Dustin Benton

Pollution levels in London after 10 years of advancing sustainable transport.

Bordeaux, France, has now recorded more days above 40°C in 2026 alone than during the entire 105-year period from 1920 (when observations began) to 2025. This is deeply shocking.

Japanese officials have coined an entirely new word to signify the dangerous heat of #ClimateChange. It's "kokushobi," which means "cruel heat day." This coinage is but a drop of the coming shower of cultural changes that climate change will force upon us. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/23/w...

El verano que se salió de la campana de Gauss. Es una locura lo que estamos viendo este año comparado con años anteriores… Ya no hablamos de un año más cálido de lo normal. El clima se ha movido a un rango que la vieja estadística decía que no debía ocurrir.

2026 is on track to be the warmest (~35% chance) or second warmest (~63%) year on record, while 2027 is very likely (92% chance) to be the warmest on record on the back of a growing super El Niño event. For more, check out my new Carbon Brief State of the Climate Q2 update: www.carbonbrief.org/...

European heatwave wiped €2bn from value of grain crop, analysis estimates ft.trib.al/FkdESYN #FTEdit

Bad energy week for a new UK prime minister who (rightly) wants to cut electricity bills. If the conflict with Iran continues, mooted bill rises for the October-December price cap will be rather higher than hoped. Ofgem's observation window ends in mid August...

The interconnection issue (created by Brexit) was widely predicted to be a security of supply risk last decade. Still makes no sense to have left the internal electricity market. Hopefully DESNZ will get to fix this later this year.

Nice charts. I continue to be frustrated that coverage of the relatively minor grid issues in Europe during the heatwave rather miss the point that solar and batteries were *helping*.

An ex-general Richard Nugee and former diplomat @snellarthur.bsky.social on why the people who assess threats for a living now count ecosystem collapse as one of them. Ep 1 of @carolinelucas.bsky.social new 4-part series on The Rest Is Politics I'm in ep 2 out Fri www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJUK...

Or much of a drop in public support. Fascinating example of elite consensus switching despite popular opinion.

Train-commuting home in New York today under the heat dome, let me just say for the record: our infrastructure isn't ready for what's to come. Not even close.

yes because they are only spending about 30p a day on fresh vegetables this framing is designed to turn people against green levies, obviously and forget the horrific heatwave we’ve been living through

Extraordinary credit to Sadiq Khan for pushing through this deeply controversial policy. This is what can happen when politicians are prepared to stick to their principles.

18 hours of battery storage! Germany's 22h storage requirement for its capacitymarket (imposed to make sure CCGTs win) might be delivered by batteries if they don't move fast...

This is a perfect epitaph for Lee Raymond from @heatmap.news

To see how important US science is, consider measurements of changes in ocean heat content. US data are ~53% of the total. Over half! But removing the US data is worse than randomly removing 80% of the total data, because unlike other countries, the US makes measurements everywhere. 🧪🌊

England just had its warmest spring on record. The record was last set in spring 2025. Before that, spring 2024. 9 of the 10 warmest springs have occurred since 2007. It's almost like there's a long-term driver causing this... www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/new...

My latest for Bloomberg: "We are about to see the Great Clean Energy Acceleration 2.0 – a discontinuity in energy markets as profound as the oil shocks of the 1970s, and one that could bring forward the peak in fossil fuel use and emissions to this side of 2030." about.bnef.com/insights/cle...

Wondering what percentage of people reading this article are doing so in homes that are currently overheating.

The July energy price cap is a headlines problem, not an economic one. 80% of the nominal £208 price rise is in gas (not elec). Only 8% of domestic gas use happens between July and Sept. Most people won't see a significant rise in bills until the autumn. HT @regeninsight.bsky.social

An estimated 92 per cent of UK homes will be at risk of overheating by 2050, without so-called adaptation measures, up from just over half today www.ft.com/content/ec4d...

£260bn/y of climate damage is ~2x the cost of the state pension. That's the high estimate but even at half the price unconstrained climate damage undermines a small state (or a generous state pension.) www.theguardian.com/environment/...

AFRICA HISTORIC HEAT The worst ever in history of Sahel Weeks with 46/48C and Nights >35C. Today crazy MINIMUM of 36.0C Nioro du Sahel ,MALI HOTTEST NIGHT EVER Yesterday 47.0C Aioun Al Atrouss MAURITANIA All time high tied On the weekend world history will be rewritten anew.

More confirmation that China is the big winner from the attacks on Iran.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

To make better use of public money and support Europeans out of this fossil fuels shock -- governments should direct the funds to support measures that can DURABLY curb consumption of oil and gas. In this sense, France's approach seems much more forward-looking.

Would you like to know more about the #AMOC risk? Here is a recent peer-reviewed, open-access review paper by 22 AMOC experts: wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

It's not hard to catch fish sustainably - if you don't catch them all, and don't destroy their habitat, they reproduce Yet industrial fisheries seem determined to destroy themselves, and governments keen to let them This shouldn't be left to consumers

Greece and Italy - both nearly as sunny as Spain - what are you waiting for?

Wild response to high fuel prices in Ireland. There's a scarcity of oil because the Strait of Hormuz is blocked so Irish hauliers and farmers are blocking an oil refinery in the hope that this somehow brings down prices.

The EU has spent about the same amount (€13bn) on costlier fossil fuel imports since the attacks on Iran as its expects to save from the whole EU simplification programme.

Trump is buying back Total's offshore wind leases dollar-for-dollar under an agreement that Total will reinvest the money in oil and gas. www.doi.gov/pressrelease...

The final report on last April's Spain/Portugal blackout is out. A few takeaways: - Lack of "inertia" due to too few fossil/nuclear generators - the thing anti-renewable pundits immediately blamed without evidence, then reporters breathlessly endlessly repeated - played essentially no role.

Great to see our @ippr.org report on climate backlash in the FT this morning. Anyone saying there is a breakdown in public support for climate policies is wrong. It’s entirely an elite confection, driven by people who don’t want to change. The strategy should be take them on not accommodate