• The Too Good To Go app aims to help consumers save money and reduce food waste.
• I tried it for a week to see how much I could save.
• I found it was most useful for fresh produce, but the pastries weren't always great.

Everything is expensive right now. It's rare that I ever leave the grocery store having spent less than I wanted to.

I've heard of apps like Too Good To Go, which sell surplus food at a discount, but never gone much further than signing up.

To test it out, I spent a week in early December only buying food from the app. I wanted to see if it was a viable way of saving money, sticking to a budget, and learning to be a bit more flexible with my cooking.

I also want to be more mindful about the groceries I buy and, unfortunately, sometimes waste.

Too Good To Go's CEO, Mette Lykke, told me in a recent interview that the app now operates in 19 countries across North America, Europe, and Australia, and covers 170,000 stores.

Lykke said the company hopes to inspire people "to make that the first step in a journey toward having a more responsible relationship with food."

"If we look at the state of the planet and the climate crisis, then it's pretty clear that something needs to change," Lykke said.

It was fun trying out new places in my city, London. While the pastries I received were hit-and-miss, the fresh produce from local stores was a real highlight.

Monday

Monday was largely spent figuring out the platform. I found that its map feature was the best way to find local cafés and stores.

I saw that an expensive café on my local high street offered pastries, so I opted for that — £3.90 ($4.95) for a blueberry muffin, chocolate chip cookie, and slice of banana bread.

After the sugar rush I was still hungry, so I chose a bag of sandwiches and pastries from my local Costa Coffee for £3.50 ($4.44).

I got a slightly stale pan au raisin and two sandwiches — one seasonal turkey feast, and a BLT which my boyfriend took for lunch the next day.

In total, I spent £7.40 ($9.39) on items worth at least £22.90 ($29.08), so the week was off to a good start.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, I switched things up by trying out fresh produce from a couple of local stores. They offered "surprise bags" of groceries for £4 ($5.08) each.

While I was slightly overwhelmed with what to do with it all, it was an absolute hit with my boyfriend, who is always thrilled to be met with a culinary challenge.

One of the bags had Padron peppers, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, radishes, and beets. I also received three packets of pita bread, a sourdough baguette, a fruit bar, some buttermilk, and fresh herbs.

The multivitamin patches were a curveball, which I have to admit I didn't try.

In the other bag, I got a melon, some Greek yogurt, lettuce, butter, rainbow chard, and sausages.

The sausages went in the freezer, but almost everything else was used to make a pasta sauce, roasted peppers, sauteed mushrooms, buttermilk pancakes, and basil oil. The beets got pickled.

The only thing we ended up having to waste was the watercress, which was already looking past its best.

In total, I spent £8 ($10.16) on items worth at least £24 ($30.48).

Wednesday

Tuesday's groceries went further than expected, so I bought another pastry bag to satisfy my snackiness during the day.

I'm not convinced the sourdough loaf and pastel de nata (which I squashed) I got for £4.09 ($5.19) truly had a full sale value of £12 ($15.24), but they were both pretty good.

The server recommended putting the loaf in the freezer and toasting the slices, which was a great tip that lasted me the rest of the week.

Thursday

I knew I was out for dinner with friends on Thursday so I picked up some Starbucks pastries on the way. This was the biggest letdown of the experiment.

Throughout the week, I realized that several cafés don't offer anything until quite late in the day, by which time the food has been sitting out for hours. This makes sense from their perspective, but it does mean that some of the food isn't at its best.

But for £2.50 ($3.18), a muffin, cookie, cinnamon bun, and cheese stick is certainly better than nothing.

In total, I spent £2.50 ($3.18) on items worth at least £7.50 ($9.52).

Friday

I'd been eyeing up a nearby Bangladeshi restaurant all week, so knowing I had a night in alone on Friday, I went for the £4.09 ($5.19) curry bag they were offering.

I got a few bhajis, some chicken and rice, two veggie curries, more rice, some okra, and what I thought was probably cabbage.

It was all good and spicy, though the bhajis were slightly stale.

In total, I spent £4.09 ($5.19) on items worth at least £12 ($15.24).

The results

For the whole week, I spent £26.08 ($33.11) on £78.40 ($99.54) worth of food.

Not every bag felt like amazing value. But some, especially the grocery bags, were genuinely impressive.

The experience taught me a lot about how to be flexible. I'm now committed to focusing less on "use by" dates on food and sticking to the safety assessment Lykke taught me — "look, smell, taste, don't waste" — before throwing things out.

My advice for anyone downloading Too Good To Go is to use it with foresight. The app is great for saving money for those on a strict budget who are OK with some compromises.

Too Good To Go is available in huge stores in the UK (such as Asda) and the US (including Whole Foods), so there are plenty of places to try.

Lykke told me the nice thing about Too Good To Go is you don't have to give anything up, and she's right. From a quick scan of my area, there is bubble tea, ice cream, Turkish food, burgers, doughnuts, and more. You don't get to choose exactly what you want, but as long as you don't mind a bit of a surprise, it's worth a try,

"You actually get good food, it's a good deal, and you do something good," Lykke said. "It's win-win for businesses, for consumers, and for the planet."

Puffs of smoke rose above a meadow in northeastern Washington as a small test fire danced in the grass a few feet away from me. Pleased by its slow, controlled behavior, my crew members and I, as part of a training program led by the nonprofit organization The Nature Conservancy and the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, began to light the rest of the field on fire. The scene had all the trappings of a wildfire — water hoses, fire engines, people in flame-resistant outfits. But we weren't there to fight it; we were there to light it.

It might sound counterintuitive, but prescribed fires, or intentionally lit fires, help lessen fire's destruction. Natural flames sparked by lightning and intentional blazes lit by Indigenous peoples have historically helped clean up excess vegetation that now serves as fuel for the wildfires that regularly threaten people's homes and lives across the West and, increasingly, across the country.

For millennia, lighting fires was common practice in America. But in the mid-to-late 1800s, the US outlawed Indigenous burning practices and started suppressing wildfires, resulting in a massive buildup of flammable brush and trees. That combined with the dry, hot conditions caused by the climate crisis has left much of the country at a dangerously high risk of devastating wildfires. The top 10 most destructive years by acreage burned have all occurred since 2004.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, federal land managers reevaluated their approach to fire and did the first prescribed burns in national parks. We're still making up for lost time: Scientists and land managers say millions more acres of prescribed burns are necessary to keep the country from burning out of control.

But the scale of the task doesn't match that of the labor force, whose focus is often extinguishing fires, not starting them. Responding to the increase in natural disasters has left America with few resources to actually keep them from happening. As Mark Charlton, a prescribed-fire specialist with The Nature Conservancy, told me, "We need more people, and we need more time."

This fall, I outfitted myself in fire-resistant clothing and boots, donned a hard hat, and joined a training program called TREX to better understand how prescribed burns work. TREX hosts collaborative burns to provide training opportunities in the field for people from different employers and backgrounds. The hope is that more people will earn the qualifications they need to lead and participate in burns for the agencies they work for back home.

The program's emphasis on learning, coupled with the support of the University of Idaho's Artists-in-Fire Residency (which helped pay my way), is why I, a journalist with no fire jobs on my résumé, could join a prescribed-fire module of about two dozen more experienced participants. I had to pass a fitness test — speed walking three miles with a 45-pound backpack in under 45 minutes — take 40 hours' worth of online coursework, and complete field-operations training to participate as a crew member. While hundreds of people have participated in TREX burns across the country since the program's inception in 2008, the dramatic growth of wildfires is outpacing the number of people being trained to reduce their impact.

The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of forests and grasslands across the country, burning an average of about 1.4 million acres, roughly the size of Delaware, each year with prescribed burns. It burned a record 2 million acres in fiscal 2023. But it's still not enough preparation, considering wildfires have burned over 10 million acres in recent years and people continue building and living in wildfire-prone areas. "It's a huge workload we have, and we know it," said Adam Mendonca, a deputy director of fire and aviation management for the Forest Service who oversees the agency's prescribed-fire program. The agency plans to chip away at the problem with the roughly 11,300 wildland firefighters it employs each year who squeeze the work in during the offseason, when there are fewer fires to fight.

But relying on wildland firefighters can be problematic. "We only have those resources for a short time," said Charlton, who served as the incident commander on the Washington burns I joined this fall. "After a long fire season, people are exhausted. It's hard to get people to commit." Plus, wildfires are increasingly overlapping with the ideal windows to do prescribed burns — often the spring and the fall, when conditions are cooler and wetter, making fires easier to tame.

That was especially true this year: Multiple large fires burned across the West into October. These late-season wildfires, coupled with two hurricanes that firefighters helped respond to, strained federal resources. That month, the nation's fire-preparedness level increased to a 5 — the highest level — indicating the country's emergency crews were at their maximum capacity and would've struggled to respond to new incidents.

In response to the elevated preparedness level, the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group urged "extreme caution" in executing new prescribed fires, saying backup firefighters or equipment might not be available. "We get to the point where we're competing for resources," said Kyle Lapham, the certified-burner-program manager for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources and the burn boss on the Washington burns.

There's also a qualification shortage. Prescribed burns require a well-rounded group with a variety of expertise and positions — including a burn boss, who runs the show and must have years of training. Charlton estimated that hundreds more qualified burn bosses are necessary to tackle nationwide prescribed-burn goals.

Just as concerning is an interest shortage. The Forest Service has struggled to hire for and maintain its federal firefighting force in recent years, in large part because of poor pay (federal firefighter base pay was raised to $15 an hour in 2022) and other labor disputes over job classifications, pay raises, staffing, and more. The agency is also expecting budget cuts next year and has already said it won't be able to hire its usual seasonal workforce as a result.

Legislation inching its way through Congress could help, though its fate under a new administration is unclear. The National Prescribed Fire Act of 2024 would direct hundreds of millions of dollars to the Forest Service and the US Department of the Interior for prescribed burns, including investment in training a skilled workforce — but it hasn't progressed past a Senate subcommittee hearing in June.

Without a boost in funding, the agency will continue relying heavily on partnerships with nonprofits like The Nature Conservancy and the National Forest Foundation to staff prescribed burns. The Forest Service also recently expanded its Prescribed Fire Training Center to host educational opportunities out West. Critically, though, time is of the essence.

During my TREX training in October, about 20 foresters and firefighters from as far south as Texas and as far north as British Columbia worked beside me. Our group included employees of the Washington Department of Natural Resources and two citizens of the nearby Spokane Tribe of Indians, who have a robust prescribed-fire program of their own.

Over two weeks I got a front-row seat to how much planning (sometimes years) and time a single prescribed burn takes. We conducted several burns in the mountains north of Spokane on the property of a receptive landowner who'd hosted TREX in previous years. He provided the training ground and, in exchange, got work done on his property. This isn't a common scenario — burning on private land can be more complicated, and so more burns happen on state or federal property.

When I arrived, the burn's incident-management team had already put together a burn plan detailing our objectives — reducing wildfire risk to the landowner's house, thinning small tree saplings, knocking down invasive weeds, opening up more wildlife habitat — and the exact weather conditions, like wind speed, relative humidity, and temperature, we needed to safely burn. Prescribed burns on federal lands also go through an environmental review.

At the site, we scouted contained areas we would burn, called units, with trainees making additional plans for how to ignite and control fires. Keeping a fire in its intended location, called "holding," meant lots of prep work, like digging shallow trenches to box the fire in. During the burn, teams monitored smoke and occasionally sprayed the larger trees we wanted to preserve with water when flames threatened their canopies; others poured fuel on the ground, igniting bushes, grass, and smaller trees to slowly build the fire.

Managing the fire didn't end when we finished burning the 30 or so acres. In some cases, it can involve days of monitoring and cleanup. To make sure the fire was out, my crew and I combed through areas we'd burned the day before for smoke or heat. If we discovered something still smoking, we'd churn up the ground with a shovel or pickax, douse the hot spot with water, and repeat. Just when we thought we were done, we'd find another spot we'd missed.

I went to bed those nights dreaming of little puffs of smoke and woke up with small flakes of ash embedded behind my ears. The work was rewarding and exhausting — I left with a deeper appreciation for the workers who do it for a living.

While every prescribed burn is different, it's always a careful equation. Everything needs to line up: supportive communities, the right weather, and, of course, the workers necessary to plan, burn, and extinguish. Only then can you light the match.

Kylie Mohr is a Montana-based freelance journalist and correspondent for the magazine High Country News.

• The Biden administration on Wednesday approved California's ban on gas cars by 2035.
• Trump has promised to revoke California's authority to set strict limits on tailpipe pollution.
• It's a high-stakes fight over the future of electric vehicles and tackling the climate crisis.

The stage is set for another battle between President-elect Donald Trump and California over the state's aggressive push for electric vehicles that could affect the rest of the country.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday said California can go ahead with its ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. The approval is an attempt to safeguard the state's strict limits on tailpipe pollution from Trump's promise to revoke them and roll back other federal incentives for electric vehicles.

The stakes are high for automakers because what happens in California can dictate companies' broader EV strategies and the pace of the country's shift away from fossil fuels. The state accounts for some 11% of the US auto market and is also the top EV market in the country. In the first half of 2024, EVs and hybrids accounted for nearly 40% of sales in California.

On top of that, 11 other states and Washington D.C. have adopted rules similar to California's as they seek to reduce the country's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. The rules require automakers to sell a growing number of zero-emissions vehicles over time. In 2026, at least 35% of new cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs must be electric in California and five other states, while other states' targets kick in in 2027.

Automakers largely support easing emissions regulations

While Trump will face legal challenges in trying to roll back California's rules, he could find some automakers on his side.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a lobbying group representing most new vehicle manufacturers in the US, has already asked Trump to ease emissions regulations but keep federal tax incentives that keep EVs affordable.

John Bozzella, president of the alliance, said Wednesday that the waiver was an expected development and the Trump administration will likely revoke it next year.

"We've said the country should have a single, national standard to reduce carbon in transportation," Bozzella said in a statement. "But the question about the general authority of California to establish a vehicle emissions program – and for other states to follow that program – is ultimately something for policymakers and the courts to sort out."

Trump, some Republican lawmakers, and groups linked to fossil fuel interests have repeatedly attacked EVs on the campaign trail, falsely claiming that Americans would be forced to abandon their gas-powered vehicles.

Those attacks come as the EV market deals with a marked slowdown in demand, forcing many companies to reasses their long-term plans for battery-powered cars and, in some cases, add more hybrids to the mix. A pullback in production has made it harder for many companies to meet long-term emissions requirements. Automakers including General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis have laid off thousands of workers.

Auto market analysts, environmental lawyers, and policy experts told Business Insider that they expect the shift to zero-emissions vehicles to continue regardless of who's in the White House — albeit at a slower pace if Trump and Congress overturn tax incentives to buy EVs and investments in charging infrastructure.

"Whatever the Trump administration does this time, automakers' concerns about stability will come up again because all of these manufacturers have said zero-emissions vehicles are the future," Sean Donahue, an attorney who's represented the Environmental Defense Fund in litigation over California's emissions waiver, said.

He added that there's pressure from regulators in other countries to address the climate crisis. US automakers also don't want to fall far behind competitors in countries like China, where affordable EVs have taken off.

California looks to 'Trump-proof' its regulations

Even if Trump does revoke California's emissions waiver, Gov. Gavin Newsom is already trying to "Trump-proof" the state, including its EV and climate policies.

Newsom said he would restore rebates for consumers who buy EVs if Trump ends the federal $7,500 tax credits enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act. This month, the state's energy commission approved a $1.4 billion investment in EV charging and hydrogen fuel stations over the next four years. The commission said the funding could help build nearly 17,000 new public chargers for passenger vehicles — on top of the 152,000 available now.

Newsom also convened a special legislative session to bolster California's defenses against Trump's attacks. Lawmakers could pass $25 million in new funding for the California Department of Justice so the state can file litigation against the Trump administration. That will likely happen if Trump revokes the state's tailpipe pollution waiver.

Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump transition team, said that Trump plans to stop what he says are attacks on gas-powered cars.

"When he takes office, President Trump will support the auto industry, allowing space for both gas-powered cars AND electric vehicles," she said in an email.

Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California at Los Angeles, told Business Insider that she expects the Trump administration to face an uphill legal battle.

She said the EPA has approved California's authority to set strict rules for tailpipe pollution for decades because the state's air quality is so bad. Otherwise, areas including Los Angeles and the Central Valley wouldn't comply with federal air pollution laws and could be penalized.

"The sanction is the withholding of federal highway funds," Carlson — who recently served as chief counsel to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — said. "It's quite draconian. So California has a pretty good argument that it needs these waivers to meet federal law."

The Supreme Court last week agreed to consider a lawsuit that oil and gas producers filed against the EPA over its waivers allowing California to set stricter limits on tailpipe pollution than the federal government. However, SCOTUS will only decide whether fossil fuel makers have standing to sue over what they say is bureaucratic overreach and won't consider whether California's waiver is legal.

James Di Filippo, a principal policy analyst at the research firm Atlas Public Policy, said automakers will likely continue to walk back their EV investments while the legal battles play out. Companies could seek another compromise with California to restore more certainty as they plan new vehicle models for years to come.

"If they're uncertain about a regulatory outcome, they'll default to a less intense push," he said.

• The Arctic is rapidly changing from the climate crisis, with no "new normal," scientists warn.
• Wildfires and permafrost thaw are making the tundra emit more carbon than it absorbs.
• From beaver invasions to giant holes, drastic changes in the Arctic are affecting the entire planet.

From Alaska to Siberia, the Arctic is changing so rapidly that there is no "normal" there now, scientists warn. The consequences reach across the globe.

The Arctic tundra now releases more carbon than it naturally draws down from the sky, as wildfires burn down its trees and permafrost thaw releases potent gases from its soil.

Once-brown regions are turning green with vegetation, while green areas are turning brown and barren. Sea ice and herds of caribou are disappearing.

This summer was the wettest on record for the Arctic overall, as rain is becoming more common than snow in some areas. Region by region, though, rainfall and the snow season are knocking down both high and low records.

Decades of data on "vital signs" suggest that "the Arctic exists now within a new regime, in which conditions year after year are substantially different than just a couple of decades ago," Twila Moon, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a briefing on Tuesday.

"Climate change is not bringing about a new normal," she added. "Instead, climate change is bringing ongoing and rapid change."

That's because the Arctic is warming about four times faster than the rest of the planet, according to previous research.

The increase in average temperatures is changing weather and landscapes in the Arctic, speeding up the climate crisis worldwide.

Giant holes, beaver invasions, and polar wildfires

For example, beavers are moving into Alaska's tundra and transforming its waterways with their dams, as warmer conditions have brought more wooded, comfortable riverbanks for them.

In Siberia, a giant hole in the ground is rapidly growing because the permafrost — a layer of soil that used to be permanently frozen — is thawing.

That's an extreme example, but melt and thaw is happening all over the planet's northernmost regions. Combined with drastic swings in weather year-to-year, these changes are wreaking havoc on Arctic landscapes, ecosystems, and people.

"These dramatic differences are making it difficult for communities to plan and they create safety issues for people who are used to more stable ice, snow, and temperature," Moon said.

She was presenting the Arctic Report Card, an update that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publishes each year, at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

This year's report revealed a crucial shift in northern landscapes: The Arctic tundra is no longer a net carbon sink, with its boreal forests pulling carbon dioxide from the sky. Now it's a net source of carbon emissions.

"This transition from a carbon sink to a source is of global concern," Brendan Rogers, a scientist studying the tundra at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, said in the briefing.

He added that the tundra's carbon emissions are relatively small for now, "but it's that transition that we're concerned about."

This shift is partly due to giant polar wildfires burning down tundra vegetation and all the carbon it's stored. It's also because of permafrost thaw, which releases large amounts of methane — a heat-trapping gas more potent than carbon dioxide — as bacteria in the soil digest thawing plant matter.

Meanwhile, rising Arctic temperatures are driving ice melt, including on the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is a major contributor to sea-level rise worldwide. Rising oceans are already increasing flooding in coastal cities across the planet.

For example, US coastal cities from Boston to San Diego have seen more and more flood days per year every decade since 1950, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Arctic science is more important than ever

Reporters asked the NOAA scientists about the incoming Trump administration and whether they were concerned about losing funding for their Arctic research.

"The need, the requirement, the demand signal if you will, is higher than ever before," Richard Spinrad, the NOAA Administrator, said in the briefing.

Changes in extreme weather and sea level across the globe show that "there's a need for these investments to increase right now," he said, adding that studies have shown "the return on those investments is extraordinary, in many cases 10 to 1 in terms of protection of lives and property."

• Zillow analyzed millions of listings to find key words and phrases being mentioned more.
• It identified five trends it predicts homebuyers will keep clamoring for in 2025.
• Interest in vintage-inspired interiors and electric-vehicle chargers, for example, is booming.

The American home is having an identity crisis.

Many newly constructed homes are smaller, with fewer hallways and shrinking backyards — yet they are significantly more expensive than just a decade ago.

As homebuilding trends evolve, buyers and homeowners are also reimagining what they want from their living spaces.

By analyzing hundreds of home features and design styles from millions of for-sale listings in 2024, Zillow has identified the top emerging home trends for the year ahead.

Zillow found that in response to higher living costs and growing concerns about the climate crisis, buyers will want homes that are eco-friendly, resilient to climate disasters, and equipped with smart home technology.

"Technology has empowered homeowners to live more sustainably and affordably, which is increasingly important to prospective buyers," said Amanda Pendleton, Zillow's home trends expert. She added that homeowners and buyers are simultaneously "looking to the past" to give their homes character, even in "the most high-tech environments."

According to Zillow, here are five home trends to watch in 2025, from solar-powered energy systems to vintage-inspired interiors.

1. Buyers want homes that protect them during natural disasters

The climate crisis is driving a rise in extreme weather events including hurricanes, wildfires, and tornadoes across the US.

The increasing frequency and intensity of these storms have encouraged people to seek homes that offer enhanced safety during natural disasters — that are hurricane-resistant, for example. Homes like that may reduce the risk of costly repairs.

Zillow found that mentions of flood barriers in for-sale listings have increased by 22% since 2023, while references to water catchment systems have risen by 19%. The use of the term seismic retrofitting — the modification of structures to enhance their earthquake resistance — is up 20%. Drought-resistant turf yards also appear in listings 14% more frequently than last year.

2. People want to live in eco-friendly homes

Homebuyers don't just want a house — they want one equipped with smart, eco-friendly technology that helps reduce their carbon footprint.

Zillow found that the fastest-growing sought-after feature this year is whole-home batteries. These systems, often paired with solar panels, store excess energy for use during cloudy days or power outages. Mentions of this feature in for-sale listings have increased by 62% compared to last year.

Buyers are also showing greater interest in electric vehicle (EV) chargers, which have appeared in 34% more Zillow listings compared to 2023, and induction cooktops, up 5% from last year.

3. People are on the hunt for "cozy" homes that offer comfort and solace in stressful times.

Zillow found that as the pandemic-era dip in home prices fades, so too does some buyers' preference for larger living spaces.

In search of greater affordability, many are now gravitating toward cozier homes that may also be more budget-friendly.

As a result, mentions of "cozy" — sometimes a euphemism for "small" — in for-sale listings have increased by 35% compared to last year.

6. Buyers are looking for spa vibes at home.

According to Zillow, as homeowners prioritize mental and physical well-being, "wellness design" is emerging as a major trend in homes.

Data from the company shows that the share of for-sale listings featuring wellness-focused amenities has increased by 16% compared to last year.

One such feature gaining traction with buyers is the wet room, a waterproof space that combines a shower and bathtub into one seamless area, often without a shower curtain or glass divider.

Popular in Europe and Asia for years, Zillow predicts wet rooms may make their way into more American homes.

5. Homebuyers are embracing a vintage aesthetic.

Young homebuyers will reject the minimalist styles favored by older generations and embrace vintage interior designs featuring antique furniture, floral patterns, and tapestries.

Zillow's data highlights a growing interest in nostalgia-driven design, with mentions appearing in 14% more for-sale listings compared to 2023. Similarly, references to "vintage" have increased by 9%. The company also found that bibliophilic decor and home libraries are gaining popularity, with mentions rising by 22% in listings.

It's not just the "I Love Lucy" set that homebuyers want to channel — many will also aim for "The Gilded Age."

Zillow found that mentions of Victorian-era sculleries — hidden back kitchens used for meal prep and entertaining —have increased by 8% in for-sale listings this year compared to last.

• Bill Gates said 2024 brought a corporate "pivot" toward climate tech, in a foreword to a new report.
• The report, by Gates's firm Breakthrough Energy, urged VCs to "prime the pump" on climate startups.
• While new climate tech emerges, proven solutions like solar energy still need help proliferating.

This has been a big year for the technologies that could save our planet.

America's first large offshore wind farm began powering homes. The Bill Gates-backed startup Graphyte opened its first carbon-removal plant in Arkansas. Another startup, Sublime Systems, secured a site and funding for its first low-carbon cement manufacturing facility.

There's also been a "corporate climate pivot," according to a report by Breakthrough Energy, a climate investment firm and startup catalyzer founded by Gates.

"We noticed a subtle, but important, perspective shift from both the investors and corporations we engage with," Gates wrote in an intro to the report, which the firm published in October with the tagline "climate tech has arrived."

More than just reducing their carbon footprint, corporate leaders "want to get in at the ground floor of new industries that, one day, will be crucial to the survival of their businesses," Gates wrote.

Other industry experts also told Business Insider that climate tech is picking up steam, and now emerging companies need more funding to scale up.

Corporate investment in climate tech

Breakthrough Energy focuses on its own partners in the report, such as American Airlines investing in a startup making hydrogen-based plane fuel. It's not the only VC firm seeing large corporations lean into climate tech more, though.

A number of long-standing corporate partners, like the chemicals giant BASF or the building-materials manufacturer Saint-Gobain, work with the nonprofit climate-tech incubator Greentown Labs to support early-stage companies.

Aisling Carlson, the senior vice president of partnerships at Greentown, told BI that the firm's oldest corporate partners have been hiring, "beefing up" their teams that invest in emerging climate tech.

"Their approach to climate innovation and their internal expertise has matured," Carlson said.

Meanwhile, other corporations are beginning to engage with climate tech for the first time. Carlson said Greentown has seen new interest from corporations that haven't invested much in climate tech, though no partnerships have been publicly announced yet.

"They are all thinking about their carbon footprint and how they can decarbonize," she added.

Don't forget about old reliables like solar

Though new technologies, like direct air capture plants that suck carbon out of the sky, can be part of the solution, Foley wants investors and politicians to remember that fighting climate change is a race against time.

"Let's deploy things that actually are cheap enough and scalable enough and ready enough," like solar power, battery storage, EV charging stations, and other tech that's already proliferating, he said.

We also have to shut down coal-fired power plants and plug abandoned gas wells that leak methane, Foley said. Efforts to stop deforestation can prevent huge amounts of carbon emissions and they're "desperately starved for money," he added.

These are the low-hanging fruits of fighting climate change.

Foley said that Gates has a history of investing in "science fiction experiments" that don't move fast enough, such as small modular nuclear reactors. After nearly 20 years of development and Gates's investment, there still isn't a single one in operation.

Sustainable aviation fuel is a similar "boondoggle," Foley said.

"That's a science experiment still, and it doesn't need or deserve billions of tax dollars," he said, adding that public funding should go to reliable solutions.

Breakthrough Energy did not respond to a request for comment.

VC can 'prime the pump' on garage innovators

Lots of futuristic climate tech just needs the funding to deploy and scale up, Gates wrote. The Breakthrough Energy report argues that venture capitalists, investors, or corporations should get in on it now, at the ground floor.

"By waiting, venture firms are only hurting their own bottom lines," the report says. By getting in early, though, investors can "prime the pump" and help early-stage companies design a product that's scalable and capable of attracting even bigger investment.

However, funding for climate tech slowed down this year, Carlson said, possibly due to investors taking a "wait and see" stance in the lead-up to the US election.

Indeed, Biden administration initiatives have boosted climate tech in recent years including the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act.

New policies have driven more government investment in green concrete and steel, according to the Breakthrough Energy report, and the IRA created more than two dozen tax credits for investing in clean-energy projects. Breakthrough concluded those credits could unlock "more than $1 trillion in private sector investment."

However, incentives like that could change with the new Trump administration.

"What I am hopeful for is that corporate commitments to net zero targets will continue to drive innovation," Carlson said. "And if there are unfavorable federal policies, that the private sector can continue to play a driving role in ensuring at least that the early-stage climate technologies are getting to market."

• Spain has approved a law granting employees up to four days of paid climate leave.
• It aims to ensure workers aren't penalized for staying home during climate disasters.
• The law follows criticism of companies during the devastating floods in Valencia last month.

Spain is enacting a new law granting employees up to four days of paid climate leave following last month's devasting floods, which killed more than 200 people.

The legislation comes after several companies in Spain received criticism for making employees work amid the torrential rain and subsequent floods in Valencia and surrounding areas, which caused widespread devastation.

The protection seeks to ensure that workers are not penalized for staying at home during extreme weather conditions, and will continue to be paid.

In a video shared with local media, Yolanda Díaz, Spain's Minister of Labour and Social Economy, described the move as historic.

"For the first time, Spain will have paid climate leave for working people," she said.

Spain's Council of Ministers approved the legislation on Thursday, and it is expected to come into effect on Friday.

In an interview with Spanish broadcaster RTVE, Díaz said the paid leave will be relevant whenever an authority issues a climate-related alert that advises people to stay at home for safety reasons.

She told RTVE that it aims to ensure that "no worker must run the risks" of facing off with a climate emergency just to get to their workplace.

There were reports of restaurant workers in a Valencia shopping center working through the first hours of the floods last month and hundreds of workers getting trapped in business parks, according to Spanish newspaper Público.

Speaking on Thursday, Esther Lynch, the General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, said: "This was a climate disaster that turned into a labor disaster because of the negligence of employers and the Valencian government."

Lynch added: "Bosses who put workers' lives at risk by ignoring health and safety rules should face the full force of the law."

Spain's economy minister, Carlos Cuerpo, said on Thursday that the paid leave applies when employees cannot safely reach their workplace or work remotely, Euronews reported.

He added that workers can opt for a reduced working schedule if more days off are required.

The legislation also mandates that companies implement specific risk-prevention measures for climate emergencies and inform their employees of these.

Last month's floods damaged infrastructure, homes, and businesses. The Bank of Spain has estimated a 0.2% decline in Spain's GDP in Q4 after the floods.