Thankful for the New Zealanders who welcomed my German Jewish refugee grandparents (pic) after they fled the Nazis
Ashamed of a British govt that abdicates our moral duty, to help refugees in their moment of need
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My maternal grandparents had been made stateless and yet, with the help of friends of friends, they obtained visas for NZ, travelling via Calais, Southampton and Columbo, before landing in Wellington just weeks before the outbreak of war
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Most of their family was not so lucky
My grandfather's parents: murdered in the forests outside Riga
My grandmother's father: committed suicide under weight of Nazi oppression
PS their route to New Zealand was legal. It was very hard to navigate and they were fortunate to be accepted – and grudgingly so. But there was a legal route.
Per @AmnestyUK "there are no safe and legal routes [into the UK] for people seeking asylum"
NEW research from China's National Climate Center, described for @CarbonBrief by its director:
China has enough wind & solar potential to generate 95,837TWh, an almost unimaginably large figure 13x China's electricity use in 2020 & 4x global demand
The Times also reports Johnson trying to get ministers to raid other green budgets to pay for his energy efficiency plans, but fails to mention the (unmet) Tory manifesto pledge to spend £9.2bn on efficiency
In all seriousness, the lack of transparency around UK govt decisionmaking on new nuclear plants is a major issue – it allows no opportunity for informed public or political scrutiny over tens of billions of investment
In recent yrs, the 2GW West Burton site has run at around 5% of capacity. Only 1GW remains.
At a conservative 10% for that extra six months, I estimate it'd emit 0.5MtCO2 - roughly 0.1% of UK annual GHG total
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Generating the same electricity with gas would emit roughly half that amount, so the saving of not running West Burton would be even smaller, 0.25MtCO2 / 0.05%
(Given timeline to this winter it's unlikely more wind/solar could be built in addition to current plans)
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