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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...

Helen Blenkharn, RSPB Climate Change Policy Officer Last week we posted a blog on our concerns about proposals for a Severn Barrage that are being discussed by a Government committee . The project would involve a shore-to-shore barrage across the Severn Estuary, with potentially catastrophic consequences...

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...

Helen Blenkharn, Climate Change Policy Officer ' Carbon Bomb' projects threaten explosion in global emissions Yesterday, this was a headline in BusinessGreen. The article was about a new Greenpeace report called ‘Point of No Return’ which suggests that the world’s 14 largest...

Much of the UK is hunkering down for a weekend of expected snow. My friend Andrew, along with farmers across the land, will be bracing himself for a hard slog of feeding animals – he sent me this today from Wiltshire: It is January, when snow probably should be expected here, and it’s...

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...

John Lanchbery, at the UNFCCC conference Two days to go at the global climate negotiations in Doha and the sun continues to shine outside, although not much light percolates through to the negotiations. Ministers have arrived now and with them have come the journalists; I am sitting next to John Vidal...

O Canada! My home and native land! True patriot love, in all thy son’s command! Heather Ducharme That’s the first line the national anthem of my mother country. However, sitting in the RSPB climate change policy team two desks over from the guy who goes to the UNFCC meetings, I’m...

John Lanchbery, Principal Climate Change Advisor The European Parliament voted in favour of countries taking responsibility for their emissions from agriculture and peatlands. ‘Shouldn’t they be doing that anyway?’ you may well ask, slightly surprised. The answer is, of course, ‘yes’...

Guest post by Sarah Alsbury, RSPB Environmental Systems Project Manager The mad thing about importing biomass to burn for energy is that we have plenty in the UK, which is often left to rot on the ground. We have this problem on many reserves, especially our wetlands. We need to cut grass, reeds,...

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...

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...

Many of you will have seen in the news that a Total gas rig is suffering a major toxic gas leak that is out of control and may last months. You can read more about this potential disaster here and here . As well as posing serious risks to the many workers on the platform, who have now been evacuated...

The Energy and Climate Change Committee published their report today examining the implications of the Gulf of Mexico Spill for offshore oil exploration and production in the UK. The blowout on the Deepwater Horizon rig caused the death of 11 people and the release of 4.9 million barrels of oil into...