Ever wondered how Santa Claus heats and powers his workshop (and how big it is?) 🎅 - @nestauk.bsky.social's @martinakavan.bsky.social has done the analysis and heat pumps are a better bet for keeping elves toasty! Read the @businessgreen.bsky.social piece here www.businessgreen.com/news/4523629...

'Gas boilers are skating on thin ice': Study makes case for heat pumps at Santa's toy workshop

Festive research from Nesta calculates Father Christmas could slash his energy use by 78 per cent by ditching fossil gas boilers for heat pumps at his Lapland toy factory

businessgreen.com

What is the ECO scheme that the government wants to scrap? 💰 An explainer by @mashley.bsky.social on the programme that isn't working well, but could be key to bringing low income households along on the green transition and lowering bills. www.nesta.org.uk/project-upda...

What is the Energy Company Obligation (ECO)?

This explainer breaks down the history of the Energy Company Obligation - from its inception through to its delivery and future.

nesta.org.uk

Every day is a good day to point out that 92% of Reform's donations were found to come from figures and groups linked to the fossil fuel industry. @desmog.com

Nigel Farage’s Reform Party Has Accepted £2.3 Million from Fossil Fuel Interests, Climate Deniers, and Polluters Since 2019 Election

Reform UK has received more than £2.3 million from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers since December 2019, amounting to 92 percent of the party’s donations...

desmog.com

This week's big win 🎉 of the International Court of Justice ruling could change the way states approach NDCs. What did ICJ say? ⚖️ States are obligated to protect the climate under international law ⚖️ They must adopt ambitions NDCs ⚖️ Failure to do so can trigger reparations to affected countries

Nations who fail to curb fossil fuels could be ordered to pay reparations, top UN court rules

Landmark opinion says those that fail to prevent climate harm could be liable for compensation and restitution

theguardian.com

There's been a lot of talk about Labour's £13.2bn Warm Homes Plan, which may or may not be confirmed in the spending review tomorrow. But what is the £13.2bn for? My colleagues @tomleach.bsky.social and @martinakavan.bsky.social have written a nice explainer... www.nesta.org.uk/blog/what-co...

What could £13.2 billion do to improve British homes?

As the Spending Review approaches, we analyse Labour's £13.2 billion Warm Homes Plan. While the pledge may survive, what will it take to make it a success?

nesta.org.uk

We've just published our work on reforming energy levies. Current levies inflate electricity bills by ~20%, and favor fossil fuels over clean energy. We project impacts of levy reform on a range of households and show that it's possible to make them both fairer and more climate friendly.

How to make electricity cheaper

Reforming the levies on energy bills

nesta.org.uk

I wrote a blog on the role of electricity prices in helping people in fuel poverty. These are two illustrative scenarios I used to describe the long-term effects of cheap/expensive electricity on public spending and fuel poverty: 🧵

What if we had no electricity and everything ran on fossil fuels? This ad keeps making me chuckle. Enjoy if you have not seen it or rewatch as it is just gold!

Moving levies from electricity to gas would protect decarbonisation efforts from volatility in gas prices. 📉 This chart shows the future electricity-to-gas price ratio (key metric for incentivizing electrification) under wholesale price scenarios with (full lines) and without (dashed) rebalancing.

Fixing electricity pricing is urgent. Without it, decarbonisation stalls and gov will need to spend billions more on subsidies. I wrote a blog explaining the role of energy levies in the total cost of heat pumps. 🧵🔽 This chart shows the projected annual costs over 15 years under status quo:

Thank you to all reporters who call out anti net zero bullshit. A great cheat sheet for the likes of "UK is only responsible for 1% of global emissions and so can slow down". ("A @carbonbrief.org analysis in 2021 found that the UK was the eighth largest country in terms of cumulative emissions.")

Factcheck: Kemi Badenoch’s claim that net zero is ‘impossible’ by 2050

Tory leader provides no evidence to support position that flies in face of expert reports and her own words

theguardian.com

The U.S. Department of Defense is ending all of its funding for social science research, stopping 91 ongoing studies related to threats such as climate change, extremism, and disinformation. Oh, this will age so, so badly: "The DOD does not do climate change crap. We do training and warfighting."

Pentagon abruptly ends all funding for social science research

More than 90 studies on threats such as climate change, extremism, and disinformation are halted

science.org

A nice clear and simple piece from @energy-uk.org.uk: "How to cut bills". Doing nothing on energy bills now means: - continued levels of fuel poverty - slow decarbonisation because of expensive electricity - households exposed to more gas price shocks

I've got a new Nesta blog up: What does the Seventh Carbon Budget tell us about decarbonising home heating? I've made* a load of charts for it too... (*ok, actually mainly stolen them from the CCC) www.nesta.org.uk/blog/the-sev...

What does the Seventh Carbon Budget tell us about decarbonising home heating?

The future of home heating will be electric, and we need to move towards that future quickly

nesta.org.uk

Fresh out the CCC oven – the Seventh Carbon Budget sets out a new trajectory for heat pumps. The new Balanced Pathway pushes back heat pump installations into the 30s – more realistic given current progress, but still ambitious.

I generally like David Gauke's writing, but this is really poor on energy prices and net zero I'm afraid. Not going to rebut the whole thing, but a couple of quick points... www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

On the 12 days of Christmas, my heat pump gave to me: 🦃 Enough energy to roast 2,900 turkeys 🥦 5 tonnes of brussels sprouts cooked to perfection 🍮 1,500 gallons of custard warmed and ready-to-eat 🎁 Let's unwrap the numbers on heat pump savings over Christmas ⬇️

We've been thinking about levies on energy bills a lot at @nestauk.bsky.social, and looking at what can be done about them to make electricity cheaper. We've just published an analysis by @mashley.bsky.social of the effects of levies on different types of households. --> 🧵

Cheaper electricity, fairer bills

Electricity prices are disproportionately higher compared to gas prices

nesta.org.uk

With all the talk about energy prices, I'm sure you're all asking yourselves how much households other than yours pay for energy. Surely not everyone spends £[insert price cap] a year. Ask no more. Here we explain and chart how things like heating tech, house size and lifestyles affect bills:

How different households use energy and how much it costs them

How different households use energy and how much it costs them

nesta.org.uk

"McKinsey is 'turning huge profits at the expense of the climate and the energy transition, thanks to its lucrative contracts with many of the world’s biggest climate criminals, including BP, Shell and Koch Industries.'" 🤡

‘Capitalism incarnate’: inside the secret world of McKinsey, the firm hooked on fossil fuels

Interviews and analysis of court documents show how the world’s most prestigious consulting firm quietly helps fuel the climate crisis

theguardian.com

Ofgem announced today a new energy price cap that'll be in effect from January. Here's a helpful explainer for anyone wanting to understand what the energy price cap is – and what our energy bills pay for: www.nesta.org.uk/report/whats...

New @nestauk.bsky.social blog by me: the UK's COP29 pledge to reduce emissions 81% by 2035 is great, but we are not going to meet it without much faster action to decarbonise heating www.nesta.org.uk/blog/cop29-t...

COP29: The UK can't be a climate leader till it ditches dirty heat

Meeting our climate pledges depends on phasing out domestic gas and oil boilers faster.

nesta.org.uk

Genuine question, how difficult is it to ban private jets in the UK? And does this government have a view on it? 🙏 www.theguardian.com/world/2024/n...

‘Used like taxis’: Soaring private jet flights drive up climate-heating emissions

Analysis of 19m flights between 2019 and 2023 reveals 50% rise in emissions, condemned as ‘gratuitous waste’

theguardian.com

Reminder: Victory for Trump is likely to all but end global hopes of staying below 1.5C, our analysis found in March www.carbonbrief.org/...