Abigail Dombey

The week the EU’s climate foundations started to shake An assault on Europe’s most important climate law, the Emissions Trading System, took the fight against green rules to a whole new level.

NEW: With back-to-back summits bashing carbon pricing, the very foundations of the European Union's climate efforts started creaking under pressure last week.

www.politico.eu/article/eu-c...

Fuel share for residential and non-residential heating demand (%)

It’ll vary by country - that might be true in countries which massively depend on gas for heating. (Gas supplies >50% heating demand in 🇳🇱, 🇬🇧, 🇮🇹, 🇭🇺,🇧🇪, 🇨🇦.)

But in countries where gas usage for heating is more marginal, I imagine it will be more rapidly impacted by reduced gas usage for⚡️ generation.

One Q suggested by EG's research: what does the diesel industry look like when most vehicles are EVs? Who produces it & how much does it cost? I wonder that about a lot of petroleum products that are cheap because they rely on an enormous gasoline supply chain. Liquid fuels might get more precious.

@garius.bsky.social 👆🏽

It's galling to contemplate but I really think you have to admit that Musk buying X was an unqualified victory. It can't be exaggerated just how much prominent journalists, pundits, business type, etc. mistake the vibe on X for "how the country is feeling."

Tomorrow, I am talking with researcher @gruberte.bsky.social about her work on the energy "mid-transition," that messy period when fossil fuel systems are declining as clean energy systems grow. Her latest paper contemplates the "minimum viable scale" for such systems before they collapse.

Got Qs?

The Guardian view on the BBC World Service: this is London calling | Editorial Editorial: With just seven weeks before its funding runs out, the UK’s greatest cultural asset and most trusted international news organisation must be supported

And another bites the dust?

The BBC World Service will run out of funding in just seven weeks. Its funding arrangement with the Foreign Office finishes at the end of March. There is no plan for what happens next.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

what if somebody was running for office saying that redheads should be deported

this was yesterday’s weather, I miss it already

but that's England in a nutshell: could do better, won't

I stopped counting but there are now close to 70 independent studies all coming to similar conclusion:

“Hydrogen boilers […] remain economically unviable.”

This is what this paper which I had not yet read found comparing a range of heating technologies.

#schoolstreets #cleanair #roadsafety #healthystreets #activetravel #lambeth #climateaction | Rezina Chowdhury CMRS Fantastic to host Lambeth’s 4th School Streets Conference at the Town Hall this morning and a proud moment to reflect on how far we’ve come. We now have 45 School Streets serving 50 schools, with 16 ...

“My message remains: Be ambitious. Hold your nerve. Safer streets for children aren’t optional. They are a moral obligation.” @rezinachowdhury.bsky.social
#SchoolStreets

England really gave us eight hours of sunlight and then said lol alright that’s enough of that

Ah good. Rain. Thank god that dry spell of...

*Checks notes*

...one day is over.

A great chart for showing the regional economic drivers for electrification of transport, heating and industry, and adoption of renewables.

High importers have the most to gain in near term economics.

However, the whole planet looses if we don't move as fast as we can in all regions.

AI at its best.

valentine's day isn't just for couples, it's also a day to celebrate love. for instance, i would love it if housing prices came down.

London has the lowest rates of MMR immunisation in the country. Map via @houseofcommons.parliament.uk library.

Graph of Human Develppment Index, a UN metric that combines per-capita GDP, education, and health, vs. annual energy use per person. Each dot is a country. HDI increases with energy use to a point, then saturates. The US is twice as far to the right on energy use per person as the "kink point" where energy use stops influencing HDI. The UK and Switzerland are near the kink point, using about half the per-capita energy of the US, but have better health and education outcomes.

The United States uses about twice as much energy per person as Switzerland or the UK. The US also has worse public health and life expectancy. Few countries use more energy per person than the US. Most of them are, like the US, petrostates.

Nothing about our current moment is comprehensible without understanding that:

1. Until 1965, white men decided who was president.
2. for the next four decades, every president elected was either a Republican or a white male Southerner.
3. Barack Obama was the first exception to the above.

Polling these last two weeks is very clear that Trump has not only lost the argument about ICE, he's also lost it on mass deportation. Country wants him to focus on the criminals and leave the rest of us alone. From new Yahoo/YouGov:

www.yahoo.com/news/politic...

You never know what the source of a rumour is, you never know what the reason for a dogpile is, but you CAN know that there's always SOMEONE on the other side of an account, no matter how big it is.

Perhaps... don't find joy in harassing them.

I think we can guess where those supercomputers are going

We've been hiking in the Lakes for over 25 years and today was one of our very best days. Feel very lucky.

China's Xinhua news agency has just published this editorial cartoon in response to Trump's rejection of climate policies.

It is pretty clear that China views this as a HUGE geopolitical fumble by the US leaving the field clear for China's to win the global race to clean-tech hegemony

"Reducing reliance on fossil fuels looks like Europe’s best shot at saving its domestic manufacturing and stopping other governments from pushing it around."

Outstanding article in The Wall Street Journal. www.wsj.com/business/ene...

YouTube video by Anastasi In Tech This Breakthrough Could Kill the GPU Race

I am wildly unqualified to assess the technical claims here, but at least on the surface this looks plausible, and if it's true, there are still *enormous* efficiencies to be found in chip design & many of the hysterical forecasts for future energy demand are way off.

The Economic Costs of Brexit on the UK | Econofact Brexit has had a substantial economic impact on the United Kingdom, with adverse effects on investment, productivity, employment, and growth.

New economic research: "We estimate that by 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, with the impact accumulating gradually over time."

Heard from a fusion company that says it will "reach costs competitive with natural gas by 2040."

How much do you suppose solar+batteries are going to cost in 2040?

Here's a Fox News segment where contributor Marc Thiessen explains that we don't need to regulate greenhouse gases because "AI will help us find lots of ways to adapt to a warming climate so we can live with it."