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Simon Oldridge Profile picture
Simon Oldridge
@SiOldridge
#climate #nature science & policy | Cofounder @SDevonPrimary & https://t.co/BQ2dqvFttr | former CEO Wienerberger UK roof div | Moog player 🎹
Apr 21 • 8 tweets • 5 min read
How can #bbclaurak do a special on #netzero without bothering to research the basics and then totally failing to call out disinformation? A quick 🧵rebutting some of the worst of it....
bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00… 1️⃣Preposterous science denier @LukeJohnsonRCP says #netzero will make ordinary people poorer & colder. Yet study after study shows renewables can supply all our energy needs and deliver huge savings, with a rapid payback #bbclaurak

brookes.ac.uk/about-brookes/…
Apr 14 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
UK Gov is pledging £billions of public money to the fossil fuel industry for unproven industrial CO₂ removal. But here's how nature can do the job, with an array of co-benefits, at far lower cost. A short🧵 1/ zerohour.uk/reports/
Image 2️⃣ Restoring nature will:
✅ protect against extreme heat, flooding, drought ✅ absorb CO₂ at far lower cost than tech
✅ create lots of jobs
✅ mean putting ££ into local communities instead of giving it to the polluters
Mar 31 • 10 tweets • 6 min read
This is @ClaireCoutinho, the UK's Net Zero minister. Her twitter feed reads like it was written by an oil company.
Here's a quick flavour: 🧵
opendemocracy.net/en/policy-exch… 1️⃣🚨Misleading🚨
Once you account for all the manufacturing we've offshored, plus✈️&🚢emissions ignored, our total footprint has fallen by just 23% since 1990. <1% a year.
And that ignores large emissions from industrial fishing, military, and bioenergy.


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Jan 1 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The Conservative Gov killed off a major program to insulate the UK's appallingly inefficient homes, and despite the Ukraine crisis, has done almost nothing to save wasted energy—the cheapest, fastest way to cut emissions.
UK homes lose heat 3X faster than German homes.
🧵1/4
Image
Image 2/ The Conservatives cancelled the Code for Sustainable Homes which would've required all new homes to be zero carbon (and super-cheap to heat) by 2016. They did this in response to lobbying from Persimmon Homes, a major donor to their party.
businessgreen.com/news/3072448/p…
Dec 8, 2023 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
Why is this man permitted to push Big Oil propaganda on the BBC, putting at risk the action needed to preserve our civilisation? The QT format doesn't give time for this to be called out.
So here's the fact-checking the BBC should do:🧵... Image 1️⃣"We're just one small part"
Would Hitchens accept that pathetic excuse from a child dropping litter?🙄
Anyway, UK is the 17th largest emitter of 195 nations, and 5th biggest in terms of excess CO₂ in the atmosphere. Take responsibility Peter!
zerohour.uk/the-uk-is-smal…
Dec 3, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Dear journalists. Please challenge ministers when they brag that UK has cut emissions by nearly 50%. That's only part of the story & highly misleading - because we've offshored so much manufacturing. More info: 🧵
2/ The UK has in fact barely cut emissions at all outside of the power sector since 2010. An abject failure.
zerohour.uk/graphics/
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Nov 29, 2023 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
The evidence that the UK Gov is now overtly blocking the action needed to avoid climate catastrophe. What have I missed?
A quick summary 🧵1/ 2/ Despite crystal clear science that the🌍already has enough fossil fuels to last until 2050, and blow well past 1.5°C leading to catastrophic damage...

Image
Aug 20, 2023 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
A 🧵on why UK emissions targets are far from sufficient for 1.5°C, or anything close. The media is focused on the Delivery Gap, but we really need to talk about the #AmbitionGap whilst there's still time to close it. 1/ Image 2/ The @IPCC_CH says we must limit emissions to 400 billion tonnes of CO2 from 2020 for a 67% chance of limiting global heating to 1.5°C. Shared equally per global person, allowing for population growth, that's 49 tonnes each.
UK targets would see us at more than double that. Image
Aug 2, 2023 • 14 tweets • 6 min read
A 🧵on why oil companies don't invest in renewables, what the UK Government is now overtly doing to assist big oil, and what it should be doing. 1/ 2/ Why don't oil companies invest in renewables when they're so cheap?
Answer: you can make huge profits by controlling super scarce fossil fuels with huge technical barriers to entry, backed by lobbying. You cannot from abundant wind, water and solar.bbc.com/news/science-e…
Jul 23, 2023 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
The UK's Net Zero Strategy plans for 'up to 29 MtCO2' to be removed annually by Direct Air Capture with Carbon Storage (DACCS) by 2050.
That means building 5 times the capacity of the world's only existing plant in Iceland every week from now to 2050. But worse than that: 🧵1/ 2/ DACCS extracts CO2 from air & bonds it to rock underground. The large amount of heat needed can be supplied by green hydrogen. But before we have surplus renewable power, the extra electricity to make that green H2 will all be supplied by gas power stations.
Jul 12, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Once we include the goods we import and international ✈️ & ⛴️, UK has only cut its carbon footprint by 23% since 1990. That’s less than 1% a year. Fiddling whilst Rome burns. But these figures are not complete: 🧵/5 2/5 UK emissions figs ignore ‘blue carbon’ - emissions from marine damage like industrial fishing, which releases as much carbon as aviation - eg dragging metal chains across the sea bed, shredding ecosystems.

amp.theguardian.com/environment/20…
Jul 8, 2023 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Government keeps delaying their Biomass Strategy. Now due 20th July. Bioenergy at Drax is absolutely catastrophic for climate, emitting more CO2 than coal! And that's just the start of it.
A quick 🧵/11
ember-climate.org/insights/resea… 2/ The theory goes that trees absorb CO2, so burning them is fine if you grow more trees.
But it takes forests up to 50 years to re-grow enough to pay back the carbon lost. With deadly climate tipping points looming right now, it's madness to burn trees.
imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial…
Jul 4, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
If I was director of a financial institution, I’d pay VERY close attention to this article
Models used to assess climate risk found unfit for purpose - ignoring key impacts: sea level rise, extreme weather, mass migration!!
Future class action alert.
🧵1/4
ft.com/content/a50273… 2/4 Climate impacts are hitting hard now, with much worse to come if we don’t act much faster
⚠️Huge losses from rising waters & intense rainfall
⚠️Extreme heat & wildfire smoke limiting outside working & hitting health
⚠️Mass migration cost
⚠️Crop failure
⚠️Political instability
Jun 5, 2023 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Unsurprising to see the biggest funder of fossil fuels advocating for CO2 removal tech that scientists say won't work and which will mean huge costs to the taxpayer.
Disappointed in @ChukaUmunna (who has disabled replies).
forbes.com/sites/davidrve…
3 quick issues: 🧵 1/3 Direct air capture: until we reach 100% renewables, this high energy process will be powered at the margin by gas power stations, releasing about as much CO2 as it absorbs. If operators use solar, they're diverting it from displacing gas powered electricity generation.
Jun 3, 2023 • 31 tweets • 15 min read
1/ I’m a big fan of @theCCCuk but this report makes the false assumption that the public won't accept change.
Which leads them to rubber stamp hugely costly, discredited tech like carbon capture and blue hydrogen, ignoring cheaper, superior options.
The evidence... 🧵 2/ First, the issue in brief. Then the solutions.
There are no independent studies proving blue hydrogen works as a low carbon option. There IS a study that shows it's as bad for climate as burning coal.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10… UK likely slightly less bad, but FAR from 'clean'. Image
May 8, 2023 • 14 tweets • 7 min read
The new UK #hydrogen strategy looks like an exercise in providing ongoing revenue to North Sea operators under the pretence of climate action. It'll impose a huge cost on UK taxpayers and lock us into a high emissions pathway.
Here's why. A short 🧵... Image To meet the new Low Carbon Hydrogen Standard, GHG emissions intensity must be within 20gCO2/MJ of hydrogen produced (LHV). BUT:

1/ Expert NGO @Regen_insight say 20g is not consistent with @theCCCuk's net zero pathway. 7g should be the max.
regen.co.uk/wp-content/upl…
May 6, 2023 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Disappointed to see @McKinsey, who’ve written powerfully about the costs of climate change, print such nonsense on hydrogen, proposing it for heating despite all the evidence.

What’s more… 1/

mckinsey.com/uk/our-insight… 2/ Extraordinary from @McKinsey 👆

“How will fugitive emissions from hydrogen be insured and paid for?”

Leaked emissions of potent GHG methane make blue hydrogen terrible for the climate. There’s no acceptable ‘price’ for wrecking our biosphere.
Are you for or against a… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Image
Mar 31, 2023 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Good to chat with my MP @AnthonyMangnal1 at last night's sewage meeting. Anthony offered this in defence of the Gov's climate record:

1/ UK's better than others in Europe & could I name a single country with more wind power. I said it's not a competition, but anyway👇
A quick🧵 Image 2/ He said it's better to use our cleaner coal than dirty Polish coal. Similar with oil. I explained that the IPCC, CCC & IEA say new fossil fuels are not consistent with 1.5°C. We don't even need them because science shows 100% renewables is feasible.
brookes.ac.uk/about-brookes/…
Mar 30, 2023 • 22 tweets • 10 min read
In a parallel universe, today's revised Net Zero Strategy would correct for the many flaws identified in our #AmbitionGap report, reviewed and endorsed by leading climate and nature scientists... 🧵 1/ UK targets are too weak for 1.5°C. Carbon budgets to 2032 were set up to 12 years ago. They ignore international ✈️&🚢, making unrealistic assumptions that all nations will cut emissions as fast as us, ignoring pop growth and rising living standards in developing nations.
Mar 20, 2023 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
The UK Gov gives fossil fuel companies £914,000 in tax relief from the windfall tax for every £1 million they invest - but only for new oil and gas projects, not for new renewables. Yes you read that right..!
A short🧵

gov.uk/government/pub… 2/ Yet we know that 60% of existing reserves must stay in the ground for even a measly 50% chance of limiting heating to 1.5°C.

nature.com/articles/s4158…
Mar 18, 2023 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
The UK Gov pays fossil fuel companies a £914,000 tax rebate for every £1 million they invest - but only for new oil and gas projects, not for new renewables. Yes you read that right..!
A short🧵

gov.uk/government/pub… 2/ Yet we know that 60% of existing reserves must stay in the ground for even a measly 50% chance of limiting heating to 1.5°C.

nature.com/articles/s4158…