Posts/data about climate+energy
Press Gazette energy & envt journo of yr 2022
Deputy Ed, Senior Policy Ed @CarbonBrief
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simon.evans@carbonbrief.org
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In Q1 of 2025, the clean-energy driven drop in power sector CO2 outweighed small increases in other sectors of China's economy, driving a 1.6% fall year-on-year overall
Blair says a "strategy based on either 'phasing out' fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail"
Just so we're clear, let's start with why bother
UK govt says the contract helps security of electricity supplies, but gives Drax a "much more limited role than today" ie it's limited to run at roughly 25% of its max output
UK electricity generation from fossil fuels has more than halved in a decade, falling to 91TWh in 2024 – the lowest level since 1955 and making up the lowest ever share of the total, just 29%
Fossil fuels account for 40% of global shipping trade by volume – but only 10% by value
UK opened the world's first coal power plant in 1882 on London's Holborn Viaduct (pic)
Just over a decade ago, then-PM David Cameron was infamously reported to have told aides to "get rid of the green crap" as a "solution to soaring energy prices"… 
Exhibit 2: Ratcliffe cherrypicks Germany – where EV subsidies recently ended – to argue that demand is drying up
Sources:
In the debate, we also saw the mask slip from former sec of state Jacob Rees-Mogg, who as a govt minister paid lip service to climate action (left) but now admits he wants to "postpone net-zero indefinitely" (right)
UK emissions have now fallen in 25 of 34 yrs since 1990 – and pretty much every yr for past two decades
2/
Let's start with cost
New #COP28 stocktake text
🇨🇳🇺🇸US-China climate statement
Before looking at the schoolboy error, let's quickly show why the headline's false
#WEO23 
FALSE: Matt Ridley and others keep reusing a claim that EVs have to travel 50,000+ miles to "break even"
Yday @NatInfraCom released a big report on UK infrastructure investment needs over next 30yrs