We must start planning to live with the consequences of climate change Few things should make you as optimistic — or as pessimistic — as the rise of renewable energy. Optimism comes from a new sense of urgency as the UK, Germany and Spain set record highs for use of wind and solar power, and
Solar generated 9% of Britain’s electricity on 30 June as carbon emissions dropped to a record-low of 97g/kWh, according to data from Drax. High levels of both solar and wind were credited with enabling the record, with renewables providing more than half (55.3%) of Britain’s electricity that day. Solar made up 9% of Britain’s electricity
Government’s official climate advisers say there is no proper preparation to cope with heatwaves and flash floods The government’s own advisers have declared themselves shocked that the UK has no proper plans for protecting people from heatwaves, flash flooding and other impacts of the climate crisis. The Committee on Climate Change said the UK’s climate
The UK will need 20 million ‘mini power stations’ to reach its net zero energy goals, with the need to create a policy framework for technologies like solar PV and energy storage an immediate priority, a group convened in Britain’s parliament this week heard. While other rooms at Portcullis House, Westminster, were given over to
Sir David Attenborough has told MPs that polluting the oceans and atmosphere will soon provoke as much public abhorrence as slavery. The naturalist and TV presenter said that the shift in how people viewed environmental damage was comparable to the transformation in morality that accompanied the abolition of slavery in the 19th century. “I suspect
The fastest-expanding industrial sector on the planet is now electricity storage − a battery boom which heralds an end to the need for fossil fuels. LONDON, 18 January, 2019 − Billions of dollars are being invested worldwide in the developing battery boom, involving research into storage techniques to use the growing surpluses of cheap renewable
Current policy is insufficient for previous emissions targets and must be ramped up if the net zero goal is to be reached, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has said. Only one of the 25 policy recommendations made by the CCC last year for getting the fourth and fifth carbon budgets back on track been
Sir David Attenborough regularly battles it out with the Queen for the title of the county’s “most trusted person” – a fact he always puts down to a single cause. “I have never done a commercial. Never. Ever,” he said in a newspaper interview in 2006. “If I have any quality on the screen, it’s
Lithium-ion batteries are far more widely recycled than many people think, while China and South Korea are already leaders of the emerging circular economy of lithium, a report commissioned by the Swedish Energy Agency has found. An often-cited figure is that “5% of lithium-ion batteries are recycled”, when in fact this statistic, taken originally from
If you missed last week’s launch of the UK Green Finance Strategy, it is entirely possible you’re not alone. The 80-page document may make for dry reading for all but finance diehards, but the issue it sets its sights on is consequential: the inescapable truth that the world is failing to invest in clean energy