Connect with us

Published

on

Following a “landslide” Labour win in the UK general election, attention is turning to the new government’s next steps.

Climate and energy were key parts of Labour’s election campaign and manifesto, with a range of policies it will now look to enact. This ranges from zero-carbon power by 2030 and reforming the planning system, through to decarbonising heat and developing adaptation policy.

Carbon Brief has asked a range of policy experts, academics and campaigners what they think is the incoming government’s top priority for meeting UK climate targets. 

These are their responses, first as sample quotes, then, below, in full (some entries have been edited for length and clarity):

  • Charles Oglivie: “To tackle the myriad of…challenges facing the UK, No 10 will have to make some quick, difficult choices about how to manage Whitehall.” 
  • Adam Bell: “Delivering at the pace required involves spending the kind of political capital that only a landslide win can offer.”
  • Jan Rosenow: “We now need to tackle the other 80% of our energy use and focus on decarbonising heating and transport.”
  • Juliet Phillips: “Labour will need to hit the ground running to fulfil its clean power mission.”
  • Federica Genovese: “The top political priority in the first six months is to credibly form the coalitions of supporters willing to shift gears on the energy transition.”
  • Rachel Solomon Williams: “There is very little time in which to transform the economy.”
  • Bethan Laughlin: “Adaptation must be integrated into all government policy decision-making processes.”
  • Dr Nina Skorupska CBE: “We need delivery forces not more task forces.”
  • Jenny Bird: “Deliver an adaptation programme that is fit for purpose.”
  • Andrew Sissons: “The UK is a long way behind where it needs to be on heating and it will be very hard to meet future carbon budgets without a rapid turnaround.”
  • Caterina Brandmayr: “The UK should help raise ambition globally by submitting an ambitious and credible 2035 NDC.”
  • Tessa Khan: The government “needs to stop locking in our dependency on fossil fuels by rejecting any new oil and gas projects”.
  • Rebecca Williams: “The priority should be unblocking investment in offshore wind.”
  • Linda Kalcher: “The clean power by 2030 goal is ambitious, but a smart economic and security choice.”
  • Sam Hall: “Crucially, the new government must urgently rebalance levies from electricity to gas.”
  • Ben Nelmes: “The UK needs a motoring taxation that is fit for the day when 100% of the cars on the roads are fully electric.”

Prof Kyle WhyteCharles Ogilvie

Former strategy director of COP26 and senior strategic counsel to COP28; former Conservative special advisor on energy and climate policy

To tackle the myriad of linked domestic and international challenges facing the UK, No 10 will have to make some quick, difficult choices about how to manage Whitehall. 

Their top priority on day one should be establishing an integrated, programmatic approach to delivering on the climate mission; to ensure that DESNZ (the Department of Energy Security and Net-Zero) is not held up by cross Whitehall logjams – especially around domestic planning, land use, and industrial strategy; and that the Treasury and FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) are integrated into a strategic approach that leverages UK domestic leadership and investments to effectively shift the world faster, whilst generating co-benefits in trade, development and influence.

Time is of the essence as many of the manifesto promises will be tough to deliver in a single parliament. No 10 will have to think hard about what to prioritise early on, in order to prove to the country that the inevitable compromises needed in the short term will deliver the promised wins.

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteAdam Bell

Director of policy, Stonehaven

Labour’s first priority must be getting the structures they need to deliver their 2030 power decarbonisation ambition in place before anything else. Delivering at the pace required involves spending the kind of political capital that only a landslide win can offer. 

Carving out exemptions from the planning system for energy infrastructure – which their target will require – must be a key first step.

Setting up a cross-government committee to deliver, chaired by the prime minister, should happen within the first few weeks. And getting the necessary outline of legislation into the king’s speech before parliament rises is essential.

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteJan Rosenow

Director at Regulatory Assistance Project

The UK has made great strides with decarbonising its electricity. We now need to tackle the other 80% of our energy use and focus on decarbonising heating and transport.

The new government can do this by rebalancing energy prices making electrification an attractive proposition to people and industry. We also need clarity on the role of hydrogen and an ambitious plan for rolling out heat pumps.

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteJuliet Phillips

Programme lead, UK energy team, E3G

Labour will need to hit the ground running to fulfil its clean power mission – quickly making decisions on the scale of the next renewables auction round, taking actions to unclog the planning system and setting up GB Energy. 

They mustn’t forget the less sexy, but equally important, cleantech solutions that will be needed to get the UK off fossil gas, including demand side flexibility, long-duration energy storage and green hydrogen.

Labour will also need to quickly get to grips with how they can turn around the sluggish delivery of retrofit schemes. The locally-led retrofit schemes are currently massively under-delivering, returning vast sums of unspent money back to the Treasury. Labour will need to listen to installers and local authorities to understand where the current pinch-points are and how these can be quickly addressed.

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteFederica Genovese

Professor of political science at University of Oxford

In my opinion – and recall that I am a political scientist – the top priority is not focusing on single climate targets. The top political priority in the first six months is to credibly form the coalitions of supporters willing to shift gears on the energy transition, which of course will come with adjustment costs.

Bad news: there are *many* actors that need to be brought into this coalition, most of which have already suffered from unjust energy transitions of the past (eg polluting industry workers) or that fear the costs of any adjustment (fossil fuel companies). Convincing these actors will require building trust and, simply put, money.

Good news: we will have a new government with both a broad initial support and more technocratic takes (less populism at the top). The new government needs to capitalise on these circumstances and make climate targets an embedded product or the new economic growth model it wishes to forge.

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteRachel Solomon Williams

Executive director, Aldersgate Group

Focus on delivery and stability – there is very little time in which to transform the economy.

It’s vital that the new government focuses on delivery, rather than on crafting new policies. Policy work is well advanced on a range of important climate issues, such as green finance, emissions trading and power market reform. In these areas (and others), what’s needed now is clear prioritisation, decision-making and resourcing rather than extensive further consultation.

This should all be supported by a clear governance structure, which combines central leadership with mature collaboration with businesses, regional and local government and civil society.

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteBethan Laughlin

Senior policy specialist, Zoological Society of London

Urgent action is required to prioritise climate adaptation and resilience to protect citizens, property, food systems, health and the environment from growing climate shocks. Adaptation must be integrated into all government policy decision-making processes with effective, ambitious, implementable and well-funded strategies. 

Appointing a climate adaptation and resilience minister to sit across Defra (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) and DESNZ is crucial for ensuring political attention, budget allocation and civil service resources.

Investment in nature-based adaptation approaches also offers cost-effective, high-impact action, providing adaptation and mitigation benefits alongside a wide range of societal and economic co-benefits.

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteDr Nina Skorupska CBE

Managing director of the Renewable Energy Association

Unblock the infrastructure and planning requirements for the renewable energy national, regional and local developments by establishing the NESO (National Energy Systems Operator) as quickly as possible and bang the energy and environmental regulators heads together to make sure their purposes and responsibilities are aligned and resources to regulate properly; we need delivery forces, not more task forces. 

There are enough “recommendations” out there that make good common energy and net-zero sense, including accelerating the REMA (review of electricity market arrangements) solutions. All done by mid 2025 to have a fighting chance for net-zero by 2030.

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteJenny Bird

Campaign manager, Grantham Institute, Imperial College London

Deliver an adaptation programme that is fit for purpose.

Climate change is already making UK extreme weather events more likely and more intense; the 2022 heatwave and winter storms earlier this year being two examples.

The third National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) “falls far short of what is needed” according to the Climate Change Committee. Strengthening adaptation action should be a top priority for a government that is seeking to deliver security and stability for people, communities and the economy.

We need to see a greater level of ambition, combined with a more strategic approach to managing complex climate risks, interdependencies between different sectors and our exposure to impacts elsewhere in the world (through global supply chains and other means).

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteAndrew Sissons

Deputy director, Nesta

A lot of attention will be focused on decarbonising electricity, but the real challenge will be on buildings. The UK is a long way behind where it needs to be on heating and it will be very hard to meet future carbon budgets without a rapid turnaround. 

The government needs a new approach. It needs to quickly rule out hydrogen for heat and clarify its plans on phase-out dates. It must make heat pumps more affordable, aiming for lifetime cost parity with boilers and rebalancing electricity levies. And it needs to build new state delivery capacity, with a new national heating agency and stronger local institutions.

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteCaterina Brandmayr

Director of policy and translation, Grantham Institute

With countries due to submit new nationally determined contributions (NDCs) ahead of COP30, it is vital to scale up action to put the world on track to deliver on the Paris Agreement’s goals.

The UK should help raise ambition globally by submitting an ambitious and credible 2035 NDC, alongside a strengthened 2030 NDC – setting out clear policies to deliver on the COP28 commitment of “transitioning away from fossil fuels”, stronger plans on adaptation, aligned with the new framework for the Global Goal on Adaptation and an ambitious climate finance contribution.

The UK should also champion ambitious, evidence-based climate policy at fora such as the G7, G20, the UN general assembly and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and it should be at the forefront of global efforts to scale up finance for climate action.

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteTessa Khan

Executive director, Uplift

The UK government must ensure that we accelerate our transition away from fossil fuels and that the transition is fundamentally fair, including through more affordable energy and good jobs.

As a first step, it needs to stop locking in our dependency on fossil fuels by rejecting any new oil and gas projects, building on its commitment to reject new licensing. Further, it needs to introduce processes, policies and investment so that the workforce and communities that have strong ties to the oil and gas sector benefit from the transition away from oil and gas production.

Lowering bills will take time, but short-term steps can be taken to help struggling households. This includes protecting vulnerable households by extending the warm homes discount, reducing energy debt and reforming standing charges.

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteRebecca Williams

Chief strategy officer, Offshore Wind, Global Wind Energy Council

It’s exciting to see the Labour party elected with a clear mandate to accelerate climate action and renewable energy. The priority should be unblocking investment in offshore wind.

Sending this strong signal on renewables will help the UK regain its position on international climate leadership, which is now focused on how to deliver the global tripling of renewables by 2030. The UK has been underperforming against its peers in this arena for quite some time, failing to make the most of its huge advantage when it comes to offshore wind.

The Global Wind Energy Council is looking forward to working with Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband to see the UK retake its climate leadership crown. 

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteLinda Kalcher

Executive director, Strategic Perspectives

The UK can reinforce its international leadership on power decarbonisation again and return as “best in the class” among the G7. The clean power by 2030 goal is ambitious, but a smart economic and security choice. It can lower the energy bills for households and businesses, as well as reduce the UK’s import dependence.

Electrification has untapped potential – in the transport, heating and industry sectors. Only fossil-free power can enable these sectors to actually decarbonise. Renewables are the cheapest and fastest clean power source to build domestically. There is untapped potential ranging from community energy to offshore wind parks.

With the G7 struggling to wean itself off fossil fuels, the time is right for the UK to step up and show how a clean power sector can be achieved by 2030.

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteSam Hall

Director, Conservative Environment Network

Labour’s stated top priority is power sector decarbonisation by 2030 through accelerated planning decisions. But the biggest climate policy gap in Labour’s manifesto was on how to decarbonise home heating. If we’re going to get on track to meeting our climate goals, wean ourselves off imported gas and deliver permanently lower energy bills, this arguably should be the top priority.

The previous government’s enhanced boiler upgrade scheme (BUS) has helped to drive the uptake of heat pumps in recent months and is an essential part of the policy mix. But confirmation of the clean heat market mechanism, extensions to permitted development rights for heat pumps, an extension of BUS funding in the spending review, and new mechanisms to unlock more private investment in retrofit and reforms to the retail energy market will also be needed.

Crucially, the new government must urgently rebalance levies from electricity to gas, to end the penalty on lower-carbon electricity and to encourage electrification, while protecting lower-income households reliant on gas boilers.

Back to top

Prof Kyle WhyteBen Nelmes

Chief executive, New AutoMotive

The top climate priority for this government to maintain momentum on UK emissions reductions will be to start seeing reductions from road transport emissions. Carbon emissions from road transport have been stubbornly flat in recent years, but significant reductions are required to meet the fourth and fifth carbon budgets, 2023-27 and 2028-32 respectively. 

Labour went into the election promising to restore the 2030 phase-out date for petrol and diesel vehicles, which had been the last government’s approach until September 2023. Between 2030 and 2035, new cars and vans can be sold if they have significant zero emission capability, which was envisaged to permit the sale of some plug-in and full hybrids during that time. Clarifying exactly what hybrids may be sold during this time is necessary to provide the car industry with clarity around the government’s plans.

Restoring certainty about cross-channel trade in electric vehicles is vital to the automotive industry transition in the UK, and must be an urgent priority for the UK government.

The government should take the experience with EU exports as a salutary lesson in the risk of having our EV exports hit by tariffs, and be very cautious about following Brussels and introducing tariffs on Chinese EVs.

The UK needs a motoring taxation that is fit for the day when 100% of the cars on the roads are fully electric, and the best time to act is now while there is a relatively small number of BEV cars around. Rather than seeking to find ways to simply replace revenue, the government should start by deciding what its transport strategy is for the UK, the role of vehicles in our economy and society, and a weighing exercise taking into account private and public costs and benefits.

The new Labour government has inherited a commitment without a plan: the UK needs to find a way to phase-out sales of fossil fuelled HGVs by 2035, yet there is no emissions standard or ZEV mandate to make this ambition a reality. The UK risks falling behind the EU, which has a new scheme for HGVs.

Misinformation and myths about electric vehicles are still deterring some consumers from considering the technology, despite the growing number of electric cars and vans on UK roads. The last government closed down the Go UltraLow campaign, which was supported by the automotive industry, and which sought to give consumers information about electric and low-emission cars on offer. The government should consider steps to make more factual and impartial information available to consumers about making the switch to electric vehicles. 

Back to top

The post Experts: What is the Labour government’s top priority for meeting UK climate targets? appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Experts: What is the Labour government’s top priority for meeting UK climate targets?

Continue Reading

Greenhouse Gases

Analysis: Reform-led councils threaten 6GW of solar and battery schemes across England

Published

on

Reform UK’s local-election victories in May 2025 could put 6 gigawatts (GW) of new clean-energy capacity at risk, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

The hard-right populist party took control of 10 English councils in last month’s local elections and has said it will use “every lever” to block new wind, solar and battery projects.

Those 10 areas have jurisdiction over 5,076 megawatts (MW) of battery schemes, 786MW of solar and 56MW of wind, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis of industry data.

While Reform has also pledged to “ban” battery systems, councils do not have direct control over these projects, which are determined by local planning authorities.

It could still influence local planning decisions, planning experts tell Carbon Brief.

However, this is likely to prove a “nuisance” with “limited effect” in terms of the government’s targets for clean power overall, according to one planning lawyer.

Opposing net-zero

Reform UK’s leaders are openly sceptical about the causes and consequences of human-caused climate change. The party is also explicitly opposed to the UK’s net-zero target, which, at a global level, is the only way to stop warming from getting worse, according to scientists.

The party has pledged to “scrap net-zero” if it ever takes power at the national level, falsely asserting that this would free up billions of pounds of public money for tax cuts and welfare programmes.

(Its assertions ignore the fact that the large majority of the investments needed to reach net-zero are expected to come from the private sector, rather than government funds. They also do not account for the economic benefits of lower fossil fuel use or avoided climate impacts. The party’s misleading claims have been widely dismissed by economists.)

Reform UK has also said it would “ban” battery storage projects and impose new taxes on solar and wind power installations.

As it stands, the party only has five MPs in parliament. However, its success in the recent English local elections and favourable polling numbers have raised its profile in UK politics and given it new powers in some areas.

To assess the potential impact of these new powers on clean-energy expansion, Carbon Brief looked at data for 10 local councils where Reform UK won overall control, shown in the map below, including Durham, Kent and Derbyshire, as well as two mayoralties.

Map showing the ten English county councils that Reform won in the local elections in May 2025. Source: ElectionMaps.

(The analysis does not include Warwickshire, where no party gained a majority in the elections. However, a subsequent vote saw the party’s local head selected to lead the county council. He has announced plans to “dumb down” net-zero initiatives in the county.)

Following the election, Richard Tice, Reform MP and deputy leader, said the party would use “every lever” available to block new renewable-energy projects in the areas it now controls.

At the heart of this commitment is Lincolnshire, the location of Tice’s own constituency, Boston and Skegness, which now also has a Reform-run council and a Reform mayor.

Richard Tice Reform MP on Twitter (@TiceRichard): Reform control the Mayoralty and County Council in Lincolnshire with myself as local MP If you are thinking of investing in solar farms, Battery storage systems, or trying to build pylons Think again We will fight you every step of the way We will win

The rural county is the site of several large-scale solar project proposals, which have faced a strong backlash from some local people.

This mirrors a wider trend of opposition to solar and battery projects by campaigners, who say they are concerned about, what they allege, could be the impact on the local countryside and farmers.

However, such views are not the norm. Survey data shows overwhelming public support for solar and other renewables across the UK, even if projects are built in people’s local areas.

Analysis by thinktank the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit also noted that by rejecting net-zero-related projects, Reform UK could threaten thousands of jobs and millions of pounds of investment in areas such as Lincolnshire.

Capacity at risk

In total, some 5,862MW of solar and storage capacity is currently seeking local planning authority planning approval across the 10 Reform-controlled councils, Carbon Brief’s analysis shows. This is broken down by council area in the figure below.

Horizontal bar chart: There is 6GW of solar and storage technologies seeking planning permission in Reform-controlled areas
Proposed solar and storage capacity awaiting local planning authority approval in Reform-controlled county council areas, MW. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of SolarPulse data.

This includes a series of smaller proposed solar farms, each with a capacity of less than 50MW, meaning they need local planning approval.

(The threshold for local planning approval, currently 50MW, is set to rise to 100MW in 2026.)

Solar farms above this capacity threshold go through the “nationally significant infrastructure planning” (NSIP) process. These large-scale projects are then assessed by energy secretary Ed Miliband, who can grant or deny a development consent order.

Local planning authorities (LPAs) are guided by the national planning policy framework (NPPF), rather than the politics of the county councils under which they sit.

However, the Reform-controlled councils overseeing these authorities will likely attempt to assert influence over approvals.

Gareth Phillips, partner at Pinsent Masons law firm and specialist in renewable energy planning and project development, tells Carbon Brief that, while county councils are not responsible for determining planning applications, they do have influence over the outcome.

He tells Carbon Brief:

“[Councils are an] important consultee, required to respond to statutory consultation…which gives the opportunity for county-council members to influence the planning decision…In the case of Reform, it is possible that its elected members may seek to rally support for opposing planning applications, perhaps leading campaigns against the proposals. The risk here is that it may give the perception of credence to opposing views.”

Phillips says that in addition to influencing planning authority decisions, county councils could issue new strategic planning guidelines for their areas. He explains:

“It will be for the LPA to decide what, if any, weight to place on the county council’s views, when determining the planning application. Over time, it’s possible that Reform-led county councils may propose so-called ‘core strategies’, i.e. planning documents setting out strategic level requirements and policy applicable to development proposals in its jurisdiction. Similarly, that policy would be a matter for the LPA to consider and decide how much weight to apply when determining planning applications.”

This risk is mitigated to some extent by the core strategies within the NPPF and the “national policy statements” for energy, he notes.

As such, while local planning authorities will be required to determine the approval or rejection of an application on the basis of wider policy considerations, Reform-led councils could still affect the decision. “Reform-led county councils would have a voice and opportunity to influence planning decisions,” says Philips.

Stand-alone battery energy-storage projects do not have a capacity cap for being processed by local planning authorities, following changes to the regulations in 2020.

However, a number of storage projects that are co-located with solar will be judged under the NSIP process, meaning councils will be unable to block their construction.

Solar strife

Carbon Brief’s analysis looks at projects that have submitted planning permission requests in the 10 Reform-controlled counties, using Solar Energy UK’s SolarPulse database for solar and storage. 

The analysis also covers relevant onshore wind projects, based on data from the government’s renewable energy planning database.

(Solar Energy UK notes that the SolarPulse database does not include solar projects with a capacity of less than 5MW.)

The analysis shows that there is 1,866MW of proposed solar capacity awaiting planning permission in Lincolnshire, by far the largest pipeline, as shown in the chart below.

The majority of this capacity is subject to national-level approval as it is above the NSIP threshold. Nevertheless, the county still has the most solar-power projects awaiting permission from the local planning authority, some 166MW.

Horizontal bar chart: Lincolnshire has the most solar in the pipeline, but the majority will be not be approved by local government
Capacity of proposed solar projects subject to planning decisions at national level (red) or local level (blue) across 10 Reform-run counties, MW. Source: Carbon Brief analysis of SolarPulse data.

(A key reason Lincolnshire dominates this picture for solar power development is due to grid capacity. The county was home to several large-scale coal-fired power plants, such as West Burton, which have shuttered in recent years as part of the UK’s transition away from coal. This means there is more capacity for new generators to connect to the grid in the county than in many others, where the system is currently more constrained.)

Overall, the bulk of the proposed capacity at risk is battery storage, which has seen a surge in applications and installations in recent years.

There was 5,013MW of battery storage capacity in operation as of December 2025 and another 5,115MW under construction, according to trade association RenewableUK. It says an additional 40,223MW had planning approval and a further 77,354MW was under development.

Impact of rejection

Overall, even if local planning authorities under the 10 Reform UK-run councils were to reject all of the nearly 6GW of proposed solar and storage capacity in their areas, it would have a limited impact on the UK’s wider solar, storage and wind targets.

If built, the 786MW of proposed solar would generate 757 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity. On average, a household in the UK uses 2,700 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity each year, meaning these solar farms would be able to power the equivalent of around 280,000 homes – some 1% of the national total.

If all of this proposed solar were rejected and the electricity were generated from gas-fired power stations instead, it would result in an extra 0.3m tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per year. (This is equivalent to less than a tenth of 1% of the UK’s annual total.)

In total, the potential 757GWh of solar power could help displace around £60m of gas per year, based on wholesale prices in 2025 to date.

Private investment could also be impacted. Each 1MW of solar would attract around £1m of investment, meaning the 786MW of capacity would bring roughly £786m into the Reform-led counties. This would have an impact on local supply chains and “community benefit” schemes.

Similarly, battery schemes with four hours of storage capacity also require around £1m of investment per megawatt. This means another £5bn of investment – some 5,076MW of capacity – could be at risk under Reform-led councils.

The total investment at risk for solar and storage is, therefore, close to £6bn.

While a large amount of potential new solar and storage capacity is being proposed in the Reform-led council areas and some could be put at risk as a result, it is also the case that some of these developments could fail for other reasons.

According to research from consultancy Cornwall Insight in February, the current battery storage “connection queue” is double the grid’s requirement for 2030. This means there are many more projects in the queue to gain access to the electricity network than needed.

The government’s plan for reaching its target of “clean power 2030” sets a guideline of 27GW of storage capacity by the end of this decade, whereas some 61GW of battery projects are seeking a grid connection over the same period.

This means the UK would have enough options to meet its 2030 storage requirements even if some proposed battery projects fail due to Reform-led councils, says Ed Porter, global director of industry for battery analysts Modo Energy. He tells Carbon Brief:

“With more than 50GW of battery projects with planning consent, projects could be targeted in Reform areas, but the UK would still have sufficient options to meet clean-power 2030 targets, subject to the achievable build out rate of storage projects.”

The main outcome of Reform-led refusals would be to block profitable projects that could reduce consumer costs and cut CO2 emissions, Porter adds.

Still, there is no guarantee that all of these projects – and the solar proposals – would have received planning permission if Reform UK had not been elected in the relevant areas.

According to figures from Solar Media Market Research, the local authority refusal rate for proposed solar-power projects rose to almost 25% in 2024, the highest on record. This is up from 15% in 2022 and 20% in 2023.

However, the majority of projects that are refused by local authorities still end up being approved. Over the past five years, some 80% of projects that went to appeal were subsequently approved, according to Solar Media. All 12 of the solar projects that have gone to appeal in 2025 to date have been approved.

Battery energy-storage refusals hit a high of 22% in 2024, according to Solar Media. However, in 2025 so far, this has dropped to 9%.

Connections challenge

Even if Reform UK-led councils are unable to block clean-energy developments outright, the party’s pledge to “fight [developers] every step of the way” could still make the process more challenging.

One key way this could hamper the development of renewable energy technologies is by forcing them to go through the appeals process, extending the time it takes to gain planning permission by as much as a year.

Following changes to the grid connections queue, new connection agreements include strict delivery deadlines for obtaining planning permission.

As such, if a project ends up going to appeal – and is, therefore, delayed – it could risk missing deadlines and having its grid connection agreement terminated.

Additionally, with the capacity limit for NSIPs set to change in December, more projects – solar projects between 50MW and 100MW – will go to local planning authorities for approval. This will increase the number that could be threatened by Reform UK’s influence.

Ultimately, though, there is limited renewable-energy capacity seeking planning permission in Reform-controlled counties, more than enough capacity in planning nationally to meet targets, plus the role of the council in what is – or is not – approved is limited.

Planning lawyer Philips concludes that Reform-led councils are only likely to cause a “nuisance”, with “limited effect”. He says:

“In summary, there is the potential for Reform-led county councils to cause a nuisance for renewable energy projects in the planning process, but this will be limited in effect.

“I’m not concerned about this because of the weight of policy support there is for those projects, which should serve to mitigate the influence Reform could otherwise have.”

The post Analysis: Reform-led councils threaten 6GW of solar and battery schemes across England appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Analysis: Reform-led councils threaten 6GW of solar and battery schemes across England

Continue Reading

Greenhouse Gases

DeBriefed 13 June 2025: Trump’s ‘biggest’ climate rollback; UK goes nuclear; How Carbon Brief visualises research

Published

on

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week

Trump’s latest climate rollback

RULES REPEALED: The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun dismantling Biden-era regulations limiting pollution from power plants, including carbon dioxide emissions, reported the Financial Times. Announcing the repeal, climate-sceptic EPA administrator Lee Zeldin labelled efforts to fight climate change a “cult”, according to the New York Times. Politico said that these actions are the “most important EPA regulatory actions of Donald Trump’s second term to date”.

WEBSITE SHUTDOWN: The Guardian reported that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Climate.gov website “will imminently no longer publish new content” after all production staff were fired. Former employees of the agency interviewed by the Guardian believe the cuts were “specifically aimed at restricting public-facing climate information”.

EVS TARGETED: The Los Angeles Times reported that Trump signed legislation on Thursday “seeking to rescind California’s ambitious auto emission standards, including a landmark rule that eventually would have barred sales of new gas-only cars in California by 2035”.

UK goes nuclear

NEW NUCLEAR: In her first spending review, UK chancellor Rachel Reeves announced £14.2bn for the Sizewell C new nuclear power plant in Suffolk, England – the first new state-backed nuclear power station for decades and the first ever under a Labour government, BBC News reported. The government also announced funding for three small nuclear reactors to be built by Rolls-Royce, said the Times. Carbon Brief has just published a chart showing the “rise, fall and rise” of UK nuclear.

MILIBAND REWARDED: The Times described energy secretary Ed Miliband as one of the “biggest winners” from the review. In spite of relentless negative reporting around him from right-leaning publications, his Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) received the largest relative increase in capital spending. Carbon Brief’s summary has more on all the key climate and energy takeaways from the spending review.

Around the world

  • UN OCEAN SUMMIT: In France, a “surge in support” brought the number of countries ratifying the High Seas Treaty to just 10 short of the 60 needed for the agreement to become international law, according to Sky News.
  • CALLING TRUMP: Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said he would “call” Trump to “persuade him” to attend COP30, according to Agence France-Presse. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that the country’s environmental agency has fast tracked oil and highway projects that threaten the Amazon.
  • GERMAN FOSSIL SURGE: Due to “low” wind levels, electricity generation from renewables in Germany fell by 17% in the first quarter of this year, while generation from fossil-fuel sources increased significantly, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
  • BATTERY BOOST: The power ministry in India announced 54bn rupees ($631m) in funding to build 30 gigawatt-hours of new battery energy storage systems to “ensure round-the-clock renewable energy capacities”, reported Money Control.

-19.3C

The temperature that one-in-10 London winters could reach in a scenario where a key Atlantic ocean current system “collapses” and global warming continues under “intermediate” emissions, according to new research covered by Carbon Brief.


Latest climate research

  • A study in Science Advances found that damage to coral reefs due to climate change will “outpace” reef expansion. It said “severe declines” will take place within 40-80 years, while “large-scale coral reef expansion requires centuries”.
  • Climatic Change published research which identified “displacement and violence, caregiving burdens, early marriages of girls, human trafficking and food insecurity” as the main “mental health” stressors exacerbated by climate change for women in lower and middle-income countries.
  • The weakening of a major ocean current system has partially offset the drying of the southern Amazon rainforest, research published in Environmental Research has found, demonstrating that climate tipping elements have the potential to moderate each other.

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

Aerosols have masked a substantial portion of historical warming. Chart for DeBriefed.

Aerosols – tiny light‑scattering particles produced mainly by burning fossil fuels – absorb or reflect incoming sunlight and influence the formation and brightness of clouds. In this way they have historically “acted as an invisible brake on global warming”. New Carbon Brief analysis by Dr Zeke Hausfather illustrated the extent to which a reduction in aerosol emissions in recent decades, while bringing widespread public health benefits through avoided deaths, has “unmasked” the warming caused by CO2 and other greenhouse gases. The chart above shows the estimated cooling effect of aerosols from the start of the industrial era until 2020.

Spotlight

How Carbon Brief turns complex research into visuals

This week, Carbon Brief’s interactive developer Tom Pearson explains how and why his team creates visuals from research papers.

Carbon Brief’s journalists will often write stories based on new scientific research or policy reports.

These documents will usually contain charts or graphics highlighting something interesting about the story. Sometimes, Carbon Brief’s visuals team will choose to recreate these graphics.

There are many reasons why we choose to spend time and effort doing this, but most often it can be boiled down to some combination of the following things.

Maintaining editorial and visual consistency

We want to, where possible, maintain editorial and visual consistency while matching our graphical and editorial style guides.

In doing this, we are trying to ease our audience’s reading experience. We hope that, by presenting a chart in a way that is consistent with Carbon Brief’s house style, readers will be able to concentrate on the story or the explanation we are trying to communicate and not the way that a chart might have been put together.

Highlighting relevant information

We want to highlight the part of a chart that is most relevant to the story.

Graphics in research papers, especially if they have been designed for a print context, often strive to illustrate many different points with a single figure.

We tend to use charts to answer a single question or provide evidence for a single point.

Paring charts back to their core “message”, removing extraneous elements and framing the chart with a clear editorial title helps with this, as the example below shows.

This before (above) and after (below) comparison shows how adding a title, removing extraneous detail and refining the colour palette can make a chart easier to parse.
This before (above) and after (below) comparison shows how adding a title, removing extraneous detail and refining the colour palette can make a chart easier to parse.

Ensuring audience understanding

We want to ensure our audience understands the “message” of the chart.

Graphics published in specialist publications, such as scientific journals, might have different expectations regarding a reader’s familiarity with the subject matter and the time they might be expected to spend reading an article.

If we can redraw a chart so that it meets the expectations of a more general audience, we will.

Supporting multiple contexts

We want our graphics to make sense in different contexts.

While we publish our graphics primarily in articles on our website, the nature of the internet means that we cannot guarantee that this is how people will encounter them.

Charts are often shared on social media or copy-pasted into presentations. We want to support these practices by including as much context relevant to understanding within the chart image as possible.

Below illustrates how adding a title and key information can make a chart easier to understand without supporting information.

This before (left) and after (right) comparison shows how including key information within the body of the graphic can help it to function outside the context of its original research paper.
This before (left) and after (right) comparison shows how including key information within the body of the graphic can help it to function outside the context of its original research paper.

When we do not recreate charts

When will we not redraw a chart? Most of the time! We are a small team and recreating data graphics requires time, effort, accessible data and often specialist software.

But, despite these constraints, when the conditions are right, the process of redrawing maps and charts allows us to communicate more clearly with our readers, transforming complex research into accessible visual stories.

Watch, read, listen

SPENDING $1BN ON CLIMATE: New Scientist interviewed Greg de Temmerman, former nuclear physicist turned chief science officer at Quadrature Climate Foundation, about the practicalities and ethics of philanthropic climate-science funding.

GENDER HURDLES: Research director Tracy Kajumba has written for Climate Home News about the barriers that women still face in attending and participating in COPs.

OCEAN HEATWAVES: The New York Times presented a richly illustrated look at how marine heatwaves are spreading across the globe and how they affect life in the oceans.

Coming up

Pick of the jobs

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

The post DeBriefed 13 June 2025: Trump’s ‘biggest’ climate rollback; UK goes nuclear; How Carbon Brief visualises research appeared first on Carbon Brief.

DeBriefed 13 June 2025: Trump’s ‘biggest’ climate rollback; UK goes nuclear; How Carbon Brief visualises research

Continue Reading

Greenhouse Gases

Chart: The rise, fall and rise of UK nuclear power over eight decades

Published

on

The UK’s chancellor Rachel Reeves gave the green light this week to the Sizewell C new nuclear plant in Suffolk, along with funding for “small modular reactors” (SMRs) and nuclear fusion.

In her spending review of government funding across the rest of this parliament, Reeves pledged £14.2bn for Sizewell C, £2.5bn for Rolls-Royce SMRs and £2.5bn for fusion research.

The UK was a pioneer in civilian nuclear power – opening the world’s first commercial reactor at Calder Hall in Cumbria in 1956 – which, ultimately, helped to squeeze out coal generation.

Over the decades that followed, the UK’s nuclear capacity climbed to a peak of 12.2 gigawatts (GW) in 1995, while electricity output from the fleet of reactors peaked in 1998.

The chart below shows the contribution of each of the UK’s nuclear plants to the country’s overall capacity, according to when they started and stopped operating.

The reactors are dotted around the UK’s coastline, where they can take advantage of cooling seawater, and many sites include multiple units coded with numbers or letters.

UK nuclear capacity, 1955-2100, gigawatts. Individual plants are shown separately. Source: World Nuclear Association and Carbon Brief analysis.
UK nuclear capacity, 1955-2100, gigawatts. Individual plants are shown separately. Source: World Nuclear Association and Carbon Brief analysis.

Since Sizewell B was completed in 1995, however, no new nuclear plants have been built – and, as the chart above shows, capacity has ebbed away as older reactors have gone out of service.

After a lengthy hiatus, the Hinkley C new nuclear plant in Somerset was signed off in 2016. It is now under construction and expected to start operating by 2030 at the earliest.

(Efforts to secure further new nuclear schemes at Moorside in Cumbria failed in 2017, while projects led by Hitachi at Wylfa on Anglesey and Oldbury in Gloucestershire collapsed in 2019.)

The additional schemes just given the go-ahead in Reeves’s spending review would – if successful – somewhat revive the UK’s nuclear capacity, after decades of decline.

However, with the closure of all but one of the UK’s existing reactors due by 2030, nuclear-power capacity would remain below its 1995 peak, unless further projects are built.

Moreover, with the UK’s electricity demand set to double over the next few decades, as transport, heat and industry are increasingly electrified, nuclear power is unlikely to match the 29% share of generation that it reached during the late 1990s.

There is an aspirational goal – set under former Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson – for nuclear to supply “up to” a quarter of the UK’s electricity in 2050, with “up to” 24GW of capacity.

Assuming Sizewell B continues to operate until 2055 and that Hinkley C, Sizewell C and at least three Rolls-Royce SMRs are all built, this would take UK capacity back up to 9.0GW.

Methodology

The chart is based on data from the World Nuclear Association, with known start dates for operating and retired reactors, as well as planned closure dates announced by operator EDF.

The timeline for new reactors to start operating – and assumed 60-year lifetime – is illustrative, based on published information from EDF, Rolls-Royce, the UK government and media reports.

The post Chart: The rise, fall and rise of UK nuclear power over eight decades appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Chart: The rise, fall and rise of UK nuclear power over eight decades

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2022 BreakingClimateChange.com