Cities dismantled their tram networks to become “motor cities of the future”. The result? You could travel further within 30 mins via public transport in 1957 than you can in 2026. Cities are seeking billions to rebuild networks. Incredible piece of work this.

The Exchange@theexchangeleeds.bsky.social · 2w ago

If you stood on Briggate at 8am on a weekday in 1957, and stood there again in 2026, in which year could you reach more of the city in half an hour? Samuel Bancroft has crunched the numbers. Since the 1950s, Leeds has got bigger - but the city has effectively shrunk.

++BREAKING++ The Daily Telegraph has... *rubs eyes* ...published something sensible about climate change: "I’m coming to the view that the Online Right is going wrong, eschewing compassion or charm, talking itself into corners of angry irrelevance. Take climate change."

UK's cheapest car is electric and costs £11,990

Leo Hickman@leohickman.carbonbrief.org · last mo.

Today's Times: "A new Spring can be purchased for £11,990 — making it not just Britain’s cheapest electric car, but the cheapest new car, bar none" www.thetimes.com/uk/transport...

Chelsea and Westminster is the poster child for Palantir – the first NHS hospital to use its tech. Publicly it claims to have reduced waiting lists there by a whopping 183,000. But we found out its actual waiting list has skyrocketed by one of the highest rates in the country. So what's going on?

You should have to be older than a tree to cut it down

NEW analysis: to peak warming at 1.7ºC & get back to significantly below 1.5°C by 2100, global fossil fuel use must peak now, fall 20% by 2030, halve by 2035 & reach real zero by 2070. 🪨 coal effectively phased out globally by 2050 🔥 gas by 2060 🛢️ oil by 2070 climateanalytics.org/publications...

📣 Launching today at 1600 CEST 📣 We keep hearing abt "transition away from fossil fuels". But what does this really mean? 🌎 For the globe? 🚗 For sectors? 🇪🇺 For specific countries? Our new report dives into all this. Come to our presser (link below) to find out more! unfccc.int/event/climat...

News comes within 24 hours of the UK government proposing a weakening of its EV targets...

John Hanger@jrfhanger.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Good morning with good news: China sets official goal for EV to be 40% of heavy truck sales and 20% of fleet by 2030! And CATL states EV heavy trucks may be 50% of sales by 2028, after being 29% in 2025. Plan includes 80% EV trucks on key routes. www.reuters.com/world/asia-p... #energysky

I see a lot of charts everyday. Few make me go: THIS IS CRAZY. www.carbonbrief.org/ai-boom-mean...

Chart of the day. The energy transition is happening in real time! 😍

A decade ago, analysts were calling Spain a cautionary tale. Too much solar, too fast! Today, Spain is rapidly on its way to having the cheapest power in Europe. Maybe this time, solar naysayers will learn... haha, jk, they'll just move the goalposts.

Spain just became one of Europe's cheapest power markets. Here is how.

How wind and solar quietly pushed gas off the margin, and the wholesale price followed.

janrosenow.substack.com

Apt moment to reup this by @samalvis.bsky.social for @prospectmagazine.co.uk: "Blair cites technologies that are both expensive and uncertain" www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/698...

Tony Blair’s ideas for net zero are expensive and unpopular

The former PM’s clumsy climate intervention exposes the new political contest over the environment

prospectmagazine.co.uk

Very little would convince me to support Starmer remaining in power in the UK. But 5600 words from Tony Blair criticising the Government (and calling to dig more oil from the North Sea 🤡) might just about do it 😂 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Labour has 'no coherent plan' for country, says former PM Blair

The ex-Labour PM says Sir Keir Starmer's government is in the "wrong position" ahead of the next election.

bbc.co.uk

Ooof

Robbie Andrew@robbieandrew.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Across these five countries, crude production in April was down 42% compared to February.

Reform are wrong - not just slightly wrong but fundamentally wrong - on *the* most important issue of the 21st century. Could not be wronger.

Leo Hickman@leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 3mo ago

"Tice’s comments came in a combative interview where he threatened to walk out when presented with information from the [IPCC]. Tice…declined to name advisers who convinced him the scientific consensus was wrong." Extraordinary interview by @akshatrathi.bsky.social & @oliviarudgard.bsky.social

Santa Marta has opened a new front for fossil fuel phase-out. If the process initiated there can catalyse greater political momentum to implement the Global Stocktake energy package, it would be a breakthrough. Read our full analysis: climateanalytics.org/comment/sant...

Santa Marta opens a new front for fossil fuel phase out

A willing coalition has begun to test how countries can move faster

climateanalytics.org

What will the global fossil fuel market look like once the closure of the Hormuz ends? In short, volatile and risky but oversupplied - terrible for fossil fuel investors, less so for clean energy investors. The UAE's decision to leave OPEC reinforced this.

Is The Philippines about to be the next Pakistan of solar? There was 10GW of panels exported from China to The Philippines in the last 12 months... 10GW would generate 11% of total national consumption.. and quadruple the country's 2025 solar output🤯 So how real is this? 🧵

I am once again begging clean energy advocates to stop talking up Texas' current free-for-all approach to energy development as a model of success. Hasn't lowered emissions. Hasn't displaced fossil fuel use. Hasn't lowered bills. electricity.heatmap.news

FACTCHECK: GB News / Spectator owner Paul Marshall got criticised by Christian leaders for his channel's attacks on climate action, so he made a rare public intervention But in his letter to the Guardian (pic) he makes 25 false, misleading or confused claims (!) Receipts etc in next post 1/2

team happy pollinators

ElleO 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦🇲🇽@ellohhlo.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Thank you University of Oxford! 🐝🌎

Happy "Psalm Sunday" to Robert Jenrick Or maybe instead, let's remember the Palestinian Rabbi Jesus who calls us to welcome the stranger, comes humbly on a donkey, lays down his life for the sake of the world, preaches a radical gospel of economic justice? I know which Jesus I am following

🚨Reform could almost *DOUBLE* oil and gas imports by 2035 🚨 (by my rough estimates) The war in Iran has led to a million folks suggesting that we just need to drill in the North Sea a bit more, and the UK will be all fine again. Notably, that voice of reason, Reform UK, is keen on this

VICTORY! Government to open up the Land Registry - bringing to an end a thousand years of secrecy shrouding who owns England. I’ve been campaigning for this for ten years: the new Land Use Framework, published later today, makes it government policy. 1/ www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Government to lift paywall from large parts of the Land Registry

Exclusive: finding out who owns land will become simpler under plans to make the best use of green spaces and hit net zero targets

theguardian.com

Today I learned about Secunda CTL, a coal-to-liquids plant in South Africa & the largest single emitter in the world. In 2023 it emitted 54 MILLION tonnes of CO2 🤯 The main site alone is ~9 km2, or more than 3x the size of the City of London district 🤯

If anyone had $ to try and tide Sublime over the next few years of utter carnage in the US / could help their work to continue elsewhere, that would be great... Losing momentum in the race of clean cement is such a bummer

David Roberts@volts.wtf · 5mo ago

Huge, huge bummer. This is one of the most promising technologies I've ever covered.

And a bitter addendum. The £4 billion per year (0.2% of GDP) cost for the UK reaching Net Zero is about the same as the government currently spends annually to freeze petrol/diesel fuel duty.

Analysis also shows that new fields licensed over the 14 years of Conservative government have produced just over a month’s worth of gas to date and have the potential to produce - in their lifetime - less than 6 months worth of UK gas demand. Not to mention--if you're worried about crises now... /5

It's mad that we'll once again try to tackle inflation (caused by fossil fuels increasing the price of energy) by raising interest rates, which will in turn make the real long-term solution (not fossil energy sources) more expensive in the short term. Monetary policy is homeopathy.