Energy in Demand News, August 2-3, 2026

adaptation, behaviour/attitudes, carbon emissions, clean energy, climate change, climate risk, communication, decarbonisation, electrification, energy consumption, energy efficiency, energy transition, fossil fuels, GHG emissions, insurance, international co-operation, net zero emissions, nuclear, renewable energy, Solar PV, sustainable energy

Frank Elderson, a member of the European Central Bank’s executive board, told the Guardian that the  climate emergency and the breakdown of nature poses a dramatically growing risk to the global economy. He said it was clear the rising frequency of natural disasters linked to global heating poses a threat to financial stability. “Nature-related risks can pose material economic and financial risks, including through their impacts on credit risk, growth, inflation and – over the long-term – potential financial instability . . . I did interviews [previously] saying, you know, if you destroy nature, you destroy the core on which our economies depend. And that got people’s attention. This is not some kind of a flower-power, tree-hugging exercise. This is core economics. This is core financial stability, core price stability.” The central bank plans to publish analysis later this year investigating how “ecosystem degradation pathways” could translate into credit loss dynamics for the eurozone’s banks. When it comes to climate change, it’s the economy, stupid.

The Financial Times reported this week: “Xi Jinping’s flagship overseas infrastructure programme the Belt and Road Initiative boosted its green energy financing to a record $20.1bn in the first half of 2026 as the US war in Iran fuels demand for cheaper renewable power. . . . The value of China’s BRI green energy deals in the first six months of this year topped its total for the whole of 2025.” Importantly, “What distinguishes this wave [of the BRI] from the previous one is that investment decisions are increasingly based on commercial considerations rather than state guidance,” said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

A Financial Times newsletter quoted Hadja Lahbib, EU commissioner for crisis preparedness who oversees the bloc’s response to the fires. “One euro invested in the anticipation and preparation for crises, that is about €100 saved in recovery, reconstruction, without talking about . . . the lives lost. This is what you need to have in mind,” she said. “It is not enough to respond to catastrophes, you have to anticipate them,” Lahbib added. “We cannot ignore that Europe is burning today.” All well and good – but “Over the past year, the commission has scaled back some of the most ambitious parts of its so-called Green Deal, including proposing to delay the phaseout of combustion engines, weakening the ambition of the emissions trading system that governs how businesses pay for carbon costs and relaxing penalties on methane emissions.” Lahbib went on: “The Commission can only be as ambitious as the member states want it to be. When member states drag their feet [on climate change], when they want an omnibus or to delay . . . there is a real danger and an incalculable price.” No kidding!

An article on the New York Times website gives a stark warning: Europe’s Summer of Reckoning Is ‘Just the Beginning’. It quotes Johan Rockström, a Swedish scientist who is the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany: “Europe is ground zero when it comes to impacts” from climate change. He goes on: “2026 is just the beginning. It will inevitably get worse. It will get worse and worse and worse to the point where, I’m afraid, we’ll be passing the limits of adaptation.” You better contact your member of your national parliament and European parliament NOW!

In planning travel over the upcoming weeks, here are some useful ideas to help you along:

Pema Chodron (b. 1936), an American-born Tibetan Buddhist nun and author, once again makes us pause and think:  “We don’t set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people’s hearts.”

EiD welcomes your views about this week’s selection of posts on the zero-carbon energy transition:

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