Latest news with #CleanPower2030ActionPlan
Epoch Times
14-05-2025
- Business
- Epoch Times
British Gas Boss Says Renewables Will Not Bring Electricity Prices Down
Britain's shift to renewables will not reduce electricity prices, the boss of British Gas has said. Chris O'Shea, the chief executive of British Gas's parent company, Centrica, Centrica has one of Europe's largest renewable energy portfolios and hopes to invest up to 4 billion pounds ($5.3 billion) by the end of 2028. O'Shea argued the strike price under a Furthermore, floating offshore wind and tidal stream remain significantly more expensive. 'They may give price stability, and avoid future price spikes based on the international gas market, but they will definitely not reduce the price,' said O'Shea. Related Stories 6/8/2023 3/16/2025 He said that 'the next time you hear someone say the build out of renewables will reduce UK electricity prices, ask them to explain how.' 'Because we need to get the facts out there so we can make the right decisions-we need to stop having a polarised debate populated with unsubstantiated, but convenient, sound bites,' he said. He said that he fully supports 'the move to a cleaner energy system.' In 2019, the UK passed laws requiring the UK to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. The UK is known for being a global leader in renewable energy, especially in terms of offshore wind energy. It has more capacity installed than any other country, accounting for roughly 20 percent of global offshore wind capacity, according to UK Research and Innovation, a national funding agency investing in science and research. However, the UK also has some of the According to the British government, electricity prices in the UK have gradually become higher than those of most other EU countries. In the early 2000s, its domestic electricity prices were the second lowest in the EU, which was then the EU-15. Leaders have said that the huge spending needed to shift away from fossil fuels will reduce energy bills. Labour UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband, who is pursuing a goal to decarbonize the whole economy via his Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, has promised to shave 300 pounds ($400) off the average household electricity bill by 2030. He nergy bills are rising due to spikes 'in global gas markets.' National Energy System Operator NESO said the Clean Power 2030 Plan would cost 40 billion pounds ($53 billion) or more annually by the end of 2030. Critics of British net-zero policy have argued that renewables have added to the cost of bills. The think tank Net Zero Watch, which scrutinises climate and decarbonisation policies, recently disputed claims that high electricity prices are due to the influence of gas prices on wholesale markets. It It said that around 'three quarters of the increase in bills since 2015 can be attributed to Net Zero' and that a 327-pound ($435) real-terms increase is driven primarily by renewables subsidies (83 pounds), carbon taxes (39 pounds), grid balancing (26 pounds), Capacity Market costs (26 pounds), and grid strengthening (23 pounds). A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesman told The Epoch Times: 'We are making the UK a clean energy superpower to get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel markets controlled by dictators and replace that with clean homegrown power we control. That is how we can protect family finances and our national finances. 'As shown by the National Energy System Operator's independent report, clean power by 2030 is achievable and will deliver a more secure energy system, which could see a lower cost of electricity and lower bills.'
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Despite headwinds, strong ambition remains on clean power targets for 2030
By Emma Moir, Senior Associate at Shepherd and Wedderburn WITH ambitious targets set for the transition to net zero by both the UK and Scottish Governments, the role of Scotland's offshore wind sector has never been more important. The recently published Clean Power 2030 Action Plan (CP30) reinforces the importance of the transition to clean power, and the urgency for more offshore wind, making it clear that delivery of the UK Government's ambition of up to 50GW of offshore wind 'requires a dramatic acceleration in progress compared to anything achieved historically and can only be achieved with a determined focus on pace and a huge collective effort across the industry.' The Scottish Government's ambition is to increase offshore wind capacity by 11GW by 2030. To put that into context, there are currently nine fully operational offshore wind farms in Scottish waters, with a total installed capacity of 2.97GW. Scotland therefore needs to almost quadruple its offshore wind infrastructure within the next five years. Projects currently with consent and to be constructed or under construction will provide approximately 3.5GW of capacity. It is therefore evident that the dramatic acceleration referred to in CP30 is essential to meet the ambitious targets set by Westminster and Holyrood. CP30 recognises the urgency of progressing the current pipeline to meet 2030 targets, noting that 'Accelerating delivery is exceptionally critical for offshore wind, where lead times for projects are often more than a decade. This means that all that can be deployed by 2030 has either already been consented or is in the development and consenting process.' The ScotWind leasing round provided a promising boost to Scotland's offshore wind sector, awarding seabed rights to 20 projects with a combined 27.6GW of capacity, and an additional 13 projects focused on reducing emissions from oil and gas production. Notwithstanding the pipeline that is there to be realised, the offshore wind industry is facing a number of challenges in achieving these targets: increasing costs, supply chain shortages, uncertainty over electricity market reforms and grid pricing increases, uncertainty over timing of upgrades required to the grid network to transmit the clean energy generated, and not least the time that it takes for projects to achieve consents. Taking the 4.1GW Berwick Bank project as an example, the offshore consent application was submitted in December 2022 and awaits a decision almost 2 and a half years on. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill was introduced into Parliament in March 2025 and seeks to streamline the Scottish electricity consents process. This reform is welcome, but what the Bill falls short of doing (notwithstanding a key recommendation of the Winser Report, on which much of the package of reforms is based, was mandatory timeframes for all parties) is prescribing statutory timescales for consent determinations, which would bring the Scottish system into alignment with the equivalent consenting process south of the border. The Bill provides that the Secretary of State or the Scottish Ministers may make regulations specifying a time limit for consent determination. There is, however, no guarantee that such regulations would be forthcoming. One hopes that the Scottish Ministers will utilise the powers to create time limits for decision-making, in turn creating a renewed focus on consenting appropriate projects quickly and driving realisation of a sustainable Scottish offshore wind industry. However, as it currently stands, it remains to be seen whether the promise of improved efficiency will come to fruition and, critically, whether the necessary reforms will be in place in time to meet the ever-looming deadline to achieve 2030 targets. ■ Shepherd and Wedderburn is headline sponsor of All-Energy, the UK's largest renewable and low-carbon energy exhibition and conference, taking place in Glasgow on 14–15 May 2025. Visit the All-Energy hub at
The Herald Scotland
29-04-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Despite headwinds, strong ambition remains on clean power targets
The recently published Clean Power 2030 Action Plan (CP30) reinforces the importance of the transition to clean power, and the urgency for more offshore wind, making it clear that delivery of the UK Government's ambition of up to 50GW of offshore wind 'requires a dramatic acceleration in progress compared to anything achieved historically and can only be achieved with a determined focus on pace and a huge collective effort across the industry.' The Scottish Government's ambition is to increase offshore wind capacity by 11GW by 2030. To put that into context, there are currently nine fully operational offshore wind farms in Scottish waters, with a total installed capacity of 2.97GW. Scotland therefore needs to almost quadruple its offshore wind infrastructure within the next five years. Projects currently with consent and to be constructed or under construction will provide approximately 3.5GW of capacity. It is therefore evident that the dramatic acceleration referred to in CP30 is essential to meet the ambitious targets set by Westminster and Holyrood. CP30 recognises the urgency of progressing the current pipeline to meet 2030 targets, noting that 'Accelerating delivery is exceptionally critical for offshore wind, where lead times for projects are often more than a decade. This means that all that can be deployed by 2030 has either already been consented or is in the development and consenting process.' The ScotWind leasing round provided a promising boost to Scotland's offshore wind sector, awarding seabed rights to 20 projects with a combined 27.6GW of capacity, and an additional 13 projects focused on reducing emissions from oil and gas production. Notwithstanding the pipeline that is there to be realised, the offshore wind industry is facing a number of challenges in achieving these targets: increasing costs, supply chain shortages, uncertainty over electricity market reforms and grid pricing increases, uncertainty over timing of upgrades required to the grid network to transmit the clean energy generated, and not least the time that it takes for projects to achieve consents. Taking the 4.1GW Berwick Bank project as an example, the offshore consent application was submitted in December 2022 and awaits a decision almost 2 and a half years on. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill was introduced into Parliament in March 2025 and seeks to streamline the Scottish electricity consents process. This reform is welcome, but what the Bill falls short of doing (notwithstanding a key recommendation of the Winser Report, on which much of the package of reforms is based, was mandatory timeframes for all parties) is prescribing statutory timescales for consent determinations, which would bring the Scottish system into alignment with the equivalent consenting process south of the border. The Bill provides that the Secretary of State or the Scottish Ministers may make regulations specifying a time limit for consent determination. There is, however, no guarantee that such regulations would be forthcoming. One hopes that the Scottish Ministers will utilise the powers to create time limits for decision-making, in turn creating a renewed focus on consenting appropriate projects quickly and driving realisation of a sustainable Scottish offshore wind industry. However, as it currently stands, it remains to be seen whether the promise of improved efficiency will come to fruition and, critically, whether the necessary reforms will be in place in time to meet the ever-looming deadline to achieve 2030 targets. ■ Shepherd and Wedderburn is headline sponsor of All-Energy, the UK's largest renewable and low-carbon energy exhibition and conference, taking place in Glasgow on 14–15 May 2025. Visit the All-Energy hub at
The Independent
09-04-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Connecting the United Kingdom through sustainable infrastructure
Morgan Sindall Infrastructure is a Business Reporter client A personal reflection from a company that supports the UK's connectivity through infrastructure, with a workforce of over 2,000 employees playing their role in delivering sustainable infrastructure across seven key infrastructure sectors. Every day, the UK's infrastructure connects us in ways we often take for granted. It's everywhere, and it's always a hot topic, especially when it comes to energy. But as the country's population grows and its assets age, the demand on existing infrastructure skyrockets. The government's Clean Power 2030 Action Plan sets ambitious goals: 43 to 50GW of offshore wind, 27 to 29GW of onshore wind and 45 to 47GW of solar power, all aimed at drastically reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. Energy has been in the spotlight for years, but recently, three critical factors have driven the urgent need to upgrade our energy infrastructure: affordability, security of supply and environmental impact. These elements have never been more crucial. Affordability Remember the cost-of-living crisis? While the term might not be as common now, we're still feeling the pinch with rising energy bills. This doesn't just affect our daily expenses; it ripples down the supply chain, increasing the cost of the products we buy and use. Security of supply Global unrest, such as the war in Ukraine, has highlighted the need for national resilience. As conflicts continue, the importance of home-grown power becomes clear. We need to be self-sufficient to ensure a stable energy supply and cut down the spikes we see in costs. Environmental impact This is a big one. We all have a role in reducing our environmental footprint. In November 2024, world leaders gathered at COP29 to discuss this very issue. Our demand on electricity networks will only grow, especially with the rise of electric vehicles. There are now around 1.8 million electric and hybrid vehicles in Britain, increasing the strain on our already pressured energy network. Adding yet further to this is our increased technological requirements, in an era where technology is playing a far more central role in reducing our environmental impact. This is why infrastructure connectivity is so vital and why it's a top priority for the government. To put the challenge into perspective, the industry will deliver more infrastructure upgrades in the next decade than in the past three combined. In 2024, National Grid announced the Great Grid Partnership, a groundbreaking initiative we are proud to be part of. This partnership aims to accelerate the delivery of essential national electricity infrastructure by addressing UK supply chain and skills issues. By co-ordinating planning and execution, each supplier can pool its resources, skills, insights and experience with those of the National Grid. Meanwhile, ScottishPower Energy Networks announced a major contract in 2024 to undertake the biggest rewiring of the electricity grid since its inception. As a tier-one contractor in the infrastructure sector, we at Morgan Sindall Infrastructure understand the critical role we play in upgrading the network and are committed to this mission alongside our supply chain partners. A key enabler to the above is our supply chain and skills. The upgrade of the network will create jobs and opportunities for thousands of people, but the scale and size of the project is so large it provides longevity of work up and down the supply chain. To start preparing to meet demand, in early 2024, we opened our first overhead lines training centre in Staffordshire. The training centre has been designed to upskill and train individuals who will be working on upgrading and erecting the overhead lines and towers. This is a unique experience and skillset, but one that will be a key enabler for the mission to be met. Our supply chain family also bring their own increased skillsets. Whether they be an SME or tier two contractor, the delivery of the energy infrastructure, as highlighted in some of the delivery frameworks announced last year, will be down to collaboration. Our longstanding relationships with our supply chain partners are essential to the successful delivery of our projects. Our supply chain network is part of our extended team, delivering high-quality solutions and services. The Morgan Sindall Supply Chain Family consists of more than 415 members who benefit from tailored training, on-site advice, access to contract information and dedicated relationship management teams. Our relationship with the Supply Chain Sustainability School (SCSS) remains a critical partnership for delivering climate-related education to our suppliers to drive down value chain emissions. As shared at the start, one key enabler for the energy sector is environmental impact. We are proud to play a part in delivering a new UK energy infrastructure for the future, and alongside our robust and ever-growing supply chain network we are committed to supporting a stronger energy network for tomorrow, along with all the other infrastructure that we are rely on and use each day. Morgan Sindall Infrastructure delivers some of the UK's most complex and critical infrastructure across seven core sectors: energy, water, nuclear, highways, rail, defence and aviation for public and private customers. Working on projects and long-term frameworks, we believe in connecting people, places and communities through innovative and responsible infrastructure. Through our expertise, we harness innovative ideas and approaches that enable us to safely and responsibly design and deliver resilient infrastructure.
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
UK's net zero tsar: I understand why people are angry
From her home near Stroud in Gloucestershire, Emma Pinchbeck has a clear view out over the countryside to where 10 generations of her mother's family have lived, right up to the hills where a recent addition, a wind turbine, stands. 'As the mother of a five-year-old and a two-year-old,' she says, 'every bit of me wants the valley that I come from to stay exactly the same for them as it was for me'. And that wind turbine is trespassing on that. Some may see an irony in her regret, as 38-year-old Pinchbeck is the Government's new climate change advisor. As chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the climate policy watchdog, she is responsible for helping them deliver the goal of reaching net zero by 2050. It is a high-profile post and a controversial one, especially now that the Labour Government, under its Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, is pushing ahead at speed with the huge changes necessary to achieve net zero. These include the doubling of onshore wind turbines and a tripling of solar panels in the next five years – thus posing a threat to rural valleys such as Pinchbeck's in Laurie Lee's old stomping ground in Gloucestershire. Meanwhile the building of new infrastructure by 2030 to distribute all this green energy around the country will see swathes of pylons erected across the countryside. It is causing fury in affected areas and loud opposition far beyond. This month saw the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch pledge to 'abandon' the 2050 target, describing it as 'impossible'. It will, she said, cause a serious drop in living standards or even 'bankrupt' the country. Reform UK, riding high in the polls, is calling for an end to net zero altogether, blaming it for high energy bills and deindustrialisation. According to deputy leader Richard Tice, the current push towards renewable energy is a 'massive con'. 'I understand why people are angry,' says Pinchbeck, who was head of Energy UK, the trade body of the big energy companies, before she joined the CCC last November. 'It never works to force people to change their lives.' She admits to wondering, 'what I would think if there were more turbines up there on our hill, or new pylons put across the valley'. Given Labour's plan to massively boost the percentage of renewable energy in the system and create a 95 per cent low-carbon electricity grid by 2030, there are many others who face the very real prospect of just such an outcome. 'It is hard work,' Pinchbeck acknowledges, 'to get myself into a place where I can say, 'I know what this new infrastructure is doing here and I am OK with it'.' But with encouragement, public debate and the demystification of climate change adaptation, she believes it can be done. 'My son points at the turbine on the hill above our house and sees it as part of the landscape. I have come to see it as part of his future, not as a threat but as a protection for this beautiful landscape that I love. When you get people [asking] 'Where have the butterflies gone?' they are more accepting of the infrastructure that might protect us from the effects of climate change. You can't just say you are going to bulldoze things through.' In her short time in post, Pinchbeck has already been targeted on social media by anti-pylon campaigners, and has had to get used to taking a more robust approach to her own personal security, including keeping traceable details about her own family to a minimum. She regrets that the conversation has become so polarised. 'Of course I have sympathy for those who are living where these changes are happening and don't want them, but I can see too a very unstable world ahead for all our children if the worst scenarios in climate change science happen.' And that means a world where compromises have to be made. 'In the 1960s, the last time we did a big grid upgrade, there were adverts placed in country magazines saying, 'This is about giving people in Wales electricity, where would you put the pylons?', or 'This is about your children having cheap electricity, where would you put the pylons?'' Back then, she suggests, the government worked hard at gaining public support. As if to emphasise her commitment to a more flexible future, we are meeting at her suggestion not in her sterile Whitehall office but in Walthamstow, north-east London. It is where Pinchbeck and her husband – they met on a train journey and he works in international health – were living when their older child was born. We sit in a café housed in the local Anglican church. Tall, with almost white, close-cut hair, wearing an elegant floral dress and heels, Pinchbeck is keen to make plain from the outset what the CCC is, and what it isn't. She is often referred to as the Government's 'net zero tsar' but insists that the 60-strong team she heads has no policy-making role but instead advises politicians on a net-zero target that they themselves voted for back in 2019. 'We are like the Office for Budget Responsibility, but we do climate policy and carbon. We are not a regulator. The Government's job is to set the delivery pathway.' So, she explains, if a government with a different net zero target were elected, 'we'd give them advice on what that target meant. We are not the campaign organisation for net zero'. The CCC publishes annual reports to Parliament and the once-every-five-years 'carbon budget', the latest of which came out last month. But questions have been raised about where exactly it gets its data from – one critic described it as 'Britain's ultimate arbiter of climate reality' – and how much it can be trusted. Last year, the Royal Society published a report by the Oxford theoretical physicist Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith suggesting that official forecasts are underestimating the amount of power storage needed to make net zero possible and challenging the costs of switching to renewable energy. 'There is a lot of debate about the exact technical mix [that will provide our power to reach the point of decarbonisation],' says Pinchbeck. 'There are folk who think we may need to have decarbonised gas plants and some who think we can do it with batteries and whizzy technology in people's homes. Or nuclear.' The CCC models the technical mix to illustrate the many ways in which the 2050 target is feasible, says Pinchbeck. 'It isn't the committee's job to decide which one will be adopted. If the Government chooses for example to do more nuclear because of geo-political reasons or industrial policy, we then run the numbers on the carbon [reduction consequence] of doing that.' Pinchbeck points out that there is a full methodological report published every time it provides an annual update. 'Our data has to come from peer-reviewed academic papers from leading universities and other institutions, or industry data, up-to-date research from think tanks and consultancies, or government statistics.' 'Our chief analyst James Richardson came from the Treasury. If anything is not in the numbers, we are not saying it. We are here to provide independent advice on how we meet the target.' What that means, according to their latest report, is an annual average net-cost of reaching net zero by 2050 of 0.2 per cent of GDP – or £4 billion a year. That figure is reached by setting projected investment required (£26 billion a year) against projected operating cost savings (£22 billion a year), and is 73 per cent lower than the number given in the previous carbon budget in 2020. These are still huge figures at a time when, as this week's spring statement demonstrated, the public finances are stretched to breaking point. 'The way we do our carbon budgets allows for innovation and competition and so a lot of the money for this transition is going to come from the private sector.' In her brief time at the CCC, Pinchbeck has already dealt with two secretaries of state for energy security and net zero – the Conservatives' Claire Coutinho during the appointment process, and since the general election, Ed Miliband. The former Labour leader was the architect of the 2008 Climate Change Act which set up the CCC. Upon taking his new role, he appointed Pinchbeck's predecessor to be his lead adviser on the clean energy switch-over, a move that confirmed the suspicion of critics who believe the CCC is partisan. How does Pinchbeck feel that Miliband is doing? Rumours are circulating in Westminster that he has lost the confidence of the Prime Minister, while beleaguered Chancellor Rachel Reeves sees his green policy agenda as damaging her priority of economic growth. 'Without wanting to sound difficult, the CCC sits outside politics,' she replies, carefully sidestepping the question. Pinchbeck grew up with her younger brother in Gloucestershire, though her father's job with the RAF meant that some of her early years were spent overseas when he was posted in Germany. Her stay-at-home mother qualified as a cabinet maker when her children flew the nest. 'She has this joke that I came out of the womb sounding like a character in an Enid Blyton children's story.' Her Gloucester grandmother's accent was, by contrast, 'broad'. She was a key figure in Pinchbeck's formative years. 'She was a farmer and so were her brothers. She taught me the names of the wildflowers. Inheritance in my family was knowledge of nature.' Pinchbeck thrived at Stroud High School and went on to read Classics and English at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, the first in her family to go to university. Her first job was in finance in London. 'I graduated after the 2008 financial crash so that opportunity to work in finance was good and interesting. There were some renewable projects but my heart wasn't in it. Then David Attenborough's Frozen Planet came out [in 2011]. The last episode touched on climate change and I remember feeling very moved. I wanted to spend my time and resources doing something about it.' She worked initially for the World Wide Fund for Nature, rising to be its head of climate change before moving as deputy chief executive to the energy trade body Renewables UK, and then from 2020, to the bigger, broader, green and non-green Energy UK. 'I had been working in renewables, and I thought Energy UK was old-fashioned, but I don't think you will find anything on the record that I said while at Energy UK that would be out of line with what the chief executive of the CCC would say. It is the same evidence base that has always informed the things I am saying.' The public image of the big energy companies is often that they are more comfortable sticking with gas and oil than switching to renewables, but that wasn't what she found in her time there. 'Businesses want long-term thinking. So far as the energy industry is concerned there is this enormous energy transition happening, the economics of energy are changing.' But what about the politics of energy with the re-election of Donald Trump, whose climate change scepticism is on the record? 'The key global swing factor,' she says 'is how fast China can build factories to make solar PV panels so it can turn off its coal-powered stations.' China is the biggest carbon-polluter in the world, but the United States is the second (the UK ranks 17th in the same charts). 'Last time Trump was in office the fastest-growing profession in America was wind-turbine engineer. Business and politics are not the same thing. Politicians can set out a framework for businesses to operate in, they can attract businesses to a particular part of the world, and they can set up business and industrial policy to drive the market in a certain way.' But in such partnerships, she says, 'ultimately the economics are king. And the economics of the energy transition are that it is going at a pace thanks to new technologies. So, I think we will still see growth of renewables in the US, and we will still see battery storage growing.' Pinchbeck refuses to be deterred by the scale of the challenge of climate change. And, in that context, Britain, as we have regularly been told by our politicians, is leading the world in climate change adaptation. 'We are the oldest climate change committee in the world [there are now 26, covering countries that account for 90 per cent of carbon emissions globally] and our UK climate governance is so respected around the world because our climate outcomes have been real: the first G7 economy to half its emissions; the first to prove you could do it while also growing economically; the second-biggest off-shore wind market in the world. But now there are others ahead of us.' Some of that dropping down the running order has resulted from rising costs, for example of harnessing wind-power, another area where CCC reports have come in for criticism. Unfairly, says Pinchbeck. 'If you want to build anything – train lines, hospitals - costs are now going up. Gas has become so expensive so manufacturing anything is more expensive. Supply-chain inflation is rising.' That applies equally to the technology required to harness and distribute wind-power. 'And with wind in particular,' Pinchbeck adds, 'there is more competition because other countries are now going faster than us and providers can go elsewhere [and get paid more]'. But she insists – 'ask anybody in the energy sector' – new-build renewables remain 'the cheapest source of power. At the moment, she explains, electricity prices track the gas prices and gas is more expensive. '98 per cent of the time gas is setting the electricity price rather than renewables or the price of a wind turbine.' Part of her determined optimism that a climate change disaster can be avoided comes from the data that is the CCC's stock-in-trade. Part, too, is clearly her character. But even she confesses that she has found the adaptations that will be required of all of us challenging, as when she bought her first electric car. She forgot to charge it because she was so used to relying on the petrol station round the corner. 'Now I love my electric vehicle, like a third child, but it is different.' She quotes her mother-in-law who has had a heat pump installed. 'She'll murder me if I say she is elderly but she is in her seventies. At first she found it hard but now she is pleased with it.' The question, though, surely isn't one of can we adapt, it's whether people want to and she sees too many people caught in the middle. 'I have no time for doom-er-ism, that everything will be radically different because there is no hope. Or this idea that everything has to be made radically different to preserve the environment.I am in the business of doing what we can to put our arms round what we have left.' In 2024, the 1.5C limit agreed by the Paris Climate Change Agreement a decade earlier for temperature rises above pre-industrial levels was breached globally. Is that a bad sign for what will be left in years to come? 'We haven't breached 1.5 in so far as how the international negotiations and targets understand it because they are looking for multi-year, multi-decade consistency. However, it is a reminder that things are going quicker than we thought in terms of climate impacts.' On the other hand, though, she continues, there are counterbalancing signs that we are making progress. 'Regardless of what you feel about the politics of net zero or about climate change action, the economics of the energy transition are astounding. The International Energy Agency is saying global emissions may well peak by 2030. And then start declining, which is in line with where it needs to be to meet the Paris Agreement.' Pinchbeck's husband is also from Gloucestershire and the couple have moved back there from Walthamstow to raise their children. What does she think 2050 is going to look like for them, by then grown-up, if politicians choose to stick to the net zero targets governments have set? 'I am not trying to sugar coat things,' she explains, but says that the sceptics who argue that we can do nothing and nothing will change are naïve. 'There is change coming.' But we also have an opportunity to mitigate it by getting an electric car, a heat pump, eating less meat and cutting down on our air miles. 'The trend lines already show, for example, people are eating less meat [and that applies to her, too]. One study talks about us eating six kebabs rather than eight, but we also need to make the alternatives cheaper, tastier and more available. That is enough to drive change and farmers have always responded to change.' And if we do? 'Your home will still be warm. You will still drive a car. You will still eat meat. You will still go on holiday.' But there will also be pylons and wind turbines and solar panels where once there were fields and open spaces. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
