climate change

This flawed deal might have been all that was possible, given the geopolitical headwinds – a US president who shunned the talks and is wedded to oil and coal, the rising tide of rightwing populism, conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, intolerable levels of inequality, and global economic uncertainty.

Inequality has to be in there, somewhere, right? But how does this lead to climate change?

Further, given that inequality is falling – and on a global level, falling fast – that would be a good thing, no?

The world is still on track for a catastrophic 2.6C increase in temperature as countries have not made sufficiently strong climate pledges, while emissions from fossil fuels have hit a record high, two major reports have found.

Even – even – they are saying disaster has been averted and we can all calm down now. Which is good, no?

That this always was the correct answer is another thing…..

Rich countries have lost enthusiasm for tackling climate crisis, says Cop30 chief

Because “tackling” always does seem to mean ship tonnes and tonnes of money to the poor thieves out there in poor world governments.

Brazil’s André Corrêa do Lago says countries should follow China’s lead on clean energy as conference begins

So that would be keep building coal plants?

That this is the Guardian’s lead story on the main page – yet another jamboree on the same damn subject really isn’t that now, is it?

But the true reach of fossil fuel tentacles is undoubtedly deeper as the lobbyists data

In a report about how fossil fuel companies send people to COPs etc.

“Tentacles” is just one of those words not to use, not unless you’re talking about how to cook Octopus.

Warming oceans probably fueling Hurricane Melissa’s rapid intensification
Climate scientists have long warned that warming oceans are making explosive storm development more common

But just one of those things. I’d have a great deal more faith in them all – and the Guardian etc – if they’d been running articles on “Where did the hurricanes go this year?”

We are – substantially – below average in hte number of ’em in 2025. But we get a piece about how climate change is making this one faster to develop – and yet not anything about how few there are.

You know, almost as if they’re being biased? As if you could believe such a thing.

So we killed off our coal use. At some significant cost too. In order to show the world how it should be done:

Coal use hit a record high around the world last year despite efforts to switch to clean energy, imperilling the world’s attempts to rein in global heating.

The share of coal in electricity generation dropped as renewable energy surged ahead. But the general increase in power demand meant that more coal was used overall,

Oh.

Trees store carbon as they grow and release it when they decay and die. Overall, tropical forests are thought to be carbon sinks – absorbing more CO2 than they release – and uptake is assumed to increase amid rising atmospheric concentration.

But nearly 50 years of data collected from tropical forests across Queensland has revealed this crucial carbon sink could be under threat.

About 25 years ago, tree trunks and branches in those forests became a net emitter, with more trees dying and insufficient new growth, according to the research.

In fact I’m sure we – collectively – knew this. Forsts are carbon sinks as they grow or expand and sources if they retreat or shrink.

How else does anyone think it’s all going to work?

And the vast expansion of boreal, chapparal and other forests as humanity retreats from the wild is therefore having what effect? It being, as with Net Zero, the nett effect that matters, right?

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) pump out nearly five times more planet-heating pollution than official figures show, a report has found.

The cars, which can run on electric batteries as well as combustion engines, have been promoted by European carmakers as a way to cover long distances in a single drive – unlike fully electric cars – while still reducing emissions.

Data shows PHEVs emit just 19% less CO2 than petrol and diesel cars, an analysis by the non-profit advocacy group Transport and Environment found on Thursday. Under laboratory tests, they were assumed to be 75% less polluting.

I wouldn’t trust a test by T&E. Not just wouldn’t but don’t. Should I be that way is another matter…..

The actual finding is that the ICE motors are used more often than assumed. So, BAD! But then I’d ponder, if the ICE motors are used a lot then that shows that hybrids, with ICEs, are important, no?

The people you hope would be best informed about the imminent threat of climate breakdown would be members of parliament. After all, droughts and storms affecting their constituents have been a recurring news item. The need to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 requires an informed debate among parties.

As ever, the actual lesson of the Stern Review is not to have an emissions target. Rather, it’s to hve an emissions *price* and therefore we’ll have the correct amount of emissions.

Now, if someone would like to beat that into MPs be my guest…..

The majority of British households expect to restrict their home heating this winter to try to keep rising costs in check, according to research released as the price cap that dictates most bills rose again.

The fuel poverty charity National Energy Action said 58% of households told its survey they were likely to trim their energy use, a nine-percentage-point increase from the level in January.

Such a terrible surprise to some that budget constraints exist, that there really are opportunity costs.

Everyone, always faces budget constraints because there are always opportunity costs. Whatever energy prices – or whatever whisky prices – there’s always a trade off between how much heating, how much whisky one can have.

Tradeoffs apply to everyone. Elon Musk doesn’t have to worry about whisky or heating, true, but even he cannot buy both Wyoming and Luxembourg, a choice – a trade off because budget constraint – has to be made.

Three and a half years after war plunged Europe into an energy supply crisis, millions of households in Great Britain are braced for another winter of painful gas and electricity bills.

On Wednesday, the quarterly cap on charges will increase again. Despite a fall in wholesale gas prices, the ceiling for a typical annual dual-fuel bill will rise by 2% to £1,755 to help cover the costs of energy policies and network upgrades.

If gas is down and energy is up then it’s not the gas price driving energy, is it?

Biomethane not viable for widespread use in UK home heating, report finds

OK.

Gas derived from farm waste will never be an alternative to the widespread adoption of heat pumps, research shows, despite the claims of fossil fuel lobbyists.

And that’s the real claim here. Biomethane will never heat everyone so instead everyone must have electric fired heat pumps.

Because planners are never, ever, going to allow a mix and match according to circumstance and taste now, are they? Why, that would be a market and we know what planners think of those.

Labour is in a fight against “global network of rightwing billionaires” who want to undermine net zero for their “vested interests”, Ed Miliband has said.

The only reason my plans aren’t working is because the billionaires have it in for me.

He is set to announce a target of creating 400,000 new jobs in clean energy, doubling jobs in the sector by 2030

How super! Doubling the labour cost of the sector.

On Wednesday he will pledge to create a “fair worker charter”, which will mean that companies which receive public funding will have to guarantee fair pay, flexible working and access to unionisation.

The final rules could include enhanced pay, bonuses and sick leave, flexible working and contracts, as well as new access for unions, new rights for offshore workers and workers on the boards of publicly owned bodies such as Great British Energy.

That’s very fun as well. Who will be the first to say, on sight of the government chequebook, “‘N’ you can fuck off ‘n’ all”?

Smoke billowing from wildfires will cause a growing number of deaths around the world in the decades ahead as the planet continues to heat up, new research has found.

Wildfire smoke is expected to kill as many as 1.4 million people globally each year by the end of the century if planet-heating emissions are not curbed, according to a study published on Thursday.

On the other hand, if we provide everyone with a gas oven – so they’re not using solid fuels on open fires to cook indoors – then we’ll save more than 1.4 million lives a year.

So, swings and roundabouts, really…develop or don’t?

More than 40% of private renters in England and Wales were forced to ration their gas and electricity use last winter to afford their energy bills, according to Citizens Advice.

Energy must become more expensive in order to save Gaia. Thought everyone knew that?

Building the export cables for Norwegian hydro:

Conspiracy theories now flourish. In August, a film by ski coach and influencer Sindre Wiig Nordby alleged that the cables were built deliberately to make prices high enough for wind power to become profitable without subsidies. However far-fetched that claim may be, it reflects a deep erosion of trust.

But how far-fetched is it?

The extreme weather that fuelled “astonishing” blazes across Spain and Portugal last month was made 40 times more likely by climate breakdown, early analysis suggests.

The deadly wildfires, which torched 500,000 hectares (1.2m acres) of the Iberian peninsula in a matter of weeks, were also 30% more intense than scientists would have expected in a world without climate change, according to researchers from the World Weather Attribution network.

I live out in the middle of all of this – yes, a few local fires this summer – and they’re spouting toss. It’s alays warm enough to burn here. The native vegetation is built to do so even. One of th reasons for cork – the very thick bark of the cork oak – is to enable them to survive such frequent fires.

Changes in land use have compounded the rising regional risk of untamed infernos. Several hot Mediterranean countries have struggled to deal with the effects of rural abandonment and ageing populations, as young people moving to cities have left behind unmanaged farmland with overgrown vegetation that can easily burn.

That, however, is true. It’s the absence of goats.

Lying tossers.

The financing of transition mineral mining is driving widespread environmental destruction and human rights abuses, according to a report.

Banks and investors have ploughed hundreds of billions of dollars into companies mining for minerals for the manufacture of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, energy grids and electric vehicles in the past decade, according to the research.

But the institutions funding this extraction have “dangerously weak” environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies relating to mineral mining, the report says, with most lacking any meaningful safeguards for communities and ecosystems.

“Without urgent reform, finance will continue to reinforce an extractive, high-risk model that undermines both climate and nature goals, and tramples human rights,” according to the report.

So all this capitalism hsa gone and got the mineral required to have windmills. But of course that’s bad. Because capitalism, obvs.

After all, let us not forget who the real enemy is, right?

The distance electric cars can travel almost halves in heatwaves, research has revealed.

The ranges of three common electric vehicles (EVs) became significantly shorter when they were tested in Spain in very-temperatures.

What Car? magazine went to what it described as the “frying pan of Andalusia” over the summer, testing the EVs in the soaring temperatures of Seville, Cordoba and Montoro.

You mean chemistry is affected by temperature?

Still, wouldn’t it be fun if the major problem EVs faced was climate change?

A CNOOC spokesman said that after a review of plans to electrify the Buzzard platform, “we have been unable to find an investible solution in the current economic climate”.

The Green Volt wind farm was to cost £2.5bn and would have allowed 35 floating wind turbines to be moored close to the Buzzard oil platform.

Mr Miliband last year approved a contract for Green Volt under which it would be paid three times the current price for power – over £200 a megawatt hour

So cheap it doesn’t work at £200.