate as general practitioners in solving complex cases while reducing diagnostic testing costs by more than 50%.
According to the WHO, the global death rate from malaria has halved since 2000, with 90% of current deaths occurring in Africa.
Nigeria has experienced a case of Ebola which has already killed more than 4,900 in the DRC.
Climate Change and the Environment:
Indonesian slash and burn fires have created a pall of smoke over a large area of Asia. California has also endured wildfires.
There have been major floods in Thailand, Nepal and Brazil.
The flesh eating New World screwworm has been detected in America for the first time.
20% of Swiss glaciers have been lost in past five years.
According to Lloyd’s List Intelligence, the number of Arctic voyages quadrupled in four years to 133 in September 2026.
According to the OECD Plastic Outlook, less than 0.5% of plastic waste ends up in the oceans.
Swedish researchers have calculated that climate change could increase the country’s solar generation by 5%.
Low Cost Renewable Energy:
Australia’s states of South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria now offer free electricity for several middle of the day hours.
Gicon is building a high altitude wind turbine tower, the world’s tallest at 365 metres, to take advantage of stronger and more consistent winds at high altitude.
Virtus Solis has signed an agreement to supply Brae Systems’ underwater data centre with 100 MW of orbital solar power delivered from generation and transmission stations in space via microwaves.
According to Ember, the price of utility scale battery packs fell 45% during 2025.
According to S&P Global 40% more battery packs will be installed in 2026 than 2025.
Fuji Electric, which makes 80% of Japanese vending machines, has developed a cooling system for AI data centres that can reduce energy costs by 85%.
Eight listed independent US oil refiners have reported profits of $US 32 billion since the Iran war began compared to $US 6.8 billion for the same period in 2025.
Autonomous Electric Vehicles:
An Ember analysis shows that during the last six months energy crisis electric car fleets in oil-importing countries displaced 200 million barrels of crude oil valued at US$ 20 billion.
According to Transport & Environment (T&E), real-world emissions from plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are only 14% less than those of ICE vehicles.
T&E predicts that the sale of electric vehicles priced at or below €25,000 is set to rise seven-fold in 2026 compared to 2024. Already 1.64 million battery EVs sold in the first eight months of the year, 45% more than in 2025.
According to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, European sales of electric cars in August 2026 were 63% higher than August 2025.
Tesla launched an electric flying car.
Mass Data Mining and Storage:
In August 2026, Vercel’s AI Gateway reported openweight AI models accounted for 56% of tokens compared to just 10% in December 2025.
Hackers used Claude and Grok to automate attacks on banks.
Suspected North Korean hackers stole US$ 6.3 billion in cryptocurrency from Binanca.
Hackers accessed the temperature controls of supermarket fridges and freezers in Europe, causing temperatures to rise abnormally.
Anthopic warned that AI worms could infest domestic appliances.
A 103 MW solar plant and its 98 MW/312 MWh battery storage system in northern Chile have remained offline for two months following a reported cyberattack.
