Published

3 months ago

May 7, 2025

Alice Rush

Standing inside a purpose-built laboratory at the University of Salford is a red-brick terraced house. At first glance, it looks just like the thousands of homes that line the streets beyond in the northern English city of Manchester.

But this is Energy House 1, located on Joule Terrace, and it has been designed by scientists researching what Britain’s dreams of an all-electric, net zero future might look like in reality.

The house, and its successor Energy House 2, have been used to test an array of technologies – from smart meters to thermal paints – combined with detailed modelling to understand their real world implications.

As countries race to wean their economies off fossil fuels and reduce their carbon emissions to net zero by mid-century, switching to electricity in homes and transportation looks like a relatively easy win.

Ageing gas boilers can be replaced with a heat pump to warm radiators and water tanks, for example. And millions of vehicles powered by petrol and diesel can be switched out for electric vehicles (EVs).

Yet the extent to which that shift contributes to a green energy transition will depend on the level of renewables and other clean energy sources adopted by each country.

How can we create the net zero buildings of tomorrow?

‘Age of electricity’

Globally, power generation from solar panels and wind turbines increased at a record pace in 2024, an annual review by the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows. That was thanks to a rapid rate of new renewables installation, while nuclear power output was boosted by new projects and the restarting of reactors in France and Japan.

But electricity generation from fossil gas and coal kept growing and, overall, fossil fuels still represented 60% of the global electricity mix last year.

Soaring use of cooling technologies like air conditioning in response to extreme heat was a key factor in the growing appetite for electricity, especially in China and India, which are heavy users of coal power, the IEA said.

Growing electricity consumption by industry, the rollout of electric vehicles and the expansion of data centres also drove power demand, it added.

Rising gas and coal use fuelled a 0.8% increase in global carbon dioxide emissions generated by the energy sector in 2024, the IEA said – but trends varied widely across regions.

Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, noted that “even though oil and gas will remain essential energy carriers, we hear the footsteps of the age of electricity coming”.

Governments need holistic vision

Despite this expectation of a fundamental shift in how economies are run, electrification as a goal in itself is often neglected in governments’ climate plans, according to Richard Black, director of policy and strategy at Ember, a UK-based energy think-tank.

“Electrification as a concept is something that’s only really talked about by energy analysts,” he said.

“Governments don’t think in these terms. They think about electric cars or heating, or green steel. They don’t necessarily have a holistic vision of why it makes sense to consider all these sectors together, and how you would plan your electricity system expansion alongside that,” he added.

April’s massive power outage across Spain and Portugal was a reminder of the challenges of growing dependence on electricity, as transport networks and businesses were severely disrupted. While the cause is still being investigated, there have been calls for investment in national grid infrastructure and storage to ensure increases in electricity capacity can be managed appropriately – a challenge that is not limited to the Iberian peninsula.

In the Global South, meanwhile, some 750 million people still live without access to electric power – mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the IEA. That is putting the brakes on ambitious plans to boost EV adoption on the continent, especially in remote rural areas.

Electricity demand surges, expanding renewables and fossil fuels in 2024

Electric vehicles catch up

Despite such issues, vast strides have already been made on electrification globally, Black said, noting that researchers have dubbed China the world’s first major “electrostate”, having electrified by 10 percentage points per decade.

Crucially, the new clean industries leading the electrification charge will allow governments to meet their climate targets while offering the public the promise of economic growth and green jobs.

The boom in EVs over the last decade is a case in point.

EVs aren’t new. In the early 20th century, they were in widespread use in US cities, with up to 30,000 EVs in operation at their peak. This was followed by a short, sharp decline as cheaper and longer-range petrol cars came to dominate.

In 2010, EVs made up less than 1% of all car sales worldwide.

But by the end of 2024, global sales of EVs had reached 17 million units, an increase of 25% on the previous year, according to data firm Rho Motion. Separate figures put the total number of global car sales at 75 million during the year.

The shift to EVs has been supported by strong government incentives such as subsidies – in places such as Norway, these policies helped new EV sales reach 89% of all car sales last year.

Alongside tax exemptions, Norwegian EV drivers have in the past enjoyed perks such as access to bus lanes, free municipal parking and zero charges on toll roads.

Clear emissions targets and the threat of fines have played a role in pushing European manufacturers to go electric. Across the European Union, CO2 targets for new vehicles are coming into force in 2025, which, although recently watered down, still have the ultimate goal of reaching zero emissions by 2035.

“The EU’s green policies are beginning to bite,” William Todts, executive director at the climate advocacy group Transport & Environment, told Climate Home. “Thanks to the switch to EVs, we are starting to see a structural decline in transport emissions.”

“Now is not the time to roll back green measures. For the continent’s prosperity and security, now is the time to double down,” he added.

Heat pump race

In the lab at the University of Salford, researchers put the Energy House through its paces by recreating the gamut of British weather conditions – from torrential rain to temperatures from minus 13 degrees Celsius (8.6 Fahrenheit) to 30C (86F).

The weather simulations allow researchers to test the effectiveness of technologies such as battery storage, heat pumps and ‘V2G’, or vehicle-to-grid, where power stored in an EV can send electricity back to the national grid in times of need.

One of their recent studies found heat pumps are successful at meeting the hot water demands of an average UK household, even under challenging winter conditions.

Many countries are betting on pumps that suck in heat from the air, ground or water to heat homes and other buildings as a way to cut their emissions. Over 40% of buildings in Sweden and Finland, for example, contain heat pumps, and North America has the largest number of homes with one.

Britain, which has lagged its European neighbours, has a target to install 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028 – 10 times the current number of annual installations.

France has already hit over 600,000 units installed a year, and Poland, Italy and Germany have all reached similar numbers. As with EVs, the right government policies are vital to ensuring take-up, energy experts said.

“In the UK the principal problems are the relatively high costs of heat pumps and the electricity-to-gas price ratio,” said Professor Rob Gross, director at the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), calling for policies to reduce electricity prices, change how energy tariffs are structured, and cut gas dependence which often dictates prices.

High installation costs are also an obstacle. Industry estimates put the average cost at between $3,000 and $6,000, but in some markets it can be much higher, and significantly so when compared to a boiler fired by natural gas.

Rain being simulated at Energy House 1. Image credit: University of Salford

Tariffs and tensions

Another potential obstacle for clean power advocates is the dramatic US climate policy shift under President Donald Trump and his import tariffs, which have sparked a trade war with China that threatens to bring in other countries too.

This disruption – especially if it leads to rising prices for clean energy equipment, a market dominated by China – could lead policymakers to think twice about the need to electrify their economies.

At a recent global energy summit in London, a Trump administration official criticised renewables, arguing they cause power cuts and increase reliance on China.

But Black said heightened international trade tensions mean governments “should be thinking logically about energy security”.

“The only way for most countries to become totally energy secure is through renewables,” he said. “There’s no obstacle to really forging ahead with the transition.”

Adam Wentworth is a freelance writer based in Brighton, UK

The post Is electrification a no-brainer in the race to net-zero? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Is electrification a no-brainer in the race to net-zero?

Climate Change

New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit

Published

6 hours ago

August 15, 2025

Alice Rush

The specter of a “gas-for-wind” compromise between the governor and the White House is drawing the ire of residents as a deadline looms.

By Deep Vakil

Hundreds of New Yorkers rallied against new natural gas pipelines in their state as a deadline loomed for the public to comment on a revived proposal to expand the gas pipeline that supplies downstate New York.

New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit

Climate Change

Factcheck: Trump’s climate report includes more than 100 false or misleading claims

Published

1 day ago

August 14, 2025

Alice Rush

A “critical assessment” report commissioned by the Trump administration to justify a rollback of US climate regulations contains at least 100 false or misleading statements, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists.

The report – “A critical review of impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the US climate” – was published by the US Department of Energy (DoE) on 23 July, just days before the government laid out plans to revoke a scientific finding used as the legal basis for emissions regulation.

The executive summary of the controversial report inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed”.

It also states misleadingly that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”.

Compiled in just two months by five “independent” researchers hand-selected by the climate-sceptic US secretary of energy Chris Wright, the document has sparked fierce criticism from climate scientists, who have pointed to factual errors, misrepresentation of research, messy citations and the cherry-picking of data.

Experts have also noted the authors’ track record of promoting views at odds with the mainstream understanding of climate science.

Wright’s department claims the report – which is currently open to public comment as part of a 30-day review – underwent an “internal peer-review period amongst [the] DoE’s scientific research community”.

The report is designed to provide a scientific underpinning to one flank of the Trump administration’s plans to rescind a finding that serves as the legal prerequisite for federal emissions regulation. (The second flank is about legal authority to regulate emissions.)

The “endangerment finding” – enacted by the Obama administration in 2009 – states that six greenhouse gases are contributing to the net-negative impacts of climate change and, thus, put the public in danger.

In a press release on 29 July, the US Environmental Protection Agency said “updated studies and information” set out in the new report would “challenge the assumptions” of the 2009 finding.

Carbon Brief asked a wide range of climate scientists, including those cited in the “critical review” itself, to factcheck the report’s various claims and statements.

The post Factcheck: Trump’s climate report includes more than 100 false or misleading claims appeared first on Carbon Brief.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-trumps-climate-report-includes-more-than-100-false-or-misleading-claims/

Climate Change

Cropped 13 August 2025: Fossil-fuelled bird decline; ‘Deadly’ wildfires; Empty nature fund

Published

2 days ago

August 13, 2025

Alice Rush

We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

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

Key developments

‘Deadly’ wildfires

WINE BRAKE: France experienced its “largest wildfire in decades”, which scorched more than 16,000 hectares in the country’s southern Aude region, the Associated Press said. “Gusting winds” fanned the flames, Reuters reported, but local winemakers and mayors also “blam[ed] the loss of vineyards”, which can act as a “natural, moisture-filled brake against wildfires”, for the fire’s rapid spread. It added that thousands of hectares of vineyards were removed in Aude over the past year. Meanwhile, thousands of people were evacuated from “deadly” wildfires in Spain, the Guardian said, with blazes ongoing in other parts of Europe.

MAJOR FIRES: Canada is experiencing its second-worst wildfire season on record, CBC News reported. More than 7.3m hectares burned in 2025, “more than double the 10-year average for this time of year”, the broadcaster said. The past three fire seasons were “among the 10 worst on record”, CBC News added. Dr Mike Flannigan from Thompson Rivers University told the Guardian: “This is our new reality…The warmer it gets, the more fires we see.” Elsewhere, the UK is experiencing a record year for wildfires, with more than 40,000 hectares of land burned so far in 2025, according to Carbon Brief.

Sign up to Carbon Brief’s free “Cropped” email newsletter. A fortnightly digest of food, land and nature news and views. Sent to your inbox every other Wednesday.

WESTERN US: The US state of Colorado has recorded one of its largest wildfires in history in recent days, the Guardian said. The fire “charred” more than 43,300 hectares of land and led to the temporary evacuation of 179 inmates from a prison, the newspaper said. In California, a fire broke out “during a heatwave” and burned more than 2,000 hectares before it was contained, the Los Angeles Times reported. BBC News noted: “Wildfires have become more frequent in California, with experts citing climate change as a key factor. Hotter, drier conditions have made fire seasons longer and more destructive.”

FIRE FUNDING: “Worsening fires” in the Brazilian Amazon threaten new rainforest funding proposals due to be announced at the COP30 climate summit later this year, experts told Climate Home News. The new initiatives include the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, which the outlet said “aims to generate a flow of international investment to pay countries annually in proportion to their preserved tropical forests”. The outlet added: “If fires in the Amazon continue to worsen in the years to come, eligibility for funding could be jeopardised, Brazil’s environment ministry acknowledged.”

Farming impacts

OUT OF ORBIT: US president Donald Trump moved to “shut down” two space missions which monitor carbon dioxide and plant health, the Associated Press reported. Ending these NASA missions would “potentially shu[t] off an important source of data for scientists, policymakers and farmers”, the outlet said. Dr David Crisp, a retired NASA scientist, said the missions can detect the “glow” of plant growth, which the outlet noted “helps monitor drought and predict food shortages that can lead to civil unrest and famine”.

FARM EXTREMES: Elsewhere, Reuters said that some farmers are considering “abandoning” a “drought-hit” agricultural area in Hungary as “climate change cuts crop yields and reduces groundwater levels”. Scientists warned that rising temperatures and low rainfall threaten the region’s “agricultural viability”, the newswire added. Meanwhile, the Premium Times in Nigeria said that some farmers are “harvest[ing] crops prematurely” due to flooding fears. A community in the south-eastern state of Imo “has endured recurrent floods, which wash away crops and incomes alike” over the past decade, the newspaper noted.

SECURITY RISKS: Food supply chains in the UK face “escalating threats from climate impacts and the migration they are triggering”, according to a report covered by Business Green. The outlet said that £3bn worth of UK food imports originated from the 20 countries “with the highest numbers of climate-driven displacements” in 2024, based on analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. The analysis highlighted that “climate impacts on food imports pose a threat to UK food security”. Elsewhere, an opinion piece in Dialogue Earth explored how the “role of gender equity in food security remains critically unaddressed”.

Spotlight

Fossil-fuelled bird decline

This week, Carbon Brief covers a new study tracing the impact of fossil-fuelled climate change on tropical birds.

Over the past few years, biologists have recorded sharp declines in bird numbers across tropical rainforests – even in areas untouched by humans – with the cause remaining a mystery.

A new study published this week in Nature Ecology and Evolution could help to shed light on this alarming phenomenon.

The research combined ecological and climate attribution techniques for the first time to trace the fingerprint of fossil-fuelled climate change on declining bird populations.

It found that an increase in heat extremes driven by climate change has caused tropical bird populations to decline by 25-38% in the period 1950-2020, when compared to a world without warming.

In their paper, the authors noted that birds in the tropics could be living close to their “thermal limits”.

Study lead author Dr Maximilian Kotz, a climate scientist at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain, explained to Carbon Brief:

“High temperature extremes can induce direct mortality in bird populations due to hyperthermia and dehydration. Even when they don’t [kill birds immediately], there’s evidence that this can then affect body condition which, in turn, affects breeding behaviour and success.”

Conservation implications

The findings have “potential ramifications” for commonly proposed conservation strategies, such as increasing the amount of land in the tropics that is protected for nature, the authors said. In their paper, they continued:

“While we do not disagree that these strategies are necessary for abating tropical habitat loss…our research shows there is now an additional urgent need to investigate strategies that can allow for the persistence of tropical species that are vulnerable to heat extremes.”

In some parts of the world, scientists and conservationists are looking into how to protect wildlife from more intense and frequent climate extremes, Kotz said.

He referenced one project in Australia which is working to protect threatened wildlife following periods of extreme heat, drought and bushfires.

Prof Alex Pigot, a biodiversity scientist at University College London (UCL), who was not involved in the research, said the findings reinforced the need to systematically monitor the impact of extreme weather on wildlife. He told Carbon Brief:

“We urgently need to develop early warning systems to be able to anticipate in advance where and when extreme heatwaves and droughts are likely to impact populations – and also rapidly scale up our monitoring of species and ecosystems so that we can reliably detect these effects.”

There is further coverage of this research on Carbon Brief’s website.

News and views

EMPTY CALI FUND: A major voluntary fund for biodiversity remains empty more than five months after its launch, Carbon Brief revealed. The Cali Fund, agreed at the COP16 biodiversity negotiations last year, was set up for companies who rely on nature’s resources to share some of their earnings with the countries where many of these resources originate. Big pharmaceutical companies did not take up on opportunities to commit to contributing to the fund or be involved in its launch in February 2025, emails released to Carbon Brief showed. Just one US biotechnology firm has pledged to contribute to the fund in the future.

LOSING HOPE: Western Australia’s Ningaloo reef – long considered a “hope spot” among the country’s coral reefs for evading major bleaching events – is facing its “worst-ever coral bleaching”, Australia’s ABC News reported. The ocean around Ningaloo has been “abnormally” warm since December, resulting in “unprecedented” bleaching and mortality, a research scientist told the outlet. According to marine ecologist Dr Damian Thomson, “up to 50% of the examined coral was dead in May”, the Sydney Morning Herald said. Thomson told the newspaper: “You realise your children are probably never going to see Ningaloo the way you saw it.”

‘DEVASTATION BILL’: Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, signed a “contentious” environmental bill into law, but “partially vetoed” some of the widely criticised elements, the Financial Times reported. Critics, who dubbed it the “devastation bill”, said it “risked fuelling deforestation and would harm Brazil’s ecological credentials” just months before hosting the COP30 climate summit. The newspaper said: “The leftist leader struck down or altered 63 of 400 provisions in the legislation, which was designed to speed up and modernise environmental licensing for new business and infrastructure developments.” The vetoes need to be approved by congress, “where Lula lacks a majority”, the newspaper noted.

RAINFOREST DRILLING: The EU has advised the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) against allowing oil drilling in a vast stretch of rainforest and peatland that was jointly designated a “green corridor” earlier this year, Climate Home News reported. In May, the DRC announced that it planned to open the conservation area for drilling, the publication said. A spokesperson for the European Commission told Climate Home News that the bloc “fully acknowledges and respects the DRC’s sovereign right to utilise its diverse resources for economic development”, but that it “highlights the fact that green alternatives have facilitated the protection of certain areas”.

NEW PLAN FOR WETLANDS: During the 15th meeting of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, held in Zimbabwe from 23 to 31 July, countries agreed on the adoption of a new 10-year strategic plan for conserving and sustainably using the world’s wetlands. Down to Earth reported that 13 resolutions were adopted, including “enhancing monitoring and reporting, capacity building and mobilisation of resources”. During the talks, Zimbabwe’s environment minister announced plans to restore 250,000 hectares of degraded wetlands by 2030 and Saudi Arabia entered the Convention on Wetlands. Panamá will host the next COP on wetlands in July 2028.

MEAT MADNESS: DeSmog covered the details of a 2021 public relations document that revealed how the meat industry is trying to “make beef seem climate-friendly”. The industry “may have enlisted environmental groups to persuade people to ‘feel better’ about eating beef”, the outlet said, based on this document. The strategy was created by a communications agency, MHP Group, and addressed to the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef. One of the key messages of the plan was to communicate the “growing momentum in the beef industry to protect and nurture the Earth’s natural resources”. MHP Group did not respond to a request for comment, according to DeSmog.

Watch, read, listen

MAKING WAVES: A livestream of deep-sea “crustaceans, sponges and sea cucumbers” has “captivated” people in Argentina, the New York Times outlined.

BAFFLING BIRDS: The Times explored the backstory to the tens of thousands of “exotic-looking” parakeets found in parks across Britain.

PLANT-BASED POWER: In the Conversation, Prof Paul Behrens outlined how switching to a plant-based diet could help the UK meet its climate and health targets.

MARINE DISCRIMINATION: Nature spoke to a US-based graduate student who co-founded Minorities in Shark Science about her experiences of racism and sexism in the research field.

New science

Applying biochar – a type of charcoal – to soils each year over a long period of time can have “sustained benefits for crop yield and greenhouse gas mitigation”, according to a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study.
New research, published in PLOS Climate, found that nearly one-third of highly migratory fish species in the US waters of the Atlantic Ocean have “high” or “very high” vulnerability to climate change, but the majority of species have “some level of resilience and adaptability”.
A study in Communications Earth & Environment found a “notable greening trend” in China’s wetlands over 2000-23, with an increasing amount of carbon being stored in the plants growing there.