The share of electricity in Great Britain generated from burning coal and gas fell to a record-low 2.4% earlier this month, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
The record low was reached at lunchtime on Monday 15 April and lasted for one hour. There have been a record 75 half-hour periods in 2024 to date when fossil fuels met less than 5% of demand.
There were only five such periods during the whole of 2022 – and just 16 last year.
The findings show that National Grid Electricity System Operator (NGESO) is closing in on its target of running the country’s electricity network without fossil fuels, for short periods, by 2025.
NGESO is “confident” this target will be met, its director of system operations tells Carbon Brief, adding that achieving the goal will be “absolutely groundbreaking and pretty much world leading”.
However, Carbon Brief’s analysis also illustrates some of the challenges to meeting the government’s target of a fully decarbonised electricity grid by 2035.
Fossil fuels fall
The island of Great Britain, comprising England, Scotland and Wales, has its own independent electricity system, which is managed at the transmission level by NGESO.
The transmission grid is effectively the motorway network for electricity.
It links large-scale electricity suppliers such as coal, gas and nuclear power plants to centres of demand, in towns and cities around the country.
Other companies run the low-voltage “distribution” networks, which take power from the transmission grid and distribute it to individual homes and businesses.
For most of its existence, this system had remained largely unchanged for decades. More recently, it has been in the midst of a rapid transformation as part of national efforts to reduce emissions.
In 2009, some 74% of GB electricity was coming from fossil fuels and only 2% was from renewables.
By 2023, there were several thousand large renewable sites dotted around the country, as well as nearly 1.5m small solar installations on the roofs of homes, offices and warehouses.
Only a third of GB electricity in 2023 came from fossil fuels – with 40% from renewables.
Yet these annual figures disguise even greater changes in the month-to-month, day-to-day, hour-to-hour and second-by-second operation of the electricity system.
The figure below shows the share of electricity in Great Britain being generated by fossil fuels in each half-hour period since 2009, including the record-low of 2.4% earlier this month.
The figure above shows how unprecedented it is for fossil fuels to be meeting such low shares of demand on the GB grid.
Indeed, the lowest half-hourly fossil fuel share in 2009 was 53% and, as recently as 2018, it had never dipped below 10%. The first half-hour period with less than 5% fossil fuels only came in 2022, when there were five such periods in total across the year.
During 2023, there were just 16 half-hour periods with less than 5% fossil fuels – the majority of which came during December of that year.
In contrast, there have already been 75 half-hours with less than 5% fossil fuels in 2024 to date.
The shift to ever lower fossil fuel use is illustrated in the figure below, which shows daily average shares starting to regularly drop below 10% in December 2023 and April 2024.
The daily average fossil fuel share fell to a record low of 6.4% on 5 April 2024, with the average on 15 April 2024 standing at 7.0%. Until 2022, the daily average had never been below 10%.
‘Zero-carbon operation’
Carbon Brief’s analysis shows that NGESO is closing in on the target, first set in 2019, of being able to operate the grid with “zero carbon”, for short periods, by 2025.
(NGESO defines this target as being able to run the GB transmission grid without fossil fuels. It bases its goal on a metric of 100% “zero-carbon operation”, meaning the share of demand, excluding imports, being met by renewables connected to the transmission grid or nuclear. It says this metric reached a peak of 90% during two half-hour periods in January and March 2023.)
The first-ever period of at least 30 minutes of “zero carbon operation” is most likely to come in autumn 2025, Craig Dyke, NGESO director of system operations tells Carbon Brief. “We’re confident that we will have the right capabilities on the system to be able to do that,” he adds.
Dyke says this moment will be “absolutely groundbreaking and pretty much world leading”, particularly given the size of the GB economy and the fact that, as an island, its grid is relatively isolated from neighbouring countries.
There have been two separate challenges in reaching this target. The first is having enough low-carbon electricity supplies to be able to cover demand during a given half-hour period.
The second challenge is having the technical capability to keep the grid stable without fossil fuels.
These technical requirements include maintaining the frequency of electricity supplies at close to 50Hz and responding to rapid changes in supply and demand through operational reserves.
NGESO also maintains the ability to restart the grid in the case of a total shutdown, sometimes referred to as “black start”, but now more formally called “restoration”.
Increases in wind and solar capacity mean low-carbon sources are now already sufficient to meet 100% of electricity demand in some periods. However, on the technical side, the 2025 target has been a “significant engineering challenge”, Dyke says:
“Getting to the 2025 ambition has been a significant engineering challenge, which we are solving.”
Grid services have, historically, been provided by fossil fuel power plants. Over the past five years, however, NGESO has been changing the way it procures these services, as well as reforming the rules of grid operation and the way it balances the grid in real time.
For example, through its “pathfinder” projects NGESO has contracted a series of sites that can offer grid services without fossil fuels. These include “synchronous condensers”, effectively giant spinning turbines that provide grid stability without burning fossil fuels.
Other key innovations include the use of batteries to manage the frequency of the grid and “grid forming inverters”, which use sophisticated power electronics to offer different types of grid support.
This development means renewable projects will be able to contribute grid stability services, such as “inertia”, that have traditionally only been offered by conventional fossil fuel generators.
Dyke tells Carbon Brief:
“This hasn’t just happened overnight. It’s been a culmination of a significant amount of effort over a number of years. That’s not just us [NGESO] operating in isolation, that’s planning and collaboration with industry, with [energy regulator] Ofgem and with the government…It’s not just about technologies, it’s about hearts and minds and processes and systems and people working together.”
Fully decarbonised grid
For NGESO, the 2025 goal is a stepping stone on the way to being able to run the grid at zero carbon constantly by 2035, in line with the government target of “fully decarbonised” electricity.
(The opposition Labour party is targeting a decarbonised grid by 2030. This target is seen as incredibly ambitious – and possibly even “unachievable” overall. A spokesperson for NGESO tells Carbon Brief: “Our previously published scenarios shows it is achievable – although challenging.”)
There are several further technical challenges to meeting this 2035 goal.
For example, the rise of variable wind and solar has expanded the ups and downs of fossil fuels in the mix, illustrated by the range between peaks and troughs in the first figure, above.
This is illustrated further in the simplified figure, below, by the increasing gap between the highest and lowest fossil fuel shares seen in each year (upper and lower blue lines, respectively).
The figure below also shows the annual average fossil fuel share of electricity (dashed line) falling from 74% in 2009 to 26% in 2024 to date. (The small increase in this annual average in 2022 was due to the GB grid exporting gas-fired power to France, where much of the nuclear fleet was offline.)
Notably, the maximum fossil fuel share in each half-hour period has declined more slowly than the average or minimum figures, falling from 88% in 2009 to 72% in 2023 and 66% in 2024 to date.
This reflects the fact that the GB grid still relies on gas-fired power stations being able to switch on when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining.
Crucially, the nation will need low-carbon alternatives to this gas capacity in order to reach the government’s target of a fully decarbonised grid by 2035.
These alternatives will need to operate across a range of different timescales, from seconds through to weeks and even years. For within-day timescales, this is likely to mean expanding energy storage capacity, principally with batteries, but also pumped hydro or compressed air.
For periods of weeks or seasons, the options include ongoing reliance on unabated gas – which would be incompatible with carbon targets – or the use of hydrogen turbines or gas plants that are coupled with carbon capture and storage (CCS).
The post Analysis: Fossil fuels fall to record-low 2.4% of British electricity appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Fossil fuels fall to record-low 2.4% of British electricity
Australia’s new environmental standards are supposed to protect wildlife. Right now, they don’t.
We have one of the worst mammal extinction rates in the world. We’ve already lost 39 species, including the Christmas Island Shrew and the desert rat-kangaroo, while iconic species like the Hairy-Nosed Wombat, Pygmy blue whale and Swift Parrot continue to slide towards extinction. Forests are still being bulldozed at an alarming rate. Rivers and reefs are under serious pressure.
Fixing this sorry state of affairs was why the Federal Government promised to fix Australia’s broken national nature laws—a promise that culminated in the nature law reforms passed late last year.
A big part of these reforms is the creation of new “National Environmental Standards” — rules intended to guide decisions on projects that could damage nature.
But the Government’s latest draft standards—open for consultation until May 29th—fall dangerously short.
Instead of setting clear environmental guardrails, the draft rules risk making it easier for damaging projects to get approved, while nature continues to decline. Legal experts are warning that unless the standards are changed, they could weaken protections rather than strengthen them.
So what are these standards, exactly?
The new standards are a centrepiece of major reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act), which were passed late last year and are designed to fix a broken environmental regulatory system. They are meant to set clear rules for what environmental protection should actually look like.
In simple terms, they’re supposed to answer questions like:
- What measures should developers be made to put in place to protect threatened species?
- How do we ensure the most important habitats and natural places are not hacked away, “death-by-a-thousand-cuts”-style, from ongoing development proposals?
- When should a project simply not go ahead?
- What rules should states follow if they’re in charge of assessing development projects?
- How do we make sure nature is actually improving, not just declining more slowly?
If designed and implemented properly, these standards could become the backbone of strong, effective reformed nature laws.
But right now, they leave huge loopholes open.
The biggest problem: process over outcomes
The biggest problem with the draft standards is that they focus too heavily on whether companies follow a process—not whether nature is genuinely protected in the end. That might sound technical, but it has real-world consequences.
Imagine a company wants to clear critical habitat for a threatened species. Under a strong system, the key question should be: Will this project cause unacceptable or significant environmental harm?
But under the current draft standards, if the company follows the required steps and paperwork, the project could still be considered acceptable — even if the damage to nature is clear.
This is deeply ineffective. Destruction that checks bureaucratic check-boxes is still destruction. The standards should enforce the protection of nature—not just the ticking of procedural boxes.
A smaller definition of habitat could leave wildlife exposed
Another alarming change in the draft standards is the narrowing of how “habitat” is defined, which could have serious consequences for wildlife protection.
Habitat is more than just the exact spot where an animal is seen sleeping, nesting or feeding today; we need to think more holistically about habitat as a connected network of ecosystems that species may rely on to survive, including breeding grounds, migration corridors, areas used during drought or fire, and places they may need to move to as the climate changes.
But the draft standards effectively shrink the areas considered important enough to protect by defining habitat as only very small areas that if destroyed would certainly send the species extinct, rather than habitat which maintains and restores healthy populations able to thrive well into the future.
For animals already under pressure from habitat destruction and climate change, protecting only the bare minimum is a dangerous approach. In practice, that could mean that places which are essential for threatened species to recover and survive long term are destroyed just because they are not classified under the standards as ‘habitat’—a lose-lose outcome for biodiversity and the Australian government’s nature protection goals.
Offsets are still doing too much heavy lifting
Australians have heard the promise before: “Yes, this area will be damaged — but it’ll be offset somewhere else.” In practice, environmental offsets have severely failed to replace what was lost.
You can’t instantly recreate a centuries-old forest. You can’t quickly rebuild complex wildlife habitat. And some ecosystems simply cannot be replaced once destroyed. Yet the draft standards still rely heavily on offsets rather than prioritising avoiding harm in the first place.
The standards must reduce their reliance on offsets, and instead prioritise actual habitat protection. Because once extinction happens, there’s no offset for it.
Australia cannot afford another backwards step on nature
The Albanese Government came to office promising to end Australia’s extinction crisis and repair national nature laws. But this will be a broken promise if the huge loopholes in the National Environmental Standards aren’t addressed.
Right now, Australia is losing wildlife and ecosystems faster than they can recover. Scientists have warned for years that incremental change is no longer enough.
Strong standards could help turn things around by:
- stopping destruction in critical habitat,
- setting firm limits on environmental harm,
- requiring genuine recovery for nature,
- and making decision-makers accountable for real outcomes rather than process.
If the Government locks in rules that prioritise process over protection, Australia risks entrenching the very system that caused the crisis in the first place.
What needs to change?
The Government still has time to fix the draft standards before they are finalised over the next month.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific is calling on the government to:
- ensure decisions are based on outcomes, not just process
- ensure that all important habitat is protected, not just narrow areas
- ensuring that death-by-a-thousand-cuts is avoided by considering the “cumulative impacts” of multiple projects in a region
- ensuring offsets are only used as an absolute last resort
Australians were promised stronger nature laws—not more loopholes. Australia’s wildlife cannot afford another missed opportunity.You can help ensure the Federal Government’s final standards put to parliament are as strong as possible by putting in a quick submission here.
Climate Change
Duke University Plans a Data Center It Says Will Boost ‘Environmental Responsibility and Sustainability’
The small project is underway at Central Campus, with room for expansion. Its energy usage could complicate the university’s climate goals.
DURHAM, N.C.—Duke University plans to build a small data center at Central Campus, potentially the first of several similar-size projects, which has raised questions among some faculty about whether the energy- and water-intensive endeavors could derail the institution’s climate commitments.
The UN General Assembly on Wednesday adopted a “historic” resolution calling on countries to comply with their climate obligations, as outlined in a landmark advisory opinion issued last year by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Last July, in the opinion first requested by the Pacific island state of Vanuatu, the world’s top court ruled that harming the climate by increasing fossil fuel production may constitute an “international wrongful act”. This could result in affected countries claiming compensation from those responsible, the court said.
To follow up on the ICJ ruling, a dozen nations led by Vanuatu submitted a proposal to the UN’s main deliberative body to recognise the advisory opinion and identify ways of implementing it.
Several large oil-producing nations mounted a late push to weaken the text by introducing last-minute amendments, but the General Assembly rejected those and adopted the resolution with 141 countries in favour at a plenary session in New York.
The resolution urges countries to implement measures to cut carbon emissions, including by tripling renewable energy capacity, “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems”, and phasing out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies.
It also requests the UN Secretary-General to draft a report “containing ways to advance compliance with all obligations in relation to the court’s findings” by next year’s UN General Assembly in September 2027.
Pacific islands celebrate “historic” resolution
The group of Pacific island nations, which led the diplomatic push for the resolution, as well as Latin American nations and the European Union, celebrated its adoption as a “historic” moment, while some countries noted the persistence of diverging views.
Belize’s UN representative Janine Coye-Felson said in a statement on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) that the General Assembly resolution, as well as the ICJ advisory opinion, are important because “climate change is not governed only” by the Paris Agreement, but that “climate justice requires the application of the full breath of international law”.
“When future generations look back at this moment, they will ask whether we rose to meet the defining crisis of our time with the full force of international law. Today, this General Assembly answers: yes,” she told the plenary.
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The EU said in a statement during the session that, with the adoption of the resolution, countries are moving beyond “simply recognising” the ICJ’s work and instead “actively upholding the legal integrity” of the multilateral system by seeking to implement the court’s recommendations.
Yet the bloc also warned the process that follows must not “seek to establish new mechanisms or engage in any determination of state responsibility”, referring in particular to the upcoming report by the Secretary-General. Earlier drafts of the resolution contained proposals to establish a register of climate-driven loss and damage and a dedicated compensation mechanism, but these were removed during negotiations on the text.
France’s ambassador to the UN, Jérôme Bonnafont, highlighted the resolution’s provision to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and said “science clearly establishes their role in climate change”. The recent increase in oil and gas prices, which have soared because of the war in Iran, “underscores the cost vulnerability of this dependence”, he added.
Push-back by oil-producing nations
Some oil-producing countries – among them the US, Saudi Arabia and Russia – were critical of the new resolution, arguing that it creates “quasi-binding” obligations from an advisory opinion that should be non-binding, and rejected the request for a report from the Secretary-General.
“This is a direct duplication of work that is being done at the [UN climate convention],” said Russia’s delegate. “Creating a parallel process will waste resources, will undermine the fragile consensus at the conference of the parties and will lead to the fragmentation of the climate regime.”
In an effort to weaken the resolution, a group of seven oil-producing Middle Eastern states – including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran – tabled four last-minute amendments proposing to delete certain paragraphs and softening the language on the obligations of states.
Webinar: From Santa Marta to Bonn – where next for the fossil fuel transition?
In response, Pacific island nations said these amendments sought to “reopen provisions that were [the] subject of extensive negotiation”, while the EU added that they were “difficult to reconcile with the spirit of cooperation”. They were all rejected in a series of votes.
The US, for its part, described the resolution as “highly problematic” and denied the obligation of preventing climate harm beyond its borders, as well as the assertion that climate change is an “unprecedented civilizational challenge”. The country urged others to vote against the resolution.
India, which abstained, said the text failed to address the need for climate finance flows from developed to developing countries, which is “a serious omission”. The Indian delegate pointed to the absence of the term “climate finance” in the text, which “deserves more attention in a resolution that deals with the obligations of states”.
“Turning point in accountability”, activists say
WWF’s climate chief and former COP president Manuel Pulgar-Vidal said the General Assembly’s vote was a step forward that “raises the pressure on all states to act in line with their obligations”.
Rebecca Brown, CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said the UN resolution shows that “multilateralism works” and with it, countries “carry the ICJ’s historic ruling forward as a roadmap for climate action and accountability”.
“By acting together, we can prevent further climate harm, in line with science and the law, by speeding up a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels, protecting climate-vulnerable communities, and advancing climate justice,” she added in a statement.
Vishal Prasad, director of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change – a group of young people who first made the push for an advisory opinion from the ICJ – said “the world has not only reaffirmed that ruling, but committed to making it a reality”.
“This must be a turning point in accountability for damaging the climate. Communities on the frontlines, like in the Pacific, have been waiting far too long and continue to pay too high a price for the actions of others,” he said. “The journey of this idea from classrooms in the Pacific to The Hague and the United Nations gives us continued hope that when people organise, the world can be moved to act.”
The post UN General Assembly backs “climate obligations” set by world’s top court appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN General Assembly backs “climate obligations” set by world’s top court
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