Positive Climate News from June 2024 - UK Election Special - A Climate Victory!
You June shot of climate hopium! Reporting a bunch of good news from June plus sneaking into July to report on the election result in the UK, which was a victory for our climate!
So its evening on the 5th July here in the UK and we’ve just had a national election and it has been a positive result for those wanting climate action. We’ll start with that and then widen the focus to global news.
Following on from my post for voters in the UK interested in climate issues; we got a strong result! 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. They pledge:
The climate and nature crisis is the greatest long-term global challenge that we face. The clean energy transition represents a huge opportunity to generate growth, tackle the cost-of-living crisis and make Britain energy independent once again. That is why clean energy by 2030 is Labour’s second mission.
(Image by Tani: Activists complete a banner drop on the iconic Cabot Tower, Bristol, UK.)
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. Campaign groups like Green New Deal Rising mobilised people to help elect MPs who are going to champion climate issues in the parliament and push Labour to be more bold.
This was a historic win.
Not only that, but the only overtly climate-denial party, Reform UK, despite blanket media coverage, only managed 14.3% of the vote. This new Putin-aligned far-right party did get a lot of attention, but it is just the latests manifestation for its ego-centric leader, Nigel Farage, the previous ones being UKIP and The Brexit Party. He got a lot less votes that he predicted and less than voted for his UKIP in the 2014 EU elections.
Now on to global news - and remember - we need climate positive news to inspire action. So I get there is bad news around, but there are people and actions moving us in the right direction!
New Technology
(Image: Wind turbines in Croisilles, France. Author’s collection)
Renewable Energy
While in Denmark, 67% of the country has been running on renewable energy
There’s evidence that we have reached (perhaps passed) peak oil! (Link to chart)
Predictions vs. Reality for solar energy - the predictions always fall short of the reality!
Australia’s biggest solar and battery hybrid project planned at site of abandoned “dud” coal mine
Politics and Culture
Illinois to consider the ‘Future of Gas’ in unprecedented regulatory proceeding
How the makers of a beloved board game reworked it to address the climate crisis
(Image: The newly opened 3.5 gigawatt solar plant in Xinjiang, China)
Thanks all - and keep up the momentum!