Mike

Reeves poised to unveil Budget plan for EV drivers to pay per mile charges Chancellor looks to offset a forecast sharp drop in government revenue from fuel duty

There must be a replacement for road tax at some point, great, but…making EVs more expensive/less attractive *right now* is nuts. www.ft.com/content/9f90...

'Largest ever': Amazon's latest electric truck order hits the roads Arrival of new trucks hailed as 'major milestone' for Amazon’s efforts to decarbonise its UK transportation network

Amazon deploys latest wave of electric trucks. Worth remembering that it was not that long ago plenty of serious people were arguing this technology could never work. It is now being deployed at scale by one of the world's largest companies. www.businessgreen.com/news/4521328...

***ALL-TIME RECORD***
#Melissa is now the Strongest landfall ever on record in the Atlantic (and it seems to be getting stronger!)
892mb, winds 185 mph. (Tied with the FL Keys Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 in wind and pressure)
#jamaica
1/

What's wrong with the Climate Change Act? Or, how the real Deep State holds back decarbonisation and growth by accident.

The Climate Change Act has led to a regime in which Government finds itself compelled to make short-run technological choices that may or may not pay off, and to do so via policies that are chock full of unintended consequences. I have written about this before. /1

Farage, Trump, Musk: your boy Javier Milei just took one hell of a beating. Why so quiet? | Aditya Chakrabortty The wild politics and chainsaw made Argentina’s president an economic hero for the right. And now, with his nation’s finances in chaos: silence, writes Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty

Elon Musk: “I love Javier Milei.”

Kemi Badenoch: “Javier Milei is the template.”

Donald Trump: “My favourite president.”

Nigel Farage: "Amazing. Cutting and slashing … doing all the things he’s done … that’s leadership.”

Meanwhile... in Argentina

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Crazy

It's time to tell the racists to fuck off Anti-racism norms are good and should be socially enforced

It's time to tell the racists to fuck off (FREE TO READ!)

takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/this-is-en...

No Boris Johnson, Charlie Kirk did not represent "common sense" His murder was a tragedy. Yet it was politicised by his own side instantly. The reaction revealed much.

Charlie Kirk’s murder was utterly abhorrent and corrosive to our politics.

So was much of the reaction to it- including from his allies.

My piece.

open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...

Poll: Eight in 10 Brits back more clean energy, including nearly two thirds of Reform supporters New YouGov survey confirms there is still overwhelming support for expanding the UK's clean energy infrastructure and a raft of other climate policies

Eight in 10 Brits support the development of more clean energy infrastructure (including large majorities of Reform and Tory supporters). www.businessgreen.com/news/4517538...

Obvious point this, but people need to stop believing what they are told by Farage, GB News, and the general declinist and alarmist media narrative and start paying attention to what is really going on regarding crime in this country.

The BBC and mainstream media have a duty to get the truth out.

Chris Stark: 'We should be looking at the electrostates... The UK should want to be one of those electrostates. The global clean energy transition is not stalling, it is accelerating.'

This is insane! You're talking about a heating system. Have they confirmed if you would be allowed to discuss air conditioning or explain how fridges work?

Trump post on Truth Social: THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT

Just to be clear, this post earlier is now a crime
👇

no idea who made this but it’s genius

Seeing "eco-friendly" on a product or service always makes me suspicious. Very rarely a genuine reason behind it and mostly used as a label to attract unknowing consumers who want to try and do the right thing

Let's just stop tracking it and then deny its happening

OK, time to pull out some of the key seventh carbon budget charts, with a focus on heat...

www.theccc.org.uk/publication/...

Project 2025 plan calls for demolition of NOAA and National Weather Service The call to dismantle the United States' vital weather department has raised the hackles of experts who say NOAA provides not only important free data but also life-saving information.

We collectively haven’t been taking the plans laid out by Project 2025 seriously enough. They want to destroy NOAA so people won’t know that climate change is happening. It sounds stupid and alarmist if you haven’t been paying attention.

A line graph showing atmospheric CO2 levels at Mauna Loa Observatory from 1955 to 2025. The y-axis represents CO2 mole fraction in parts per million (ppm), ranging from 320 to 420 ppm, while the x-axis is years.

The most iconic figure in the environmental sciences is the Keeling Curve, the CO₂ record from Mauna Loa, Hawaii.

@noaa.gov had a wonderful site where you could visualize and download these data, and now it's just gone. These data belong to us and we should not let this happen!

CARTOON OF THE DAY

A third of the Arctic’s vast carbon sink now a source of emissions, study reveals Critical CO2 stores held in permafrost are being released as the landscape changes with global heating, report shows

This is what I was writing about 20 years ago as a terrifying but far off prospect, a key tipping point in the climate crisis. Now it’s here. Report by my colleague @patrickgreenfield A third of Arctic’s vast carbon sink now source of emissions, study reveals www.theguardian.com/environment/...

World hits 1.5C warming

Or to put it another way: The people who questioned climate science and emissions cuts were wrong then, are wrong now, and we will all pay a huge price if we listen to them. www.ft.com/content/fd91...

Home Office requests review of ketamine classification The government will seek expert advice on reclassifying ketamine to become a Class A substance. From: Home Office and The Rt Hon Dame Diana Johnson DBE MP Published 8 January 2025 The government will seek expert advice on reclassifying ketamine to become a Class A substance, after illegal use of the drug

class A trolling

The spiralling cost of borrowing spells trouble for Rachel Reeves – but she must hold her nerve | Jonathan Portes There is no need to panic: the government’s overall fiscal strategy is the right one. Spending cuts would be a mistake, says Jonathan Portes, a professor at King’s College London

Don't make a drama out of a bond market crisis: me in @theguardian.com on why Reeves should stick to her plan.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Second test (more important, arguably): is the UK an outlier?
That's what happened in 2022. The sharp increases in UK yields couldn't be explained by moves happening in other countries.
But this time, save for a few days after the Budget, the UK is moving in lockstep with the US

Nick Robinson is doing a great job actually, just pointing out to Robert Jenrick how sudden his interest in the sex abuse scandal is on the Today Programme. It's crazy watching these GB News blowhards and Tory also-rans suddenly so interested in this scandal. There was absolutely no sign >>

Jealous of how good this is.

Of all the concepts that humankind needs to absorb + act on with extreme urgency, this tops the list.

YouTube video by Sky News What's behind Europe's car industry crisis? | Ed Conway analysis

🚗What's happening to Europe's car industry is one of the biggest stories in the world right now, & prob the biggest story of next year too.
A slow motion implosion driven by multiple factors (esp Chinese competition).
Watch my primer on what's going on👇 youtu.be/oW_SXIVQT5I?...

Keep doing these please!