Keith Alexander

😞

A periodic reminder that the £51.1 billion that the Truss and Sunak governments spent on subsidising natural gas consumers in 2022-3 was the biggest subsidy that the UK has spent on anything ever, and a large cause of our present national debt. obr.uk/box/the-cost...

Three of the 5 splits in the Burnham cabinet identified by the FT political correspondents are to do with climate policy Rosebank, the electric vehicle mandate, Heathrow airport expansion all pitch traditional industry models against the reality of climate breakdown www.ft.com/content/b04b...

Pretty stark move from European Commission to prepare for 3C of warming. What is left unsaid is can you really prepare for 3C of warming if that means climatic tipping points? www.businessgreen.com/news/4537952...

Some green stuff to look out for in the Budget... Gas standing charges are to be axed. This is good news that will save most people some money and will strengthen the financial case for switching to heat pumps. www.businessgreen.com/news/4537978...

Whenever I read Justin Webb I remember the BBC stopped someone from hosting a podcast that was basically “I like heat pumps - they’re just neat!” because it was too political for a presenter

I’ve been writing about ancient calendars and star maps. Then last night I walked the dog at dusk and as I got home, looked up to see a myriad satellites dashing across the dome of stars. So many of them! We’ve changed our view of the heavens so much. Are we now culturally trapped by technology?

But this "overshoot" discussion is so esoteric. It bizarrely avoids the elephant in the room. Emissions need to drop radically in the short term. Overshoot, IMO, distracts from that, and focuses people on unnecessary details 100 years in the future.

The thing with 1.5C was that it was always "overshoot". It has just taken 10 years for people to admit that nearly all 1.5C scenarios in SR15 were "overshoot" (not that anyone has really admitted that). 2C, you didn't need overshoot then and you don't need it now.

Why did GHG emissions rise in 2025? The biggest increase was in the USA, followed by international transportation. India, Russia, & the European Union all had slight declines. Chinese GHG emissions rose, still not peaked.

The IPCC assumes that we will see *massive* increases in carbon removal. This is reckless, unwarranted, and irresponsible. drawdown.org/insights/her...

The scenarios with crazy amounts of carbon removal (high-low, medium-low, and low-negative) are all designed to explore what overshoot scenarios would look like (as well as to model the physical climate effects of overshoot). You need far less if you don't try and reduce temperatures after net-zero

I feel like society is actually crying out for more people to be against bad things, instead of even more people just being indifferently In Support of More Large Objects, which just isn't really inspiring Feels like most of the truly inspiring recent moments are People Being Against Bad Things

But have you considered if we just decided to pollute more on a technicality? Surely the atmosphere wouldn’t mind then? www.theguardian.com/environment/...

How much of the world’s proven coal, oil and gas (i.e. already found, pays to extract at today’s prices) can still be burned for a 66% chance of holding 2 °C? About 30%. The other 70%, 2,040 billion tonnes of CO₂, are stranded assets. Burn it all and CO₂ alone means roughly 2.7 °C Purple = added

It’s thanks to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme that tens of thousands of homes across the UK have been able to move away from gas. This programme is working, and we must continue to back it.

Hadn't appreciated how much greater the depreciation/operation cost already is for Distribution (£180 per billpayer) than for Transmission (£15) These costs still smaller but not insignificant compared to the wholesale cost of the gas (£420) that passes through them

Must come a point where it is cheaper for gas distribution to be switched off to an area (with help to electrify), than to dig in new gas pipes that have to be repaid over very few years. But commercial incentives aren't aligned for gas and electric DNOs to work together and share those savings?

"...we cannot be confident that temperature decline after #overshoot is achievable within the timescales expected today. Only rapid near-term emission reductions are effective in reducing climate risks."

I spent all day writing the thread in my head about how Bolsonaro's win was the culmination of a 20-year project to end Brazilian democracy, with the participation of both domestic elites and foreign actors like the US state department and Meta. This is all true, of course, except he didn't win.

Pay attention UK Labour Party I am begging you

A great relief Lola won, but I hope that there is also someone who can beat the Bolsonaros at the next election too… www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...

Lula’s win is the first good news for the planet in a while! I bet it shaves a tenth of a degree off how hot our earth eventually gets, which will save millions of lives Thank you Brazil!

In his acceptance speech, Lula says he will work to regulate digital platforms in Brazil. “Digital crimes must be dealt with like real-life crimes.” This comes after Meta directly interfered with the Brazilian elections, favouring Flávio Bolsonaro.

To be fair, the British government in 1937, even worse. Refused to give a single penny in Aid to these children. Every single penny to help them was raised by charities, etc. And only gave them temporary residence

Imagine Britain in 2026 doing this…

The gap between the climate we hope for and the climate we're on track for is widened on the one hand by new fossil fuel developments, and on the other by a better understanding of just how much danger we were already in.

BBC report sanitises the overt racism: It notes that organisers warned marchers not to talk to journalists, then gives the "anti-immigration group"'s own sanitised description of itself. It does not report they chanted "England for the white man" in the streets. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Wonder if they will airbrush out poppies in a few weeks? 🤔

Developing new gas fields is pragmatic. Atmospheric physics however, is an uncompromising idealist. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Pragmatic new gas field developments productiongap.org/2025report/

Just 2 days after telling us they're committed to making the crisis worse by greenlighting more fossil fuel extraction, the government is now telling us it's our responsibility to prepare for the impacts of the climate breakdown that's already upon us A shameful abdication of responsibility

Does anyone know of a decent hand blender where only stainless steel parts come into contact with the food? It's hard to find good information on this, as those with stainless steel sticks can have plastic washers etc under the blades.

The ZEV mandate isn't just climate policy, it's health policy too. Weakening it keeps petrol and diesel vehicles on our roads for longer. More dirty air, more ill health, more pressure on the NHS. Cleaner vehicles and healthier communities need clear policy, not instability!

The amazing thing is that he isn't getting Copilot to do it from scratch - it is very much the direct plagiarism thing I have been talking about!!! bsky.app/profile/keta...

The first genuinely honest ad for generative AI I've ever seen, from Microsoft / CoPilot A mediocre white guy sees his non-white colleague getting praised for good work, he asks AI to *literally copy it*, and then he gets all the praise instead: www.ispot.tv/ad/SoDi/micr...

Most Americans say AI is bad for society and oppose new data centers abcnews.com/Politics/ame...

REMINDER: If govt cuts heat-pump grants, the UK will have to import a lot more gas In 2023, Energy UK said that'd cost an extra £3bn over 2026-2030, but gas prices today are roughly ~2x what they were at the time of the analysis…

Et tu, Guardian? Disappointing to see this given their generally great climate coverage. (fixed it for them)

The IPCC is pretty clear that if we want a safe climate there can be no new oil and gas. But every country thinks it has some special reason for why it should be the exception

Climate comrades who are closer to these upcoming questions tell me they are feeling more upbeat, so that’s somewhat encouraging anyway. Fingers crossed everyone 🤞🤞🤞

The juxtaposition between Jackdaw approval and today's UN report warning the world is on track to far exceed 2C of warming even if all current net zero plans are delivered is beyond stark. www.businessgreen.com/news/4537621... www.businessgreen.com/news-analysi...

The problem is not really Jackdaw, which is pretty small. The problem is the UK's plan to transition away from fossil fuels is still not ambitious and detailed enough. The problem is if Rosebank follows. The problem is if every country develops one last fossil fuel project we're all screwed.

The bad arguments that the gov have made to defend Jackdaw (and potentially Rosebank) are the same bad arguments for continuing with new fossil projects. If Jackdaw is good ("homegrown gas"), why is the next new gas field bad? The gov's position is now worryingly unclear.

Ambitious but very welcome attempt to quantify the avoided harmful pollution thanks to climate policies here: between 0.6 - 1.8 gigatonnes of CO2-e We don't make anywhere NEAR enough noise about how much suffering we've stopped by preventing fossil fuel use as a precursor to preventing more of it

"Electric vehicle sales are increasing rapidly, but so too are road transport emissions" The *very* bad habit of only presenting market share as the core metric here means few have any idea how badly transport emissions are rising. There is a real and deep disinterest in the climate aspects