Positive Climate News from July 2024 - What gaining political power means for the climate
Your July hit of climate hopium! A bunch of good news from the last month plus a look at why, and how, politics matter in getting us to where we need to be!
Hello, and I hope when you read this you are well! As ever there is a lot going on in the news both in climate news and the rest. While all of this is important, this newsletter is here to focus on the positive areas to show that action does mean results. So let’s dive in:
UK Election Result - What gaining political power means for the climate
I reported last time on how the UK had a great election result for the climate:
The Labour Party (centre-left) won a massive majority of seats in parliament - in the UK you need 326 to win power - they got 412. While less radical on climate than what is needed, the party has a mandate and plans for action on the issue. … Not only that but the Green Party, an environmentally focused party with climate as the No.1 issue got 4 seats. This is 4x the best result they’ve had.; in the last few parliaments they’ve only had a single seat.
What we are seeing now is what a government can do with that political power, now in office, to move us forwards. Right out of the gate, the new government did some good things -they reversed a ban on on-shore wind. Then they created a new “mission control centre” on clean energy and appointed a leader for that project who actually has some knowledge and expertise on the issue (one of the country’s foremost climate experts, Chris Stark). They have set a bunch of targets & plans for renewables including offshore wind to power 20m homes within five years and a “rooftop revolution” that aims to see millions of homes fitted with solar. The new energy minister, Ed Miliband also,“… took the hugely controversial decision this weekend to approve three massive solar farms in the east of England that had been blocked by Tory ministers.”
Oh and they also said they would honour pledges of £11.6bn in agreed overseas climate aid. Is there more they could do? Yes. However this shows what can get done, when we people into power who accept the reality of climate change. Politics is messy because people are complex so it will never be plain sailing. However it is 1000% times better now than where we were in the UK a couple of months back. I’d far rather some action than none, or indeed than go backwards.
Climate Commentary
There is an enormous global undercurrent of movement away from fossil fuels (mostly coal) and towards renewables. The two lists below will highlight this from July this year. All of this combined means that the IEA predicts that next year, renewables will overtake coal as the largest energy source in the world. It also means that some think 2023 was likely the peak of fossil generation. This is a major, major shift! It means that the infrastructure of fossil fuels will start to need to be decommissioned. The thinking for this has started happening in Europe.
It also means that as the fossil fuel industries and petro-governments lose market share, so too will they lose income and political power. You can see an example of this shift in the US where, in the past, the auto industry and the oil industry were generally quite supportive of each other in slowing and stopping any regulation on pollution. However now the oil industry there is now on a collision course as the auto industry moves to EVs.
New Technology & Advances
Scientists make breakthrough with record efficiency of world's first bendable solar cell
Battery tech; a start-up iis trying out a new kind of mining: "phytomining" that consists of growing and harvesting nickel-accumulating flowers
Revolutionary grid-scale wave energy generator deployed in Hawaii
World News
Asia: Massive Australia-to-Singapore clean energy cable gets green light
China to meet its 2030 renewable energy target by end of this year
Chile - 5 years ago and coal was 40.4% of energy mix. Today it is 14.3%!
Kenya - in 2000 fossil fuels were 60% of electricity generation. Today it is 6%!!
Alberta, Canada - In July Alberta’s last coal plant shut down!
Australia - Labor targets solar and battery industries in $22 billion green deal & South Australia is about to get 100% renewable-powered
Ireland - 'Rooftop revolution' - 100,000 solar panels connected
Spain greenlights almost 300 renewable power projects with $18-billion investment
Portugal - Renewables meet 82% of Portugal’s electricity needs in first half of 2024
Image: “Unreal shot of the newly opened 3.5 gigawatt solar plant in xinjiang, china”
More US News
Wind energy is powering America more than coal for the first time ever
Massachusetts Senate approves bill to expand reliance on renewable energy
New York’s largest offshore wind farm officially breaks ground
EPA awards $4.3 billion to fund projects in 30 states to reduce climate pollution
Largest solar-plus-storage project in U.S. now operational in Nevada
Newly completed solar and battery project, the largest of its kind in the U.S., comes online
So in summary - there is a lot of good stuff happening. However it does not happen on its own; it happens by people taking action. Politics is one of the main areas you can act and there is another historic opportunity coming up in the US in November for global climate leadership!