Fraser Stewart

Our first ask is a target: 🎯 1GW of community-owned energy by 2030.

That's 10x higher than now. Ambitious? Yes, but achievable.
@rescoop.eu say "In EU countries with such goals in place, clear policy signals and investor confidence has led to significant growth of the community energy movement.”

⚖️🔋 What does a just transition mean for #CommunityEnergy in the UK?

Join our live Q&A with @fraserjfstewart.bsky.social on how community energy can drive a fairer #NetZero, and why justice must be at the heart of the UK’s energy future.

👉 Find out more: buff.ly/5gXjykO

The world isn't silent on Gaza - this is by far the most vocal I have seen the general public on a political issue in my lifetime. I have also never seen a bigger difference between the anger of the public and the inaction of specific institutions and governments. That's the crucial disconnect.

“But it’s difficult and takes time!” I hear you cry. Absolutely. Which is why we need to ensure the business case in the same way we ensure revenues for big projects, and get serious about shared ownership on projects already underway. The value on offer is enormous - not least for public support.

Regen

A recent piece from me on some of the challenges and opportunities, and making it work for lower income and working class communities too www.regen.co.uk/insights/com...

We’ve known community energy punches well above its weight for some time. It’s not just about energy - it’s about wealth, resilience, engagement, power and prosperity. It’s also really popular. It won’t do ‘net zero’ alone, but it has to be a core pillar of any successful, just transition.

🧵 REVEALED: Community energy projects in Scotland are generating 100x more local wealth than privately-owned wind farms.

But just 0.5% of the renewable power is community-owned. Why this staggering imbalance?

Factcheck: Why expensive gas – not net-zero – is keeping UK electricity prices so high - Carbon Brief The UK’s high electricity prices have become intensely political, with competing claims over the cause of rocketing bills and how best to get them down.

Fact check: it's natural gas, not renewables, keeping electricity prices high in the UK.

www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-wh...

Hundreds of lawyers call for UK sanctions on Israel over Gaza war Their letter warns of genocide in Gaza, and calls on the UK to take concrete actions to meet its international legal obligations.

Proud to have put my name, with so many colleagues, to this brilliantly drafted letter

Cc: @georgemonbiot.bsky.social @ketanjoshi.co

Tl;dr - austerity/inequality erodes trust in gov and institutions > also drives far right support > if Labour won’t change course, the best counter is to unashamedly make decarbonisation work against austerity/inequality/declining living standards at its core (recognising most people still want it!)

#OtD 13 May 2021 local residents in Glasgow won the release of two people who had been detained by immigration officers by surrounding the vehicle and blockading it for several hours stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8509/glasgow-deportat...

Permits, we don't need no stinking permits. In a textbook case of environmental injustice, Elon Musk is poisoning the air in a poor, predominantly black neighborhood in Memphis with unpermitted gas turbines to power his "Grok" AI facility 1/. @politico.com

Unforgivable

So if a Global North govt chases the wish of retreating from the world, this is because they are deeply cynical, gravely misguided, or desperately afraid. It may work for an election, it may work for one short period of time, but global crises will eventually find you and the looks won’t be pretty.

The biggest threat to ‘net zero’ in the UK isn’t the far right: it’s Labour aping their talking points and failing to tackle the austerity and inequality that drives their support. We have to marry these together. Some thoughts from me fraserjfstewart-17.medium.com/picking-up-b...

Normalise telling people their 'concerns' are not, in fact, 'legitimate'.

Reform’s green energy assault in Lincolnshire ‘puts 12,200 jobs at risk’ Party intends to block projects despite net zero industries contributing nearly £1bn to local economy, analysis shows

Reform UK's attempted assault on clean energy infrastructure will have costs for Lincolnshire = not a rich county

Too often accusation is all about net-zero zealotry being expensive. Capital investment for sure. But anti-net-zero zealotry definitely has costs

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Children and young men, reaching for food, extend arms holding pots and pans. A headline reads: "As Israel's Blockade Grinds On, Gazan Children Go Hungry And Patients Die" Photo by Saher Alghorra for The New York Times

The effect of Israel’s total siege on Gaza has become catastrophic, doctors say. Shortages of food, water and medicine are prompting a surge of preventable illnesses, and deaths. nyti.ms/3GzOJV1

The only way around it is to get serious about actually improving things for people. It’s not coming from government. That means a lot of work to be done by the rest of us in communities, work places etc to build capacity, take ownership and organise.

Why Protests Should Be Promises Modern movements that aim to advance racial equity should withhold and promise, rather than perform, writes Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

"...for protests to succeed, they must be backed by movements with the ability to promise to withhold—labor, debt payments, rent payments, or consumer support—and to follow through if demands aren’t met."

Glad to have gotten the opportunity to push this line in Time

time.com/collections/...

Reporting Scotland - News at Seven: 30/04/2025 More from the day’s top stories and communities across Scotland.

I was on Reporting Scotland last night discussing what the closure of Grangemouth oil refinery, large local job losses and threats to our energy security. This unjust transition could have been avoided if governments had acted. Workers advocated viable greener alternatives. First report ⬇️

PS. None of this is to do down the immense work happening in the sector or the value that 'net zero' absolutely can deliver. But to do it in a way that brings people along, tackles injustices and makes lives better, we have to be prepared to recognise and challenge the failures of business-as-usual.

(More in an extended personal essay on this soon)

This will mean some uncomfortable conversations about who pays, owns, gets a say and to what end in all of this. But if we don't, I worry that we will ultimately seed alienation at best and resentment at worst (and leave a tonne of value untapped).

Can we solve everyone's problems through net zero? Probably not. But we can join the dots between net zero and the political, economic and social challenges people face, the role of the current economic model driving those, and from there build something altogether more hopeful.

This will mean some uncomfortable conversations about who pays, owns, profits and gets a say in all of this & to what end. I know we need to get our skates on, too. Yet if we continue on the path of business-as-usual-but-greener, I worry we will seed resentment and leave a tonne of value untapped.

Can we solve everyone's problems through the energy transition? Probably not. But we can join the dots between net zero and these political, economic and social challenges, recognise the role of the current economic model in causing them, and from there build something altogether more positive.

What some are seeing, I think, is business-as-usual-only-greener: promises of lower bills etc, but when push comes to shove, technocrats will decide what happens, the private sector/shareholders will hoover up the spoils and the rest of us will be left in more or less the same misery.

It's also far more difficult to get people excited about heat pumps or EVs when they can't get an NHS appointment, can barely afford a weekly shop, house prices are through the roof or they've had their disability allowance cut in the name of 'government efficiency'. These aren't separate issues.