Slashdot reader hackingbear summarizes this report from Bloomberg: China consumed totally 10.4 trillion kilowatt hours (10.4 petaWh) in 2025 according to data from the National Energy Administration. That's the highest annual electricity use ever recorded by a single country, and doubled the amount used by the US and surpassed the combined annual total of the EU, Russia, India and Japan.

The surge in demand for power are results of growth in data centers for artificial intelligence (+17% over 2024) and use of electric vehicles (+48.8%)... However, on a per-capita basis, China uses about 7,300 kWh per person vs about 13,000 kWh per American.
More details from Reuters: China's mostly coal-based thermal power generation fell in 2025 for the first time in 10 years, government data showed on Monday, as growing renewable generation met growth in electricity demand even as overall power usage hit a record. The data is a positive signal for the decarbonisation of China's power sector as China sets a course for carbon emissions to peak by 2030... Thermal electricity, generated mostly by coal-fired capacity with a small amount from natural gas, fell 1% in 2025 to 6.29 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh), according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). It fell more sharply in December, down by 3.2%, from a year earlier, the data showed... [Though the article notes that coal output still edged up to a record high last year.]

Hydropower grew at a steady pace, up 4.1% in December and rising 2.8 % for the full year, the NBS data showed. Nuclear power output rose 3.1 in December and 7.7% in 2025, respectively. Thermal power generation is unlikely to accelerate in 2026 as renewables growth continues apace.

The European Commission "has opened a public call for evidence on European open digital ecosystems," writes Help Net Security, part of preparations for an upcoming Communication "that will examine the role of open source in EU's digital infrastructure." The consultation runs from January 6 to February 3, 2026. Submissions will be used to shape a Commission Communication addressed to the European Parliament, the Council, and other EU bodies, which is scheduled for publication in the first quarter of 2026... The call for evidence links Europe's reliance on digital technologies developed outside the EU to concerns over long term control of infrastructure and software supply chains... Open digital ecosystems are discussed in the context of technological sovereignty and the use of technologies that can be inspected, adapted, and shared.
Long-time Slashdot reader Elektroschock describes it as the European Commission "stepping up its efforts behind open-source software" Building on President von der Leyen's political guidelines, the initiative will review the Commission's 2020-2023 open-source approach and set out concrete actions to strengthen Europe's open-source ecosystem across key areas such as cloud, AI, cybersecurity and industrial technologies. The strategy will be presented alongside the upcoming Cloud and AI Development Act, forming a broader policy package aimed at reducing strategic dependencies and boosting Europe's digital resilience.
And "In just a few days, over 370 submissions have already been filed, indicating that the issue is touching a nerve across the EU," writes CyberNews.com: "Europe must regain control over its software supply chain to safeguard freedom, security, and innovation," suggests an individual from Slovakia. Similar perspectives appear to be widely shared among respondents...

The document doesn't mention US tech giants specifically, but rather aims to support tech sovereignty and seek "digital solutions that are valid alternatives to proprietary ones...."

"This is not a legislative initiative. The strategy will take the form of a Commission communication. The initiative will set out a general approach and will propose: actions relying on further commitments and an implementation process," the EC explains. Policymakers expect the strategy to help EU member states identify the necessary steps to support national open-source companies and communities.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Even low levels of common agricultural pesticides can stunt the long-term lifespan of fish, according to research led by Jason Rohr, a biologist at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Signs of aging accelerated when fish were exposed to the chemicals, according to the study, published in Science, which could have implications for other organisms. [...] The research found that fish from pesticide-affected lakes showed shortened telomeres, the caps at the end of chromosomes that are known as the biological clock for aging. When they shorten, it is a sign of cellular aging and a decline in the body's regenerative capacity. The lake populations consisted of younger fish, indicating that the pesticides contributed to shortened lives. Laboratory experiments confirmed the findings and showed chronic low-dose exposure reduced fish survival and degraded telomeres. These effects were not seen with acute high-dose exposure.

Chemical analysis showed chlorpyrifos, which is banned in the UK and the EU but used in the US and China, was the only compound found in the fish tissues that was consistently associated with signs of aging. These included shortened telomeres and lipofuscin deposition -- a buildup of insoluble proteins often described as cellular "junk". The worrying aging effects occurred at concentrations below current US freshwater safety standards, Rohr said, suggesting the effects of chemicals and pesticides could be occurring at low levels over the long term. While short-term exposure to high doses did not appear to cause these aging issues -- though it did cause high toxicity and death in fish -- the researchers concluded that it was long-term exposure to low doses that drove the changes. The scientists added that reduced lifespan was particularly problematic because older fish often contribute disproportionately to reproduction, genetic diversity and population stability.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The prospect of Britain realigning its financial rules with the European Union has passed, and the country should avoid linking its regulations to any single jurisdiction, the ambassador for London's financial services sector told Reuters. Nearly a decade after Brexit, newly appointed Lady Mayor of London Susan Langley said that while maintaining dialogue with the EU remained important -- particularly on defence -- Britain should work with all nations that share its values and respect the rule of law.

"We've still got huge alignment with Europe, cash flows between us are huge... Would we ever go back in terms of regulation? I think we've moved away from that," she said.

After spending years pushing digital payments to combat tax evasion and money laundering, European Union ministers decided in December to ban businesses from refusing cash. The reversal comes as 12% of European businesses flatly refused cash in 2024, up from 4% three years earlier.

Over one in three cinemas in the Netherlands no longer accept notes and coins. Cash usage across the euro area dropped from 79% of in-person transactions in 2016 to just 52% in 2024. Sweden leads the digital shift where 90% of purchases now happen digitally and cash represents under 1% of GDP compared to 22% in Japan.

The policy change stems from concerns about financial inclusion for elderly and poor populations who struggle with digital systems. Resilience worries also drove the decision after Spaniards facing nationwide power cuts last spring found themselves unable to buy food. European officials worry about dependence on American payment giants Visa and MasterCard. The EU now recommends citizens store enough cash to survive a week without electricity or internet access.

The European Union published guidance on December 30 that reclassified nuclear weapons as acceptable investments under its sustainable finance framework, completing a policy change approved in November that narrowed the definition of banned armaments from "controversial" to "prohibited."

The shift addresses earlier vagueness that the Commission said hindered efforts to raise $932 billion in defense investments over four years. Under the revised rules, only four weapon categories remain expressly outlawed by a majority of EU states: personnel mines, cluster munitions, and biological and chemical weapons. Nuclear weapons manufacturers avoided exclusion because only Austria, Ireland and Malta signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, though all EU members support non-proliferation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The updated guidance also permits ESG labeling for companies handling depleted uranium for anti-tank ammunition and white phosphorus, which is toxic but not classified as a chemical weapon. European ESG funds currently hold minimal defense stocks, according to Jefferies data. The Commission's notice now makes these investments eligible for funds operating under Article 8 and Article 9 sustainable investment mandates.

Germany's Harz mountains, once known for their verdant spruce forests, have become a graveyard of skeletal trunks after a bark beetle outbreak ravaged the region starting in 2018 -- an infestation made possible by successive droughts and heatwaves that fatally weakened the trees. Between 2018 and 2021, Germany lost half a million hectares of forest, nearly 5% of the country's total.

Since 2010, EU land carbon absorption has declined by a third, and Germany is now almost certain to miss its carbon sequestration targets, according to Prof Matthias Dieter, head of the Thunen Institute of Forestry. "You cannot force the forest to grow -- we cannot command how much their contribution should be towards our climate targets," he said.

Foresters in the Harz are responding by abandoning monoculture plantations in favor of mixed-species approaches. Pockets of beech, firs, and sycamore are now being planted around surviving spruce. A 2018 study in Nature found tree diversity was the best protection against drought die-offs, and more recent PNAS research found that species richness protected tree growth during prolonged drought seasons. The approach marks a shift from Germany's pioneering modern forestry methods, which relied on single-species plantations now proved vulnerable to climate-driven disasters.

Yes, greenhouse gas emissions kept rising in 2025, writes Bloomberg (alternate URL here). And the pledges of various governments to lower greenhouse gases "are nowhere near where they need to be to avoid catastrophic climate change..."

But in 2025, "there were silver linings too." The world is decarbonizing faster than was expected 10 years ago and investment into the clean energy transition, including everything from wind and solar to batteries and grids, is expected to have reached a new record of $2.2 trillion globally in 2025, according to research by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, a London nonprofit. "Is this enough to keep us safe? No it clearly isn't," said Gareth Redmond-King, international lead at the ECIU. "Is it remarkable progress compared to where we were headed? Clearly it is...." Global investment in clean tech far outpaced what went into polluting industries. For every $1 funding fossil fuel projects, $2 went into clean power, according to the ECIU. For China, the EU, the U.S. and India, the four largest polluters, it was $2.60.

Funds flowing into renewable power set another record in the first half of this year and were up 10% compared to the same period in 2024, to $386 billion, according to the latest available research by BloombergNEF. Solar and wind grew fast enough to meet all new electricity demand globally in the first three quarters of 2025, according to UK-based energy think tank Ember. That means renewable capacity is set to hit a new record globally this year, with Ember forecasting an 11% increase from 2024. Over the last three years, renewable capacity grew by nearly 30% on average. That puts the world within reach of the goal set at COP 28 in Dubai in 2023 to triple clean power by 2030. China is leading the charge, with the world's largest polluter expected to have delivered 66% of new solar capacity, and 69% of new wind globally this year, according to Ember. Renewables also advanced in parts of Asia, Europe and South America.

The explosive power demand from artificial intelligence is also turning the tide on green technology investment, which had soured in recent years. For the first three quarters of this year, global clean tech investment, which was dominated by funding in next-generation nuclear reactors, renewables and other solutions that help power data centers, has already surpassed all of 2024. That marks the sector's first annual increase since the 2022 peak. And despite President Trump's rollback of climate policies, the S&P's main gauge tracking clean energy is up about 50% this year, outperforming most other stock indexes and even gold. That same enthusiasm has also helped channel more capital into developing and upgrading the power grid, a backbone of the global energy transition.
The article also notes that prices per kilowatt-hour of battery capacity "fell by 8% to a record $108 this year and they're expected to decline a further 3% next year, according to BloombergNEF."

And this year the International Court of Justice "determined that countries risk being in violation of international law if they don't work toward keeping global warming to the 1.5C threshold agreed on at the Paris climate conference in 2015."

The Register reports on challenges facing Europe's pursuit of "digital sovereignty": The US CLOUD Act of 2018 allows American authorities to compel US-based technology companies to provide requested data, regardless of where that data is stored globally. This places European organizations in a precarious position, as it directly clashes with Europe's own stringent privacy regulation, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)... Furthermore, these warrants often come with a gag order, legally prohibiting the provider from informing their customer that their data has been accessed. This renders any contractual clauses requiring transparency or notification effectively meaningless. While technical measures like encryption are often proposed as a solution, their effectiveness depends entirely on who controls the encryption keys. If the US provider manages the keys, as is common in many standard cloud services, they can be forced to decrypt the data for authorities, making such safeguards moot....

American hyperscalers have recognized the market demand for sovereignty and now aggressively market 'sovereign cloud' solutions, typically by placing datacenters on European soil or partnering with local operators. Critics call this 'sovereignty washing'... [Cristina Caffarra, a competition economistand driving force behind the Eurostack initiative] warns that this does not resolve the fundamental problem. "A company subject to the extraterritorial laws of the United States cannot be considered sovereign for Europe," she says. "That simply doesn't work." Because, as long as the parent company is American, it remains subject to the CLOUD Act...

Even when organizations make deliberate choices in favour of European providers, those decisions can be undone by market forces. A recent acquisition in the Netherlands illustrates this risk. In November 2025, the American IT services giant Kyndryl announced its intention to acquire Solvinity, a Dutch managed cloud provider. This came as an "unpleasant surprise" to several of its government clients, including the municipality of Amsterdam and the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security. These bodies had specifically chosen Solvinity to reduce their dependence on American firms and mitigate CLOUD Act risks.
Still, The Register provides several examples of government systems that are "taking concrete steps to regain control over their IT."

• Austria's Federal Ministry for Economy, Energy and Tourism now has 1,200 employees on the European open-source collaboration platform Nextcloud, leading several other Austrian ministries to also implement Nextcloud. (The Ministry's CISO tells the Register "We can see our input in Nextcloud releases. That is a feeling we never had with Microsoft.")

• France's Ministry of Economics and Finance recently completed NUBO (which the Register describes as "an OpenStack-based private cloud initiative designed to handle sensitive data and services.")

• In November the International Criminal Court in The Hague announced it was replacing its Microsoft office software with a European alternative.

• The German state of Schleswig-Holstein is replacing Microsoft products with open-source alternatives for 30,000 civil servants

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the article.

Western carmakers retreating from electric vehicles amid softening government mandates could find themselves in a precarious position as Chinese rivals continue gaining ground in the EV market they're choosing to de-prioritize. The EU on December 16th dropped its earlier plan to ban petrol car sales outright from 2035, instead requiring carmakers to cut emissions from new vehicles by 90% from 2021 levels. The day before, Ford announced a $19.5 billion asset writedown as it rethinks its EV strategy and ends sales of the all-electric F-150 pickup.

In the U.S., the Trump administration has rolled back incentives and other measures that supported EVs. But Chinese brands controlled 10.7% of the all-electric car market in western Europe in the first ten months of 2025, up a percentage point from a year earlier, despite EU tariffs on Chinese EVs imposed in October 2024. Sales of Chinese hybrids, which aren't subject to those tariffs, have surged. EVs will eventually become the cheaper option as production expands and costs fall, meaning Western carmakers that slow down now risk giving competitors an unassailable lead.

European leaders including Emmanuel Macron have accused Washington of "coercion and intimidation," after the US imposed a visa ban on five prominent European figures who have been at heart of the campaign to introduce laws regulating American tech companies. From a report: The visa bans were imposed on Tuesday on Thierry Breton, the former EU commissioner and one of the architects of the bloc's Digital Services Act (DSA), and four anti-disinformation campaigners, including two in Germany and two in the UK.

The other individuals targeted were Imran Ahmed, the British chief executive of the US-based Center for Countering Digital Hate; Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of the German non-profit HateAid; and Clare Melford, co-founder of the Global Disinformation Index. Justifying the visa bans, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, wrote on X: "For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organised efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship."

Macron condemned the visa ban in furious terms. "These measures amount to intimidation and coercion aimed at undermining European digital sovereignty," he wrote, also on X. "The European Union's digital regulations were adopted following a democratic and sovereign process by the European Parliament and the Council. They apply within Europe to ensure fair competition among platforms, without targeting any third country, and to ensure that what is illegal offline is also illegal online. The rules governing the European Union's digital space are not meant to be determined outside Europe."

An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2024, 25.2% of gross final energy consumption in the EU came from renewable sources, up by 0.7 percentage points compared with 2023. This share is 17.3 pp short of meeting the 2030 target (42.5%), which would require an annual average increase of 2.9 pp from 2025 to 2030.

Among the EU countries, Sweden recorded the highest share of its gross final energy consumption coming from renewable sources (62.8%). Sweden primarily relied on solid biomass, hydro and wind. Finland followed with 52.1%, relying on solid biomass, wind and hydro, while Denmark came in third with 46.8%, with most of its renewable energy sourced from solid biomass, wind and biogas. The lowest shares of renewables were recorded in Belgium (14.3%), Luxembourg (14.7%), and Ireland (16.1%).

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The State Department announced Tuesday it was barring five Europeans it accused of leading efforts to pressure U.S. tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints. The Europeans, characterized by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as "radical" activists and "weaponized" nongovernmental organizations, fell afoul of a new visa policy announced in May to restrict the entry of foreigners deemed responsible for censorship of protected speech in the United States. "For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose," Rubio posted on X. "The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship."

The five Europeans were identified by Sarah Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, in a series of posts on social media. [...] The five Europeans named by Rogers are: Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate; Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, leaders of HateAid, a German organization; Clare Melford, who runs the Global Disinformation Index; and former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, who was responsible for digital affairs. Rogers in her post on X called Breton, a French business executive and former finance minister, the "mastermind" behind the EU's Digital Services Act, which imposes a set of strict requirements designed to keep internet users safe online. This includes flagging harmful or illegal content like hate speech. She referred to Breton warning Musk of a possible "amplification of harmful content" by broadcasting his livestream interview with Trump in August 2024 when he was running for president.

Under pressure from the Digital Markets Act, Apple's iOS 26.3 adds AirPods-style proximity pairing and notification support for third-party accessories in the EU. The changes will roll out to European users in 2026. MacRumors reports: The Digital Markets Act requires Apple to provide third-party accessories with the same capabilities and access to device features that Apple's own products get. In iOS 26.3, EU wearable device makers can now test proximity pairing and improved notifications.

Here are the new capabilities that Apple is adding:
- Proximity pairing - Devices like earbuds will be able to pair with an iOS device in an AirPods-like way by bringing the accessory close to an iPhone or iPad to initiate a simple, one-tap pairing process. Pairing third-party devices will no longer require multiple steps.
- Notifications - Third-party accessories like smart watches will be able to receive notifications from the iPhone. Users will be able to view and react to incoming notifications, which is functionality normally limited to the Apple Watch. Notifications can only be forwarded to one connected device at a time, and turning on notifications for a third-party device disables notifications to an Apple Watch.

European public institutions are quietly migrating away from American cloud providers and office software, driven less by policy ambitions in Brussels than by the mundane legal reality that GDPR-mandated risk assessments keep flagging the US CLOUD Act as an unacceptable threat to citizen data.

Austria's Federal Ministry for Economy, Energy and Tourism moved 1,200 employees to the open-source platform Nextcloud in four months. Germany's Schleswig-Holstein has already transitioned 24,000 of its 30,000 civil servants to LibreOffice, Nextcloud and Thunderbird. The International Criminal Court in The Hague announced in November 2025 that it would replace Microsoft office software after chief prosecutor Karim Khan was temporarily locked out of his Outlook account.

Competition economist Cristina Caffarra estimates that 90% of Europe's digital infrastructure is now controlled by non-European companies. Forrester predicts no European enterprise will fully abandon US hyperscalers in 2026, but these targeted migrations for sensitive government applications are already underway.

President Trump's closure of the de minimis customs loophole in May -- which previously allowed Chinese packages valued under $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free -- has redirected a flood of cheap goods toward Europe, where similar exemptions for packages under $175.8 in the EU and $180 in the UK remain intact.

The shift has been swift: exports of low-value Chinese packages to the U.S. have dropped more than 40% since May, according to Chinese customs data, and the EU has this year overtaken the U.S. as the largest market for China's roughly $100 billion cheap package trade.

Shipments to Hungary and Denmark have quadrupled, and those to Germany, France, and the UK have risen 50% or more. Temu has recorded seven straight months of double-digit U.S. sales declines, per Consumer Edge data tracking credit and debit card transactions. Its European sales, on the other hand: up 56% in the EU and 46% in the UK since May compared to a year ago. The EU agreed last week to impose a $3.5 fee on imported small packages starting in July and to close the de minimis exemption entirely by 2028. The UK plans to follow in 2029.

The UK Met Office projects that 2026 will see global temperatures rise between 1.34C and 1.58C above preindustrial levels, placing it among the four hottest years since records began in 1850 and continuing a streak of extreme warming that has pushed the planet into unprecedented territory. The central forecast is slightly cooler than the 1.55C recorded in 2024, the warmest year on record. But climate scientist Adam Scaife, who led the forecast, noted that "the last three years are all likely to have exceeded 1.4C" and 2026 would be the fourth consecutive year to do so. "Prior to this surge, the previous global temperature had not exceeded 1.3C," he said.

The forecast suggests another temporary exceedance of the 1.5C threshold set by the Paris Agreement is possible in 2026, following the first such breach in 2024. The 1.5C target is measured as a 30-year average, so it remains technically achievable even as individual years cross the line. EU scientists said last week that 2025 is "virtually certain" to rank as the second or third-hottest year on record.

Apple has announced a sweeping set of changes to iOS in Japan that will allow alternative app marketplaces, third-party payment processing, and non-WebKit browser engines -- all to comply with Japan's Mobile Software Competition Act, which takes effect December 18. The changes, now available in iOS 26.2, bear a strong resemblance to Apple's compliance measures for the European Union's Digital Markets Act but differ in key ways.

Japanese developers who want to offer alternative payment options must display them alongside Apple's in-app purchase system, giving users a choice at checkout rather than replacing Apple's option entirely. Apps cannot be distributed directly from websites as they can in the EU; they must go through an authorized marketplace.

Apple has established a tiered fee structure for the new arrangements. Apps distributed through the App Store using in-app purchase will pay between 15 and 26% depending on whether developers qualify for the Small Business Program. Alternative payment processing drops the 5% payment fee but keeps the base commission. Apps distributed outside the App Store pay a flat 5% Core Technology Commission on digital goods and services.

The company introduced several user-facing changes beyond app distribution. iPhone users in Japan will see browser and search engine choice screens during device setup, can assign third-party voice assistants to the side button, and can select alternative default navigation apps. Apple said it worked closely with Japanese regulators on protections for younger users. Apps in the Kids category cannot link to external websites for purchases, and users under 13 cannot access web links for transactions in any app.

An Apple spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company has no plans to extend these changes to other markets.

The EU is moving to soften its planned 2035 ban on internal combustion cars by allowing a small share of low-emission engines. "The less stringent limit would leave room for automakers to continue selling some plug-in hybrids, which have both electric and internal combustion engines and can use the combustion engine to recharge the battery without the need to find a charging station," reports the Associated Press. From the report: The proposal from the EU's executive commission would change provisions of 2023 legislation requiring average emissions in new cars to equal zero, or a 100% reduction from 2021 levels. The new proposal would require a 90% emissions reduction. That means in practical terms that most cars would be battery-only but would leave room for some cars with internal combustion engines.

Automakers would have to compensate for the added emissions by using European steel produced by methods that emit less carbon, and through use of climate neutral e-fuels made from renewable electricity and captured carbon dioxide and biofuels made from plants. EU officials say changing the limit will not affect progress toward making the 27-country bloc's economy climate neutral by 2050. That means producing only as much carbon dioxide as can be absorbed by forests and oceans or by abatement methods such as storing it underground. CO2 is the primary greenhouse gas blamed by scientists for climate change.

U.S. officials excoriated the European Union for discriminating against American technology companies and threatened to penalize European tech companies in return, in a social media post on Tuesday. From a report: The pronouncement appeared to signal a rockier period for U.S.-E.U. trade relations, as the two governments work to finalize a trade framework they announced this year. The United States has been pushing Europe to open up its tech sector to American firms. But U.S. officials have complained that the European Union has not walked back broader regulation of company business practices while also proceeding with investigations of major American tech firms like Google, X, Amazon and Meta.

In a social media post, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, which has carried out the negotiations, said that the European Union and some member states had "persisted in a continuing course of discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes, fines and directives" against American companies.

The United States had raised concerns with the European Union about these issues for years "without meaningful engagement," all while allowing European companies to operate freely in the United States, it said. If the European Union continues these policies, the United States would "have no choice but to begin using every tool at its disposal to counter these unreasonable measures," the U.S.T.R. said. It named fees and restrictions on service companies among the possibilities, and said it would use the same approach against other countries that echoed Europe's strategy.

The post singled out potential European service providers that could be targeted by name, listing Accenture, DHL, Mistral, SAP, Siemens and Spotify, among others.