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Helen Blenkharn, Climate Change Policy Officer I regularly get asked ‘do wind turbines save carbon emissions?’ A recent report by the Committee on Climate Change looks at the UK’s carbon footprint and the lifecycle emissions from different types of electricity supply and so answers...

John Lanchbery, Principal Climate Change Advisor We are not on course to save the world from climate change. Emissions are not heading downwards so as to ensure an average global temperature rise of less than two degrees, the target agreed by all nations. Instead they are surging upwards towards a...

Helen Blenkharn, Climate Change Policy Officer Last year Rolling Stone magazine published an eye-opening article called ‘Global warming’s terrifying new math’ which said three numbers should be enough to convince you that we’re in serious trouble: Scientists agree that average...

Helen Blenkharn, Climate Change Policy Officer I hear so much about onshore wind these days, are fossil fuels even a big deal in the UK any more? Yes, they are! In fact, demand for fossil fuels in the UK could be on the verge of a resurgence! For example: So what are we actually extracting...

Helen Blenkharn Climate Change Policy Officer It’s that time of year again when our energy use soars through the roof as we warm our homes from the January weather - the extra couple of degrees on the central heating, the extra hour with the gas fire on in the evening, the higher setting on...

Post by Helen Blenkharn, Climate Change Policy Officer ‘What if we train our staff and they leave?’ ‘Yes, but what if we don’t train our staff and they stay?’ I laughed at this phrase, part of a role play at NationalGrid’s first ever Sustainability Summit last...

Guest post by Kelsie Pettit, Energy and Climate Policy Officer, RSPB Scotland The above words, spoken by a colleague from Birdlife International at the European launch of the Good Practice Wind project (GP Wind), are a reflection on the global community in which we live. Our insatiable media and...

Excellent article about our global greenhouse budget in Rolling Stone (a hark back to 1970s student days for me, never thought I’d be reading that in work time!), which outlines that the world’s energy companies are now sitting on fossil fuel reserves which would lead to five times the greenhouse...

From Ivan Scrase, RSPB Senior Climate Change Policy Officer With the UK’s energy policy proposals under fire from MPs, the National Audit Office and the Major Projects Authority, it is clear some new thinking is needed. There is no doubt it is an immense challenge to find workable policies that...

The polar ends of our world are incredibly special places – cold, wild and remote, little known by most of and yet with an amazing pull on our consciousnesses. Whilst Antarctica is protected by its UN Treaty, the Arctic is open to territorial claims from several countries and commercial interests...