Prof Penny Endersby has been chief executive of the UK Met Office since December 2018.
She took the reins at the UK’s climate and weather service after more than two decades working in the science and technology department of the Ministry of Defence.
Endersby has led the Met Office during a critical period which has seen record-breaking heat in the UK, an intensification of extreme weather around the world and a resurgence in attacks on climate science.
At the same time, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have started to transform climate modelling and the Met Office has switched on a cloud-based “supercomputer” dedicated to improving weather and climate science.
- On how working on defence is like climate change: “There are more scientific parallels than you would think. Armour modelling is computational fluid dynamics modelling, like weather modelling.”
- On her previous interest in climate change: “I am naturally a sort of geeky, evidence-based person. I actually had kept 10 years of rain gauge records in Wiltshire – just because I was interested – before I ever thought about this job.”
- On how the Met Office informs UK climate-change preparations: “Our core bit is on preparing other people to make the decisions on what to expect. So we do the science of the climate projections that says: ‘Where might we be in 2030, 2050, 2100 under different emission scenarios?’”
- On the aspect of UK climate change that concerns her most: “The one that probably keeps me awake at night is the flash flooding – the surface water flooding from very localised torrential rainfall events, because those are the hardest to model.”
- On the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C temperature limit: “It is theoretically possible we stay within 1.5C, but it’s going to require action that’s never been seen and doesn’t look like it’s coming.”
- On geoengineering: “There’s nothing regulating [it] globally. So other people may do it – whether we advocate [for] it or not. So, we do think it is the right thing to do to understand what the impacts of it could be [so as] to be able to detect it if other people do it.”
- On carbon removal techniques: “The best way to get carbon out of the atmosphere is still a tree…The next easiest thing is direct carbon capture…The other techniques – I think they’re worth investigating, but they’re not going to be available at scale in the times that we need.”
- On budget cuts to the US weather and climate service: “I think the actual impact on funding, so far, has not been as severe as some of the news stories have said – because their role is just as fundamental to the operation of the state as ours is.”
- On the reach of the IPCC’s big assessment reports: “I think, in many ways, our best hope now lies in the global financial system. They’re not very altruistic, but they are very rational and they do use the best evidence… And, if the money sends them into different investments or different insurance strategies – that is still going to be based on the evidence that comes out of the IPCC.”
- On the evolution of climate misinformation: “I think the climate data is now so stark, that anyone who looks at the data at all can see that we’re in unprecedented times. [But] what has happened, to my grief and distress, has been people now attacking the trusted sources of data. And in the UK – that’s us.”
- On how the Met Office deals with misinformation: “We have had to become – per force – experts in countering misinformation and disinformation, and, really, to an extent, quite thought-leading in government and in convening cross-government networks to deal with this.”
- On social media attacks on the Met Office: “The aggression that some of our media-facing people face online [and] the really vile hostility which often quite junior staff are dealing with – that definitely is something where we have to take care of and look after people.”
- On personal attacks on social media: “It can be painful, but you really have to rise above it. And when it’s a woman, there’s always a generous salting of misogyny in there as well.”
- On claims about the inaccuracy of Met Office temperature readings: “Just to be clear, the claims are baseless…Everything we do is to the required standards.”
- On potential applications for AI in climate science: “AI for climate change is relatively new – and the challenge is always, what’s the training data set? Because you don’t have the training data set for climate that hasn’t happened yet.”
- On the Met Office’s work with AI: “Our strategy is to go for the best blend of conventional and AI modelling – but we’re still working out what we think that best blend will be.”
- On the Met Office’s first cloud-based supercomputer: “It needs to be [in the cloud], because the amazing, fantastic, wonderful data that we have – [and] on which all of these products and AI is built – is now so big you can’t move it. We have about half an exabyte of data.”
Carbon Brief: Hi Penny. Thanks for joining us. To start off, I wanted to ask: previous to becoming the chief executive of the Met Office, you worked for the science and technology arm of the Ministry of Defence. How did that role prepare you for your current position – and in what ways is working on climate change like defence?
Penny Endersby: I think the whole of that 25-year career as a scientific civil servant prepared me for my current position. And I started off being a researcher myself in armour and explosives, and then leading scientists in larger and larger chunks. My final role was as head of the cyber information division of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL). I was on the board of DSTL as well.
There are more scientific parallels than you would think. Armour modelling is computational fluid dynamics modelling, like weather modelling. I was responsible for big data and AI. I was responsible for space. So, there was lots of crossover. But the main thing was leading the experts and the people who are passionately committed to making lives better through science. That was the biggest crossover with what I do now.
CB: Why did you want to work for the Met Office?
PE: I have to say being chief executive of the Met Office was completely my dream job. I had actually applied to be chief executive of DSTL, very much on a punt, not long before. I got further than I expected – I got down to the last four, but I wasn’t successful. I had good feedback that went [along the lines of]: “Yeah, try again sometime.”
And then the Met Office [job] came up, and it had just had everything I wanted: a mission that I really cared about, doing something valuable, the scientific content, staying a civil servant and working for the government. [And] not being in London, because I am a great lover of the country. I moved from Wiltshire to Devon to take this job. [It was also] a promotion.
It just was the complete package. I gave getting the job everything.
CB: Why did you start becoming interested in climate change? I don’t know if you remember a particular moment or event?
PE: I was interested in [the] weather [and] the natural world from childhood. So I have always been a naturalist. I am naturally a sort of geeky, evidence-based person. I actually had kept 10 years of rain gauge records in Wiltshire – just because I was interested – before I ever thought about this job.
Although I was concerned about climate change and I knew the basics, I didn’t really study it until I got to this job and then was leading the organisation with the Hadley Centre [the Met Office’s climate research centre] in it, with amazing climate scientists and amazing climate science. So that seven years has been a journey of building my knowledge and my expertise.
CB: The Met Office has a mandate to help people make decisions and stay safe and thrive through its weather services. So could you just tell us a little bit about how the Met Office is equipping citizens for the current and future climate?
PE: You are right, that is our purpose – helping you make better decisions to stay safe and thrive. And it is weather and climate.
So on the “staying safe” side, that goes from everything from severe weather warnings in the shorter term, through to [longer-term] making decisions about what flood defences you are needing in the future. And that’s not [directed at] citizens – that’s [directed at] policymakers.
And on the “thrive” side, as well, it might be as simple as, “am I going to go for a run or hang washing out?” [when it comes to] weather timeframes. On climate timeframes, it is about making sure that we have got built infrastructure that enables us thrive in a changing climate, whether that is houses that don’t overheat or green spaces that cool down our urban centres – all those things.
CB: And in terms of preparing for that infrastructure, could you explain a bit more about how the Met Office actually does that?
PE: So our core bit is on preparing other people to make the decisions on what to expect. So we do the science of the climate projections that says: “Where might we be in 2030, 2050, 2100 under different emission scenarios?” [We ask] what does that look like globally and in the UK? We need to know that for our food security and border security and energy security – and nationally, in detail, in the UK.
And then, it is other people who will take that information and decide what to do with it. So, on the adaptation side, we’re really informing other people’s decisions.
CB: Other people being the government…?
PE: It could be local authorities. We have local authority climate dashboards for local authorities to look at how climate change is going to [impact them]. I did notice that Bermondsey, where we are right now, is right at the peak of the bit of London that is expected to be under water – the floodiest bit of London going forward and the hardest to protect.
And then it could be big national decision-makers. I’ll give you a completely different example. If we’re going to have a renewable energy system in the future, the weather we [are having] today is the worst possible weather for renewable energy. It could be cold as well, but it is dull and still. So, [there is] not much wind, not much solar. How long could that wind drought go on and how long could it persist when it’s also cold and there’s a high heating demand? So, we do the modelling that helps the National Energy System Operator plan for how much capacity they need in different weather scenarios and climate scenarios in the future.
CB: What aspects of current or projected climate change in the UK concern you most?
PE: I think the biggest concern is the flooding. And it’s all the sorts of flooding – [including] the coastal flooding from higher sea level [and] the river flooding from extreme rainfall.
The one that probably keeps me awake at night is the flash flooding – the surface water flooding from very localised torrential rainfall events, because those are the hardest to model. The smaller the scale of a phenomenon, the more difficult it is for us to model well in advance.
And yet we know – and we have seen – we have had a few very near misses in this country with the kind of things that affected Valencia or Germany, or that terrible Texas event – very rapid river rises from torrential downpours.
And it’s not just [about the Met Office] getting the rainfall [warnings] right. Our managing director for this area described [these preparations] as a “team sport”. So, we have to get the rainfall right, the hydrological people, jointly with us, have to get the flooding right, the whole of the response system has to respond to understand what’s going to happen. People have to get out and often in maybe only a couple of hours. Whereas for a great big winter storm, we might be giving seven or eight days notice.
CB: Thinking a bit more globally, a new report from a research group based at [the University of] Exeter suggests that a climate tipping point for warm water corals has already been crossed. What does the prospects of these tipping points mean for the work of climate scientists?
PE: It presents us with lots of new challenges, I think.
If there was one thing that shocked me most, going back to the beginning of my time at the Met Office, it was just how long we have known about the fundamentals of climate science – like, 150 years. I had not realised that our understanding of the greenhouse effect and the rough idea of climate sensitivity went back so far. And we have been really well able to understand and project that, really for my whole lifetime. The good climate modelling goes back to about 1970.
But tipping points changed the whole equation for climate science. And, of course, we’re only just beginning to observe them. So, there, we don’t have the track record of projecting it and checking back against what’s happened in reality. So they’re some of the hottest topics – I dare say you might come on to the AMOC [Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation]. But all of those areas are very, very active areas of research and areas where the science is not so settled.
CB: The 1.5C warming threshold of the Paris Agreement is looking more fragile than ever. 2024 was the first year-long breach of the limit. How likely is it, in your opinion, that [the rise in] temperatures are limited to 1.5C? And when do you think that could happen?
PE: Well, it is theoretically possible we stay within 1.5C, but it’s going to require action that’s never been seen and doesn’t look like it’s coming. So, we think the opportunity to stay within that first Paris threshold is vanishingly small now – and, if we continue at the current rate, we have only got a few years to go before we cross it long-term.
And, actually, the Met Office has done quite a bit of work looking at how you identify that threshold without waiting for 10 years of averages to go: “Yes, [the limit] was [breached] 10 years ago.”
So then we are into, well, how far can we limit it? Because obviously it’s not a cliff edge. That’s where we think – and I still think – that’s where the more dangerous impacts of climate change kick in. But between 1.5C and 2C – there’s a huge difference. And at 2C, 3C [and] God forbid 4C, all of those impacts multiply. So, it’s how we stay as close [to 1.5C of warming] as we can.
CB: There are growing calls for solar radiation modification and other forms of geoengineering to be considered to tackle climate change. I wanted to get your take on geoengineering as a climate strategy.
PE: The Met Office doesn’t take any particular stance on geoengineering. I need to make it really clear – because we get lots of conspiracy theories – and we do none. We have some very limited modelling to understand what it might look like and what it might do.
I think I might like to draw a distinction between my personal view and the Met Office here. But the only form of geoengineering that actually solves the problem is taking the carbon back out of the atmosphere. Solar radiation modification – it is a masking technique. It doesn’t stop ocean acidification. And once you start, you’ve got to go on, because if you stop, you can get catastrophic, very rapid, catching up.
So, in as much as we advocate anything, it would always be the mitigation techniques [actions that reduce emissions of greenhouse gases] we already know.
Having said that, there’s nothing regulating [geoengineering] globally. So, other people may do it – whether we advocate it or not. So, we do think it is the right thing to do to understand what the impacts of it could be [so as] to be able to detect it if other people do it and understand what they might be doing. It will be a political decision whether it’s a last resort thing to do.
CB: You mentioned carbon removals just now. Scientists at a recent conference on climate overshoot stressed that the 1.5C goal, if breached, needed to be “met from above” with the help of these technologies that remove emissions from the air. How feasible is that, in your view?
PE: The best way to get carbon out of the atmosphere is still a tree. So, some of these are nature-based solutions. And, then, the next easiest thing is the direct carbon capture – so, catch [the carbon] where it is, don’t try to get it back.
The other techniques – I think they’re worth investigating, but they’re not going to be available at scale in the times that we need. It is an entirely good and valid topic for research, but it shouldn’t be a substitution.
CB: Changing topic a bit. The US government has attacked climate science and is cutting national weather and climate services, including access to satellite data. How is this impacting both weather forecasting and climate research at the Met Office?
PE: So we retain a really close collaboration with NOAA [the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] who are important partners for us. We continue to have access to all of those US satellites that are gathering data. We exchange that through the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO’s) data exchange.
And the EUMETSAT is the way we gather European satellite data – and the UK is a part of that, and that is all still exchanged.
I think what we are finding is that any government – irrespective of its political stance – needs the fundamentals of what a national meteorological agency can do. Everybody needs a weather forecast, everybody needs warnings, everybody needs aviation, transport, everybody needs defence.
And, so, there’s certainly been a lot of instability in NOAA, while these things work through. And, obviously there’s a government shutdown at the moment. But I think the actual impact on [NOAA] funding, so far, has not been as severe as some of the news stories have said – because their role is just as fundamental to the operation of the state as ours is.
CB: And, a secondary question to that is, are these events or geopolitics impacting the morale at all at the Met Office? And, as a boss, how do you address that, or try to mitigate that if so?
PE: I think the general Met Office staff are really very interested in their science and the mission and not so politically focused. I spent a lot of time thinking about what are the things that we do that will have value under any government and into the future and how we make sure that we can continue to deliver our great services to the government. And we do that with our executive and board.
What does impact morale is some of the misinformation we’ve seen, where we get people attacking the integrity of our observations or the integrity of our scientists. The aggression that some of our media-facing people face online [and] the really vile hostility which often quite junior staff are dealing with – that definitely is something where we have to take care of and look after people.
CB: In the UK, we’ve seen the Conservatives and Reform describe the UK’s net-zero target as “arbitrary”. And, in the US, we’ve seen the president describe climate change as a “con”. So, I wanted to ask you, do you feel that the Met Office and other influential climate science centres have a responsibility to publicly rebut or respond to these claims?
PE: No, absolutely not. The Met Office is a civil service organisation, so we have a very strong mandate to remain impartial and serve the government of the day. We have a government that is really committed to net-zero and being a green energy superpower and we will do everything we can for that. If a democratically elected government comes with a different mandate, our role is to provide that government with the best science to make the best policy decisions they can. It is not to tell them that their policies are wrong.
CB: I want to talk a bit about the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] now and the seventh assessment cycle. The IPCC has appointed five Met Office scientists to its newest cycle. What would you like to see the cycle focus on?
PE So I’m not sure I’m really the best person to answer this. Clearly, they are going to be focused on what happens between and above 1.5C. How do we replace that Paris threshold if it has gone? And therefore, increasingly, the adaptation [topic].
Where I actually get more involved is, as a delegate to the WMO and on the Early Warning for All [initiative]. And obviously, the more extreme climate-driven weather events we see, the more crucial early warning is to protect populations. And that will come out of the projections from the IPCC.
CB: I wondered if you had any thoughts on the IPCC’s big assessment reports. Is this model the best way for it to be effective? Or do you think there’s a better option?
PE: I do firmly believe that good decisions have to be based on good evidence. And the IPCC is as good a gold standard as you could have for benchmark evidence in any field.
So that whole process of collecting all the evidence from across researchers across the globe, factoring in what’s effectively a multi-model ensemble, looking at the error bars coming to consensus – it is too slow, right? Because consensus always lags. What the best guess would be – the consensus was always behind it. But I think it is an important model. I’m reminded of Simon Sharpe’s book Five Times Faster [which states that] it is not just [about] the scientists, it is then all the other, the other responses, as well, that need to respond.
I think, in many ways, our best hope now lies in the global financial system. They’re not very altruistic, but they are very rational and they do use the best evidence. They are actually not remotely interested in the politics, because they will look at where the money sends them. And if the money sends them into different investments or different insurance strategies – that is still going to be based on the evidence that comes out of the IPCC.
CB: After the US pulled its officials from attending the last IPCC meeting in China, how could a reduced US contribution impact the work of the IPCC in the upcoming cycle?
PE: I really can’t speak to that. I don’t know enough about it to give you a sensible answer.
CB: All right, let’s come on to misinformation. You mentioned it already. To start off: how is climate misinformation changing in your view?
PE: I’ve really seen this change in the course of this job. I think I was naive when I took this job. One of the things I said in my pitch for the job was: I believe I will be in post in the period when the person in the street in the UK becomes aware of the impact of climate change.
And I think I was right – we have had the first 40C and extreme wildfire events, extreme floods. People have seen it. But, I thought that that would lead to a rational response of people going: “Oh, gosh, they were right all along – we need to do something about it.”
That didn’t happen. What I have seen, therefore, is it was still more or less possible to go “meh, you’ve got the science wrong and you don’t really understand it” seven years ago.
I think the data is now so stark, that anyone who looks at the data at all can see that we’re in unprecedented times. [But] what has happened, to my grief and distress, has been people now attacking the trusted sources of data. And in the UK – that’s us.
We see increasingly statements about all kinds of rubbish, everything from, “you’re hiding the sensors in aircraft jets exhaust to show fake heating – you’ve gone back and changed the past” [to] “you’re measuring temperatures on the ground instead of properly in the Stevenson screen”. [There are] just a raft of things that take us a lot of time and taxpayers money to rebut.
There’s a name for this law and I’ve forgotten it [Brandolini’s law] – but there’s a law that says that, basically, misinformation can be produced in seconds, but takes days to rebut. And this is very, very true.
And, so, we have had to become – per force – experts in countering misinformation and disinformation and, really, to an extent, quite thought-leading in government and in convening cross-government networks to deal with this.
And although I guess I’m speaking to the converted and I’m offering you some rebuttal. That isn’t the best way; the people who firmly believe these things, they’re not remotely interested in your rebuttal.
The best way to maintain the extraordinary trust the Met Office currently enjoys is actually to be putting out the good stories. Here is the plethora of amazing ways we collect weather observations, from deep ocean buoys to space to marine gliders to measurements in the Arctic – whatever it is. Put out the positive stories, alongside the people stories. At your weather station – wherever you are in the UK – some expert person from the Met Office comes along and checks all the instruments and takes them back for calibration and makes sure the grass is the regulation height and assesses the surrounding area to make sure that things aren’t encroaching and so on.
Putting out those positive stories of how we do it, is a better use of our time and energy and more effective, we think, than rebutting the people who are not acting in good faith.
CB: My next question was going to be about your strategy for dealing with online climate misinformation. And you’ve talked about focusing on the positive story…
PE: Preinoculation in misinformation terms.
CB: I wondered if there was anything else you could share about your strategy and perhaps how it’s evolving as climate misinformation is?
PE: The other thing we found is it’s really useful to get independent voices in. So now, when we do put out stories, particularly when we put one up that we know it’s going to be a red rag. [For instance] it has been the hottest UK year in history. It has been the warmest summer. This was the first year that was above 1.5C for the average globally – which was something we forecast, by the way. We also do the WMO state of the climate and the annual to decadal five-year projections.
Whereas we might have just put those out with the WMO, now we tend to pre-share that information with other trusted parties – whether that is in academia or the Royal Met Soc [the Royal Meteorological Society], or whether it is NOAA or NASA or whoever – and have quotes nicely lined up for journalists, so that they can take them. That kind of independence is useful. I think all the UK scientific bodies are looking at how we can strengthen that network across government, so that we can speak to our areas of expertise when they cross over with other people’s.
CB: I wanted to ask you about AI-generated content as well. Is that something that you’ve seen specifically?
PE: Obviously, we do lots of good work in AI, which we might also come to.
CB: I was talking still in the context of climate misinformation – do you have a strategy for addressing that particular type of content?
PE: Yes. We have even seen Met Office deepfakes. So our presenters [as] deepfakes put out misleading information. And I’m not sure we do have a strategy for this.
The other thing we do, but it’s not so much for the AI, is deal with the clickbait. You know [for example]: “Exact date UK to be wiped out by a wall of snow.” And we do put quite a lot of stories out going: “Have you seen a thing that goes, it’s going to be a heatwave and a wall of snow?” [We] try to help people understand how to tell [a] good source from a bad source. But the level of protection you have, legally, against those things is not very strong.
CB: And striking that balance between, as you were saying earlier, responding to certain claims, but not giving them more air…
PE: We don’t want to make them more salient.
CB: How do you judge, essentially, when it is worth a public response and when it isn’t?
PE: Partly on how much is in its echo chamber versus where it has widened out. Generally, we find that within the echo chambers, it is just not worth a public response. The Met Office has a million followers on the main social media platforms and we have people putting out things who have 20, so if you rebut the 20[-follower] person with your million, everybody sees the 20-person story. That’s not the right thing.
And we have had to change our blocking policy as well, which is a shame, because we had a really [light-touch] blocking policy. We only blocked the obscene and threatening, but we found that our big audiences are being used to gain a platform for misinformation, particularly around geoengineering. And we have had to say we can’t, we can’t live with that. So we block more liberally than we did.
CB: You already brought up the attacks we’ve seen on the accuracy of Met Office temperature readings and data. I wanted to ask, have you been surprised by those stories and what is your general response to those claims?
PE: Just to be clear, the claims are baseless. We’ve dealt particularly with the ones that say the WMO is critiquing our data. You may have seen now the statement from the secretary general of the WMO going “we have the highest confidence in the quality and validity of Met Office data”. So, that was one [claim] where we did source a deliberate rebuttal.
But, generally, I’d just like to reassure you that everything we do is to the required standards, the WMO to ISO9001 [quality management] standards, assured externally and internally. And then the [Met Office] independent public weather service customer group also assures the quality of the science and the outputs [and] the accuracy of the warnings.
The worst thing is if people start to believe [the claims] – and then they don’t take action on warnings when [they are] there to protect their lives.
CB: You have been the subject of quite a lot of attacks on social media. I wanted to ask how you manage that on a personal level?
PE: It can be painful, but you really have to rise above it. And when it’s a woman, there’s always a generous salting of misogyny in there as well. I have tended now not to go and read these things, because they prey on your mind and there’s nothing you can do. We do monitor for actual threats, which we would have to act on.
CB: And you mentioned a lot of colleagues as well were facing [attacks on social media]?
PE: Yes. The personal attacks tend to be on the most senior people, [on] me or the chief scientist [Prof Stephen Belcher]. But, obviously, the person who is managing our social media feed still gets a mouthful of abuse when they’re reading and responding. It is not aimed at them personally, but they are still a human being – and maybe not a very senior or experienced one.
CB: And moving on from social media, I wanted to talk a bit about the media more generally. So have you seen a change in the way that the media covers climate change?
PE: It is around the fringes. I expect you know that we’ve just signed a new partnership deal with the BBC, who are extremely rigorous in how they cover climate change. And one of the things…we’re really excited to work on them. Last time we worked with the BBC, Verify [a service where journalists share their evidence-gathering] didn’t exist. They, too, have had to invest a whole lot of effort in how you counter misinformation – and they have some really leading thinking. We’re excited to work with Verify on weather and climate information.
But, I think it’s the “wilding” of the social media landscape that’s changed.
CB: What climate change topics would you like to see the media cover more?
PE: I think there is lots of coverage across all the topics. I can’t say the information isn’t out there. It is how it is picked out and the way that our social algorithms segregate it. [For] anyone who wants to find out, there is good information out there on almost any topic – because media is always looking for stories, right?
The problem is once you’ve moved yourself into a bubble where you don’t want to see it. And you can see [this] if you watch US media coverage of a weather disaster. Even when it’s highly likely to be climate change-related, they don’t say so. The people presumably watching those channels don’t make that link.
CB: I wanted to talk a bit about AI in a different way now. So, how is AI transforming climate forecasting at the Met Office?
PE: The Met Office has been working with AI for several years – and before the big generative AI shift. We do that in many aspects of our work. AI for climate change is relatively new – and the challenge is always “what’s the training data set”? Because you don’t have the training data set for climate that hasn’t happened yet.
But we are using it to look at some of the opportunities. For example, in what we would call downscaling, which is a technical term, but basically going from a coarse-resolution model – which climate change tends to be, because we need to run them over such a long time and they’re very computer hungry – to see if we can use AI to replicate something that is more like the fine scale of our weather models.
And, more generally, we are enthusiastic, but not naive, adopters of AI, I would like to say. We do now have our own AI weather model, FastNet, which we developed jointly with the Turing Institute. We’re looking at the opportunities for AI and our products and services – so could you fuse it with, say, transport data to say: “Well, the weather’s here and the trains or the planes are there – where are the impacts going to be?” And go straight to the results.
And we use it quite widely in our everyday work as well. So, increasingly, I think 1,000 people in the Met Office are using [Microsoft] Copilot and 97% of people who have a licence use it for just making our everyday work more efficient.
I expect you’re going to come on and ask about the challenges of validation and trust, and if you’re not, I’ll go on that way.
CB: Can you tell me a bit about the challenges that come with using AI?
PE: AI can hallucinate, right? The rule we have in the Met Office is you may use AI for any purpose that is efficient in your job, like to write your code for you. You must declare you’ve used it. So if I use it to summarise a board paper, it’s wonderful. I get a 10-page board paper – I’m not having that – [and use] Copilot [to get it] down to five pages and bring it back. But you must declare it and you are still responsible for the accuracy of what you produce. So, if there’s a bug in your code, or it has actually changed your board paper so it now says something different, that’s still your problem.
Where we are really exploring things is – we rigorously validate anything we use operationally and we’re not really using AI operationally yet. And we have extremely tried and trusted techniques to do that. And every time we upgrade a weather model, we put it through a whole series of checks and balances to make sure it really is better than the last one – and if it isn’t, we don’t implement it.
The techniques we use for conventional modelling have limitations for AI.
AI, you train to replicate. You optimise it for a particular thing [and] it will do that wonderfully. But then, if it has very low average errors, it may still miss the extremes. And if what you do is compare average error, it will look like it’s better than the conventional model. But if, actually, that’s because it smooths everything out and it has missed the extremes – when you really want to know, it’s going to be wrong.
So, what we’re increasingly working on is on running our own AI models. And we’re looking at the other market leaders – the European ones, the [Google] DeepMind one. And we’re continuously evaluating them against the leading conventional models and looking at what the full suite of metrics is you need, if we wanted to feed our app from an AI model, rather than from a numerical one – a physical model. What are the thresholds it would need to pass before we were confident to do that?
CB: That’s really interesting. I wanted to talk a bit more generally about climate modelling as well. We’ve talked about AI, but where are the other exciting innovations, and also perhaps where are the gaps that still need to be addressed?
PE: They are kind of two sides of the same coin, I think. We would love to be able to do the kind of kilometre-scale [modelling] we do for weather for climate. Computationally by conventional methods, it’s just unaffordable and it doesn’t even look close – and with Moore’s law breaking down, it almost looks like you’ll never get there. AI, potentially, could close that gap. And that’s where that downscaling problem that I gave you, came in.
Others of the exciting things, I think they are around particularly the tipping points and the adaptation and the attribution. Some of the live areas of research for us when you see
CB: When you say Moore’s law is breaking down, what do you mean?
PE: The amazing improvement of weather forecasting since the 50s has been built on the fact that computing power doubles every couple of years for the same cost. So you can get more and more transistors on a chip and the supercomputer gets more and more powerful. We can reduce the scale of our weather models and improve the resolution, and can give you more accurate weather. That’s gone on for basically – [it has] improved the weather forecast at a “day a decade” over that period.
We’ve reached about the physical limit of how many transistors you can fit on a chip and supercomputers are no longer basically giving us improved modelling accuracy for free. And, so, we have to use different techniques now to find a way to continue to improve the accuracy of the weather forecast and maintain that “day a decade” improvement. And we’re confident we can and AI will be part of that mix.
So, our strategy is to go for the best blend of conventional and AI modelling – but we’re still working out what we think that best blend will be.
CB: And I know the Met Office recently switched on its new supercomputer, so I wondered if you could just tell us a bit about what’s new and how it might impact your research.
PE: This is a big step up in [computing power] and it’s also… The Met Office, I think we’re on about our 14th supercomputer. The first one we blagged some time on a Lyons tea room computer back in the 50s. But, then, numbers two to 13 we’ve owned and they’ve been based in our headquarters – wherever we’ve been – and we’ve operated them ourselves.
This one is different. Microsoft owns and operates it for us. And that’s a step to the whole thing being fully in the cloud, fully in Azure Cloud. And it needs to be because the amazing, fantastic, wonderful data that we have – [and] on which all of these products and AI is built – is now so big you can’t move it. We have about half an exabyte of data. So, the data needs to be next to the computer to be processed.
And, so, this computer is really exciting. We’re about to implement the first, what we call a parallel suite, but the first big model upgrade. Using it will let us do finer-scale, better microphysics – particularly cloud microphysics – [and] better precipitation. Because we’re running the parallel suite – which isn’t live yet, that’s why it’s a parallel suite – we can see the improvement we’re getting just from that first step forward.
And, then, we’ve got a whole series of scientific upgrades planned over the next few years to continue to improve our forecasting in weather and climate.
CB: Brilliant. That’s everything. Thank you very much.
The post The Carbon Brief Interview: UK Met Office chief executive Penny Endersby appeared first on Carbon Brief.
The Carbon Brief Interview: UK Met Office chief executive Penny Endersby
Faster electrification is the best way to secure lower energy bills and stronger energy security, according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC).
The government’s official climate advisers have stressed the importance of electrification, noting that electric cars and heat pumps can “put money back into people’s pockets”.
Moreover, the UK’s net-zero targets face “significant risks” unless there is faster progress in electrifying cars, heating and industry, according to the CCC’s latest progress report
The report notes that the government has closed some of the gaps to its upcoming targets and introduced more “credible” plans.
However, challenges remain in the UK’s climate strategy, including accelerating the expansion of heat pumps, cutting emissions from farms and supplying planes with “sustainable” fuels.
The CCC notes that 17% of the emissions cuts required to achieve the UK’s 2030 Paris Agreement climate target are currently not addressed by any government plans at all.
Amid political and industry pressure, the committee also says the government should “stand firm” on its climate goals, including its strategy for encouraging electric-vehicle (EV) sales.
Carbon Brief has covered the CCC’s annual progress reports in 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020.
- Overall progress
- The electrification ‘prize’
- Policy gaps
- Road transport
- Buildings
- Industry
- Fossil fuels
- Electricity
- Agriculture and land
- Aviation and shipping
- Other sectors
Overall progress
Today’s progress report is the third since Labour swept to power in 2024.
It arrives amid a “red extreme heat warning”, on the day that parliament will vote on the seventh “carbon budget”, a legally binding limit on UK emissions in 2040.
The report comes at a febrile moment in UK politics, with prime minister Keir Starmer having just resigned and with newly re-elected MP Andy Burnham widely tipped to take his place.
The opposition Conservatives and Reform are lobbying to scrap UK climate goals – and senior Labour figures want to row back on EVs and North Sea oil and gas drilling.
Against that backdrop, the CCC insists that it is the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels – and the second fossil-fuel price shock in four years – that has caused a “cost of living crisis”.
Speaking to journalists ahead of the launch, CCC chair Nigel Topping warned against any moves to weaken UK climate policies. He said:
“U-turns are really damaging to inward investment confidence…[We should] hold the course and focus on electrification…which will unlock very significant savings.”
Whereas the CCC said last year it had become “more optimistic” that UK climate goals could be met under the new government, its latest progress report strikes a more cautious tone.
It says that the UK’s emissions fell by 1.8% in 2025 and that there has been “some positive progress” in terms of delivery over the past year, but that this has been “too slow”.
There was actually an increase in emissions from transport and electricity supplies in 2025, as shown below, despite the expansion of clean power and EVs.
The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions are now roughly 50% below 1990 levels, the CCC notes, with the lion’s share of this having come from cleaning up the power sector.
In contrast, there has been far less progress in transport, which is now the UK’s largest emitter, as well as in buildings, the second largest.
The CCC stresses that future emissions cuts will need to come from using clean power to decarbonise other sectors – particularly buildings, transport and industry.
It puts a major emphasis on the need to electrify these sectors by more rapidly rolling out EVs, heat pumps and electric heating for industrial sites.
The CCC adds that government plans for meeting future targets, published last year, leave a “significant gap” to the UK’s international climate pledge for 2030. (See: Policy gaps.)
The electrification ‘prize’
The most striking aspect of this year’s report is the way it centres on electrification, which the CCC says has been given “insufficient focus” to date.
Electrification has shot up the agenda in recent months, with the COP31 presidency calling for countries to back a global goal for 35% of “final” energy to come from electricity by 2035.
The text of the CCC’s latest report uses the word “electrification” far more often than previous editions, as shown in the figure below.
Early last year, in advice on the seventh carbon budget, the committee singled out electrification as key to cutting UK emissions. It said electrification had won out over alternative options, thanks to rapid cost reductions for technologies such as EVs.
Now, the CCC says that electrification is also the best way to secure lower energy bills, stronger energy security and a host of other benefits.
Topping said these benefits include “putting money back into people’s pockets”, but also cleaner air, stronger energy security and protection from fossil-fuel shocks:
“The prize is really significant here. By 2030 alone, the UK could save up to 80m barrels of oil and 1.5bn therms of gas each year. That would cost almost £8bn at current oil and gas prices.”
The emphasis on the topic is also clear in the CCC press release for its report, which is titled: “Faster electrification would cut UK household bills, say climate advisers.”
The report fleshes this out in a dedicated chapter that explores the financial benefits of electrifying household energy use, including heat and transport.
Topping said that the “home of the future” will be equipped with an EV, a flexible “time-of-use tariff” for its electricity supplies and a heat pump for keeping warm.
Moreover, the report shows that even today, this type of household would cut its annual energy bills by around £1,200, relative to using a petrol car and a gas boiler.
Crucially, this saving, shown in the figure below, includes the high upfront costs of installing an electric heat pump and solar panels. The analysis shows that electrified homes have far lower annual running costs, which easily outweigh this initial outlay.
(Due to “modelling limitations”, the CCC analysis does not consider home batteries, which can help unlock even larger savings.)
The CCC says that while not everyone is currently in a position to enjoy the financial benefits of electrification, its analysis points to savings both before and after the Iran crisis, as well as for high- and low-income households, with the latter eligible for grants to cover upfront costs.
Even more homes would be able to unlock these benefits if the government acts to resolve barriers, such as high public charging costs, says the CCC.
However, the report says that the government’s current plan to electrify the economy “lacks ambition” and that there are “worrying signs” in some areas, such as heat pumps and electric vans. (See: Road transport and Buildings.)
Ultimately, says the CCC, the best way to encourage faster and wider electrification is to make electricity cheaper. This has been its top recommendation for several years.
Policy gaps
Since the last CCC progress report, the government has published a new “carbon budget and growth delivery plan” (CBGD), explaining how it will cut emissions in the 2030s.
The CBGD “projects slower emissions reductions for surface transport and buildings compared to the previous government’s plan”, according to the CCC.
This reflects both the slow rollout of some technologies – such as heat pumps – and “areas of reduced policy ambition”, including less support for low-income homes to install insulation.
The CCC says that without “sufficient progress on electrification” this year, the UK’s 2030 emissions target “may become out of reach” and future goals would face “significant risks”.
The chart below demonstrates the CCC’s view that the UK is “well on track” to meet its fourth carbon budget, between 2023 and 2027, and that there are “credible policies in place” to meet the fifth carbon budget out to 2032.
However, it also shows the “significant gap” that the CCC says still exists between projected emissions cuts (blue lines) and the UK’s international climate target for 2030, its nationally determined contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement (black circle).
(This is particularly notable as the NDC was the first official UK climate goal that was aligned with its 2050 net-zero target. The fourth and fifth carbon budgets were set before the net-zero goal and therefore need to be overachieved.)
Plans that are “credible” or only come with “some risks” are on track to cut emissions to 356m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) by 2030. This is 11MtCO2e lower than last year, but still a shortfall of 64MtCO2e.
Overall, the CCC says there are “credible” plans in place for 44% of emissions reductions by 2030, including those linked to renewable energy, EV sales growth and electrification of steel production at Port Talbot in Wales. Another 15% of reductions come with “some risks”.
The report concludes that there are “significant risks” attached to 19% of emissions cuts, including the expansion of heat pumps, future “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF) supply and agricultural policies.
There are also 4% of required emissions cuts for which the UK has “insufficient plans”, including much of the electrification of the UK’s heavy industry.
The chart below shows how this assessment compares to previous CCC analysis of government plans, with the share of “credible” government plans increasing.
(As the latest report is based on the new CBGD rather than the previous 2023 plan, the assessments have different levels of baseline emissions and are not directly comparable. However, this chart shows the rough direction of travel.)
As the chart shows, a substantial chunk of the required emissions cuts need to meet the 2030 pledge – 17% of the total – are not covered by the CBGD.
This reflects the fact that the new plan simply does not achieve the 2030 target, according to the CCC, despite the government’s stated commitment to its NDC goal.
(The government’s plan had also acknowledged that it fell short of meeting the 2030 NDC.)
The CCC emphasises that “the government will need to bring forward additional policies and plans to make up this gap”.
The new report suggests several areas – including faster EV growth, more heat-pump installations and more ambitious recycling rates – that would close 17MtCO2e of the 26MtCO2e gap to the 2030 goal.
Unlike the 2030 NDC, the government’s plan does achieve the sixth carbon budget, between 2033 and 2037. However, the committee says “this is largely achieved through additional measures where we have assessed there to be significant risks or insufficient plans”.
Only around three-fifths of the required emissions cuts for the sixth carbon budget are covered by “credible” plans or plans with “some risks”.
According to the CCC, the government is relying on a rapid scale-up of engineered removals beyond 2030, but has provided little detail about how it will achieve this. (See: Other sectors)
“This approach carries substantial risks,” according to the committee.
Road transport
Road transport remains the UK’s highest emitting sector and its emissions increased by nearly 3% last year, according to provisional data in the CCC report.
Electric-car sales have continued increasing, reaching nearly a quarter of new sales last year. The number of electric cars on the road surpassed 2m in May 2025.
However, the emissions benefit of this rollout of electric vehicles (EVs) “is likely to have been offset by other factors”, such as driving rates returning nearly to pre-Covid levels, according to the CCC.
The report notes that EV costs “continue to fall” and have met price parity in some parts of the market, with grants providing an extra boost to sales.
The committee’s pathway to net-zero assumes faster emissions cuts from road transport than the government’s pathway. This is largely because it assumes an imminent “tipping point” will be reached, when EVs reach upfront price parity with petrol cars.
Nevertheless, the report says that sales will still “need to accelerate fast” over the next few years and that this will require consistent government support.
The CCC stresses the “key role” of the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which requires manufacturers to sell a rising share of EVs.
There have been reports that the government is planning a “U-turn” after a review of the ZEV mandate. The CCC says it is “essential” that the review “does not lead to further concessions”:
“Doing so would severely undermine prospects of achieving the UK’s 2030 NDC, exacerbate the UK’s dependence on imported oil, and leave more households paying the higher costs of petrol or diesel cars.”
As well as “stand[ing] firm” on the ZEV mandate, the committee says it is important that the government “remove[s] barriers to EV adoption”.
One key policy highlighted by the report is increased access to cheap EV charging, so the one-third of UK homes without off-street parking access can “benefit from lower running costs”.
(CCC analysis suggests that while the average home would save at least £660 a year by switching from a petrol car to an EV, their running costs could actually increase if they have to rely on public charging infrastructure.)
The report also stresses the use of EV “time-of-use tariffs”, which it says can help people save even more money. It notes that “measures to support consumer awareness” of this “could drive further uptake”.
Also, with a new 3p per mile EV tax due to start from April 2028, the committee says it is “essential that this new tax is implemented in a straightforward manner” to minimise the “hassle factor” that could disrupt the EV transition.
While electric-car sales have so far remained slightly ahead of the level needed to hit the ZEV mandate, the CCC notes that both electric van sales and prices are “significantly off track”. Unlike cars, electric vans still cost considerably more than their combustion-engine equivalents.
The committee says government support, including improved access to fast charging and “regulatory reforms”, is also “key”. As an example of the latter, it notes that certain licensing and testing requirements are based on vehicle weight, which puts heavier battery-powered vehicles at a disadvantage.
Finally, the CCC criticises recent policy decisions that incentivise sales of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) “based on emissions factors which underestimate real-world emissions”. It notes:
“Providing incentives for emissions savings that PHEVs do not deliver distorts the market and risks eating into the demand for EVs.”
Buildings
The CCC says that the rate of growth in heat-pump installations in homes slowed last year, rising just 7%, compared to the 56% jump seen in 2024.
Around 52,000 heat pumps were installed in 2025, according to the report. Of these, 31,200 were installed with the support of grants from the “boiler upgrade scheme”.
This was not enough to meaningfully reduce emissions, says the CCC, only delivering around 0.1MtCO2e of extra savings in 2025.
(To eliminate emissions from homes by 2050, heat pump installations in existing homes need to reach 1.4m per year by 2035, according to the CCC.)
Overall, emissions from the buildings sector fell by 1.2MtCO2e in 2025, amounting to a reduction of 1.3% for non-residential and 1.6% for residential buildings compared to 2024.
This was despite the winter months being colder in 2025 than the previous year, generally meaning greater heating demand. This suggests factors other than weather are driving the reduction, it says, such as higher energy prices leading to lower heating use.
The CCC notes that while emissions did drop, this “does not indicate progress on decarbonising home heating”. It adds:
“Without further actions to decarbonise buildings, it is likely that emissions will rebound if energy prices fall or weather conditions revert to average.”
The slowdown in the rate of heat pump installations was largely due to the closure of the ECO scheme, which delivered around one-third of heat pump installations in existing homes over the last three years.
In terms of government policy, the CCC notes that there has been some “positive progress” for buildings, due to the new “warm homes plan” and the “future homes standard”.
The former provides support to help people install electric heat pumps, rooftop solar panels and insulation. In total, 5m homes are expected to benefit from £15bn of grants and loans earmarked by the government for these upgrades by 2030.
While installation rates in the UK in 2025 were significantly below this level, the CCC report says that growth rates in other European markets – and indeed, in the UK between 2023 and 2024 – suggest that higher rates could be achievable.
The CCC notes that while there is £1bn a year earmarked for supporting upgrades of low-income households under the warm homes plan, this is still a “significant decrease in investment” from that provided by ECO.
The future homes standard, meanwhile, is an update to existing regulations in England. From March 2028, new-build homes in England will be required to have on-site renewable energy generation and a low-carbon heating system.
From then on, newly built homes will produce 75% less greenhouse gas emissions than under previous regulations.
The CCC report notes that the installation of heat pumps in new homes, specifically, is currently on track to achieve targets, with 25% of new homes built with a heat pump in 2025. However, it says retrofit installations of existing homes are significantly below where they need to be and “urgently need to accelerate”.
The CCC notes that while there has been some progress in removing policy costs from household electricity bills, the ratio of electricity to gas prices remains a major barrier to heat pump take-up. (See: The electrification ‘prize’.)
It also notes that there has been no action to address this barrier for non-residential buildings.
Fewer than 2% of homes have a heat pump in the UK, it says, placing the nation among the lowest rates of installation in Europe, as seen in the chart below.
Industry
Industry accounted for the largest share of emissions reduction in the UK in 2025, according to the CCC, with a 5.4MtCO2e (12%) drop from 2024.
As such, sectoral emissions for industry are now 56% lower than they were in 2008.
This was largely due to the closure of blast furnaces at the Port Talbot steelworks towards the end of 2024, ahead of reopening with new electric arc furnaces. Emissions from iron and steel production therefore fell by 3.2MtCO2e year-on-year in 2025, according to the CCC report.
The rest of the reduction was due to a fall in the output of energy-intensive, which the CCC says is in line with the longer-term trend in UK manufacturing seen since the 1990s.
However, the CCC notes that while some specific progress has been made to decarbonise industry, barriers to further progress remain.
It urges the government to set a clear plan for how electrification can become the economically rational choice for a wide range of industries.
As for buildings, the CCC points to the high electricity prices, relative to gas, as a major barrier to the decarbonisation of UK industry.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has taken some “positive steps”, according to the report. This includes the government allocating £9.4bn of funding to support its development.
There has also been a final investment decision for the first CO2 storage facility at a UK manufacturing site and the construction of transport and storage infrastructure for the nation’s first CCS industrial “clusters”.
Fossil fuels
The CCC’s report states that “many countries are responding” to the current global energy crisis triggered by the Iran war by “rapidly reducing dependency on fossil fuels”.
It continues that emissions from the UK’s fossil-fuel supply sector fell by 1.5MtCO2e in 2025, in line with the “significant historical decline seen over the last three decades”.
Emissions in the sector are now 45% lower than 2008 levels, it adds.
Key drivers of emissions decline from 2024-5 were a fall in emissions from oil refining of 0.9MtCO2e, mostly due to the closure of Grangemouth and Prax Lindsey refineries in 2025, according to the CCC.
Declines in production emissions associated with oil and gas were due to the closure of North Sea fields “as they reach the end of life”, says the report.
It adds that this is a “continuation” in a longer-term trend. Production emissions from oil and gas have fallen by 58% since 2008 and by 75% since their peak in 2000. The CCC continues:
“The decline in oil and gas production is expected to continue as oil and gas reserves in the mature North Sea basin are increasingly depleted – the NSTA [North Sea Transition Authority] projects a further decline in combined oil and gas production of 93% by 2050.”
The report does not directly address the Labour government’s policies on oil and gas production in the North Sea.
Labour has ruled out new oil and gas licences – a manifesto commitment that has been subject to intense lobbying from the oil and gas industry and right-wing media. (See Carbon Brief’s factcheck on nine false or misleading myths about the North Sea.)
However, the government has indicated it might approve new projects that already have a licence, if they can pass an environmental impact assessment that will consider the emissions from burning the oil and gas produced.
Speaking at a briefing for journalists, CCC chair Nigel Topping noted that oil and gas production is projected to continue to plummet in the coming decades, regardless of whether the government issues new drilling licences, adding:
“The real road to energy security is not through some marginal drilling decisions, but through electrifying the economy.”
Electricity
Emissions from electricity supply rose in 2025, following a 5% increase in unabated gas generation year-on-year.
According to the CCC, this offset the reduction in emissions from coal, with the closure of the UK’s last coal-fired power plant in 2024.
This is in line with Carbon Brief’s analysis from January, which similarly found that there was a small increase in emissions per unit of generation in 2025.
This bucks the trend seen in the UK since 2008, over which period emissions from electricity supply have fallen by 82%.
The CCC says the rise in gas generation was likely due to a combination of factors, including a 12% drop in nuclear generation, an 11% decrease in net imports, underutilisation of wind capacity due to grid constraints and lower-than-average wind capacity additions.
Last year, offshore wind capacity increased by 0.7 gigawatts (GW), bringing the UK’s total to 16.6GW, according to the CCC.
This is expected to more than double to around 37GW by 2032, once the existing pipeline of new projects is built – including those that secured subsidies in the most recent auction for “contracts for difference” (CfDs).
The CCC notes, however, that further additions will be needed to reach the government’s “stretching goals” for offshore wind.
An additional 0.3GW of onshore wind capacity was added in 2025, bringing the national total to 16.4GW. It says between 2.1GW and 2.5GW will need to be added annually up to the end of the decade to meet government targets.
The UK installed more solar capacity in 2025 than in any year since 2015, adding 2.8GW to bring the national total capacity to 21.7GW.
To reach government targets, the CCC says installation of solar power still needs to increase, with around another 5GW required by the end of this decade.
The CCC highlights that faster progress is needed on expanding and modernising electricity networks, as well as deploying storage.
For example, in 2025, some 9.4 terawatt hours (TWh) of wind generation was “curtailed” – when windfarms are paid to turn off – up 77% on 2024.
Agriculture and land
The CCC’s report says “emissions in agriculture and land use have not fallen significantly in recent years” and that progress addressing this has been “too slow”.
Cattle and sheep numbers fell by 1% and 2% respectively in 2025, continuing a longer-term trend, with livestock numbers at their lowest since 1990, says the report.
This has led to a reduction in methane emissions from 2022-24, but this was offset by an increase in CO2 emissions in these sectors. It continues:
“This was in part driven by a smaller forestry sink due to an ageing woodland profile and removal of trees for habitat restoration priorities.”
The report adds that household beef and lamb purchases fell by 5% in the last year and have dropped by 9% since 2021, likely “driven by high beef and lamb prices and cost-of-living pressures”.
It continues that one area of “positive progress” is an increase in peatland restoration rates.
Some 21,400 hectares of peatlands were restored in 2025 – a 26% increase on the previous year and around three times the level in 2020, according to the CCC.
It adds that there is grant funding in place for peatland restoration across the country “until at least 2027”.
Tree-planting has seen “more mixed” progress, says the report. Planting rates fell by 25% from 2024-5, following a large boost to forest creation the year before.
The reduction was “driven by funding cuts in Scotland, which continues to lead in the establishment of new woodlands for the UK, planting more than half of the total in 2024-25”, says the report.
It adds that planting rates increased in England and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) is expected to launch a woodland creation strategy this year.
Despite this mixed progress, the chart below shows how the UK government is “on track” on most key agriculture and land use indicators, when compared to the CCC’s central pathway to net-zero and the government’s own ambitions.
The report says that another area of “positive progress” is the publishing of England’s long-awaited land-use framework in March of this year.
The framework used “high-resolution modelling” and found that there is enough land in England to meet climate and nature goals, while also producing more food and building new homes.
To increase progress, the report says that the government should “put policies and incentives in place to ramp up tree-planting and peatland restoration”.
One key upcoming policy development will be the “25-year farming roadmap”, the government’s long-term direction for farming in England. This is due to be published later this year, according to the CCC.
Aviation and shipping
Emissions from flights fell by 0.5% in 2025, despite a 3% increase in overall distance flown by UK passengers.
The CCC says this is likely due to fuel-efficiency improvements within the nation’s aircraft fleet and “a small contribution” from the use of “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF).
The report concludes that fuel-efficiency improvements are “almost on track” compared to the CCC’s net-zero pathway. The share of jet fuel provided by SAF reached 2.5% in 2025, which is above the level set by the government’s SAF mandate.
While people flew more last year, the overall distance travelled via planes is still below the projected levels in the CCC’s pathway for 2025.
The committee says emissions growth from aviation has “slowed down”, but notes that “it is too early to say whether aviation emissions will grow, plateau or decrease in the future”.
Overall, the CCC says there has been “mixed progress” in the aviation sector. This year’s SAF Act included a mechanism designed to drive domestic production of SAFs, but the report stresses that “significant challenges remain around scaling up supply”.
Meanwhile, for the first time, the government plans to use international carbon credits under CORSIA – the UN’s aviation emissions scheme – to deliver its sixth carbon budget. According to the CCC:
“This introduces significant risk, including uncertainty over the availability and quality of high-integrity credits.”
As for shipping, the CCC says this has seen “limited progress”. It welcomes the inclusion of domestic shipping in the UK emissions trading scheme (ETS) as “an important step”, but points out that this is only a small fraction of the sector.
Most emissions come from international shipping. The committee says delays to the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) net-zero framework – following opposition from the US and big fossil-fuel producers – has “significantly increased” the risk of hitting emissions targets for this sector.
Other sectors
The CCC report highlights “significant risks” with the use of engineered removals in the coming years.
The government’s plan for achieving emissions targets over 2033-37 relies on a “rapid ramp-up” of technologies that suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, the report says, but there is still a lack of detail on how this will be achieved.
During this period, the amount of CO2 removed through these technologies is expected to reach an average of 17.4MtCO2e per year.
But the CCC says that 94% of removals planned for 2033-37 have “significant risks or insufficient plans”.
There is greater confidence in achieving planned removals over 2028-32, the report says, but this is due to scaled-back plans and policy progress.
The CCC says it is “essential” for the government to develop a strategy for delivering and monitoring engineered removals, along with “sufficient contingency plans…for any shortfall”.
The report also looks at emissions from waste, which are expected to reduce by an average of 1.1MtCO2e per year between 2024 and 2037.
The CCC has greater confidence in the government’s ability to meet waste goals compared to last year’s assessment.
But the report notes that there has been “little improvement” in recycling rates in UK homes. It says that further policies will be needed to meet plans to reduce waste, boost recycling and prevent waste going to landfill.
Looking at hydrogen, the CCC says there has been “good progress” in developing low-carbon hydrogen, but risks remain due to tight timelines and delays in funding.
The report mentions missed or upcoming deadlines to award contracts for some hydrogen projects and to update the UK hydrogen strategy. It notes that progress on hydrogen “must continue on the ground” in the meantime.
The post CCC: Faster electrification of UK will ‘put money back into people’s pockets’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
CCC: Faster electrification of UK will ‘put money back into people’s pockets’
The head of the United Nations has launched an initiative aimed at holding artificial intelligence companies accountable for their exploding environmental impacts, including their carbon emissions, the amount of water and land used for data centres, and the energy they consume.
During a speech at London Climate Action Week on Tuesday, António Guterres noted that AI can accelerate climate solutions, among other key challenges, and said its potential must be harnessed.
“But AI is also hungry for land, water and power,” he emphasised, adding that the data centres needed to run AI models already consume more electricity than most countries.
The UN Secretary-General repeated a call he first made in July 2025 for all big AI companies to commit to power every data centre with renewable energy by 2030.
Some tech firms have announced they are sourcing or building out clean energy to run their hubs, but growing power demand is also contributing to gas-fired generation in the US, according to data from Global Energy Monitor.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that data centres are set to more than double the emissions from the electricity they use between 2024 and 2030 in a high-growth scenario. But AI’s use could lead to far larger reductions in the energy sector through efficiency gains if adopted widely.
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‘No more hidden costs’
Proposing the new “AI Environmental Transparency Initiative” on Tuesday, Guterres also urged big AI firms companies to measure and publicly disclose the full environmental impact of their systems, including their carbon, water, and land footprints.
“No more hidden costs. No more shifting the burden onto those least able to bear it. It is time to come clean,” he said in a major speech on responding to the world’s twin climate and energy crises. “If AI is to help build a better future, it must be honest about what it costs us now.”
A report issued earlier this month by the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health noted that most current assessments of AI’s environmental cost focus on carbon emissions from training models. But, it added, this misses a substantial part of the picture.
Every kilowatt-hour of electricity for AI also carries a water footprint, from cooling and generation, and a land footprint, from infrastructure and supply chains, it said.
Explainer: Will AI data centres make or break the energy transition?
The report estimated that AI data centres globally could consume 945 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030 – more power than all but five countries and roughly twice France’s 2025 consumption.
Offsetting this carbon footprint by 2030 would require growing some 6.7 billion trees over 10 years, it calculated. Producing power for the data centres would consume water equal to the basic needs of 1.3 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa for a year and take up land of more than 14,500 square kilometers, roughly twice the Jakarta metropolitan area.
The European Union said earlier this month it will develop minimum energy-efficiency standards for both new and existing data centres, with a “needs assessment” due by 2027, Reuters reported. It’s also planning a sustainability label for data centres, covering criteria including water use and clean energy supply – but that has been delayed.
US community push-back
Asked after his speech what the response had been, the UN chief said “we’ll see”, without giving more details.
But, he argued that, in his view, the push for transparency “is perfectly reasonable and even positive for the AI industry, because eventually some people will say that they consume much more than they really do”. “I think the truth is essential,” he added.
Concerns about the environmental impacts of AI and the infrastructure needed to run the technology have led to growing opposition in some communities, especially in the US.
This month, Monterey Park in Los Angeles County was the first city in the United States to enact a citywide prohibition on data centres through a voter-approved ballot measure. The developers behind a proposed centre in the area had already pulled the project in April amid an increasingly hostile local environment and regulatory uncertainty.
The vote that stopped a data center: US communities query resource-hungry AI
According to nonprofit Data Center Watch, around $64 billion-worth of data centre projects nationwide were delayed or blocked between May 2024 and March 2025 as communities pushed back against them.
Industry lobby groups argue that data centres can provide economic benefits in their host communities. According to the US-based Data Center Coalition, which represents big operators and developers, data centres generate tax revenue, support construction and technical jobs, and provide infrastructure needed for cloud computing, scientific research and AI development.
The industry has also challenged claims that data centers necessarily raise electricity costs for households.
Force for good?
The UN chief said benefits can be few in the places that are home to the data centre, while “communities are often left in the dark about the environmental impact of the infrastructure rising around them”.
Guterres said companies have an “obligation” to be clear and open about the services they are offering but also the level of resources they require.
“Transparency is essential for the decisions that communities must make – and transparency is essential even for the future of artificial intelligence, and to make sure that artificial intelligence is essentially a force for good,” he told an audience of climate professionals in London
A senior UN official told journalists ahead of Tuesday’s announcement that the AI industry has started to talk about and disclose some of their impacts, but those efforts are not yet comprehensive enough.
The hope is that the new initiative will “encourage the industry to come together and take further action on it”, the official said.
The post UN asks AI companies to reveal full environmental impacts appeared first on Climate Home News.
Phillipe Ciais has spent almost four decades researching the planet’s carbon cycle – and the ways in which humans have been impacting its balance.
Based at the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE) on the outskirts of Paris, Ciais (pronounced “see-es”) has been listed as an author on more than 1,300 peer-reviewed studies.
In fact, analysis of Carbon Brief’s Cosmos database reveals that – by some distance – he is the most highly cited climate scientist in the world.
In a wide-ranging interview, he discusses:
The post Prof Philippe Ciais: The world’s most highly cited climate scientist appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/prof-philippe-ciais-the-worlds-most-highly-cited-climate-scientist/
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