The UK has avoided the need for gas imports worth £5.9bn since the start of the Hormuz crisis as a result of record electricity generation from wind and solar, reveals Carbon Brief analysis.
While gas prices are surging towards levels not seen since the 2022 energy crisis, the UK has been generating record amounts of power from wind and solar, up 14% year-on-year.
This unprecedented clean-power generation is directly cutting the need for gas-fired electricity, which is down by nearly 10% year-on-year in 2026 to date.
In total, wind and solar have generated a record 41% share of the UK’s electricity needs in 2026 to date, compared with 25% from gas, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis.
The figure below shows that wind and solar generation has avoided the need for UK gas imports worth a total of £5.9bn since the outbreak of war between the US and Iran in February 2026.
The analysis shows that these avoided gas imports would have required the UK to secure the equivalent of more than 100 additional tanker deliveries of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
The £1.3bn import saving in September 2026 to date is the result of record wind and solar output, at nearly 10 terawatt hours (TWh), combined with surging gas prices.
Wholesale gas prices in the UK have remained elevated ever since Russia cut off supplies to Europe in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Gas averaged 90p per therm from 2023 until the start of this year, roughly three times above 2019 prices, before the Covid and Ukraine crises.
Since the outbreak of war in the Middle East in March, gas prices have climbed higher still, averaging 134p per therm or nearly four times the level seen in 2019.
In September 2026 to date, gas prices have averaged 189p per therm, reaching their highest level since the global energy crisis in 2022, as shown in the figure below.
UK gas prices are spiking again because winter is approaching – meaning higher demand for heating – and there is no end in sight for the Hormuz crisis.
At the same time, European gas stocks are low. This means Europe will have to compete with Asia to secure the cargoes of LNG needed to keep warm.
In the UK, high wholesale gas prices are hitting household gas bills under the price cap set by energy regulator Ofgem – but thanks to clean energy, electricity bills have barely increased.
From this Thursday, 1 October, typical household gas bills will be 33% higher than they were in April, some £200 per year, according to thinktank Nesta.
In contrast, household electricity bills will only have risen 4%, according to Nesta’s analysis.
Andrew Sissons, director for sustainable future at Nesta, explained in a social media post that “the link between electricity and gas prices has already begun to break”.
The UK and other fossil-fuel importing nations are being hit not only by high gas prices, but also by high prices for oil, diesel and other refined fuels. The EU has reportedly had to pay an extra €100bn for fossil-fuel imports since the start of the crisis.
For example, UK diesel prices this week hit record levels of nearly £2 per litre. In contrast, recent Carbon Brief analysis shows that electric cars are up to nine times cheaper to drive.
In her speech to the Labour party conference this week, energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh said that energy bills were high because the UK is “exposed to global fossil-fuel markets”.
In his own conference speech, prime minister Andy Burnham said the expansion of clean energy was easing the impact of high gas prices on electricity bills. He said:
“We are already taking more control of our electricity prices with a massive expansion of home-grown renewables and nuclear. I have asked Miatta to speed up the breaking of the link between what we pay for power at home and the international gas market, to get bills down.”
The post Analysis: Wind and solar save UK from gas imports worth £5.9bn during Hormuz crisis appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Wind and solar save UK from gas imports worth £5.9bn during Hormuz crisis
Climate Change
Loss and damage fund agrees $20m for Nepal but rich nations warn it should not set precedent
The board of the UN’s Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage agreed on Thursday to set aside $20 million to help Nepal recover from the devastating climate-driven flood it suffered in August.
At an extraordinary online meeting, board members unanimously invited Nepal’s government to submit a proposal for how to use the money, which will be considered at a future board meeting.
The board’s co-chair Camila Minerva Rodriguez described the decision as “truly historic” as it is the first time the new fund has allocated any money since it was set up three years ago. It is expected to approve its first set of projects at its next board meeting in December.
Maheshwar Dhakal, a senior official at Nepal’s climate ministry, told the meeting the decision was “a powerful expression of humanity, compassion, solidarity and hope” and, for the flood victims, a “recognition of their suffering, respect for their dignity and hope that they are not alone in their darkest hour”.
While board members were united in approving the $20 million, plus $1.6 million of administrative costs, representatives of developed and developed countries were divided over the extent to which the decision should set a precedent for the fund’s long-term way of operating.
Germany and Czechia’s board members said it should not set a “precedent” while Japan’s representative said the decision is “truly exceptional” and that the fund’s support must be “in accordance with established rule and procedure”.
Learning the lessons?
Responding, Pakistan’s Ali Sheikh said the lessons from the Nepal case should “feed the long-term model and its work on rapid disbursement” of funds.
He added that he had heard Jan Dusik, Czechia’s board member saying that “we are open for learning but not in setting precedent”. “Please do not define the boundaries for learning,” he emphasised.
Sheikh complained that the decision approved by the board – the result of negotiations between a group of four developed and four developing-country representatives – was narrower than developing countries had hoped for.
“We are saying it is a one-time and Nepal-only window, a sentiment against which many developed countries have raised their voice,” he said, adding there had been no time to review the decision.
Walter Schuldt from Ecuador echoed Sheikh, saying “we should not put limits on lesson learning”. He said the decision, which he was involved in negotiating through “intense exchanges”, tells the fund’s staff to assess the lessons learned.
The fund is currently in a start-up phase and the board will debate its long-term model – including whether and how to rapidly disburse funds in response to climate-driven disasters – at its next board meeting in the Philippines in December.
At Thursday’s meeting, several developing-country board members called for wealthy nations to put more money into the fund. Recovery and reconstruction from Nepal’s flood alone is estimated to cost $4.8 billion – in comparison, the fund has only around $350 million to allocate, with a current cap of $20 million per project.
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Loss and damage fund agrees $20m for Nepal but rich nations warn it should not set precedent
Artificial intelligence (AI) is developing at a rapid pace and is increasingly being used by scientists to better understand climate change.
AI is perhaps best-known for its use in “large language models”, such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.
However, the field is vast.
From weather forecasting to analysing satellite images, climate scientists are using various types of AI to develop faster and more efficient ways to study the warming planet.
However, the technology comes with no shortage of risks and challenges, including overreliance on unverified results, intensive energy use and exacerbating existing inequalities in climate science.
Carbon Brief spoke to 10 experts working across a range of climate-related fields – from developing climate forecasts to analysing changes in the energy grid – about how AI is being used.
Their answers are set out below, grouped by theme.