📢ANALYSIS: UK emissions fell 3.6% in 2024 to lowest since 1872
🏭Coal lowest since 1666, when Great Fire ravaged London
🚗EVs pushed oil down despite more traffic, saving £1.7bn
🌇Gas down on "cleanest ever" power
📈📉Since 1990, CO2 -54% / GDP +84%
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-emissions-fall-3-6-in-2024-as-coal-use-drops-to-lowest-since-1666/
1/9
🏭Coal lowest since 1666, when Great Fire ravaged London
🚗EVs pushed oil down despite more traffic, saving £1.7bn
🌇Gas down on "cleanest ever" power
📈📉Since 1990, CO2 -54% / GDP +84%
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-emissions-fall-3-6-in-2024-as-coal-use-drops-to-lowest-since-1666/
1/9
Comments
That year, Queen Victoria was on the throne and Wanderers beat Royal Engineers in the first-ever FA Cup final
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-emissions-fall-3-6-in-2024-as-coal-use-drops-to-lowest-since-1666/
2/9
Of this…
* One-third due to end of coal power
* Two-thirds due to lower steel production
This accounted for around half the drop in UK emissions overall
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-emissions-fall-3-6-in-2024-as-coal-use-drops-to-lowest-since-1666/
3/9
No other stuff didn't help, but worth noting big drop in steel prices in past couple of years due to flooded global mkt…
4/9
So not at all clear Port Talbot's blast furnaces could've been saved…either way Tata's pledged £1.25bn for electric arc furnaces at the site
5/9
Oil dropped 1.4%, despite higher traffic, as EVs ate into demand for petrol/diesel
* EVs on the road up 40% in 1yr (!)
* EV drivers saved ~£800 each
* Total saving ~£1.7bn in lower fuel costs
6/9
* Gas for heat was up despite warmer temps, likely due to lower prices
* Gas for power down, replaced by low-carbon sources + cheap imports
* LNG imports halved, cutting 1.5TWh off demand for regasification
7/9
Otherwise the saving just comes at a cost of lack of gov income and likely lack of public services....?
Something will need to give, surely?
The Government spends (adds money to the economy) and then taxes it back (removes it from the economy). The books don't have to balance because the Government has it's own bank.
So there is still a case for road charging to influence behaviour.
it's exactly how we do it today.
Now, let's Boycott America.
Buy only essentials.
End the Oligarchy.
In the UK, emissions are falling rapidly yet everything there is still computer.
It would be good to have figures for actual consumption-based emissions, including aviation?
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-would-need-forest-twice-size-of-london-to-offset-new-airport-expansion/
Hence will be interesting to see the 2024 numbers. In 2022 UK, EU and China are between 7.17 and 7.72 tCO2 consumption based.
https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2
(Not specified in those charts, but that's per year)
Including aviation?
Would GWP-20 (for CH4 to CO2e) make any significant difference for the UK? Is it considered, globally?
(consumption paradigm)
"The average carbon footprint of the French population increased by 1.2% between 1990 and 2016. During the same period, the average level of emissions per capita in the country decreased by 16.4%."
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empreinte_carbone
"Production paradigme" is just the COP paradigm which is very convenient for economies that rely on importations from carboned economies...
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es803496a
A disgraceful environmental scandal. The cost of being in the pockets of Scottish Landowners 50% owned by just 32 Land Owners.😏
If UK drills oil in North Sea & sells it abroad, it's not counted in the UK. If mfg. of goods occurs in other countries (e.g. china) it is not counted in the UK, despite UK demand.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/methodologies/measuringukgreenhousegasemissions
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/greenhousegasemissionsandtradeuk/2024