UK chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced new measures to cut energy bills alongside a “pay-per-mile” electric-vehicle levy as part of Labour’s second budget.
The policy changes are expected to cut typical household bills by around £134 per year, amid intense political scrutiny of energy prices and a government pledge to reduce them.
This cut is achieved through a combination of moving a portion of renewable-energy subsidies from bills to general taxation and ending a support scheme for energy-efficiency measures.
Reeves has also retained a long-standing freeze on fuel-duty rates on petrol and diesel, albeit with a plan to “gradually” reverse the extra cuts introduced under the previous government.
With fuel-duty receipts set to fall as people opt for electric vehicles, the government has also laid out its plan for an “electric vehicle excise duty” from 2028, to replace lost revenue.
The government has also announced new “transitional energy certificates” to allow new oil and gas production at or nearby to existing sites, as part of its plan for the future of the North Sea.
Below, Carbon Brief runs through the key climate- and energy-focused announcements from the budget.
- Energy bills
- Electric vehicles
- Fuel duty
- North Sea oil and gas
- Nuclear, ‘green finance’, critical minerals and rail
Energy bills
The chancellor used her budget speech to announce two major changes that will cut dual-fuel energy bills for the average household by £134 per year from April 2026.
The first is to bring the “energy company obligation” (ECO) to an end, once its current programme of work wraps up at the end of the financial year. This will cut bills by £63 per year, according to Carbon Brief analysis of the forthcoming energy price cap, which will apply from 1 January 2026.
The second is for the Treasury to cover three-quarters of the cost of the “renewables obligation” (RO) for households, for three years from April 2026. This will cut bills by £70 per year.
The total impact for typical households – those using gas and electricity – will be to cut bills by an average of £134 per year over the three-year period to April 2029.
(As explained in footnote 77 of the budget “red book”, this rises to an average of £154 per year, when including households that use electric heating and are not connected to the gas grid. This figure is then rounded to £150 per year in government communications around the budget.)
Notably, given the political attention on energy prices, this three-year period of discounted bills runs through to just before the next general election, which must be held by August 2029.
There has been furious debate over the past year over the causes and the most effective solutions to the UK’s high energy bills. A Carbon Brief factcheck published earlier this year showed that it was high gas prices, rather than net-zero policies, which has been keeping bills high.
Nevertheless, a politicised debate has continued and there has also been increasing attention on the factors that will put pressure on bills in the near future, such as efforts to strengthen the electricity grid.
At the same time, the advisory Climate Change Committee (CCC) has repeatedly advised the government that it should make electricity cheaper, as so much of the UK’s climate strategy depends on getting homes and businesses to use electricity for heat and transport.
The changes in the budget will go some way to addressing this.
Carbon Brief calculations show that they would cut unit prices for domestic electricity users by around 4p per kilowatt hour (kWh) – roughly 16% – from 28p/kWh under the next price-cap period from the start of 2026, down to around 23p/kWh.
However, the red book says the government wants to further “improve” the price of electricity relative to gas, often referred to as “rebalancing”. It explains:
“The government is committed to doing more to reduce electricity costs for all households and improve the price of electricity relative to gas…The government will set out how it intends to deliver this through the ‘warm homes plan’.”
Under ECO, which has been in place since 2013, utility firms must install energy efficiency measures in fuel-poor homes, funded by a levy on energy bills.
It replaced two earlier schemes, known as CERT and CESP, with reduced funding after then-prime minister David Cameron reportedly told ministers to “get rid of the green crap”. This shift coincided with a precipitous decline in the number of homes being treated with new efficiency measures.
The ECO scheme has been hit by a series of scandals, with a recent National Audit Office report citing “clear failures” in its design, resulting in “widespread issues with the quality of installations”.
Pre-budget media reports had speculated that the government would pay for ongoing energy efficiency initiatives after scrapping ECO, using funding from the forthcoming “warm homes plan”. This speculation had suggested that subsidies for heat pumps would be cut as a result.
Instead, the budget includes an extra £1.5bn of funding for the warm homes plan, to cover the additional cost of taking over from ECO. (The total cost of ECO was around £1.7bn.)
Adam Bell, head of policy at the consultancy group Stonehaven and the government’s former head of energy policy, tells Carbon Brief that, while this £1.5bn is not the total cost of ECO, the scheme had been “terribly inefficient”. He adds that a government-run alternative that tackles home upgrades on an area-by-area basis was “likely to be cheaper”.
Contrary to much pre-budget speculation in the media, the chancellor did not reduce the already-discounted 5% rate of VAT on energy bills. Nor did she scrap the “carbon price support”, a top-up carbon tax on electricity generators.
Finally, the budget red book says that the government “recently confirmed” an increase in the level of relief for certain industrial users, from electricity network charges.
It says that, in total from 2027, the “British industrial competitiveness scheme” will cut electricity costs for affected businesses by £35-40 per megawatt hour.
Electric vehicles
The budget confirmed the introduction of a new “pay-per-mile” charge for electric vehicles, to raise more than £1bn in additional tax revenue by the end of this decade.
It has long been expected that fuel-duty receipts will begin to fall as electric vehicles start making up a rising share of cars on the road.
In its report accompanying the budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts a decline to around half of current levels in the 2030s in real terms, before falling to near-zero by 2050.
As such, the new charge on EVs will help maintain road infrastructure, the budget states. The “red book” notes that the new tax will see EV drivers paying a “fair share”. It adds:
“All vehicles contribute to congestion and wear and tear on the roads, but drivers of petrol and diesel vehicles pay fuel duty at the pump to contribute their fair share, whereas drivers of electric vehicles do not currently pay an equivalent.”
The electric vehicle excise duty (eVED) will come into effect in April 2028 at a rate of 3p per mile for battery electric vehicles and 1.5p per mile for plug-in hybrid cars, according to the OBR report.
The budget red book says this will mean the average driver of a battery electric vehicle paying “around £240 per year”. This is roughly half of the rate of fuel duty paid per mile by petrol and diesel car owners. (See: Fuel duty.)
(EVs will remain significantly cheaper to run than their combustion-engine equivalents. According to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank, EVs would still be £1,000 cheaper to run per year than petrol equivalents, even after the new eVED charge.)
Currently, there is no equivalent to fuel duty for electric vehicles. Excise duty was brought in for EVs for the first time in April 2025, costing £10 for the first year and then rising to a standard rate of £195 per year – an increase announced in last year’s budget.
The introduction of the eVED is expected to raise £1.1bn in 2028-29 and £1.9bn in 2030-31, dependent on electric-vehicle uptake in the coming years.
The revenue generated by the eVED will “support investment in maintaining and improving the condition of roads”, the budget adds, with the government committing to £2bn in annual investment by 2029-30 for local authorities to repair and renew roads.
A consultation will be published seeking views on the implementation of eVED, the budget notes. It adds that there will be no requirement to report where or when the miles are driven, or to install trackers in cars.
The OBR report states that the additional charge of the eVED “is likely” to reduce demand for electric cars, due to increasing their lifetime costs.
Overall, it estimates that there will be around 440,000 fewer electric car sales across the forecast period relative to its previous forecast.
New support for EV buyers and manufacturers also announced in the budget could help offset 130,000 of this impact, the report notes.
This includes a boost to the electric car grant, which was launched in July and currently offers up to £3,750 off eligible vehicles.
The budget announces an increase of £1.3bn in funding for the programme, as well as an extension out to 2029-30.
Additional measures include an increase in the threshold at which EV owners have to pay the “expensive car supplement” from £40,000 to £50,000 from April 2026. This is expected to cost the government £0.5bn in 2030-31, the OBR notes.
The government will delay changes to “benefit-in-kind” (BIK) rules for employee car-ownership schemes until April 2030. This is a continuation of a policy announced in Reeve’s first budget as chancellor in 2024, which delayed the previously planned increase in BIK rates to 9% per year for electric vehicles by 2029, instead increasing them to just 2% per year out to 2029-30.
EV manufacturers will see the research and innovation Drive35 programme extended, with a further £1.5bn allocated to the project to 2035. This takes total funding for the project to £4bn over the next 10 years, according to the government.
Beyond the vehicles, the budget includes investment for EV charging infrastructure – also partly funded through the eVED revenues, it notes – with an additional £100m allocated. This builds on the £400m announced in the spending review in June.
Additionally, funding will be allocated to local authorities to support the rollout of public chargepoints, a consultation will be launched on permitting rights for cross-pavement EV charging and a 10-year 100% business-rates relief for eligible EV chargepoints will be introduced.
Fuel duty
Former Conservative governments repeatedly cancelled inflation-linked increases in fuel duty – a tax paid on petrol and diesel – every year since 2010.
Fuel duty was cut by an additional 5p per litre in 2022 by then-Conservative chancellor Rishi Sunak in response to the energy crisis.
Successive freezes in fuel duty have substantially increased the UK’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by lowering the cost of driving and, therefore, encouraging people to use their cars more and low-carbon transport options less.
Last year, Reeves opted to maintain the existing freezes and cuts introduced by her predecessors.
In the new autumn budget, she has once again announced a freeze on fuel-duty rates for an additional five months from April until September 2026.
Beyond that, the government says the 5p additional cut introduced in 2022 will be reversed – “gradually returning to March 2022 levels by March 2027”. However, the planned increase in fuel-duty rates in line with inflation for 2026-27 will be cancelled.
Then, from April 2027 onwards, the government says that fuel-duty rates will increase annually to reflect inflation.
In total, the 16 years of delays to expected increases in fuel duty rates – plus the “temporary” 5p cut – will have cost the Treasury £120bn by 2026-27, compared to the expected rise in line with inflation from 2010 onwards, according to the OBR.
Increasing fuel duty is very unpopular. However, research by the Social Market Foundation thinktank suggests persistent freezes have “done little for average Brits”, with the wealthiest in the country disproportionately benefiting.
Meanwhile, the government is also responding to the long-term decline in fuel-duty receipts “as more people choose to switch to cleaner, greener electric cars” by introducing a new per-mile charge on electric-vehicle use from 2028. (See: Electric vehicles.)
North Sea oil and gas
Much of the environmentally focused coverage previewing the budget centred on government plans to allow for new oil and gas production on or near existing field sites in the North Sea.
This was formally announced in the North Sea future plan, a 127-page document outlining the government’s approach to put the region “at the heart of Britain’s clean energy and industrial future” and “deliver the next generation of good, new jobs”.
(The plan was published in response to a consultation held earlier this year on the North Sea’s future, involving nearly 1,000 responses from stakeholders, including oil and gas companies and environmental groups.)
The future plan outlines that the North Sea is an ageing oil and gas basin, “much more so than other areas of the world”, and that production has been “naturally declining over the past 25 years”.
It includes the chart below, showing past and projected oil and gas production.
It adds that the decline of the basin caused direct jobs in oil and gas production to fall by a third between 2014 and 2023, according to official statistics.
The plan also has a section on the UK’s “proud history” of international climate leadership.
It notes that the UK is committed to the Paris Agreement, which has the aim to keep global warming to well-below 2C, while pursuing efforts to keep it at 1.5C, by the end of the century.
It continues:
“Scientific evidence from the International Energy Agency, UN Environment Programme and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that new fossil fuel exploration risks exceeding the 1.5C threshold. The IPCC warns that emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure alone could surpass the remaining global carbon budget, reinforcing the urgency to phase out fossil fuels.”
The plan says that the UK “now has the opportunity to lead in clean energy”, which “is both a national and global imperative”.
With this backdrop, the plan reaffirms Labour’s manifesto commitment to not issue any new oil and gas licences.
However, the plan says that the government will introduce “transitional energy certificates” to allow new oil and gas drilling on or near to existing fields, as long as this additional production does not require exploration.
An analysis by the North Sea transition charity Uplift found that the amount of oil and gas that could be produced by such certificates is “relatively small”.
It suggested that new discoveries within a 50km radius of existing productions contain just 25m barrels of oil and 20m barrels of oil equivalent of gas.
(By comparison, the Rosebank oil field, which is currently seeking development consent from the government, would produce nearly 500m barrels of oil and gas equivalent in its lifetime.)
In a footnote on page 36, the plan says that these certificates will have no effect on the process for giving development consent to new oil and gas projects.
Last year, Carbon Brief reported that several large oil and gas projects are currently seeking development consent from the government.
Because they already have a license, these projects are able to get around Labour’s policy on not issuing any new oil and gas licenses and still seek final approval.
However, a landmark legal case in 2024 means that all of such projects, including Rosebank, will now have to present the government with information about how much emissions will come from burning the oil and gas they plan to produce, before they can be approved.
Responding to today’s budget news, Tessa Khan, executive director of Uplift, said that the “government is right to end the fiction of endless drilling”, but should “put an end to all new fields, including the huge Rosebank oil field”.
The North Sea future plan also says that the government will change the objectives of the North Sea Transition Authority, the government-run company that controls and regulates offshore oil and gas production.
Before the change, the NSTA was in the awkward position of being responsible for both ensuring the oil and gas sector reaches net-zero and maximising the economic recovery of oil and gas reserves from the North Sea.
Now, the government wants the NSTA to balance three objectives: to “maximise societal economic value”; support the energy secretary in meeting net-zero goals; and consider the long-term benefits of the transition for North Sea workers, communities and supply chains.
In addition, the North Sea future plan also announces that the government will establish the “North Sea jobs service”, a national employment programme offering support for oil and gas workers seeking new opportunities in clean energy, defence and advanced manufacturing.
Nuclear, ‘green finance’, critical minerals and rail
The section in the budget about “investing in the UK’s energy security” largely focuses on the government’s plans for nuclear power.
At the last spending review, the government announced £14.2bn of investment in the planned Sizewell C nuclear-power plant in Suffolk.
The plant is set to be supported under the “regulated asset base” (RAB) model, which levies an extra charge on consumer energy bills to support the cost of the development. OBR analysis concludes this will generate £0.7bn in receipts in 2026-27, doubling to £1.4bn in 2030-31.
The budget also says the prime minister is issuing a “strategic steer” on the “safe and efficient delivery” of nuclear developments through “proportionate regulation and stronger collaboration”.
It says the government will additionally issue an “implementation plan”, within three months, in response to the recently published report on nuclear regulation. It says it will “complete implementation within two years”.
The government has also updated its “green financing framework”, which sets guidelines for the type of expenditures that can raise funding from investors under the UK’s green financing programme. It has now added nuclear power to the list of eligible expenditures.
Other climate-related measures mentioned in the budget include regional funding, such as £14.5m for a new low-carbon industrial centre in Grangemouth, Scotland, and support for “critical minerals, renewable energy and marine innovation” in Cornwall.
This builds on the government’s “critical mineral strategy” released last week, which specifically highlights Cornwall as a site of “mineral wealth”, where mining for lithium, tin and tungsten is being undertaken.
The government has also announced a one-year freeze on rail fares, which it states could save commuters taking expensive routes “more than £300 per year”.
The post UK budget 2025: Key climate and energy announcements appeared first on Carbon Brief.
© Harriet Spark / Grumpy Turtle Film / Greenpeace
The banner drop is a distinctive part of the Greenpeace repertoire.
The moment of the unfolding is intrinsically dramatic. It is the reveal; when the moral and scientific truth of a situation is unveiled to the world. The wrong is being labelled—not through a written submission, or a social media post, or a statement in a meeting—but in words emblazoned in real physical space, chosen and occupied with precision, for all to see. There is jeopardy and transgression. And there are consequences—for the activists and for Greenpeace, as well as for the target of the communication. One of the reasons the banner remains such an effective tool in our toolbox is because of its undeniable clarity in cutting through, driving change and accountability in a way that few other tactics can. It is naming the wrong: in giant, clear letters.
We’ve hung these massive messages at environmental crime scenes, corporate headquarters, and iconic landmarks; on government buildings, ships and planes—in locations all around the world, for years.
My own memories unfurl even as I write this, but because the campaign to stop Woodside at Scott Reef is so pressing, what immediately springs to mind are two of our banners in that campaign: one on a crane outside their Perth HQ, and another on some of their corroding industrial junk at sea. What about you? Is there a particular banner that you picture when you think of Greenpeace?
The banners can attract global attention, but they have quiet beginnings. Each one is made by hand, often by volunteers. It is the invisible labour behind each spectacular public moment. One of the key pieces of equipment in our workshop at Rainbow Warrior House is the sewing machine. Sometimes our workshop is full of people and noise; at others it is quiet, the only sound being the gentle, purposeful, whir and buzz of a banner being sewn. It is usually our warehouse manager, Kieran Holmes, on the tools, head over the machine, carefully pouring over the raw canvas or tarp as the banner takes shape. Kieran’s one of those people who seems to be able to turn his hand to almost anything, but you wouldn’t know it because he’s old-school modest. In addition to being incredibly skilled, Kieran’s an all-round beaut human to have in the heart of our headquarters; never too busy to take the time to show a newcomer, or curious visitor, around his domain.
Once the banner is sewn up, the lettering needs to be outlined. This is done on a magnetic wall—a fit-for-purpose feature at Rainbow Warrior House, where the banner is held up with magnets, and the edges of the letters neatly traced from a projection.
Next comes the painting. It usually starts late in the afternoon, sometimes going into evenings and weekends, with volunteers, staff, mates crowded around, brushes in hand. It is a calming meditative feeling of shared purpose, giving each letter its visual heft, the colour building power and presence with each stroke.
Then you stand back, stretch, and look at the message, now ready.
S A V E S C O T T R E E F
Throughout history, every great push for social change has required some form of invisible labour; preparation in the form of quiet things seldom seen, but vital. It is the enabling work of love instantiated in action. And of course, so much of the time it has been women who have done this labour, so that the men could get the chance to make the speeches and stand on the podiums. The inaugural Greenpeace voyage to stop nuclear testing in 1971 had a male-only crew, but wouldn’t have happened without the ideas and work of women behind the scenes.
It is what we do together, after all, that changes the world. Sometimes that work happens on a stage, a ship on the wild seas, or up the side of a building. But mostly, it is the hidden diligence of those who care and contribute to all the enabling work that makes a change once thought impossible, inevitable. It is Kieran at his sewing machine. It was Dorothy Stowe doing the administrative work of the ‘Don’t Make A Wave Committee’ that became Greenpeace.
When we think of social change, it is the sturm and drang that we remember. The drop of the banner, the chant of the crowd, the raising of the new flag. But look behind the curtain, and there’ll be a crew of people who are taking responsibility for the administration, the sewing and the painting, making the food, checking the bus timetables, getting stuff done. And behind them are even more handsinvisibly donating time and trust; the financial, material and expert resources that make it all possible. There’s love, camaraderie and know-how at every stage.
We are social and cooperative creatures by nature. And we human beings have been stitching for millenia, sewing the possibilities of our common future. Political and corporate bullies and algorithmically manipulative platforms would have us forget this, and abandon who we are. But we should be in no doubt that the brighter prospects for ourselves and life on earth continue to be stitched and painted; collaboratively and with love, by the diligent hands of millions of people who care, each day, in every community and city across the world.
With Love,
David
Q & A
I always get great questions when interviewing prospective new team members. One that came up again recently was: “Is Greenpeace actually one organisation?”
Around the world, people know Greenpeace by our one global name, united by a shared mission: securing an Earth capable of nurturing life in all its magnificent diversity, with a particular focus on climate and biodiversity. Behind the scenes, though, we’re organised as a network of 25 legally autonomous national and regional offices, including Greenpeace Australia Pacific, working alongside Greenpeace International.
That structure gives us the best of both worlds: we work together leveraging the power of a global network on the issues that matter most, while each office remains legally independent and deeply connected to the communities, cultures and political realities where we’re embedded. Local knowledge informs global action, and global collaboration strengthens and supports local campaigns.
It’s a model that has enabled Greenpeace to take on some of the world’s biggest challenges for over five decades–while withstanding challenges and attacks from governments and corporations. Global enough to tackle global problems, local enough to understand our communities and the natural places we love.
If you’re curious to learn more, you can read about the Greenpeace Global Network structure here.
Steven Stone is acting director of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Office of Science
In 1934, American economist Simon Kuznets presented a paper to Congress advocating for a new way of measuring economic performance.
The United States was reeling from the Great Depression, and Kuznets – a future Novel prize winner – wanted to gauge just how badly the country’s economy had been dented.
His metric, which would come to be known as gross domestic product (GDP), was a breakthrough. But as pioneering as it was, Kuznets saw its limitations.
“The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income,” he wrote in the 1934 paper.
Some nine decades on, we have largely forgotten that message. GDP has become a barometer of economic progress, a kind of one-number-that-rules-them-all upon which national policies turn and governments rise and fall.
With the climate crisis deepening by the day – as evidenced by the heatwaves and wildfires now searing Europe – our attachment to GDP is looking like a problem.
In a single-minded pursuit of GDP growth, humanity is inadvertently feeding several environmental crises that, over the long run, threaten to make most of us poorer, sicker and more miserable. Climate change alone could slice 20 per cent off global GDP by 2100 – a staggering number.
Clear-cutting boosts GDP not wealth
We need to broaden our vision and definition of economic success before it’s too late.
I grew up in the 1970s and 80s surrounded by the mixed hardwood forests of the northeastern United States. For me, the trees were a refuge, a place to run, discover and savor the history and mystery of the land and its people.
Those experiences with my friends were more important than the amount of money in my pocket. And they led to a realization early on in my career as an economist: that wealth is about more than just income.
This is one of GDP’s most significant oversights.
With every forest we clear cut and every ounce of fossil fuel we burn, GDP rises. But through those actions, we are whittling away at the natural world, which supplies us with food, water, medicine, clean air and countless other essentials.
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By focusing only on GDP, we’re ignoring what’s happening to the natural assets on which our prosperity ultimately depends. It’s like we’re driving a car and only looking at the speedometer, not the energy remaining in the battery.
That is the difference between measuring income versus measuring wealth.
The answer to this dilemma lies in looking beyond GDP. We must start considering a broader range of indicators when making policy decisions.
From an environmental perspective, that means measuring and valuing natural assets like forests, water, soil, biodiversity and clean air. By assigning a value to nature, decision-makers can better understand the economic consequences of, say, strip-mining a mountain top or letting plastic waste overwhelm a river.
There is still some debate over how exactly to do this kind of natural capital accounting. But that’s not a reason to dismiss it, as many have done. It took years of refinement to end up with the GDP formula we have today.
Costa Rica’s example
The idea of looking beyond GDP isn’t only a theoretical debate. Countries and communities around the world have started to make economic decisions based on their natural assets. A prime example is Costa Rica, a biodiversity hotspot where a years-long effort to conserve land and seascapes has led to a boom in tourism. That in part helped elevate the country into the club of high-income nations.
This kind of environmentally focused economic decision making can pay huge dividends. By stabilizing the climate, ending pollution and halting the loss of the natural world, humanity could save millions of lives a year and create US$20 trillion in economic benefits annually by 2070, found the Global Environment Outlook 7, a 2025 report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The report was funded by the European Union among others.
I began my career as an economist before moving to UNEP, which focuses on solving the world’s thorniest environmental problems. During that time, I’ve come to appreciate that “wealth” means more than simply “income.” True prosperity means being able to provide for ourselves now and into the future. Anything short of that is an empty kind of affluence – and ultimately doomed to be short-lived.
As deadly heat blankets our cities, species slip into extinction and the planet struggles with rising toxicity and pollution, I am convinced that we can do better at measuring what matters. And that means updating and expanding how we measure economic progress.
The post As fires burn and temperatures soar, it’s time to imagine a world beyond GDP appeared first on Climate Home News.
As fires burn and temperatures soar, it’s time to imagine a world beyond GDP
Amira Odeh Quiñones is a hydrologist and Caribbean organiser for the 350.org climate campaign group
El Niño, likely to be one of the strongest in modern history, has arrived on Caribbean shores.
Drought is slowly creeping up on our islands. But unlike the fiery wildfires ravaging parts of Europe, there’s no smoke signalling the damage being done, no sirens to warn of the danger. Only announcements from public health officials to stay indoors and remain hydrated — as if outdoor workers and farming communities have the luxury to heed such advice.
During El Niño, strong atmospheric winds alter rain patterns and trap heat across the Caribbean. But while we have experienced El Niño many times before, it has become very visible in recent years how climate change is making this natural phenomenon worse.
Across the Greater Antilles, temperatures are soaring past 38°C (100°F), with real-feel indexes reaching a gruelling 43°C in parts of Puerto Rico where I live. Cuba has it worse. Widespread power outages mean that methods for cooling down are unavailable for most of the day, leaving millions of vulnerable people at risk of heat stroke when temperatures hit 38°C.
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During the last strong drought a decade ago, I had water only two days a week in my home. Today, there are many families whose taps are about to run completely dry. Water authorities have already begun strict rationing in some municipalities, with more on the list scheduled for rationing if conditions don’t change.
Water rationing is far more than an inconvenience; it is an immediate health risk. This means thousands of people need to constantly haul heavy buckets up flights of stairs just so they could bathe, cook, stay hydrated – the basics of survival.
Heat causes health problems
Puerto Rico is home to roughly 300,000 elderly residents. Many live alone, isolated and without support. They risk severe physical injury when carrying heavy water containers, and are wont to suffer from silent heat exhaustion in unventilated rooms.
Furthermore, when water shortages force residents to store water in open household containers, it inadvertently creates breeding grounds for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Paired with scorching temperatures that tend to shorten the mosquito breeding cycle, the region is facing explosive outbreaks of dengue fever that endanger our most vulnerable: children and the elderly.
The economic fallout is equally devastating. Dry fields mean millions of dollars in lost crops, forcing small agricultural businesses to collapse, needing urgent government relief to survive. Extreme fuel shortages have already paralyzed Cuba’s agricultural sector, cutting food output by 60% – the El Niño dry spell threatens to decimate it.
At sea, warmer ocean waters fuel massive influxes of sargassum seaweed. Rotting sargassum chokes our beaches, destroying the local tourism industry that so many working families rely on. Tangled seaweed also damages nets and boat engines, slashing fish catches and driving up equipment costs for local fishers.
In the south of Puerto Rico, the coastal town of La Parguera is currently witnessing a historic amount of sargassum on its shores. This has halted most of the boating activity in the area, which is the seaside town’s main tourist draw and economic driver.
All over the Caribbean, from town halls to local group gatherings, the story I hear is always the same: constant headaches, lost work hours, failing health, and a sense that quality of life is silently being stolen. The compounding effects of heatwaves, drought, and marine destruction are exhausting our people, our islands.
Climate change to blame
Climate change makes each El Niño year hotter and more damaging. Higher baseline global temperatures increase the energy and moisture available for extreme weather. Latest projections show that El Niño may push the monthly global average temperature past 2°C of warming for the first time in early 2027. In the Caribbean islands, that will not just be breaking records – it’ll be breaking lives.
Recently, I had the opportunity to share a panel with climate scientists behind what is known as the field of “attribution science” – or the science that compares today’s climate conditions to what the Earth’s climate would be like without human activity, particularly burning fossil fuels. They’re unequivocal: it’s no longer a question of whether extreme weather is caused by climate change, it’s just a question of how much.
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Attribution science recently got a boost from the U.S.’ top scientific advisory body. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recognized that researchers’ methods have advanced considerably in recent years, resulting in better assessments on how much extreme weather can be attributed to human-caused climate change. It noted that attribution findings could be relevant in some types of legal cases, including those seeking damages from oil companies for climate impacts.
This crisis, which is already taking a heavy toll on our communities’ survival, needs real, urgent, and structural action that goes beyond aid. With similar droughts now gripping parts of Asia and Africa, we’re falling into the familiar narrative of treating the looming humanitarian crisis as if no one was to blame, as if it is being caused solely by a natural phenomenon we can’t control.
It’s not. The world was already on fire before its regular visitor, El Niño, came. While we need humanitarian action, we need climate action too, in order to permanently put out the flames.
The post When taps run dry in the Caribbean, it’s not enough to blame El Niño appeared first on Climate Home News.
When taps run dry in the Caribbean, it’s not enough to blame El Niño
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Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
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Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
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Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
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Renewable Energy10 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
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Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测
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Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits