Good Sunday evening and welcome to your climate data briefing. 🌱
From top to bottom, this briefing brings you:
- 1 x Analysis: EV sales at a watershed moment?
- 3 x Quantish reads: Nepal's glacier, Australia's winter, and Europe's summer
- 3 x Data updates: Renewables, exports, and batteries
Let's dive in. 🤿
Analysis: Are EVs finally breaking through in Australia?
We're expecting August's car sales figures in the next week or so and this time, there's a big question hanging over the numbers: are we seeing a lasting shift towards EVs?
June and July gave us some genuine firsts. For the first time, green vehicles outsold petrol and diesel combined. EVs beat diesel on their own. And hybrids, which have done most of the heavy lifting in Australia's shift towards lower-emitting cars, suddenly had some competition.
August will deliver a crucial third data point. The charts below give you some context, so we'll be ready to plot August when it arrives.
Chart 1: ICE vs Green
Petrol and diesel vehicles have dominated Australia's new car sales forever. In June, that changed. Green vehicles (the sum of battery electric, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid) beat ICE vehicles (petrol and diesel) for the first time. The following month in July, the split was nearly bang on 50-50.
Chart 2: Petrol vs Diesel vs Electric
If we separate petrol and diesel, we can see another first: EVs outsold diesel vehicles for the first time in June. The end of the financial year always brings a spike in car sales so June on its own could be easy to dismiss, but the gap stayed narrow in July. That means petrol, diesel and EV sales have been razor-close for two months. We'll see if that lasts into a third.
Chart 3: Hybrid vs Electric vs Plug-in Hybrid
Within green vehicles, there's another change happening. Until now, hybrids have been the green go-to, carrying most of Australia's transition towards lower-emitting vehicles. But in June and July, that changed. EVs streaked ahead. It seems as though Australians are finally willing to take the plunge.
As we know, two months don't make a trend. The August figures will tell us whether June and July were a blip, or the beginning of a more structural change in the cars Australians buy.
👉 New vehicle sales and EV trackers
Quantish Reads
A rapid assessment by scientists from Nepal, China, Austria and the USA following the catastrophic flood in the Nepal-China border area. It includes live risk data plus some relevant climate change context. 'The glacier has receded 450 m between 1990 and 2020, moving over a bergschrund (crevasse) in the process ... Temperatures in the area had been comparable to recent years in previous months but were above average during the last month prior to the event.' The first six pages are in Nepali. English starts on page 7. (HiRISK)
An 'exceptionally mild winter' in Australia's east is coming to an end, with records broken for both warmth and a lack of cold days. Sydney and Melbourne had their warmest winters on record. In Brisbane, the maximum dipped below 20 degrees just twice. Canberra's coldest day, July 13, reached 9.5 degrees - the 'highest ever, lowest winter maximum'. (ABC)
While there's no universal definition of a heat wave, we all understand it's a period of hotter-than-average weather for a particular place and time. In the northern hemisphere's current summer, Western Europe has roasted through no fewer than five heat waves. In May, a heat dome produced exceptional temperatures that shattered records. It turned out to be only the opening salvo. The impressive Reuters Climate Monitor shows the charts. (NASA)
Data Updates
☀️ Renewables share
Proportion of Australia's electricity generated from renewables in August 2026 (vs August 2025).
Main Electricity Grids
🥇 NEM: 43.1% (+2.7)
🥈 SWIS: 34.2% (-3.0)
🥉 NTESMO: 28.5% (+3.7)
States and Territories
🥇 Tas: 98.8% (+12)
🥈 SA: 69.4% (-7.5)
🥉 Vic: 41.8% (+0.0)
Qld: 40.4% (+6.5)
WA: 34.2% (-3.0)
NSW: 33.5% (+2.5)
NT: 28.5% (+3.7)
🪨 Exported emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions created when Australian resources are burned in importing countries. Calculated by applying emissions factors to resource export volumes. March quarter 2026; Million tonnes of carbon dioxcide equivalent.
- Total: 319.2 Mt CO2-e (6th highest quarter since 1990)
- Thermal coal: 141.3 Mt CO2-e (1st highest quarter since 1990)
- Metallurgical coal: 110.4 Mt CO2-e
- LNG: 56.7 Mt CO2-e
🔋 Battery installations
Total installations as of July 2026 (with monthly change).
🇦🇺 Australia: 475,482 (+14,739 / +3.2%)
States and Territories (per 100,000 people)
🥇 SA: 2,900
🥈 NSW: 2,034
🥉 WA: 1,872
QLD: 1,808
ACT: 1,484
Vic: 1,435
Tas: 867
NT: 485
Final Thought
'The only game worth playing is the long game.'
— Timber Stinson-Schroff
That's your climate data briefing for this week. Wishing you a safe and productive week ahead.
💛 Juliette and the OnlyFacts team
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