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Climate Change: The Facts in 4 minutes (on BBC iPlayer)

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Climate Change: The Facts in 4 minutes (on BBC iPlayer)

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Brief summary of key facts about climate change covered in the full 60 minute programme. Useful as a recap or quick overview. Still worth watching the longer programme, which goes into much greater depth and has time to explore what is already happening and what more we need to do globally, nationally and at an individual level to get to grips with this crisis. (If accessing iPlayer is a problem, there is also a version on YouTube. See separate post.)

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BBC One - Climate Change - The Facts, Climate Change - The Facts in 4 minutes

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Sir David Attenborough outlines the science of climate change and the challenge it poses.

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Climate Change: The Facts in 4 minutes (on YouTube)

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Climate Change: The Facts in 4 minutes (on YouTube)

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Brief summary of key facts about climate change covered in the full 60 minute programme. Useful as a recap or quick overview. Still worth watching the longer programme, which goes into much greater depth and has time to explore what is already happening and what more we need to do globally, nationally and at an individual level to get to grips with this crisis.

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Climate Change - The Facts with Sir David Attenborough

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Climate Change: The Facts (on BBC iPlayer)

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Climate Change: The Facts (on BBC iPlayer)

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First broadcast in 2019. Programme description: After one of the hottest years on record, Sir David Attenborough looks at the science of climate change and potential solutions to this global threat. Interviews with some of the world’s leading climate scientists explore recent extreme weather conditions such as unprecedented storms and catastrophic wildfires. They also reveal what dangerous levels of climate change could mean for both human populations and the natural world in the future.

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After one of the hottest years on record, Sir David Attenborough looks at the science of climate change and potential solutions to this global threat.

After one of the hottest years on record, Sir David Attenborough looks at the science of climate change and potential solutions to this global threat. Interviews with some of the world's leading climate scientists explore recent extreme weather conditions such as unprecedented storms and catastrophic wildfires. They also reveal what dangerous levels of climate change could mean for both human populations and the natural world in the future.

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David Attenborough explores the science of, and potential solutions to, climate change.

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Goodbye cod, hello herring: why putting a different fish on your dish will help the planet

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In the first of a new series, we look at why people reject so much of the bountiful catches from our seas in favour of the same few species, mostly imported – and how to change that

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Ethical shopping on the rise in UK despite cost of living crisis

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Increase in Fairtrade income to £13m shows shoppers still prioritising environment and workers’ wellbeing

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The UK's independent adviser on tackling climate change

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) is an independent, statutory body established under the Climate Change Act 2008.

Our purpose is to advise the UK and devolved governments on emissions targets and to report to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change.

In fulfilling this role our focus is to:

Provide independent advice on setting and meeting carbon budgets and preparing for climate change

Monitor progress in reducing emissions and achieving carbon budgets and targets

Conduct independent analysis into climate change science, economics and policy

Engage with a wide range of organisations and individuals to share evidence and analysis

The Government and national authorities may also request specific advice from the Committee on an ad-hoc basis.

The Sixth Carbon Budget advice report, required under the Climate Change Act, provides ministers with advice on the volume of greenhouse gases the UK can emit during the period 2033-2037. It sets the pathway to Net Zero and is based on an extensive programme of analysis, consultation and consideration by the Committee and its staff, building on the evidence published last year for our Net Zero advice.

This report sets out the Adaptation Committee's latest assessment of progress in preparing for climate change in England, and provides a first evaluation of the Government's second National Adaptation Programme.

This report responds to a request from the Governments of the UK, Wales and Scotland, asking the Committee to reassess the UK's long-term emissions targets. Our new emissions scenarios draw on ten new research projects, three expert advisory groups, and reviews of the work of the IPCC and others.

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The UK's independent adviser on tackling climate change The Climate Change Committee (CCC) is an independent, statutory body established under the Climate Change Act 2008. Our purpose is to advise the UK and devolved governments on emissions targets and to report to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change.

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Navigating the 1.5 Degrees Breach
Image credit: Photo by Pixabay. In 2023, the world witnessed an onslaught of extreme weather events, ranging from severe droughts and scorching heatwaves to devastating wildfires...

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Relevant climate change learning for everyone

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Thousands of people will join protests across the Canary islands on Saturday to call for an urgent rethink of the Spanish archipelago's tourism industry and a freeze on tourist numbers, arguing that the current, decades-old model has made life unaffordable and environmentally unsustainable for local people.

The protests - which will take place under the banner "Canarias tiene un límite" (The Canaries have a limit) - are being backed by environmental groups including Greenpeace, WWF, Ecologists in Action, Friends of the Earth and SEO/Birdlife.

"We've reached the point where the balance between the use of resources and the welfare of the population here has broken down - especially over the past year," said Víctor Martín, a spokesperson for the Canarias se Agota (The Canaries Have Had Enough) collective, which is helping to coordinate Saturday's protests across the eight islands.

Eleven members of Canarias se agota have already been on hunger strike for a week to protest against the construction of two large luxury developments in southern Tenerife, which they describe as "illegal" and totally unnecessary.

Members of the Canaria se agota (The Canaries Have Had Enough) movement protesting in La Laguna on Tenerife. Photograph: Désirée Martín/AFP/Getty Images

Last year, 13.9 million people visited the islands, which have a population of 2.2 million. Although tourism accounts for about 35% of the archipelago's GDP - bringing in €16.9bn in 2022 alone - local people say the industry is stressing natural resources and pricing them out of the rental market.

Figures from Spain's National Statistics Institute show that 33.8% of people in the Canaries are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, the highest proportion for any region except Andalucía.

Martín said the regional government's continuing focus on tourism at a time when the climate emergency was leading to cuts to water supplies made no sense. "Demand [for water] is rising in urban areas where there are more tourists," he said. "We've had a very dry winter and a water emergency's already been declared on Tenerife.

"There are going to be restrictions if there's not more rain this month but it's 36C here right now. This is all unsustainable and it means that we won't even be able to keep normal levels of tourism going. And yet the authorities and the businesses here are trying to stick with this model."

Martín added that the housing situation in many parts of the archipelago was also dire because of high prices, low wages, a lack of public housing and the continuing cost of living crisis. "I realised we'd reached the limit when I saw people who were working as hotel maids or waiters were living in shacks," he said.

"Wages are so low that they don't cover the basic costs of living - especially in the current crisis, which is global, but has been felt keenly in the Canaries because we have to import practically everything."

He insisted the protest movement was not anti-tourist, pointing out that many people in the Canaries had known and liked generations of families from countries such as the UK and Germany.

"The problem isn't the tourists," he said. "It's a model that was built around - and with the connivance of - a business class that doesn't want to listen to what needs to be done, and with a political class that serves that business class instead of serving all the citizens."

He said a complete rethinking of the Canaries' tourism model could not wait. "What we're asking is very simple: given that tourism is the main economic activity and the cause of all these problems, we want an immediate halt to these two mega-projects," he said of the Tenerife developments.

"We also want a tourist moratorium that will lead to a study of the load each island can take and which will determine whether we've already passed the critical point. In areas where there's an overload, we want to see a stage of degrowth of economic activity to benefit natural resources. Otherwise, you have an existing model that only benefits a very few people."

Martín said a proper study of the problems the Canaries suffers from could have global repercussions. "This rethinking of the tourism model could put the Canaries on the map as an example of sustainable tourism development," he said. "We could be known for something positive instead of something negative."

Fernando Clavijo, the regional president of the Canary islands, has said his government is already taking action. "All the actions this government has taken have been based on a revision of this model," he told reporters this week. "The Canaries tourist model has been a successful one, but obviously, as with anything, there are things that could be perfected."

Overtourism has become a major issue in many Spanish cities and regions, triggering protests and backlashes in Barcelona, and leading the authorities in Seville to consider charging visitors to explore the Andalucían city's famous Plaza de España.

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Thousands protest against Canary islands' 'unsustainable' tourism model

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Local people say archipelago's outdated industry made life unaffordable and prompts environmental emergencies

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Rishi Sunak has given up Britain's reputation as a world leader in the fight against the climate crisis and has "set us back" by failing to prioritise the issue in the way his predecessors in No 10 did, the government's green adviser has warned.

Chris Stark, the outgoing head of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said that the prime minister had "clearly not" championed the issue following a high-profile speech last year in which he made a significant U-turn on the government's climate commitments. The criticism comes after Sunak was accused of trying to avoid scrutiny of Britain's climate policies by failing to appoint a new chair of the CCC.

Sunak announced last autumn that he was moving back the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by five years, as part of a wider dilution of climate policies. At the time, the Tories were aiming to create a dividing line with Labour after their victory in the Uxbridge byelection, which largely came as a result of their opposition to London's ultra low emission zone.

Chris Stark: 'The message was that the UK is less ambitious on climate than it once was'. Photograph: Climate Change Committee/PA

"It was presented to the country as a step back from going too fast on this transition," Stark told the BBC. "In the speech itself, he talked a lot about the need to reappraise lots of the steps that take us to net zero. I think it set us back. I think we have moved from a position where we were really at the forefront, pushing ahead as quickly as we could on something that I believe to be fundamental to the UK economy, fundamentally beneficial to the people living in this country, whether you care about the climate or not."

Stark said significant progress had been made towards net zero and praised Theresa May and Boris Johnson for their commitment to the target. However, he said Sunak had failed to show the same ambition.

"We are now in a position where we're actually trying to recover ground," he said. "The diplomatic impact of that has been immense. It doesn't matter that there were detailed policies within that speech that you could say were very much in line with net zero. The overall message that other parts of the world took from it is that the UK is less ambitious on climate than it once was, and that is extremely hard to recover."

A government spokesperson said: "We are the first major economy to halve greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 and have set into law one of the most ambitious 2035 climate change targets of any major economy. But we need to reach our net zero goals in a sustainable way."

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Sunak has 'set Britain back' on net zero, says UK's climate adviser

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Chris Stark, head of the Climate Change Committee, says Tories' decision to dilute key green policies has had huge diplomatic impact

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In the energetic pursuit of net zero, billions of pounds could be squandered needlessly. That's the lesson from countries as diverse as Italy, the US and UK, where the rush to subsidise green projects suggests vast sums are at risk. Worse, they could be lining the pockets of multinational businesses and City financiers.

In the UK, 14 years of austerity has left the public sector struggling to make coherent, strategic decisions. When a decision is finally made, it is a panic measure that quickly unravels. The fallout could be that voters become disenchanted with green tech, especially if the dash for net zero leads to higher taxes and higher borrowing while early adopters unwittingly pay for costly mistakes.

Some economists argue the UK can double its investment plans to reach net zero. Even should the financial markets agree and the UK avoids a Truss-like panic, this proposal doesn't look at whether the public sector's can carry through changes at breakneck speed without making costly mistakes.

In the run-up to the election, some on the left and in green groups will defend any waste and fraud as collateral damage. On the right, the waste and fraud will be used as an excuse to abandon all moves to net zero. Neither approach is right.

The focus needs to be on the boring, nitty-gritty issues of coordination and planning.

Hundreds of UK councils have set 2030 as a target for more than halving emissions or even going completely net zero, mostly without the powers to achieve it.

In Italy, the amount committed to house renovations since 2020 reached €219bn by February 2024 - equivalent to 10.5% of GDP

As is common across the private sector, they rely on consultants to advise on ways to achieve the target as the time left to decarbonise runs short.

Labour was in a rush before Keir Starmer U-turned on his headline green pledges and scaled back the party's investment programme, including a plan to insulate 19m homes to a more manageable 5m.

Would extra money have allowed Labour to achieve that original target? The Tories had money in place, but when the Green Homes Grant was cancelled, homeowners arguably had a lucky escape from a half-baked scheme.

Contractors were expected to provide an army of inspectors within a few months of the scheme getting the green light. Even now, councils are struggling to train inspectors, and the construction industry is rife with rumours of building firms putting pressure on them "to certify beyond their level of competence".

If Labour wants to revive this programme or start something similar, it needs a strategy that allows time for proper training. Anything else risks a backlash that could make Starmer a one-term prime minister.

Many EU countries are handling things just as badly, it appears. Italy's Superbonus 110% - a scheme similar to the UK's Green Homes Grant - has subsidised the same sectors as the EU's €750bn Covid recovery fund directly supported.

According to the Italian government, the total amount committed to house renovations under various schemes since 2020 reached a colossal €219bn by the end of February 2024 - equivalent to 10.5% of Italy's gross domestic product in 2023.

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Lorenzo Codogno, a former chief economist at Rome's finance ministry who has since founded consulting business LC Macro Advisors, says Italy's GDP growth has improved, but falls well short of what would be suggested by this massive spending spree.

He says construction costs spiralled as building firms, unable to meet demand, jacked up prices, sometimes fraudulently, while green funds overlapped with existing schemes and crowded out other types of activity.

In the US, Joe Biden's green subsidies are coming under similar scrutiny, with fears of potential waste and fraud. The watchdog that oversees the US Environmental Protection Agency warned last year that boosting the EPA's budget by about $100bn through new legislation would see some of it frittered on hastily-put-together projects or siphoned off illegally.

The need for speed is understandable when the climate emergency is flashing red. And it is clear that (rich) countries which cause most emissions need to ramp up their efforts to cut carbon.

The US Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has shown with economic modelling that the Inflation Reduction Act, which devotes $369bn in subsidies through grants, loans and tax credits to public and private entities, has benefits that "far exceed the costs".

Yet those who maintain that projects should be ready in months, that new skills can be acquired within weeks and that decisions need only a few days' consideration risk inevitable voter resistance when the tales of money being squandered emerge, as they will.

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A heedless dash for net zero will waste cash and, later, votes | Phillip Inman

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Keir Starmer must learn from the Tories' failures and ensure green projects are well planned and resourced

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Dispatches: Alex Ely - Architecture Today

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AT talks to Alex Ely, founding director of Mæ, about the challenges and benefits of B Corp certification, and what the practice is doing to further expand its environmental knowledge base. Alex Ely at Mæ's London office (photo: Agnese Sanvito) Congratulations on attaining B-Corporation certification!

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We help local authorities turn climate ambition into climate action - lowering emissions but also creating better health, new jobs, social equality, decent housing & resilient communities.

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Instead of throwing stained, ripped and misshapen clothing in the bin, Britons are being asked to stick the dregs of their wardrobe in the post in a trial aimed at tackling the "staggering" quantity of textiles sent to landfill or are incinerated each year.

A third of consumers do not know what to do with tops, dresses and trousers that can no longer be worn, figures show, with a similar number admitting to putting such items in their household waste bin.

Now unwearable clothes from any label can be returned in a prepaid postal donation bag left with a courier as part of the experimental tie-up between Marks & Spencer and Oxfam, which runs alongside its existing scheme for wearable items.

Katharine Beacham, M&S's head of materials, sustainability and packaging, said the scheme made it possible for someone to clear out all their unloved clothing in one go. "Whether it is wearable or unwearable, we want it all," she said.

M&S and the charity have for a number of years been working together on the "shwopping" initiative, in which customers drop off old clothing in exchange for loyalty card perks.

However, the postal scheme, which is being paid for out of a new £1m accelerator fund linked to the retailer's ethical project Plan A, is part of a wider push to find ways to reduce textile waste. Research suggests the UK's wardrobes contain 1.6bn items of unworn clothing.

The bags can be ordered on the Oxfam website, and individuals are asked to enclose unwearable items in a separate sack. With a fifth of consumers telling M&S they did not know how to discriminate on wearability, the anti-waste charity Wrap stresses that "wearable" clothing is clean, dry, in good condition and ready to be worn. "Unwearable" items are damaged in some way, for instance torn, stained, faded, or stretched.

Consumers can also use the service to donate preloved soft furnishings such as bed linen, towels, cushions, tablecloths and tea towels. However, the M&S in-store "shwopping" scheme continues to be for wearable, hand-me-down quality clothing only. Individuals are asked not to include soiled or contaminated clothing as it cannot be recycled.

Still wearable donations will be sold through Oxfam's stores and website, while the "unwearables" will be responsibly recycled by a UK Fashion and Textile Association (UKFT) project. It is working on a blueprint for an advanced textile sorting and pre-processing (ATSP) centre that would be capable of turning clothing unsuitable for resale into new garments, resulting in a completely circular system.

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Adam Mansell, the chief executive of UKFT, said urgent action was needed totackle the "staggering amount" of textile waste that ended up in landfill or incinerated each year. "We're aiming to encourage people to separate their items so that in future, worn-out clothing can make its way to an automated sorting facility and then be recycled into new textiles and garments here in the UK," he said.

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M&S and Oxfam trial postal donation bags for 'unwearable' clothes

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Scheme is part of effort to reduce 'staggering' quantities of textiles going to landfill or incinerator

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This energy can either use renewable sources like wind, water or solar, known as green hydrogen, or natural gas, with the resulting carbon emissions captured and stored underground, known as blue hydrogen.

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BBC South Today news programme highlights carbon use

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BBC South Today switches to a hydrogen generator to cut carbon emissions during an Earth Week show.

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Pollution: Towards a Global Plastics Pact

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Pollution: Towards a Global Plastics Pact

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As UN talks begin today to agree the first global treaty to reduce soaring plastic waste, the chair of the meetings has said he is confident countries will come together to secure an agreement.

Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK, admitted it would be a challenge to overcome an impasse that has emerged between countries which produce plastic and others that have ambitions to tackle plastic pollution over its whole life. But Valdivieso, who will chair the UN intergovernmental negotiations on a future international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution in Ottawa, Canada, this week, said: "We have to face those challenges and work with them. Compromise is an important word that we need to take into account.

"This is a negotiation, there are regions and countries with a specific position that we understand. We know plastic pollution is affecting the environment, we know it's affecting human health because of the substances in plastics.

"It is very important we are negotiating this treaty now. The world is in a triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. But while there are agreements in place for the first two, we have no legislation, no global agreement on plastic pollution."

In a historic agreement in March 2022 countries adopted a mandate opening negotiations for a global, legally binding treaty to address the whole life cycle of plastics.

Previous negotiations in Nairobi stalled last November when oil-producing nations proposed to focus on waste management rather than scaling down production of plastic. Most - 98% - of single-use plastics are made from fossil fuels, and the top seven plastic-producing companies are fossil fuel companies, according to data from 2021.

Plastic waste is cleaned up at Hann Bay in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. Photograph: John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images

Graham Forbes, the global plastic projects leader at Greenpeace USA, said: "You cannot solve the pollution crisis unless you constrain, reduce and restrict plastic production."'

Valdivieso, however, said he had not stopped working since the Nairobi talks in his attempt to forge a pathway to the first legally binding agreement on plastic waste. "It is crucial now to bring the treaty back on track, because it has been delayed now," he told the Guardian.

"We are going to face some challenges and we will face more, because we are talking about plastics that are a big part of the world's economy. So there are challenges when you need to regulate pollution from those products.

"Our mandate is the whole life cycle of plastic. The challenge is to define that.

"But what is clear is we cannot manage the amount of plastic we are producing. Only 10% of it gets recycled, something needs to be done and that is why these negotiations are so important. We need to have the whole life cycle approach."

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Valdivieso said he was confident the talks would lead to the signing next year of the first legally binding treaty on plastic pollution, in a Paris-style agreement. The talks this week in Ottawa will be followed by talks in Korea at the end of the year and he said the text would be ready for all countries to sign for the treaty declaration next year.

Ecuador is one of four countries bidding to host the diplomatic conference - where the treaty would be signed, and wants to hold the event in the Galápagos Islands, where the waters are designated a Unesco heritage site but are suffering from plastic pollution.

Part of the discussions this week in Ottawa will be to decide where he treaty will be signed.

Valdivieso said: "Everyone is suffering from the impact of plastic pollution. Not only developing nations, and island nations, but everyone. If we don't do something we will leave this problem to future generations.

"I became a grandfather recently and we need this tool, this incredible tool to end plastic pollution. I am confident that we will do it."

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World must come together to tackle plastic pollution, says chair of UN talks

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Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK is hopeful impasse can be overcome at treaty negotiations in Ottawa

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The world's 3,000 billionaires should pay a minimum 2% tax on their fast-growing wealth to raise £250bn a year for the global fight against poverty, inequality and global heating, ministers from four leading economies have suggested.

In a sign of growing international support for a levy on the super-rich, Brazil, Germany, South Africa and Spain say a 2% tax would reduce inequality and raise much-needed public funds after the economic shocks of the pandemic, the climate crisis and military conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.

They are calling for more countries to join their campaign, saying the annual sum raised would be enough to cover the estimated cost of damage caused by all of last year's extreme weather events.

"It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods," the ministers say in a Guardian comment piece.

"One of the key instruments that governments have for promoting more equality is tax policy. Not only does it have the potential to increase the fiscal space governments have to invest in social protection, education and climate protection. Designed in a progressive way, it also ensures that everyone in society contributes to the common good in line with their ability to pay. A fair share contribution enhances social welfare."

Brazil chairs the G20 group of leading developed and developing countries and put a billionaire tax on the agenda at a meeting of finance ministers earlier this year.

The French economist Daniel Zucman is now fleshing out the technical details of a plan that will again be discussed by the G20 in June. France has indicated support for a wealth tax and Brazil has been encouraged that the US, while not backing a global wealth tax, did not oppose it.

Zucman said: "Billionaires have the lowest effective tax rate of any social group. Having people with the highest ability to pay tax paying the least - I don't think anybody supports that."

Research from Oxfam published this year found that the boom in asset prices during and after the Covid pandemic meant billionaires were $3.3tn - or 34% - wealthier at the end of 2023 than they were in 2020. Meanwhile, a study from the World Bank showed that the pandemic had brought poverty reduction to a halt.

The opinion piece, signed by ministers from two of the largest European economies - Germany and Spain - and two of the largest emerging economies - Brazil and South Africa - claims a levy on the super rich is a necessary third pillar to complement the negotiations on the taxation of the digital economy and the introduction earlier this year of a minimum corporate tax of 15% for multinationals.

"The tax could be designed as a minimum levy equivalent to 2% of the wealth of the super-rich. It would not apply to billionaires who already contribute a fair share in income taxes. Those, however, who manage to avoid paying income tax would be obliged to contribute more towards the common good," the ministers say.

"Persisting loopholes in the system imply that high-net-worth individuals can minimise their income taxes. Global billionaires pay only the equivalent of up to 0.5% of their wealth in personal income tax. It is crucial to ensure that our tax systems provide certainty, sufficient revenues, and treat all of our citizens fairly."

The ministers say there would need to be steps to counter the use of tax havens. The levy would be designed to prevent billionaires who choose to live in Monaco or Jersey, for example, but make their money in larger economies such as the UK or France, from reducing their tax bills below a global agreed minimum. If one country did not impose the minimum tax, another country could claim the income.

"Of course, the argument that billionaires can easily shift their fortunes to low-tax jurisdictions and thus avoid the levy is a strong one. And this is why such a tax reform belongs on the agenda of the G20. International cooperation and global agreements are key to making such tax effective. What the international community managed to do with the global minimum tax on multinational companies, it can do with billionaires," the ministers say.

Zucman said there was overwhelming public support for this proposal, with opinion polls showing up to 80% of voters in favour. Even so, the economist said he was prepared for stiff resistance.

"I don't want to be naive. I know the super-rich will fight," he said. "They have a hatred of taxes on wealth. They will lobby governments. They will use the media they own."

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World's billionaires should pay minimum 2% wealth tax, say G20 ministers

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Brazil, Germany, Spain and South Africa sign motion for fairer tax system to deliver £250bn a year extra to fight poverty and climate crisis

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The Engineers 2030 campaign is about accelerating change, so engineers and technicians are equipped with the right skills for the future, writes chair of the Engineers 2030 working group, Professor Bashir M. Al-Hashimi

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Engineers 2030 shows engineering is more than a career

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The Engineers 2030 campaign is about accelerating change, so engineers and technicians are equipped with the right skills for the future, writes Professor Bashir M. Al-Hashimi CBE FREng FRS

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To Make Good on Sustainable Food Commitments, Countries Must Do 4 Things

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Last year’s UN climate summit in Dubai (COP28) was a real landmark moment for sustainable food. Agriculture and food systems took center stage, with 159 world leaders endorsing the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action.

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Communication [Warning: The comedy translation videos probably contain some bad language]

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Communication [Warning: The comedy translation videos probably contain some bad language]

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Scientists can struggle to get their message across about the climate crisis to the wider public, so now comedians have been brought in to help cut through the science jargon and get widespread attention. In a series of videos, titled Climate Science Translated, scientists are paired up with various comedians who express climate science in down-to-earth language that pulls no punches.

In one of the videos, Prof Mark Maslin, of University College London, explains: "The climate crisis is progressing faster much faster than anticipated." This is translated by the comedian Jo Brand as: "We're still going to hell, but we're getting there faster."

Maslin says: "Solar and wind power are now over 10 times cheaper than oil and gas. We can still prevent much of the damage and end up in a better place for everyone." Brand responds: "With wind and sun power we save money and don't die. It's a pretty strong selling point."

As climate scientists are largely anonymous to the public, it is hoped that with the help of comedians they can get their message out more widely. So far, the video with Brand has been viewed more than 3m times, received mainstream attention and has been retweeted by a number of celebrities.

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Weatherwatch comedy climate change 260424

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Video series launched in which comics translate climate science into down-to-earth language

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To work in nature conservation is to battle a headwind of bad news. When the overwhelming picture indicates the natural world is in decline, is there any room for optimism? Well, our new global study has some good news: we provide the strongest evidence to date that nature conservation efforts are not only effective, but that when they do work, they often really work.

Trends in nature conservation tend to be measured in terms of "biodiversity" - that is, the variety among living organisms from genes to ecosystems. We treasure biodiversity not only for how it enriches society and culture, but also its underpinning of resilient, functioning ecosystems that are a foundation of the global economy.

However, it is well known that global biodiversity is decreasing, and has been for some time. Is anything we are doing to reverse this trend effective?

As part of a team of researchers, we conducted the most comprehensive analysis yet of what happened when conservationists intervened in ecosystems. These were interventions of all types, all over the world. We found that conservation action is typically much better than doing nothing at all.

The challenge now is to fund conservation on the scale needed to halt and reverse declines in biodiversity and give these proven methods the best chance of success.

First, the less good news

Globally, biodiversity is being depleted by human activities like habitat clearance, overharvesting, the introduction of invasive species and climate change.

To arrest its decline, people in various places have taken measures including creating protected areas, removing invasive species or restoring habitats, such as forests and wetlands. These efforts are interdependent with traditional stewardship of the world's richest biodiversity by indigenous people and local communities. And in 2022, governments adopted new global targets to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.

Our team, led by the conservation organisation Re:wild, the universities of Oxford and Kent, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, analysed the findings of 186 studies covering 665 trials of different conservation interventions globally over the course of a century.

We wanted to understand whether the outcomes of these conservation actions improved on what would have happened without any intervention. Lots of studies have tried to compare the effects of conservation projects this way, but this is the first time such research has been combined in a single analysis to determine if conservation is working overall.

And now, the good news

What we found was extremely encouraging: conservation efforts work, and they work pretty much everywhere.

We found that conservation actions improved the state of biodiversity or slowed its decline in the majority of cases (66%) compared with no action. But more importantly, when conservation interventions work, we found that they are highly effective.

Examples from our far-reaching database included the management of invasive and problematic native predators on two of Florida's barrier islands, which resulted in an immediate and substantial improvement in the nesting success of loggerhead turtles and least terns. In central African countries across the Congo basin, deforestation was 74% lower in logging estates subject to a forest management plan versus those that weren't. Protected areas and indigenous lands had significantly less deforestation and smaller fires in the Brazilian Amazon. Breeding Chinook salmon in captivity and releasing them boosted their natural population in the Salmon River basin of central Idaho with minimal side effects.

Where conservation actions did not recover or slow the decline of the species or ecosystems that they were targeting, there is an opportunity to learn why and refine the conservation methods. For example, in India, removing an invasive algae simply caused it to spread elsewhere. Conservationists can now try a different strategy that may be more successful, such as finding ways to halt the drift of fragments of algae.

In other cases, where conservation action did not clearly benefit the target, other native species benefited unintentionally. For example, seahorses were less numerous in protected sites off New South Wales in Australia because these marine protected areas increased the abundance of their predators, such as octopus. So, still a success of sorts.

We also found that more recent conservation interventions tended to have more positive outcomes for biodiversity. This could mean modern conservation is getting more effective over time.

What comes next

If conservation generally works but biodiversity is still declining, then simply put: we need to do more of it. Much more. While at the same time reducing the pressures we put on nature.

Over half of the world's GDP, almost US$44 trillion (£35 trillion), is moderately or highly dependent on nature. According to previous studies, a comprehensive global conservation programme would require an investment of between US$178 and US$524 billion. By comparison, in 2022 alone, subsidies for the production and use of fossil fuels - which are ultimately destructive to nature as fossil fuel burning is the leading cause of climate change - totalled US$7 trillion globally. That is 13 times the upper estimate of what is needed annually to fund the protection and restoration of biodiversity. Today, just US$121 billion is invested annually in conservation worldwide.

Potential funding priorities include more and better managed protected areas. Consistent with other studies, we found that protected areas work very well on the whole; studies that highlight where protected areas are not working often cite ineffective management or inadequate resources. More large-scale investment in habitat restoration would also help according to this new research.

Our study provides evidence that optimism for nature's recovery is not misplaced. Though biodiversity is declining, we have effective tools to conserve it - and they seem to be getting better over time. The world's governments have committed to nature recovery. Now, we must invest in it.

Don't have time to read about climate change as much as you'd like?
Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation's environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 30,000+ readers who've subscribed so far.

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Nature conservation works, and we're getting better at it - new study

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Two-thirds of conservation actions studied were found to benefit target ecosystems and species.

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Webinar video: Carbon Literacy and Climate Action in schools

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Webinar video: Carbon Literacy and Climate Action in schools

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Local Authority Workshop: Carbon Literacy, CPD and Free Support for Schools

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UK Citizen's Assembly on Climate Change (BBC iPlayer)

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UK Citizen's Assembly on Climate Change (BBC iPlayer)

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Britain has made big promises about reducing our impact on the planet, but getting there means huge changes to our everyday lives. In this surprising and funny documentary, we follow members of the UK’s first ever Citizen's Assembly on Climate Change, where 108 ordinary Brits are tasked with deciding what we should do to meet our climate change goals.

The film follows seven assembly members from all over the UK, who each bring their own perspective to the climate change debate.

You can find the final report on the Climate Assembly UK web site along with lots of other resources: https://www.climateassembly.uk/index.html

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Meet the ordinary Brits who will help decide how Britain solves the climate crisis.

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UK harvests of important crops could be down by nearly a fifth this year due to the unprecedented wet weather farmers have faced, increasing the likelihood that the prices of bread, beer and biscuits will rise.

Analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has estimated that the amount of wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape could drop by 4m tonnes this year, a reduction of 17.5% compared with 2023.

The warnings come as farmers have borne the brunt of the heavy rainfall and bad weather experienced over the winter, with the UK experiencing 11 named storms since September.

In England, there was 1,695.9mm of rainfall between October 2022 and March 2024, the wettest 18-month period since records began in 1836.

This has resulted in planted crops either being flooded or damaged by the wet weather, or farmers not being able to establish crops at all.

A flooded field of brussels sprouts at TH Clements and Son Ltd near Boston, Lincolnshire. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

Tom Lancaster, a land analyst at ECIU, said: "This washout winter is playing havoc with farmers' fields leading to soils so waterlogged they cannot be planted or too wet for tractors to apply fertilisers.

"This is likely to mean not only a financial hit for farmers, but higher imports as we look to plug the gap left by a shortfall in UK supply. There's also a real risk that the price of bread, beer and biscuits could increase as the poor harvest may lead to higher costs.

"To withstand the wetter winters that will come from climate change, farmers need more support. The government's green farming schemes are vital to this, helping farmers to invest in their soils to allow them to recover faster from both floods and droughts."

The ECIU analysed data from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) from March, which looked at the amount of land set aside for crops, but also Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) data looking at crop yields in 2020, the next wettest year in recent times.

It estimated that all wheat produced would decline by 26.5% compared with 2023, while winter barley would drop by 33.1% and oilseed rape would reduce by 37.6%.

According to the ECIU, production of spring barley and spring oats will increase by 27% and 23% compared with last year, with farmers giving more area to spring crops due to the difficulties around planting and growing winter crops.

Earlier this month, the National Farmers' Union (NFU) called for more help to protect farmers from flooding, saying it was undermining the country's food production and food security.

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The NFU vice-president, Rachel Hallos, also said this month: "People should be in no doubt about the immense pressure UK farm businesses are under thanks to this unprecedented and constant rain.

"It's no exaggeration to say a crisis is building. While farmers are bearing the brunt of it now, consumers may well see the effects through the year as produce simply doesn't leave the farm gate."

Some farms in places including Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire were badly affected by persistent rain since October, meaning they have not been able to plant any crops, while the wet weather has significantly depleted the amount other farms have been able to plant.

Colin Chappell, an arable farmer from Lincolnshire and member of the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), said the wet weather had had a massive impact, with virtually no crops being successfully drilled this winter. He said: "While it's now dry enough to plant some fields, some of them are so bad I don't think they'll get drilled this year."

Last week, the head of Associated British Foods - one of the UK's biggest bread makers, which owns Kingsmill and Ryvita - warned of potentially higher prices if the rise in cost of domestic grains is not offset by larger harvests abroad.

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'Washout winter' spells price rises for UK shoppers with key crops down by a fifth

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Analysts say impact on wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape harvests means price rises on beer, bread and biscuits and more food imported

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We are Generation One - a collective of people committed to a new era of positive climate action. By turning science and ideas into action we are working towards creating a positive, fair and progressive future. For us and for the generations to come. Join us.

We can all play our part...

Climate change, along with biodiversity loss, confronts humanity with an enormous threat. But history and the COVID-19 crisis, have taught us that extraordinary changes are possible.

Now more than ever, the world looks to powerful research communities like UCL to lead the push for change, mobilising large, diverse groups of committed people, backed by excellent scholarship, to effect concrete impact in the world.

As a community of staff, students, citizens and partners, UCL is addressing the climate challenge on multiple fronts; ranging from what we can achieve today, to pioneering future system change, and putting sustainability at the heart of our campus.

Get inspired by the extraordinary breadth of climate-focused activity taking place at UCL and find out about our Generation One campaign and how you can get involved.

UCL has proudly retained its first-class honours in the People and Planet University League 2023, for the 7th consecutive year - solidifying our position as a sustainability leader among UK universities.

Efforts to tackle climate change are not keeping up with the fast pace of global warming and increasing climate risks, according to a report by the Climate Change Committee involving UCL experts.

Immediate and deep emissions reductions are required across all sectors - as well as widespread use of carbon removal technology - to limit warming to 1.5°C, according to a new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, involving contributions from UCL academics.

Pledge your action with Generation One

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We are Generation One - a collective of people committed to a new era of positive climate action. By turning science and ideas into action we are working towards creating a positive, fair and progressive future. For us and for the generations to come. Join us.

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Oxford has a severe housing problem. With house prices 12 times the average salary, it has become one of the least affordable cities in the country. Its council house waiting list has grown to more than 3,000 households, with many having to live in temporary accommodation.

An obvious solution is to build more homes, but those trying to do this face a big barrier: electricity.

"When I talk to developers or potential developers, one of the first questions they now ask me is about grid capacity," says Susan Brown, leader of Oxford city council.

With housing developments competing for power against energy-hungry tech companies and the city's increasingly electrified transport network, connection prospects are a matter of concern for housebuilders.

"The problem [for developers] is securing sufficient energy, and the time it takes to connect to the grid," Brown says.

The council estimates that 26,000 new homes will be needed in and around the city by 2040, but it fears any building plans could be delayed by capacity constraints. In the nearby market town of Bicester, this has already happened.

"The latest expansion in Bicester was supposed to see an additional 7,000 homes and a large commercial zone built, but they've been put on pause because grid reinforcements are needed to get them further," says Brown, who is also a vice-chair of the District Councils' Network, a cross-party group of 169 district and unitary councils in England. "I don't think Oxfordshire is unique at all. I know it is becoming quite a big issue across the country."

This inability to build enough homes is not a new problem. For the past decade, sluggish building rates have meant the government's target of 300,000 homes a year has been repeatedly missed, while the housing crisis has worsened.

Funding and planning issues are routinely blamed for the country's supply issues; a lack of electricity supply has rarely been given as a reason why homes are not built - until recently.

"Securing capacity has always been a priority, but over the past 18 months, it has become a significant roadblock and a real challenge for developers across the country," says Vicki Spiers, chair of the Independent Networks Association, whose members are responsible for connecting 80% of new UK homes to the grid.

As millions of electric cars are plugged in, the transmission network will require significant upgrades. Photograph: Simon Skafar/Getty Images

And as households move away from using fossil fuels to heat homes and power cars, the challenge will only grow.

"We can see examples of developments being knocked back because of grid capacity," says energy expert Adam Bell of Stonehaven Consulting. "That problem will only get worse in the future without expansion of the distribution network."

Just like the capacity issues facing housing developments, the country's electricity system is complex, and growing more so.

National Grid is responsible for the transmission network, which acts as a motorway transporting electricity from power sources to other parts of the country along high-voltage lines.

After this come 14 distribution network operators (DNOs), the equivalent of A-roads, all responsible for distribution within a region. These connect either directly to housing developments or, more often, through independent network operators.

In a country where electricity use is expected to increase by 50% by 2035, as millions of electric cars and domestic heat pumps are plugged in, the transmission network will require significant upgrades, at a cost of tens of billions of pounds. But it is at the distribution level, the A-roads, that the biggest roadblocks come for housing developments.

The operators are often left waiting for major National Grid transmission upgrades to provide extra capacity to their network, but the five-year funding cycles set by regulator Ofgem mean local upgrade plans can become outdated as demand changes.

Bell says: "These [cycles] made sense in a slow-paced world where demand grew through economic growth and population growth, but now that we are electrifying stuff, more data centres are coming online and the view taken five years ago is going to be wrong."

Even when upgrades or new connections are agreed on, completion can take years. Spiers says this is forcing more and more developers to mothball building projects.

The Observer has spoken to several developers who have had to scale down, change or scrap plans because of electricity capacity issues.

One developer was forced to shrink a development of more than 80 homes to fewer than 20 because it could not secure enough electricity. Another said capacity limitations meant it had had to cut the number of electric car chargers on a site.

In an extreme example, one building firm scrapped a planned development of almost 100 homes after a £570,000 charge to secure a new connection made the scheme unviable.

We had a developer willing to fit heat pumps, but they couldn't get the capacity, so had to switch to gas boilers

Micky Leng, councillor

The most high-profile example of electricity shortages causing housing delays is in the west London boroughs of Hounslow, Hillingdon and Ealing. The area has become popular over recent years with data centre developers, thanks to the fibre optic cables that run along the M4 corridor to the Atlantic. Crucially, for an area with a large housing shortage, they have sucked up capacity that could have been used for vital housing schemes.

In 2022, the Greater London Authority sounded the alarm over the power shortages, warning that all developments in the area could be paused until 2035, when new transmission connections would be constructed.

Building of new infrastructure has now restarted and the National Grid and Scottish and Southern Electricity Network (SSEN) have come up with solutions to flatten out demand. These have included accelerating smaller housing developments, and striking deals with developers to build developments in phases to better match the extra capacity added to the network.

But while progress has been made and 7,800 homes are now connected, 3,900 planned units, including 1,855 affordable homes, are still waiting to secure a power supply.

Situations like the one in west London will become more common as the government's Future Homes Standard legislation turbocharges the electrification of homes. The new law, which will come into force next year, will reduce the maximum permitted carbon emissions of all new homes by 75%-80%.

David Adams, strategic adviser at the Future Homes Hub (which was set up to develop a long-term delivery plan for the sector) says this will effectively ban the use of fossil fuels in homes, and make electric heat pumps the only option.

The National Grid control centre. Developers depend on improvements to the network to build new homes. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

According to the National Grid electricity system operator (ESO), the body that ensures supply meets demand on the network, heat pumps will require 80 terawatt hours a year by 2050, if the country is to hit its decarbonisation goal. This is four times the current usage, but achieving this could be hampered by capacity constraints.

Last year, Reading borough council raised concerns that its net zero housing ambitions could be curtailed because of SSEN restrictions on new connections. On a planned development of more than 220 homes with heat pumps, nearly two-thirds converted back to gas after capacity concerns were raised.

"We had a developer that was willing to fit air source heat pumps, fit electric car chargers, but couldn't get the capacity, and had to come back to planning so it could fit gas boilers," says Micky Leng, the council's planning lead. "This is a massive issue that has the potential to put the country's race to net zero at risk."

The Energy Network Association, the body that represents district network operators, says connection issues are rare for housing projects, but where they do occur operators are working to find solutions. It adds that in most cases connections usually take a little over a year from a request being made, and that the past year has seen its members deliver enough additional capacity to power a million homes.

But the Home Builders Federation says this is becoming a bigger issue for its members, and will only get worse. A spokesperson says:"Moving away from gas for heating will increase electricity usage and we have seen elsewhere that if there isn't the grid capacity, the answer is to not allow any new housing."

Upgrading infrastructure at both National Grid and the distribution network will be key to this.

Adams at the Future Home Hub suggests that smart energy technologies could provide a solution by using existing capacity more efficiently, and that installing batteries in housing schemes could also help.

DNOs are also increasing adopting "flexibility models", in which they buy excess energy from local generators of power, for example homes or businesses with solar panels, to increase grid supply.

For Brown, the solutions for Oxfordshire can't come soon enough. She says: "What concerns me is that it is delaying housing, making it more expensive, and it is affecting our ability to make housing zero carbon, which is so important."

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Capacity crunch: why the UK doesn't have the power to solve housing crisis

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Our inadequate electricity network is stopping the building of thousands of new homes. And the necessary move to low-carbon heating and cars is only increasing demand

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When it comes to climate, what are we doing right and where should we focus our efforts next? Systems innovator Ryan Panchadsaram and strategist Anjali Grover talk with TED science curator David Biello about the latest on the world's progress toward solving the climate crisis - and why there's more reason for optimism than you might think. Using strategic goal-setting tools that have transformed countless organizations, Panchadsaram and Grover explore the urgent actions needed to steer the planet toward a sustainable future and the pivotal roles of innovation, investment and policy. "The climate story isn't yet written," Grover says.

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an updated action plan for solving the climate crisis — and a look at progress to date | ryan panchadsaram

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‎TED Talks Daily: An updated action plan for solving the climate crisis - and a look at progress to date | Ryan Panchadsaram, Anjali Grover and David Biello on Apple Podcasts

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When it comes to climate, what are we doing right and where should we focus our efforts next? Systems innovator Ryan Panchadsaram and strategist Anjali Grover talk with TED science curator David Biello about the latest on the world's progress toward solving the climate crisis - and why there's more...

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The world is on the verge of a climate abyss, the UN has warned, in response to a Guardian survey that found that hundreds of the world's foremost climate experts expect global heating to soar past the international target of 1.5C.

A series of leading climate figures have reacted to the findings, saying the deep despair voiced by the scientists must be a renewed wake-up call for urgent and radical action to stop burning fossil fuels and save millions of lives and livelihoods. Some said the 1.5C target was hanging by a thread, but it was not yet inevitable that it would be passed, if an extraordinary change in the pace of climate action could be achieved.

The Guardian got the views of almost 400 senior authors of reports by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Almost 80% expected a rise of at least 2.5C above preindustrial levels, a catastrophic level of heating, while only 6% thought it would stay within the 1.5C limit. Many expressed their personal anguish at the lack of climate action.

"The goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C is hanging by a thread," said the official spokesperson for António Guterres, the UN secretary general. "The battle to keep 1.5C alive will be won or lost in the 2020s - under the watch of political and industry leaders today. They need to realise we are on the verge of the abyss. The science is clear and so are the world's scientists: the stakes for all humanity could not be higher."

Alok Sharma, the president of the Cop26 climate summit in 2021, said: "The results of the Guardian's survey should be another wake-up call for governments to stop prevaricating and inject much more urgency into delivering on the climate commitments they have already made." He said world leaders needed to get on and deliver on the pledge they made to transition away from fossil fuels at Cop28 in December.

Christiana Figueres, the UN climate chief who oversaw the landmark 2015 Paris climate deal where the 1.5C goal was adopted, said: "These climate scientists are doing their job. They are telling us where we are, but now it's up to the rest of us to decide what this moment requires of us and [to] turn the seemingly impossible into the new normal."

She said the world was on the edge of positive societal tipping points away from fossil fuels. "It doesn't mean a utopian future - we know too much climate change is already baked into the system - but enormous positive change is coming. A world in which we pass 1.5C is not set in stone."

The 1.5C target was initially proposed by the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis). Fatumanava Pa'olelei Luteru, the chair of Aosis, said: "Our islands are quite literally sinking as the temperatures rise. The lack of ambition on climate change from bigger countries is consigning our states to a reality of devastating loss. The [Guardian] report must be a wake-up call to the world."

Mourners hold portraits of their loved ones during a prayer and mass funeral service for those who died in the Mai Mahiu floods. Photograph: James Wakibia/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock

Mohamed Adow, from Power Shift Africa, said: "It's good to see the experts who follow climate most closely sharing their horror at the lack of action from governments. Those of us living in countries facing the worst effects of the climate crisis feel this too. My country of Kenya has faced its worst drought in 40 years and then last week saw hundreds killed in devastating floods. We wish leaders had the same sense of urgency as the climate scientists."

Youth climate activists from around the world also shared the climate experts' fears. "Crashing through the guardrail of 1.5C would be a death sentence for millions of people in the global south," said Vanessa Nakate, at Rise Up Movement Uganda. "Unless we see immediate action no one will be safe."

Disha Ravi, at Fridays For Future India, cited the dire impacts of India's recent heatwaves: "The complacency of leaders is killing people. Temperature rises beyond 2.5C are not inevitable, but averting it requires genuine commitment and action from those in power."

Policy experts, economists and business leaders responded to the Guardian findings with both frustration and calls for urgent change. Rachel Kyte, a professor of practice in climate policy at the University of Oxford, said: "It is desperately frustrating that our political, economic and social systems don't know what to do with the science. We need ... innovations in our democracy to give scientists the politics they deserve."

Nicholas Stern, an eminent climate economist, said: "The Guardian's results are a message from scientists that they lack confidence in our world leaders to take the necessary action to avert climate catastrophe. It's not too late for political leaders to act but the scale and pace of change must be large and rapid."

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Helen Clarkson, the chief executive of the Climate Group, which runs a network of 500 multinational businesses, said: "The Guardian survey is a stark reminder of the gap between climate targets and action."

The respondents to the Guardian survey identified lack of political will as the single biggest barrier to climate action. Harjeet Singh, at the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, said: "For decades, governments, especially in rich countries, have consistently prioritised the fossil fuel industry's interests over the wellbeing of their people. We have a narrow window to avert the worst outcomes, but it requires urgent, transformative policies that prioritise the wellbeing of people and the planet over profit."

Some politicians backed the call for urgent action. Caroline Lucas, a UK Green party MP, said: "The world's leading scientists are running out of words to describe the gravity of the climate emergency we face. Politicians need to wake up and treat this catastrophic threat with the seriousness and urgency it requires."

Ed Miliband, the shadow climate change minister in the UK, said: "Every fraction of a degree matters to the survival of our planet for future generations. That's why we need governments around the world to maximise climate action, rather than rowing back."

In the US, Representative Chrissy Houlahan said: "[The Guardian report] should give all of us in Congress even more urgency to act swiftly and bipartisanly." Bas Eickhout, a Green member of the European parliament, said: "I recognise the feelings of despair of the scientists very well. However, we simply do not have the option of giving up."
Additional reporting by Nina Lakhani, Helena Horton, Oliver Milman and Lisa O'Carroll.

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'The stakes could not be higher': world is on edge of climate abyss, UN warns

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Top climate figures respond to Guardian survey of scientists who expect temperatures to soar, saying leaders must act radically

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When we think of the causes of climate change, often the first thing that comes to mind is the use of fossil-fuels for electricity production, transportation, or industry.

At the same time, an equally significant, yet far less recognized, contributor to climate change often gets short shrift: the global food system. A whopping 22-33% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from the food, agriculture, and land use sector.

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The food system is a big part of the climate problem. It can be a big part of the solution, too.

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Ministers are considering plans to weaken the UK's carbon-cutting plans by allowing the unused portion of the last carbon budget to be carried over to the next period.

This would go against the strong recommendation of the government's statutory climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee.

But it would make the next targets easier to meet. The UK has emitted less carbon dioxide in recent years than was expected, owing to factors including the Covid-19 pandemic and sluggish economic growth. This should be ignored, allowing for the next set of five-yearly emission targets to be more stringent, the better to reach net zero by 2050, the CCC has said.

Ministers have until the end of this month to decide, and have only publicly said that such a decision would be made "in due course".

Campaigners fear they are likely to take advantage of the loophole.

Dustin Benton, policy director at Green Alliance, warned: "The government will make a grave error of judgment if it weakens plans to cut emissions, 'carrying forward' a right to burn carbon that only exists because the UK economy has grown less quickly than we thought when we set the third carbon budget in 2008."

The UK would still have to meet its target of cutting emissions by 68% by 2030, set at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow.

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"Cashing in phantom credits wouldn't change our international commitments - it just means we'd need to double the rate at which we cut emissions late this decade, making the job much harder," Benton said. "It would contradict advice from the UK's climate watchdog, which is never a good look. By shifting the goalposts, it sends yet another signal that this government isn't serious about supporting the green industries of the future."

He pointed to Green Alliance research that has shown only half of carbon reductions needed by 2032 are covered by confirmed policy. "We need action to close the gap - not excuses for inaction," he said.

The UK overachieved on meeting its third five-year carbon budget, which ran from 2018 to 2022, requiring reductions of 38% compared with 1990 levels. The emissions cap for the budget was 2,544 megatons of CO ₂ equivalent, but the actual emissions were 391 MtCO ₂ e fewer, or 15% below the budget.

Under the 2008 Climate Change Act, ministers are allowed to count the surplus of emissions savings, compared with the budgetary requirement, towards the next carbon budget. That would make the next budget easier to meet, but could also slow the UK's path towards meeting net zero greenhouse gas emissions.

In February, the CCC asked the government not to carry over the surplus savings.

The government has yet to make a decision, according to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

A spokesperson told the Guardian: "We are the first major economy to halve emissions and have the most ambitious legally binding emissions targets in the world. We have overdelivered on every carbon budget to date, and will continue to meet our emissions targets. A decision on whether the UK's overachievement on the third carbon budget is carried over will be made in due course."

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Ministers consider making UK's carbon targets easier to meet

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Fears Climate Change Committee's advice not to allow carryover from last carbon budget will be ignored

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The supermarket, part of the John Lewis Partnership, has been trialling regenerative agriculture approaches on its Leckford Estate farm in Hampshire since 2020. It will now ramp up efforts to share learnings from this work with British suppliers of meat, milk, eggs, fruit and vegetables.

Farmers will be supported to adopt practices that improve soil health and biodiversity while reducing emissions and pollution. These include reducing tilling, planting cover crops and shifting to alternative fertilisers.

Waitrose will draw up plans to help farmers access preferential finance rates for adopting regenerative farming practices and guarantee these small businesses a route to market.

Additionally, practical support will be provided. Leckford farm will serve as a permanent 'centre of excellence' hosting trials, workshops and visits, with educational events and resources also set to be provided online.

Waitrose will also convene a working group of farmers to enhance understanding of the practices currently used across different supply chains, and how they can be made more 'nature-friendly'. By 2026, the supermarket will assess the state of nature on all of its own-brand farms in the UK and help these farmers to create land management and improvement plans.

Additionally, Waitrose is seeking to ensure that all of its fresh produce growers globally are certified under the LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming) mark by 2026. Some competitors such as Aldi UK and Tesco have already achieved full certification for British produce.

Eight UK-based farms will work with Waitrose and LEAF to identify best practices for improving outcomes across soil, carbon, biodiversity and water.

"We have a duty to help our farmers make the move towards more nature-friendly growing, and we're committed to playing our part in the revolution that our country's food system requires," said Waitrose's executive director James Bailey.
The John Lewis Partnership first launched a sweeping 'plan for nature' in October 2022. Farming transition
The UK is classed as one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, with less than one-tenth of its biodiversity intact. One in six plant and animal species in Britain is at risk of extinction according to the most recent 'State of Nature' report.

The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and WWF both identify farming becoming more intense and widespread as a key driver of this nature depletion.

The UK Government has forged ahead with post-Brexit reforms to farmer payment schemes in a bid to incentivise production methods which have a lower negative impact - or, indeed, a positive impact - on nature. Enhancements to payments were announced in January as the schemes matured.

Some farmers are advocating for even steeper increases.

However, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has slammed other administrations, including the Welsh Government, for going further to incentivise nature-related activities and disincentivise intensive food production. He has done little to quell the culture war pitting food security and environmental sustainability against one another, instead blocking farmers from putting more than 25% of their land aside for activities that boost nature but decrease food outputs.

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Waitrose to support British farmers in shift to regenerative practices - edie

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Waitrose has unveiled an ambition to help more than 2,000 of its supplier farmers in the UK adopt regenerative farming practices, through the provision of practical and financial support.

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‘A world first’: project recycles polyester into yarn for new clothes

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A venture that uses methods applied to plastic bottles for old textiles aims to tackle the UK’s mountain of unwanted garments

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very year about 130 million households across Europe burn almost 40% of the continent's total gas consumption to heat their homes. Those boilers contribute more than a fifth of Europe's greenhouse gas emissions in the process.

Many have warned that the dominance of the humble gas boiler threatens to derail global climate targets, while keeping Europe reliant on gas imports and shackled to higher energy costs.

For most European homes, the answer is likely to be an electric air source heat pump, as governments try to clean up carbon emissions. But not all households are convinced. In the UK, the plans to replace millions of gas boilers across the country with the little-known devices has fed into culture wars. There are those who believe heat pumps could play a vital role in climate action, and sceptics who claim their benefits are a lot of hot air.

Air source heat pumps cost on average just more than £12,500 to buy and install, according to an industry expert. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

In between these binary positions stand millions of households with little clear information and high-stakes financial decisions ahead. In a series of articles, we will highlight the myths, the realities and the grey areas around the heat pump agenda. The first in our series asks: are heat pumps more expensive than gas boilers?

The claim

It is true that heat pumps are expensive. In the UK, the majority of homes are expected to opt for an air source heat pump, which costs on average just more than £12,500 to buy and install, according to industry accreditors at MCS. This is four to five times the cost of a gas boiler, which usually falls between £1,600 and £3,000 depending on the size needed.

The UK government's heat pump grant scheme puts £7,500 towards the cost of replacing a gas boiler with a heat pump. Similar schemes have spurred the uptake of heat pumps across Europe. In Poland the government offered households up to €14,420 (£12,403) to fit green energy solutions, including heat pumps. In Italy, the government launched a short-lived "superbonus" scheme covering 110% of the cost of green homes upgrades, including heat pump installations. However, the gulf in upfront costs is narrowing all the time, with some heat pump installations getting close to cost parity with gas boilers once grants are included.

Critics of the heat pump rollout have warned that even with government grants, households could face higher energy bills and may need to undertake costly home upgrades, too. In Great Britain, electricity is about four times more expensive than gas, according to the regulator's latest energy price cap, which has raised concerns that heat pumps will cost more overall to run. There are also concerns that households may face eye-watering costs to upgrade their radiators or improve their home insulation to ensure their heat pump is effective.

But do these concerns stack up? The Guardian will tackle the issue of whether all homes are suitable for a heat pump later in this series. To understand the running costs of a heat pump we have drawn on the findings of independent experts.

The science

Dr Jan Rosenow, an academic and a programme director at the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), regularly analyses the shifting running costs of heat pumps compared with gas boilers.

In a recent paper for Carbon Brief, he explained that heat pumps have similar running costs to a gas boiler, even though electricity is more expensive than gas, because they produce heat at a more efficient rate. On average heat pumps turn one unit of electricity into 2.5 to 5 units of heat, meaning they use about three to five times less energy compared with a gas boiler, he said.

To get technical, the measure used to rate the efficiency of a heat pump over a year is known as the seasonal coefficient of performance (SCoP). Rosenow's analysis has shown that a heat pump with a SCoP of more than 3 will match the running costs of an 85% efficient gas boiler, while a SCoP of 3.2 will match the costs of a 90% efficient A-rated gas boiler.

So how do heat pumps in the UK score? A recent study of 750 households by the Energy Systems Catapult, an independent government-backed researcher, found that heat pumps typically have a SCoP of 2.9. This implies a small extra cost to running a heat pump compared with a gas boiler.

The findings are backed up by the Energy Saving Trust, an independent advisory group, which found that running a heat pump would be £14 a year more expensive than using a new A-rated gas boiler. The same research found that heat pump users would save £340 a year compared with using an older G-rated gas boiler.

Rosenow and the Energy Saving Trust used the standard energy tariff set by the energy regulator for Great Britain's price cap in their calculations. But Rosenow has noted that a new breed of energy tariff designed specifically for heat pump users could tip the balance in their favour.

Running a heat pump in the UK may have a small extra cost compared with a gas boiler, studies suggest. Photograph: Mark Waugh/Alamy

Octopus Energy has launched a new heat pump tariff, Cosy Octopus, which charges electricity at 19.6p a kilowatt hour, well below the standard tariff cap of 25p a kWh, which is in place from April to June 2024. Ovo Energy has offered a limited rate of 15p a kWh to the first 100 households to sign up to its Heat Pump Plus tariff. These tariffs would make even heat pumps with a SCoP score well below 2.9 significantly cheaper to run than a new gas boiler.

The caveats

Each country will be different. The economics of a heat pump compared with a gas boiler rely on the government grants used to lower the upfront cost of installation, and the fluctuating costs of electricity and gas.

Within each country the benefits of a heat pump hinge on its installation. A poorly installed heat pump would fall short of the average SCoP of 2.9 identified in field studies as a key point at which heat pumps reach parity with gas boilers, and this could quickly erode any expected savings - even when using a good value energy tariff.

Some installers have reported higher than average heat pump efficiency ratings, even in older properties. Photograph: Andrew Aitchison/In Pictures/Getty Images

That said, some heat pump installers have reported SCoP levels of about 4 - even in older properties - meaning even greater savings are possible than the current averages that Rosenow has modelled.

This is a significant caveat because it underlines the importance of choosing a reliable heat pump installer to undertake the work. A good installer should also be able to advise on whether any home energy efficiency upgrades are needed to help keep upfront costs of installation in check, too.

The verdict

"Heat pumps can deliver cost savings over a gas boiler," Rosenow said. "But only if the system runs at a good efficiency and because of the grants available. In the future, governments need to rebalance the taxes and levies on electricity to make heat pumps the lowest-cost heating option."

The UK government is already considering options to lower electricity costs by moving the green levies usually paid through power bills into general taxation or on to gas bills. This would make the savings from choosing a heat pump even greater.

Early signs suggest that heat pumps are already yielding some financial benefits. In one of the UK's largest independent home heating surveys about two-thirds (67%) of households with a heat pump said they were satisfied with their running costs compared with 59% of gas boiler owners - even without extensive energy efficiency upgrades.

The survey, by the innovation charity Nesta, heard the views of more than 2,500 domestic heat pump owners and more than 1,000 domestic gas boiler owners in England, Scotland and Wales over the last winter and is thought to be the largest investigation into how households have responded to heat pumps to date.

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Are heat pumps more expensive to run than gas boilers?

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The first in a series exploring the myths and realities surrounding heat pumps

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UN expert attacks ‘exploitative’ world economy in fight to save planet

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Outgoing special rapporteur David Boyd says ‘there’s something wrong with our brains that we can’t understand how grave this is’

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The seemingly "never-ending" rain last autumn and winter in the UK and Ireland was made 10 times more likely and 20% wetter by human-caused global heating, a study has found.

More than a dozen storms battered the region in quick succession between October and March, which was the second-wettest such period in nearly two centuries of records. The downpour led to severe floods, at least 20 deaths, severe damage to homes and infrastructure, power blackouts, travel cancellations, and heavy losses of crops and livestock.

The level of rain caused by the storms would have occurred just once in 50 years without the climate crisis, but is now expected every five years owing to 1.2C of global heating reached in recent years. If fossil fuel burning is not rapidly cut and the global temperature reaches 2C in the next decade or two, such severe wet weather would occur every three years on average, the analysis showed.

The experts behind the study warned that work to protect the populations of the UK and Ireland was still "sorely lacking" and poor and vulnerable people were hardest hit. For example, dehumidifiers provided to dry out flooded homes were not used by some because of high energy costs, while others could not afford to replace losses of frozen food after storms cut power supplies.

The analysis, conducted by climate scientists working as part of the World Weather Attribution group, compared how likely and how intense the wet winter was in today's heated world with how likely it would have been in a world without high levels of carbon emissions. Warmer air can hold more water vapour and therefore produce more rain. Hundreds of "attribution studies" have shown how global heating is already supercharging extreme weather such as heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and storms across the world.

"The seemingly never-ending rainfall this autumn and winter across the UK and Ireland had notable impacts," said Dr Mark McCarthy, a climate scientist at the UK Met Office and part of the WWA team. "In the future we can expect further increases - that's why it is so important for us to adapt to our changing climate and become more resilient."

Dr Sarah Kew, a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and also part of the WWA team, said: "The UK and Ireland face a wetter, damper and mouldier future due to climate change. Until the world reduces emissions to net zero, the climate will continue to warm, and rainfall in the UK and Ireland will continue to get heavier."

The study included storms Babet, Ciarán, Henk and Isha, which were among the most damaging. A separate analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit found that the losses of arable crops alone in the UK due to the heavy rain would cost farmers about £1.2bn, compared with average production over the last decade. Further losses would be suffered by vegetable growers.

Dr Ellie Murtagh, the UK climate adaptation lead at the British Red Cross, said: "We know flooding has a devastating impact on people's lives. Its effects can be felt for months and years afterwards."

She said the storms and flooding had caused weather-related home insurance claims in the UK to rise by over a third, reaching a record-breaking £573m worth of claims. One in seven people do not have insurance, with many saying they are unable to afford it.

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UK ministers have been criticised for years over the failure to make adequate plans to protect people against the impacts of global heating. In July, the government's most recent climate adaptation plan was condemned as "very weak" by experts.

"The level of implementation of adaptation interventions is still sorely lacking," said Murtagh. "Independent assessments in both the UK and Ireland have highlighted the lack of progress."

Dr Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London and co-founder of WWA, said: "To put it bluntly, climate change is already making life shittier. Wetter winters are flooding farms, cancelling football matches, overflowing sewage systems and [making] groceries more expensive.

"Thankfully, we know the solutions. Replace oil, gas and coal with cleaner, cheaper renewable sources of energy; insulate homes, and restore nature. All this will make life cheaper and better for all, not more expensive."

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'Never-ending' UK rain made 10 times more likely by climate crisis, study says

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Winter downpours also made 20% wetter and will occur every three years without urgent carbon cuts, experts warn

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Scientists hope to clean up cement making

Scientists say they've found a way to recycle cement from demolished concrete buildings.

Cement is the modern world's most common construction material, but it is also a huge source of planet-warming gas emissions.

That is because it's made by heating limestone to up very high temperatures by burning fossil fuels.

Recycling cement would massively reduce its carbon footprint. Researchers say that if they switched to electric-powered furnaces, and used renewable energy like wind and solar rather than fossil fuels, that could mean no greenhouse gases would be released at all.

And that would be a big deal. Cement forms the foundation of the modern economy, both literally and metaphorically.

It is what binds the sand and aggregate in concrete together, and concrete is the most widely used material on the planet after water.

It is also a major driver of climate change. If cement was a country, it would be the third biggest source of emissions after China and the US, responsible for 7.5% of human-made CO2.

The problem is the material's uniquely polluting chemistry.

It is made by heating limestone to up 1600 Celsius in giant kilns powered by fossil fuels.

Those emissions are just the start. The heat is used to drive carbon dioxide from the limestone molecules, leaving a residue of cement.

Add both these sources of pollution together and it is estimated that about a tonne of carbon dioxide is produced for every tonne of cement.

The team of scientists, from Cambridge University, has found a neat way to sidestep those emissions.

It exploits the fact that you can reactivate used cement by exposing it to high temperatures again.

The chemistry is well-established, and it has been done at scale in cement kilns.

The breakthrough is to prove it can be done by piggybacking on the heat generated by another heavy industry - steel recycling.

When you recycle steel, you add chemicals that float on the surface of the molten metal to prevent it reacting with the air and creating impurities. This is known as slag.

The Cambridge team spotted the composition of used cement is almost exactly the same as the slag used in electric arc furnaces.

Flames emerge from the top of an arc furnace as the material that will form the slag is added to the molten steel

They have been trialling the process at a small-scale electric arc furnace at the Materials Processing Institute in Middlesborough.

The BBC was present when the first high grade, or "Portland", cement was produced.

They are calling it "electric cement" and described the event as a world first.

The lead scientist, Cyrille Dunant, told the BBC it could enable the production of zero-carbon cement.

"We have shown the high temperatures in the furnace reactivate the old cement and because electric arc furnaces use electricity they can be powered by renewable power, so the entire cement making process is decarbonised.," he said.

He said it also makes steel recycling less polluting because making the chemicals currently used as slag has a high carbon cost too.

Mark Miodownik, Professor of Materials and Society at University College London, described the way the Cambridge team have combined cement and steel recycling as "genius" and believes, if it can be made to work profitably at scale, it could lead to huge reductions in emissions.

"Can it compete against the existing infrastructure that is very unsustainably going to keep pumping cement into our lives", he asks.

"Cement is already a billion-dollar industry. It's David and Goliath we are talking about here."

The hope is electric cement will be cheaper to manufacture because it uses what is essentially waste heat from the steel recycling process.

Spanish company Celsa will attempt to replicate the process in its full-scale electric arc furnace in Cardiff this week.

The Cambridge team estimate, given current rates of steel recycling, their low carbon cement could produce as much as a quarter of UK demand.

But the use of electric arc furnaces is expected to increase in the future, potentially allowing more "electric cement" to be produced.

And, of course, the process could be duplicated all over the world, potentially cutting the emissions from cement dramatically.

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Climate change: UK breakthrough could slash cement CO2 emissions

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Scientists from Cambridge University find an ingenious way to decarbonise one of the world's most polluting materials.

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The belief that a heat pump is unable to warm a home in the depths of winter is widely held, especially in the UK.

One recent survey of more than 4,000 adults across the UK, Germany, France and the US last autumn found that 35% believed that air-source heat pumps are not up to the job.

The study, undertaken by the data company Electrify Research, found that more than 40% of Britons agreed that heat pumps are not up to the challenge compared with 36% in Germany, 35% in the US and 26% in France.

The research report described the UK's markedly higher scepticism as "ironic" given that its winter temperatures are far milder than in Norway, where the average winter temperature is -7C and heat pumps are installed in two-thirds of homes.

The claim

Critics of heat pumps are often quite succinct: they just do not work, but especially not when you need them most.

To understand whether they can perform in freezing temperatures, first consider how they work: just like a fridge absorbs heat from its interior and dissipates it through coils on its back, a heat pump absorbs heat from the outside air to raise the temperature of water which can then be pumped through the radiators of a home's heating system.

Heat pumps absorb heat from the outside air and transfer it to water. Photograph: KBImages/Alamy

Critics claim heat pumps do not work as well during freezing periods because there is less heat energy in the air to absorb.

Willie Haughey, a Labour peer and refrigeration tycoon, whose business carries out heat pump installations, has repeatedly warned that they are not suitable for the Scottish climate.

He told the Times last year: "The truth of the matter is that heat pumps don't work as efficiently in Scotland as they do in other countries. The water can only be heated to 54C, which is lower than the Health and Safety Executive's recommended figure of 60C."

He repeated his claim that heat pumps should not be considered an alternative heating source to gas in an interview with BBC Radio 4.

There are plenty of sceptics working in the heating industry, too. One boiler installer said: "They just don't work. The water temperature is usually set to 40C so it just can't heat your house when it's really cold outside. My son is doing the accreditation to install heat pumps, but it's not for me. I won't touch them." His views are typical of some in the industry, but are they backed by evidence?

The science

It may not be obvious, but even on freezing days there is still some heat energy in the air which can be harnessed.. It helps to take a closer look at the science behind a heat pump.

First, they absorb heat energy from the air via an evaporator which contains a cold liquid refrigerant. The refrigerant boils to become a gas at extremely low temperatures, often about -20C, meaning that even if the outside air temperature is as low as -10C it is still 10C warmer than the refrigerant.

The heat pump's compressor then pushes the gas molecules together to raise the temperature of the gas. Pipes containing the hot gas are used to heat cold water, which then runs through a home heating system into radiators and underfloor heating pipes.

Heat pumps need to work harder in cold temperatures but they still perform well whatever the weather, according to the Energy Systems Catapult (ESC), an independent research and technology organisation set up by the UK government.

In a study spanning almost two years, the government-funded demonstration project analysed the performance of 750 heat pumps on some of the country's coldest days, where mean daily temperatures fell to as low as -6C. It found only a marginal decline in the efficiency of a heat pump heating system.

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Heat pumps have to work harder to achieve the same indoor temperature when it is cold than when the weather is warm. Photograph: michal-rojek/Getty Images/iStockphoto

In the first mythbuster feature of this series we learned that the measure used to rate the efficiency of a heat pump over a year is known as the seasonal coefficient of performance (SCoP), which is typically 2.9 for an air-source heat pump.

The ESC study found that the median coefficient of performance (CoP) fell to 2.44 on the coldest days of the year. This means that a heat pump would need to work harder to achieve the same indoor temperature when it is cold - but the difference would be marginal, and is already included in the SCoP averaged over the year including wintry months.

The findings are backed up by a separate study undertaken by the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) which analysed 550 homes across Europe. It found that even at temperatures of -20C a heat pump's efficiency would fall to an average CoP of 2.

The caveats

For most climates heat pumps will work in cold weather, but correct installation is vital. Ran Boydell, an associate professor at Heriot-Watt University, said: "If a heat pump doesn't perform effectively in cold weather, chances are the unit was incorrectly specified for the location."

Correct installation is vital for heat pumps. Photograph: Tomasz Zajda/Alamy

Assuming you have a properly installed heat pump which is able to heat your home through freezing temperatures, one caveat to note is that your running costs for this period are likely to be higher as the efficiency of the heat pump falls.

Heat pumps can be cheaper to run than gas boilers in the UK, especially if you choose an electricity tariff designed for heat pump users. During periods when the temperature dips to -6C it is likely that the running costs would rise to just above those of a gas boiler - but only for these periods. Over the course of a normal year - including typical cold spells - heat pump costs are still attractive when compared with gas boilers.

Sometimes heat pumps do need backup. In many Nordic countries it is common for heat pumps to have some kind of fossil fuel reinforcement for when temperatures plunge to -20C or below. But there are ways to reduce reliance on gas or oil heating even at these temperatures. Ground-source heat pumps, for example, can be more efficient than air-source heat pumps because the ground is often able to retain heat better during a cold spell. A new generation of air-source heat pump, designed for cold climates, can also help to reduce the need for backup heating.

The verdict

"We can finally put to bed the notion that heat pumps do not work in cold weather conditions and that they are inefficient to run. We've observed the exact opposite," said Marc Brown, a business leader at ESC.

The science shows that heat pumps can work at winter temperatures. But poor advice and installation can upend even the most encouraging scientific findings.

Richard Halsey, a director at the ESC, said: "One of the key findings from our study is that proper design and installation is at the heart of delivering a heat pump that works for the home that it's in.

"For most homes - regardless of property type or age - a well-installed heat pump producing a flow temperature of about 40C should still result in a comfortable home most of the time. But there's no one-size-fits-all setup for a heat pump."

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Do heat pumps work at freezing temperatures?

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Critics claim that the technology is not up to the job - we examine whether the facts bear this out

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Sales of SUVs hit a new record in 2023, making up half of all new cars sold globally, data has revealed. Experts warned that the rising sales of the large, heavy vehicles is pushing up the carbon emissions that drive global heating.

The analysis, by the International Energy Agency, found that the rising emissions from SUVs in 2023 made up 20% of the global increase in CO ₂, making the vehicles a major cause of the intensifying climate crisis. If SUVs were a country, the IEA said, they would be the world's fifth-largest emitter of CO ₂, ahead of the national emissions of both Japan and Germany.

Climate-fuelled extreme weather is increasing, with urgent cuts in emissions needed. But emissions from the global transport sector have risen fast in recent years, outside of the Covid pandemic. SUV sales rose 15% in 2023, compared with a 3% rise for conventional cars.

SUVs now account for half of all new car sales

The IEA said the main reasons behind the surge in SUVs were the "the appeal of SUVs as a status symbol", marketing by automakers, and perceptions that they are more comfortable. The IEA also said SUVs caused greater injury to pedestrians in collisions, due to their higher front-ends, and took up more space in cities than regular cars.

About 20% of the new SUVs sold in 2023 were pure electric or plug-in hybrids. But the IEA said the larger vehicles needed bigger batteries, putting more pressure on the supply of critical minerals and requiring more electricity to run.

Cars running on petrol or diesel have become more efficient. But the IEA's Laura Cozzi and Apostolos Petropoulos, who did the analysis, said: "The trend toward heavier and less efficient vehicles such as SUVs has largely nullified the improvements achieved in recent decades."

James Nix, at the thinktank Transport and Environment (T&E), said: "Carmakers in pursuit of higher margins know only one direction: bigger and heavier. New cars are getting wider every year, and are on track to become as wide as buses and trucks. Europe will go the way of North America unless lawmakers step in with EU width limits and national taxes and parking charges which discourage big SUVs."

There were more than 360m SUVs on the roads worldwide in 2023, producing 1bn tonnes of CO ₂ emissions, up about 10% on 2022. As a result, global oil consumption rose by 600,000 barrels a day, more than a quarter of total growth in oil demand, the IEA said. SUVs weigh 200-300kg more than an average medium-sized car and emit about 20% more CO ₂.

In rich countries, almost 20m new SUVs were sold in 2023, surpassing a market share of 50% for the first time. Globally, 48% of new cars were SUVs and, including older cars, one in four cars on the road today are SUVs, according to the IEA.

Sales of electric cars are rising rapidly and 55% of these were SUVs in 2023, the IEA data showed. "Shifting from fossil-fuelled cars to electric vehicles is a key strategy for reaching international energy and climate goals," Cozzi and Petropoulos said. But they said using fewer materials to produce cars was also "essential for a sustainable future".

Some countries, including France, Norway and Ireland, are working to rein in demand for SUVs, with Paris tripling parking charges for the large vehicles.

In March, T&E said that the UK was a "tax haven" for polluting SUVs, as the vehicle excise duty for them in the first year is a fraction of that in other countries. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said in February he would monitor the effectiveness of the Paris plan.

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Global sales of polluting SUVs hit record high in 2023, data shows

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Half of all new cars are now SUVs, making them a major cause of the intensifying climate crisis, say experts

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The next government should force all tradespeople who install home heat pumps, solar panels and insulation to sign up to a mandatory accreditation scheme to counter mistrust in the industry, a leading consumer group is demanding.

A report from Which? found that households face "significant anxiety" in choosing tradespeople to fit low-carbon heating systems, such as heat pumps, and insulation after "press stories about poor work and rogue traders".

It said 45% of households report that they do not know what qualifications to check for when selecting a tradesperson to carry out work in their homes, and 55% find it difficult to trust the available information, including contractors' own claims and customer reviews.

The lack of clear information and quality controls threatened to delay home upgrades that were essential if Britain was to wean households off fossil fuel heating and hit its climate targets, the consumer group said.

Under current rules, installers who undertake work through the government's boiler upgrade and energy efficiency schemes must sign up to either the Microgeneration certification scheme or the Trustmark certification scheme.

However, installers who plan to undertake work paid for without government funds are not required to sign up to any accreditation body.

Which? has called on whoever wins the 4 July election to set a clear deadline for all tradespeople to be certified via the same schemes, and to take responsibility for their oversight in order to maintain standards.

Rocio Concha, a director at Which?, said: "Over the next few years, millions of households across the UK will make significant changes to their home heating systems - such as installing heat pumps - to make their homes more energy efficient and support lower energy costs.

"It's essential that the right standards are in place to ensure that work is done to a good quality and people are protected against the small minority of rogue traders and cowboy builders."

Government data shows that by the end of January this year fewer than 5,000 homes had been insulated under a scheme which aimed to insulate 300,000 homes to guard against volatile energy prices.

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Separate research from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank found that a lack of progress on insulating British homes is costing bill payers £3.2bn a year, despite recent drops in energy prices.

It reported that upgrading the average UK home with an energy performance certificate (EPC) rating of D to a C would have saved the bill payer £200 a year. For the 4.4m homes that have a rating of E or F the savings would have been between £400 to £550.

Last year, the government scrapped its target for all privately rented homes to be rated EPC C or above by 2025, in an overhaul of its net zero pledges. The ECIU said upgrading those homes alone would save those households a total of £1.4bn a year under the new prices.

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Make accreditation mandatory for low-carbon heating installers, says Which?

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Widening government-run scheme would counter mistrust among householders, says consumer group