Dustin Benton

The food industry must face up to nature-related risk Boardrooms need to acknowledge that without healthy soils and reliable seasons the system could face collapse

New CEO of Diageo writes:

"Environmental shocks, from flooding to soil degradation to heat stress, pose direct threats to commercial viability

Recent evidence found that the share prices of companies most exposed to biodiversity risk underperformed those less exposed"

www.ft.com/content/5094...

OBR reckons pay per mile for EVs "is likely to reduce demand for electric cars as it increases their lifetime cost". Expecting 440k fewer sales through to 2030 compared to previous forecast, offset by a 130k increase in sales from more funding for the government's grant scheme'.

Assuming your gas boiler is 90% efficient, your heat pump needs to have a SCOP of 3.6 to break even.

This is certainly achievable - my heat pump is comfortably above this. But I had a really good installer.

This will reduce the price of electricity, good for bills and will make the transition easier. But because of other levies (nuclear, correcting two decades of underinvestment in the grid), electricity will still be around 4x the cost of gas.

This is a big deal. The reduction in sulphur emissions from ships means clouds aren’t as reflective and persistent, so the warming from greenhouse gases is not offset as much. So, while this change is very good for air quality, it’s very bad for almost everything else. #climate

The case for delaying the application of the EU’s carbon border levy to electricity The inclusion of electricity in CBAM creates more problems than it solves; ways should be found to exempt it

Brughel calling for a delay to CBAM on electricity as it risks pushing prices power prices up for a couple of years with v little climate benefit.

Better to have accelerated ETS/elec market linking but we're 6 weeks away from CBAM's application...

www.bruegel.org/analysis/cas...

Time series of annual GISTEMP data from 1880 onwards with an estimate for 2025 based on Jan-Oct data showing that it will be cooler than 2024, but probably a little warmer than 2023.

Now that the Sept and Oct data are (belatedly) in, it looks like 2025 will be the second warmest year in the record (~80% probability). The last three years are in a class of their own.

Hundreds of thousands to lose heat pump subsidies in Reeves’s budget plan Exclusive: chancellor plans to fund energy efficiency levies via warm homes plan as part of drive to lower energy bills

This will kill the heat pump market.

And that means cuts in investment in the whole system: tech, skills, supply chain, business investment.

And the subsidy is not a *benefit*, it's designed to equalise the choice between gas and electric.

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

Appointment: 11 November 2025 The King has been pleased to approve the following appointment.

Well, Alan Whitehead's appointment is good news for UK energy www.gov.uk/government/n...

Probably re 2030. Re your point about solar, I've done no modelling, but have wondered whether a big surge in (v cheap) solar might do two things for CP2030: 1) increase exports in the summer which count against one of the two subtargets; 2) make summer prices cheap, helping cut annual bills.

You are right - AR6 had £455m for technologies other than offshore wind. Fixed offshore wind had £1.1bn though, after the uplift in budget, no?

£1.1bn for UK renewables this year (AR7) vs £1.5bn for renewables last year (AR6).
The message to developers is to not take the mick on pricing - but the reality is that this isn't the final number, and everyone knows that. 🔌💡

This isn't going to happen. What car manufacturer is going to bet their market share on selling cars that go slow after the 100km PHEV battery dies?

Why supermarket prices really became sky high in the UK Butter, chocolate, coffee and milk have all seen prices rocket. Tracing back through the story of one particular supermarket staple begins to explain why

Kudos to @faisalislam.bsky.social on drawing the link between climate and food prices in this piece www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A shame it took him til word 1,882 (or 1,963 words) to do so.

Pleased to be talking about the future of UK wind power in light of the loss of political consensus on climate - alongside Andrew Bowie, Conservative energy minister.

Five staples fuelling UK food inflation as climate risks rise, study finds Findings challenge narrative that food price growth is being driven by higher taxes and wage costs

"climate impacted products alone added almost two percentage points to the 5.1% rise in the food and drink basket — roughly 4x the inflationary impact of the rest."
www.ft.com/content/ced8...

imo, the obliteration of of the IRA Waste Emissions Charge (the "methane rule") is an underdiscussed loss with global ripple effects.

the EPA had a solid framework for identifying & abating cheap, high-impact GHG emissions in up/midstream gas. it's all gone now. the EU methane reg stands alone.

😱

This is the quiet, but slowly getting louder horror story taking place across the northern hemisphere

Nice bit of journalism here on a potential 5x rise in the farming inheritance tax threshold. I tend to agree that it buys no goodwill: news.sky.com/story/damage...

PART 1: Uncharted Territory

Overshoot Episode 1: Uncharted Territory

If the world didn’t win, has it lost?

We meet the underdog diplomats who helped the world set the 1.5°C goal, and the champion sailors who can help us set a course for navigating what comes next

Listen to episode one now: open.spotify.com/episode/1bJl...

The question for me is less whether you can, but whether you should. The UK promised investors that the RO renewables would operate according to a set formula. The best alternative to RO I have seen is Imperial's Pot Zero idea, but when govt tried it voluntarily nobody signed up...

- CfDs: £29/y but varies (would break contract law)
- ETS costs vary but killing the ETS means no EU electricity deal, which might even put bills up in net terms.

Of these, only CPS doesn't involve retrospective change that would destroy investor confidence.

Claire Coutinho would scrap carbon/renewables costs to save £126/y on bills. What might go?
- Carbon Price Support: £26/y (main loser is the taxpayer)
- Renewables Obligation: £86/y (retrospective change- v bad for investment)
- Small scale FiTs: £20/y (retrospective- bad for small solar investors)

Does the example of Pakistan not make you think maybe demand growth is instead met by solar in sunbelt countries like Vietnam? Much more spare capacity in the solar supply chain.

Another politician saying don't invest in Britain. 🤦‍♂️

Grid battery prices fell by 40% last year.

Evidence is mounting they falling by around ANOTHER 40% THIS YEAR🤯🤯🤯

Well, USMCA (RIP NAFTA) still just about exists, at least for now...

I'm looking forward to tea production stats from English tea growers (shout out to www.dartmoorestatetea.com, tregothnan.co.uk, and peterstontea.com) that look like this chart...

Feel free to read the source www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-chan...