NEW – Chart: How British electricity supplies are shifting decisively away from fossil fuels | Simon Evans Tom Pearson Dr Verner Viisainen - vernerviisas.bsky.social

Read here: buff.ly/3JKIgoD

NEW: I covered research finding that fossil-fuel drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would leave polar bears at risk of lethal oil spills

Republicans and Democrats have fought over whether to drill in the refuge since the 1970s... (1/7)

carbonbrief.org/alaska-refuge-…

The first quarter of the year is off to an exceptionally warm start, as I discuss in a new Q1 State of the Climate Report over at Carbon Brief: carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-c…
⬆️ Warmest Jan, Feb, March, and April (to date) by ~0.1C
⬆️ 2024 on track to be warmest or second warmest year

As millions step out in the searing heat to vote starting Friday, where's climate in India's election manifestos? Some say voters and netas don't really care, but cheaper electricity and corruption-free coal have been major poll planks. In 2024, climate gets a bigger shoutout 👇

Climate finance experts tell me the UK's decision to 'double count' money as humanitarian aid and climate finance is “problematic” and a “clear deviation from the path to climate justice”.

What has gone wrong with UK climate finance?

A quick🧵...

carbonbrief.org/revealed-uk-do…

NEW: Climate-driven migration mini-series 👣

After 2+ years of research and writing, I am SO excited to share this work!

1️⃣In-depth Q&A:
bit.ly/migration-clim…

2️⃣Climate-driven migration in rural Thailand:

Article bit.ly/migration-Thai…

Video youtu.be/SQ2NytrueUQ?si…

🧵1/n

📢Wrote my first ever Carbon Brief newsletter this week!

🥳It was a fun process: summarising climate news from around the world and writing a short piece on a little known EU decarb scenario #LIFE .

⬇️Find it in full below! And sign up for DeBriefed, if you haven't already!

Our predictions came true (within 1MtCO2e)!

Editorial in Financial Times:

'The world is warming faster than scientists expected'

ft.com/content/6f8581…

MEGA FACTCHECK

Heat pumps are the “central technology in the global transition to secure and sustainable heating” says International Energy Agency.

But heat pumps still face relentless hostile media coverage.

I comprehensively debunked 18 heat pump myths in Carbon Brief👇

carbonbrief.org/factcheck-18-m…

Good to see the Green Alliance net zero policy tracker still going strong!

Well done to all those involved on the new update, out today! Sophie O'Connell

Great to see Carbon Brief's analysis revealing that UK annual emissions now at levels last seen in 1879 reported by the print edition of Spain's El Pais

elpais.com/clima-y-medio-…

Shell has released an update to its energy transition plan that

🔥 Weakens its 2030 emissions goal
🔥 Scraps its 2035 goal completely
🔥 Stresses 'critical role' of liquified natural gas in energy transition
🔥 Plans to grow its LNG business by up to 30%

bit.ly/4cdvNH4

🚨BREAKING🚨

UK emissions in 2023 fell to lowest since 1879, new Carbon Brief reveals

💷Emissions now 53% below 1990, as GDP up 82%
❤️‍🔥Drop in 2023 largely unrelated to policy
⛰️Coal now lowest since 1730s (!)
🚗Transport is largest sector, then buildings
⚡️Power now likely…

Although I am late to the party (released last week), it was great to work on this with Simon Evans, analysing what is at stake in this year's US elections in terms of emissions:

TLDR: 4,000,000,000 tonnes

Key points highlighted below by Simon, incl. a link to the article

Why does everything at UN climate summits have to be decided by consensus?

Fascinating backstory here from Joanna Depledge

'disagreement over decision-making rules has its origins not in disputes among lawyers, but rather in the deliberate strategy of obstructionist forces…

NEW ANALYSIS

UK emissions could 🚨rise by 15%🚨 if govt uses 'surplus' to weaken next carbon budget, CCC warns

Wld make next budget much easier to meet – but put future goals at 'very serious risk', says CCC

Its 'unequivocal' advice? Don't do it.

1/

carbonbrief.org/uk-emissions-c…

NEW from me: China's CO2 emissions increased 5% and coal consumption 4% in 2023. The country is badly off track to meet several climate targets the country set for 2025 and will have to cut coal use and CO2 in absolute terms in the next two years.
carbonbrief.org/analysis-recor…

Very interesting comments from Pan Jinhua,
including that abated fossil fuels🛢️(eg w/ CCS) are a 'false statement' because they won't be competitive on cost.

His conclusion: 'the [idea of] abated fossil fuels really is nonsense'.

Excellent interview by my colleague Anika Patel