Doug Parr
@doug_parr
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Greenpeace UK Chief Scientist and policy guru. @dougparr.bsky.social
Joined December 2011
For reasons you can probably work out I'm spending less and less time on this platform. I'm posting on Bluesky @dougparr.bsky.social.
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New UK Prime Minister will apparently have 6 global issues to tackle. Climate change doesn't appear to be one of them. Which is a pity, because it will likely render the others redundant in due course .
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I'd say party that is scrapping planning rules on fracking when essentially blocking onshore wind, whilst a large chunk of Pakistan is underwater because of climate change is not really fit to govern in 21st century.
šØBREAKING: The fracking ban will be scrapped **tomorrow**. Planning requests for new drilling expected within weeks. Major change in UK energy rules. More in @Telegraph.
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Geologist who founded Cuadrilla says. * it had discovered that the geology of the UK was unsuited to widespread #Fracking operations.* will be impossible at any meaningful scale.* will not help with the energy price crisis.
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In just over 50 years, nearly three quarters of the world's biodiversity has disappeared owing to climate change, habitat loss (esp to farming), pollution .
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"I do predict by 2025 half the new-build ships will be ordered with wind propulsion. "The reason I'm so confident is our savings - one-and-a-half tonnes of fuel per day. Get four wings on a vessel, that's six tonnes of fuel saved".
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University of Oxford analysis shows wind & solar power could comfortably supply all UKās energy needs by 2050 alongside energy storage .
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Anyone thinking climate change is something to be worried about in the future better think again .
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For good reason, EU banned neonicotinoid pesticides being sprayed in its fields. For very bad reasons, it still allows them to be manufactured and exported - 10,000 tonnes per year - to be sprayed on fields largely in low- or middle-income countries.
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Probably the best answer I've ever seen to the question on climate change action "What about China?". They're adding more clean energy capacity than these other major blocs put together .
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It's hard to think of an international treaty that is more out-of-date and out-of-time than the Energy Charter Treaty, which allows fossil fuel companies to sue for compensation for early closure of coal, oil & gas plants.
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This is one of the worst decisions from UK govt I can remember for really quite a while. It's up there with Osborne cancelling zero carbon homes in 2015. It'll beš¤¦āāļøwhen we look at it in a few years time.
Unbelievably, #Government have confirmed that oil and gas companies can largely avoid the windfall tax by re-investing their profits. And there will be no tax relief for investment in renewables!. You read correctly. NO TAX RELIEF FOR INVESTMENT IN RENEWABLES š¤Æ. #WindfallTax
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Cop28 president says there is āno scienceā behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels. Except the consensus of the worldās climate scientists, obviously š”. Heavy use of climate denialist talking points like ātaking us back into cavesā adds to worries
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Drax shown to have taken wood from Canadian old-growth forest. "forests that are native species that [have] not been previously harvestedā as described in internal emails. The wood will have been turned into pellets, shipped to UK, burnt for 'clean power'.
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OK this garbage has to stop @grantshapps . Let's take a closer look at these claims 1 by 1 with a š§µ. There are 5 claims that N Sea oil & gas licencing is good for:. 1. bills.2. economy.3. security.4. climate.5. bankrolled by Just Stop oil funder. 1/10.
This is a crazy policy. Labourās plan to ban new oil and gas would be a disaster for your bills, the UK economy, national security and the climate. And now we know itās bankrolled by the same donor who funds Just Stop Oil as they cause misery to people's lives.
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A study found new homes with heat pumps, solar panels & battery would typically save Ā£46,600 on energy over 25 years. Installing is straightforward. Retrofitting would cost 5 times as much - when cost would fall on the householder not the housebuilder.
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2019 Tory manifesto: . "We placed a moratorium on #Fracking in England . We will not support fracking unless the science shows categorically that it can be done safely". There's been no change in science. A decision to lift fracking ban is illegitimate.
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World Health Organisation says tobacco industry is responsible for 5% of deforestation, as well as toxic waste. And each one of the estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts that end up littering the oceans, rivers etc contains polluting microplastics.
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Asset manager sells @Shell shares because. āIt cannot be in the interests of the millions of people whose long-term savings are invested in your company, for you to produce fossil fuels in such volume that planetary stability is threatened".
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I spend so many hours a week concerned Climate change . But this is the stuff that worries me most. We don't know what we're doing, not trying to stop it, & with big consequences we don't really understand .
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No amount of carbon capture and storage, which the prime minister is enthusing about today, will make this acceptable .
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Extraordinary. Children whose outdoor play areas were transformed from gravel yards to mini-forests showed improved immune systems within a month.
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London School of Economics say UK should invest Ā£26bn a year in low-carbon economy to revive prosperity instead of planning tax giveaways. Investment would "quickly pay off in higher productivity, efficiency savings, economic growth and carbon reductions".
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Welsh Government declare climate emergency. Good!. But you can't declare a climate emergency, then go ahead with one of the most damaging roads for a generation: M4 over Gwent Levels . If you do, it's just meaningless waffle .
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Why stop there? Why not blame the Romans? Or at the very least the Napoleonic wars? .
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UK was birthplace of the industrial revolution, 1st major nation to use coal power over 140 years ago. It is now the first major nation to quit it. This is the culmination of civil society pushing and action going back to 2006. Well done to all involved.
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Over the past month wind had produced over 44% of Great Britain's power. There should be almost triple current wind capacity by 2030, meaning availability of power for export or long term storage, to be used in low wind periods later in the year.
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This is bad. Very very bad. We are supposed to have CO2 going *down* a third every decade .
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Hornsea 2 offshore wind farm comes fully online today at 1.3GW. At peak capacity it provides electricity for 1.4mn households. It is being paid Ā£68.55/MWh compared to yesterday's spot prices of Ā£300 to Ā£540/MWh driven by the high gas price.
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Transparent nonsense from UK govt saying thereās an issue with food security if #solar farms installed:. 1. If they were really worried about it theyād do something golf courses.2. Thereās burgeoning possibilities to combine farming and solar generation.
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Rosebank will be almost fully funded by UK taxpayers. We know relying on #fossilfuels is terrible for our energy security, cost of living, & climate. sky-high bills & seemingly half of the Northern hemisphere have shown us that.
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If it's true in Australia it's likely true pretty much everywhere else. Nuclear **slows** decarbonisation efforts because it's more costly and slower than the alternatives, says Bloomberg .
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"Liz Truss will approve a series of oil&gas drilling licences in North Sea in one of her 1st acts as prime minister". It takes average of 28 years from licences to delivery of oil&gas. This doesn't help energy security. It does help fossil fuel companies.
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JBS is the worldās largest meat company. You may well never have heard of them. Yet it's greenhouse gas footprint is *larger than Italy*. That footprint is going up sharply, not decreasing as PR announcement of a net zero target by JBS would imply.
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It is estimated that #renewableenergy is at least four times cheaper than gas, yet consumers pay for ALL of it at the gas price. Decoupling them would save households Ā£330 per year by 2030 .
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When considering how serious this is, bear in mind itās very hard to recall this handwringing over the increase in number of SUVs. Seems that some people just donāt like getting rid of fossil fuels
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Such a good graphic from @FT on the difference between a climate warming of 1.5C and 2C. On many of the metrics like crop yields, species loss, heatwaves, the impacts don't just go up a little, they double .
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This might stop the Cumbria coal mine going ahead. Because that's one hell of a gamble for any investor to start throwing money at it now.
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This is kind of step change in spending commitments likely required to deliver on climate emergency .
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Fossil fuel industry says it would be great if the world tackled climate change by doing things that donāt involve restricting fossil fuels
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New oil drilling in Lincolnshire as Planning Inspector overrides local council. Shows how totally outdated our institutions are in era of climate breakdown. Onshore wind farms effectively banned in England but oil drilling OK in an area of landscape beauty.
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Oxford University team say:. "Even if you're a climate denier, you should be on board with. full speed ahead with the green energy transition because it's going to save us money". Assuming economics is what climate denial is about, of course.
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Energy Bill to be ditched. There was important stuff in it, from driving forward heat pump sales to creating an independent operator of the electricity system . Technical but vital. If they're being abandoned this is this is a bad, backward step.
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Britain's most productive wind farm comes online and is sending power south from the Shetland Isles . Expected to have a load factor of 48%, should supply over the year enough power for around half a million homes.
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Apparently Labour proposition to halt licences for new North Sea oil and gas is 'spooking investors' from investors in new supply. Yes. Yes, that's the point - if you keep digging it up, we'll all fry.
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Instead of:. "West Antarctic ice shelf melt 'unavoidable' ". maybe it better for this headline to be:. "Don't buy or build anything close to sea level if you want it to be safe, or valuable later this century". which would make its relevance clearer.
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Small Modular #nuclear reactors in UK. - have never been built.- haven't been through safety assessment.- produce more waste than large reactors.- are of unknown cost. Yet future electricity plans from both main parties rely on them - highly problematic.
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New polling shows support for net zero emissions amongst UK public has gone up from 69% to 74% since before general election, sharpest increase in 2 years .
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Schiphol airport is banning private jets, because they create disproportionate noise and CO2. Also abandoning plans for another runway and releasing the land it would have been built on. .
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Plans to revoke all retained EU law in UK following Brexit "completely barking" say legal experts. āA lot of laws are going to be changed without any scrutiny by a dying govt that few people respectā. Incl laws on standards in food, safety, energy, nature .
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We now have a government in the UK that blocks renewable power projects in unremarkable countryside, but is happy for oil drilling to happen in National Parks. It's like the #ClimateEmergency isn't happening .
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Well thatās one way of avoiding bad headlines - stop bothering to look at how much crap & chemicals are in Englandās waterways
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10% of London taxis are now electric, and have saved cabbies Ā£3.85mn in fuel, claims manufacturer. Each cuts NOx pollution by over 99% compared to conventional cab.
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New connection between UK and Norway to be switched on this week, 1.4GW about 5% current UK demand at this moment . The intention is that it will "allow countries to trade clean energy". Hydro from Norway, offshore wind from UK .
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100 economists from universities across UK and abroad have warned Rishi Sunak that rowing back on climate targets will raise the cost of living, cost investment and jobs .
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BREAKING: World's biggest sovereign wealth fund in Norway to divest from pure oil & gas companies .
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UK prisons overflowing and weāre locking up peaceful climate protestors who stand against the rapacious fossil fuel business model.
šØ BREAKING: Russia has just sentenced five climate activists to a whopping 21 years in prison for a PEACEFUL protest. Oh, wait, did we say Russia? We meant the UK.
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Open letter signed by groups from US, Canada, Latvia, Estonia & Portugal ā all countries that supplied nearly 6m tons of wood to UK in 2023 . UK biomass policy is causing damage all around the world and it needs to stop. Removing subsidies would do so.
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Sunk criticises āenvironmental dogmaā as he is drenched by rain calling the General Election. Rain that scientists today confirmed today was much heavier and more prolonged in UK over the last 18 months because of climate change. Whoās the one who is really being dogmatic, Rishi?
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The levels of idiocy now permeating parts of the Conservative party is now quite scary. This man negotiated international treaties and seems unaware of how climate change will wreck the trade flows/supply chains on which we depend.
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It's now hotter inside the Arctic Circle than it has ever been in UK.
#ImageOfTheDay #ArcticHeatWave #ClimateAction #EUSpace.Many air š”ļø records have recently been broken in #Siberia.On 19 June Land Surface Temperature (LST) reached 45Ā°C at several locations in the #Arctic Circle.Data retrieved by #Sentinel3 šŖšŗš°ļø.Check the 2019-2020 comparison ā¬ļø
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"No serious leader of a G7 nation can afford to ignore geopolitical reality in 2022, nor the changing global climate that is shaping it. Yet early next month, the UK will be lumbered with such a person".
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Surely a candidate for one of the most fuck-witted proposals imaginable at the time of an energy and climate crisis .
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Greenpeace visited the houses of cabinet members in 2005 and 2012. Neither of those governments cut off engagement. This government has a track record of poor engagement with civil society. This response says far more about them than it does about Greenpeace.
Exc: Environment secretary Therese Coffey has ordered DEFRA to immediately cease engagement with Greenpeace. Any planned meetings/ communications with the group have been axed until further notice. It follows the stunt yesterday when activists clambered on top of the PM's home.
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Greenpeace UK response to the announcement by Boris Johnson on Ā£700mn for proposed Sizewell C #nuclear plant
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5. Bankrolled - If one accepts the logic that Labour policy has been bought with Ā£1.8mn donation from Just Stop oil funder, then you have to accept Tories are bought by fossil fuel industry linked donors, with their Ā£3.5 million donations last year. ENDS.
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The proposed go-ahead for 6 new oil & gas fields in N Sea would represent stunning retreat from pro-climate action posturing before COP26. It's almost as if UK at the time was bullshitting the world . THREAD š§µ 1/6.
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Meat industry sets up academic institutions to contest studies showing need for reduced meat consumption. Straight out of the tobacco industry playbook .
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"In one of the worst droughts in British history the Tory Energy Secretary has just authorised consumption of over 20 bn litres of water by a new nuclear plant. A British person would have to turn off all their taps for 385,000 yrs to save that much water".
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If you look at the costs of energy efficiency, renewable energy, the running costs of electric vehicles & heat pumps, the threat of gas supply disruption, we cannot afford not to accelerate Net Zero in the short term.
š“ Government minister Steve Baker says UK cannot afford net zero commitments in the short term
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BREAKING:.High Court quashes Aviation Policy of government on climate grounds, stopping Heathrow 3rd runway.
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Prime Minister Johnson has just signalled that the UK electricity market is about to undergo the biggest shake up since privatisation over 30 years ago. This will be a major test of their ability to do the right thing whilst keeping the show on the road š§µ.
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Former UK Chief Scientist warning that we're on track for civilisation to disappear because of climate change . I pretty confident that despite this, threat from the climate crisis will feature at best as second order issue in UK, USA, India elections.
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3.1% of UK electricity is provided by burning rubbish. Plastic waste - from fossil oil - means the power is as polluting as coal. Yet numbers of incinerators are on the rise. Itās an āinsane situationā to UK waste management says Uni Southampton academic.
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After about 19 years in construction, Finland's EPR #nuclear reactor goes live, and then. oh, the electricity is too expensive.
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@GretaThunberg You could offset it, and pay someone else to say something nice in a few years time.
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So - we're about to have a record heatwave in UK while candidates for being Prime Minister say we should stop doing much about climate change. I struggle to find the correct description for this other than clusterf**k. Any better ones?.
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Craven failure by Sunak. Itās not even clever electoral politics given the high level of public support for onshore wind. Itās sacrificing the countryās best interest in order to satisfy a narrow sect of right-wing opinion
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"Several academic institutes have shown we can have a 100% renewable system that would be cheaper. Why are ministers still obsessing about astronomically expensive, delay-plagued nuclear plants when we have much better options available?".
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Zero onshore wind plans submitted in England since de facto ban was āliftedā. It remains effectively banned at a time when it is the cheapest source of power, in a cost-of-living and climate crisis. UK has to import fossil gas instead š¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļø
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Energy bills will be Ā£27 lower than they would have been this winter because of #renewables contracts. It could have been Ā£140 lower, but UK was too slow off the mark building them. Contrary to what some are saying, NOT going green is now really expensive.
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After Royal Shakespeare Company dropped them as partners. "BP has warned that Britainās cultural life is under threat" . Thing is, Britain's *actual* life is under threat from climate change brought about by BP's products. So they can sod off.
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Feels like a day for this Winston Churchill quote:. āThe era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.ā. #ClimateCrisisIsHere.
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Strong hint from head of AA that UK road building programme should be scrapped. Dynamics of work were changing *before* corona struck rendering it redundant. Ā£27bn cost of roads prog about same as public money needed to make all UK homes energy efficient .
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Norway's official opposition Labor party now has policy to leave Norwegian oil in the ground because of climate change .
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Not just sewage. Water companies have neglected demand management & storage such that they considered illegal abstraction from rivers to maintain supplies. Govt, meanwhile, was telling them to assume low levels of climate change to save on costs .
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A former Tory MP says. āthis is a deeply irresponsible and divisive move that goes against all advice from the International Energy Agency or the UN, and further sets back UKās climate reputation. "A political and cynical stunt that will only backfire".
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If the promised Ā£10bn investment is all going on peoples' bills, whilst the shareholder dividends remain untouched, that would be a very strange version of being sorry.
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Surely, you'd think, this would create some kind of 'WTF' moment for those in charge. Octobers should not be this hot.
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Labour is pledging to ease planning restrictions on onshore wind farms in England āwithin weeksā if it wins the general election. Good ššš.
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Amazon are using 37-tonne trucks here - solid indicator that pretty much all surface transport is going electric. Importantly this means green hydrogen can be corralled for really important uses in industry, long-term storage .
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Flooding will substantially damage UK harvest in 2024 after the wettest 18 months on record, driven by warm temps locally & globally. This should (but likely won't) be a good corrective to the bunch who think 'we can just adapt' to climate change.
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48% of UK public agree that government should respond "with the same urgency to climate change as it has with Covid-19". Just 28% saying it shouldn't.
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"The world is facing a climate catastrophe and businesses around the world must address it urgently or face the ultimate sanction for a public company". says Legal & General Investment. Which manages Ā£1 trillion.
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Can you see solar panel on this graphic, taking up all this valuable farmland? No? Me neither. I'll believe this proposal is about food production, rather than visceral hatred of their solar farm appearance, when biofuels & golf courses are banned
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World's biggest mining group decides digging up #coal for power stations no longer worth it . Plans to sell off all thermal coal assets .
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What the hell are these MPs reading? . Because it's got nothing to do with reality. Nearly half of Tory MPs think achieving net zero is not necessary for stopping climate change.
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Volume housebuilder Barratts makes profit of Ā£1.05bn against house completions of 17,908. For less than 10% of profits, they could have made all of those homes zero carbon, removing need for the homeowner to do expensive retrofits in a few years time.
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