To tell the story, here's your host for the evening - Brick
So yes, emissions are down this year. But, as Brick relays, because global warming is related to the total CO2 we emit over centuries, 2020 is still a year that warmed the climate of the immediate future...
...and in so doing, took the world closer to the overshooting the #ParisAgreement 'guardrails'. So... if the lockdown-induced emissions trajectory doesn't provide much of a boost to curbing climate change, does anything else?
There is now a big conversation in many countries about #BuildingBackBetter - how best to spend the trillions of public money, our money, that are being committed. And there's a consensus among economists that 'green' measures bring multiple benefits
...benefits in terms of reducing climate change for sure, and improving health and air quality, bringing faster economic growth and providing more jobs
The UK has a major role to play in determining whether this actually happens, because as @UNFCCC@COP26 COP26 President and #G7 chair next year, it has a unique chance to set the global agenda. How big will Brick be by the time #COP26 hits Glasgow in November?
Brick tells the story much better than I do, tbh - and here's where he lives eciu.net/analysis/infog…
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THREAD: Seen a bit of chat recently implying that the UK shouldn't put pedal to the metal on decarbonisation as it's so far gone faster than US - which is true, it has
The implication is that somehow this speed has been bad for the UK economy. The data say otherwise
Since 1990, UK GDP has increased 3.45-fold, according to the World Bank. The US, 3.42-fold. Basically, identical data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.G…
THREAD: With all the talk #cop28 centring on #fossilfuelphaseout or not – abated, unabated, etc – what actually is the logical role of CCS in the energy transition?
In a new paper for @thesmithschool @uniofoxford, Dr Andrea Bacilieri, Dr Rupert Way and I analyse the relative costs of taking a high-CCS vs a low-CCS route to #netzero and the 1.5°C temperature goal – a question that as far as we can see hasn’t been properly asked before
Hilarious to see @NetZeroWatch plugging this 'dangers of woke banking' line... here's their chairman's own company's sustainability page 😂😂😂 recordfg.com/sustainability/
I have deep reservations about this 'people who live near wind farms should get cheap electricity' thing, which has reached a new depth today with a recommendation that they should get free electricity
It would only make sense if people were opposed to having wind farms nearby, and there's a welter of evidence in a range of countries showing that the majority of people aren't opposed (eg sciencedirect.com/science/articl…)
THREAD: Climate change causes conflict, you say? Well: it's a bit more complex than that
Climate change and other facets of the global environmental crisis raise the risks of conflict and other forms of insecurity. But so do many other things - competition for resources, ethnic tensions, prior conflicts, pandemics...
And there is already a growing security crisis. Over the last 10 years (well before #Covid and Putin's war) the number of state-based armed conflicts, the number of people killed in them and the number of people displaced all roughly doubled
This is also a nod to all those lining up to pontificate that '1.5°C is dead', particularly scientists who make no attempt to clarify that that what they're saying is just their opinion, not fact
Firstly let's look at the #ParisAgreement's wording - to 'hold' warming 'well below 2°C' while 'making efforts' to keep it to 1.5°C. There is no time limit on that 'making efforts'. Governments did not pledge to make efforts until warming exceeds 1.5°C and then stop