After a good start over the last few years, the huge energy energy needs of AI has punched a big hole in Google’s net zero plans. Emissions have risen by 51% in a year.
For those of us in the northerly climes of the UK, it’s easy to underestimate the global potential of solar power. As a new report from Ember points out, batteries are now cheap enough that whole cities could be run on solar power overnight, and entirely solar cities are possible in the sunniest parts of the world.
Here’s an issue you don’t hear much about: noise pollution at sea. Interestingly, the International Maritime Organisation have it on their radar and they are seeking solutions to make ships quieter.
Across the pond, the Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ will rip out the last functioning parts of America’s efforts to combat climate change. It will also end the country’s inspiring commitment to environmental justice, which lasted just three years. A lot of Republicans have seen their constituents benefit from government support for renewable energy and a just transition, and may have voted to keep them. Rolling everything into one big bill was a deliberate strategy to avoid that debate.
In the UK though, the government’s climate change advisory body now says that it is “optimistic” that we can meet our climate change targets. They had veered off track under the last government, but recent measures from the Labour party have put them back on course. (We are, as a reminder, making excellent progress on climate in the UK, and emissions have been falling for the whole of my lifetime.)
Latest articles
Experiments in heatwave shade
We’ve had a heatwave in the UK recently. Then it moved across the continent, setting new records along the way – the hottest ever month of June in Britain, peaks as high as 46C in Spain and Portugal. Like many houses in the UK, ours overheats. It’s almost a hundred years old and was built…
Book review: Slow Down, by Kohei Saito
Of all the world’s political ideas, degrowth and communism are among the hardest to sell. One would think then that a book subtitled ‘how degrowth communism can save the earth’ would be of niche interest at best. And yet, on release in 2020, Kohei Saito’s book somehow captured imaginations in Japan. It sold half a…
What if you can’t install a heat pump?
Having installed a heat pump in our house recently, I recognise that it’s not going to work for everyone. It takes up a lot of space and we’ve had to design it into an extension – not something you can do in an apartment or a small home. We’ve also spent the last ten years…
The Earthbound Report 
Surely, given that he is absolutely open about his desire to stop environmental initiatives, President Trump’s actions must constitute a crime against humanity.