Blogs

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...

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...

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, 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 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...