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State of Nature , a scientific collaboration of 25 UK conservation organisations, saying that our species are in already trouble, my thoughts turned to consider how climate change might be part of that. Especially when this UK report follows a recent global study , suggesting that more than half of common...

We all know that we can’t afford to burn all of our fossil fuel reserves if we’re to stay within the ‘safe’ climate change of around 2°C average global temperature rise, but a new report last week has revealed just how big the mismatch is between economic and environmental...

Tony Whitehead, RSPB South West Regional Office With the DECC Minister Greg Barker saying yesterday that it’s not at all realistic that a Severn Barrage Bill will come before parliament this term we think now is the ideal time for everyone to take stock and look anew at generating power from...

The record breaking summer Arctic ice melt last month got lots of media attention. Doubtless you’ll have seen this, so I’ll just report that that the difference between the new record and the old is about the size of Texas, which has a kind of irony, and leave the facts at that – you...

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...

Helpfully confirming the mess we're in over climate climate, the new AVOID report surely must help to redouble efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The headline messages are stark. An evens chance of limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius is no longer feasible - 1.6 is the very...

Matt Williams, Climate Change Policy Officer I was embarrassingly proud today when I was quoted for the first time as an RSPB climate change policy officer. The article was published on my birthday too, which is a nice treat. My statement is in an article related to biomass, which Government hopes...

John Lanchbery from the Bangkok UN climate meeting The UN climate talks in Bangkok are drawing to a close. After running straight through the weekend, typically for at least twelve hours each day, everyone is feeling a bit tired now. This is not helped by the fact that, as the guide books say, Bangkok...

Further thoughts on food and climate from Heather Ducharme, RSPB Senior Climate Change Policy Officer Our summer issue of Birds magazine featured an article on ‘shopping for sun bears’ – charming inhabitants of tropical forests in south-east Asia that are menaced by forest clearance...

Inspired by Matt's call to action a couple of days ago, a guest blog from Olivia Betts in the RSPB's Public Relations team I am partial to a bit of blogging me, so when Dr Olly Watts our Senior Climate Change Policy Officer was chatting about actually doing things instead of just worrying...

Matt Williams, RSPB Climate Change Policy Officer ‘I never ever want to talk about the science of climate change ever again!’ This was a line from the best talk on climate change I have ever heard, by Jonathon Porritt in 2011. For Porritt, and many others including the IPCC, the debate...

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...

Dominated by the Grangemouth oil refinery and Longannet coal-fired power station, the Inner Forth in Central Scotland might seem like an odd place for a vast area of visionary wildlife conservation. But when the RSPB’s UK climate change team came together on a rainy Scottish morning, the Forth...

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...