Emma Pinchbeck

How fast is climate changing? One generation is sufficient for unfamiliar heatwave characteristics to emerge in Europe - Climatic Change We analyze the observed (1950–2020) and expected (2021–2050) change in temperature extremes and heatwave characteristics over Europe across time, and the emergence of unfamiliar (Signal to Noise ratio...

Grandparents may soon tell their grand children stories about climate as if they were talking about music tapes and times without mobile phones: Paper led by Alessandro Dosio from @ec.europa.eu JRC: link.springer.com/article/10.1... @wegenercenter.bsky.social

“They were up for change. They didn’t mind challenge. They wanted fairness. But they also really didn’t understand what the change meant for them, for their communities." @elpinchbeck.bsky.social on what the British public think about the transition to net zero

UK’s net-zero guru: ‘Only Londoners say rural folk can’t adapt’ Emma Pinchbeck wants to dispel the myth that saving the planet will mean austere lifestyle changes and says the countryside is forever changing

A pleasure to go for a stroll with CCC CEO @elpinchbeck.bsky.social to talk about the trade offs between nature and climate, what climate action means for the UK and the metropolitan fantasy of an unchanging English countryside. In the Sunday Times @thetimes.com

www.thetimes.com/article/b729...

This is so positive to see from @elpinchbeck.bsky.social and the CCC. Understanding, acknowledging & addressing the unavoidable distributional impacts on low income households properly, & from the start, will allow Govt to act faster & bolder. If not, you build hesitancy & caution into policy.

Labour warned it risks losing support for net zero if costs not spread fairly Exclusive: Chief climate adviser calls on Starmer to make ‘strong, confident’ case for green UK that public can buy into

Thanks Fiona Harvey @theguardian.com for this long-promised “starting at the ccc” interview, coming at an unintentionally interesting couple of weeks for decarbonisation in the UK!

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Figures taken from https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-change-increased-the-likelihood-of-wildfire-disaster-in-highly-exposed-los-angeles-area/ showing the ERA5 Z500 field of Jan 8 2025 over California, and the closest analogues from a past and present period. Below, a timeseries of the change in frequency of similar events through time - showing an increase between 1950 and 2024.

In @wwattribution.bsky.social report on the LA wildfires this January we show the frequency and intensity of the atmospheric circulation of the event has increased in winter, raising the risk of weather conditions that drive the spread of wildfire.
www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-chan...

Most People in the UK Are Worried About Climate Change bar chart showing survey results to the question how worried are you about climate change. 80% said they were very worried or somewhat worried.

It might seem like there's a net zero backlash, but:

The CCC finds that the public are more ambitious than the gov expects. They just want clarity about what they’re being asked to do.

My v. interesting chat with @elpinchbeck.bsky.social @ @opinion.bloomberg.com
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Lots of "growth vs net-zero" media coverage today following comments by Rachel Reeves.

But if u read her comments she didn't say they were in direct opposition, she was simply listing her "priorities".

The UK (and others) have shown over recent decades that growth and emissions can be decoupled

Gave evidence to the Scottish HoC Select Committee yesterday morning with CCC’s great power sector lead Owen Bellamy, plus reps from the Just Transition Commission (panel 1). Fraser is right - was an interesting discussion about where energy & climate policy meet industrial & social policy.

Good luck to them, because he really is always hungry.

I’m in that stage of having a 2.5 yr old where it was easier to let him go to nursery dressed as the Very Hungry Caterpillar than to have an argument about sensible play clothes. GOOD MORNING.

The Committee’s next advice is out in Feb: we’d be happy to debate it then. Helena, if you don’t know anyone on the Committee or team, worth contacting re your diets research? Thanks.

“…protecting what is most important to us, supporting vulnerable communities across the globe, and ensuring a decent life for our kids can be possible and is worth working towards as best as we can. We can be both realistic and hopeful of finding a positive solution”

Warmer homes and healthier people: what’s not to like about a low-carbon future? Challenges of hitting net zero emissions are often discussed, but little focus is given to the gains of living in a low-carbon world

Warmer homes and healthier people: what’s not to like about a low-carbon future?

Challenges of hitting net zero emissions are often discussed, but little focus is given to the gains of living in a low-carbon world:
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Why wildfires are becoming faster and more furious With the risk factors increasing, is it still safe to live in areas prone to these disasters - and can fireproofing ever work?

NEW: In light of the LA wildfires, I've put together a special in-depth report about how climate change is increasing the risk of such fires escalating quickly.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The politics isn’t my job, but the carbon budgets are. You’re quoting my advice to Parliament. That advice meets the UK’s 2035 of 81% emissions reduction in line with Paris agreement - the first country in the world to work out how to do so for 2035. Full pathways in spring when we publish advice.

(Every bit*)

The Interim Chair of the @thecccuk.bsky.social , world-class climate scientist @piersforster.bsky.social has new research out with colleagues, which suggests a temperature rise of around 1.37 (with uncertainty 1.25-1.49 degC).

As Piers & the Committee have said: bit of additional warming counts.

Essentially all inhabited places on the planet were warmer in 2024 than the recent baseline. Most of the ocean area too.

About 1/3 of the planet experienced record high temperatures.

We know why.

And we know how to fix it.

@copernicusecmwf.bsky.social
climate.copernicus.eu/global-clima...

Climate inaction is way more expensive than climate action, and it’s not even close.

Parliamentlive.tv Energy Security and Net Zero Committee

We also discussed adaptation, financing, and public engagement:

parliamentlive.tv/event/index/...

The CCC made 10 recommendations to government at the last progress report. Today we highlighted that making electricity cheaper is an essential recommendation for 2035; we want households and businesses to benefit from electrification and for the private sector to invest.

(Although I think my headlined “struggle” sounds a bit much for a situation in which my kids ate extra biscuits in the nursery for 10 Mins; we did talk in the evidence session about how households struggling with costs stand to benefit from cheap electricity, and electric technologies)

Net zero tsar admits she struggled to use electric car Emma Pinchbeck acknowledges challenges with new technology as she tells MPs that changes needed for UK to meet climate change targets

Also good from @emmagatten.bsky.social in the Telegraph:

“ People will still have warm, comfortable homes, they will still turn their heating on as they do now,” Ms Pinchbeck told MPs on the energy security and net zero committee. “They’ll still drive cars.”

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01...

Public will not have to change lives ‘radically’ for 2035 climate goal, MPs told Government climate advisers said the UK can ‘absolutely’ meet its targets for 2030 and 2035, but it currently remains off track.

Good write up of a key theme of today’s DESNZ Select Committee evidence www.independent.co.uk/climate-chan...

Emily Nurse of the UK Climate Change Committee says that Labour's responses so far on plans to make electricity cheaper have been a "little underwhelming".

She says cheaper elec is urgent. "It's so important for the whole [energy] transition," she says.

A pie chart showing the area burned by the 20 largest wildfires on record from 1900 through 2021 in California.

As climate change increases the risk of dry conditions and fire weather, fires across western NAm are bigger, more dangerous, and burning greater area.

It’s the difference between accidentally dropping a match into a pile of green, wet wood versus dropping it into a stack of bone dry kindling.

A clean energy system is a secure and cheap energy system, @elpinchbeck.bsky.social tells @evanhd.bsky.social.

@thecccuk.bsky.social

A well-deserved award for Chris Stark, my predecessor at the CCC, for his outstanding leadership on climate change, including through the period where the Committee advised Government on the world’s first Net Zero target.

A jay bird has decided to visit our garden, and now my two small humans know what a jay bird is, which is as good an end to 2024 as any other. Happy New Year, all. Switching off until 2025.