What we learned this week

As of this month, America’s biggest energy company is not in fossil fuels, as renewable energy company NextEra has overtaken Exxon in market value.

The days of the IMF dictating policy to developing countries are still with us, warns Oxfam. It finds that 80% of Covid-related loans come with economic stipulations, including the austerity policies that have been rejected by many in the global North.

There is a perception that land given over to solar farms is lost to farming. That’s never been entirely true, with sheep, chickens, bees or shade loving crops all potentially raised around PV panels, but here’s another way to do it that I hadn’t come across before – a vertically mounted ‘solar fence’ approach being trialled in Germany, with crops growing in-between.

UNESCO Green Citizens is a new platform that documents inspiring community-led environmental projects so that others can learn from them and replicate them. Loads of good stories on there.

Peak oil came in 2018, says none other than BP. Peak oil writer Richard Heinberg reflects on what he and similiar commentators got wrong and got right about the phenomenon. (Scroll down to the second article in the newsletter)

NEF’s New Economics Zine is a smartly designed online magazine, with the latest issue on the connections between mental health and the economy.