For once there was some truly encouraging news this week. Matthew Pearce writes in the Guardian about a new study that shows that a global shift towards clean electricity could trigger a ‘cascade’ of progress, helping reduce air pollution, cut waste and revive oceans. “The analysis focuses on “positive tipping points” – thresholds beyond which a sustainable technology or practice becomes increasingly cheap, widespread or politically popular, allowing progress to become self-propelling. The report builds on the work of Prof Tim Lenton, the founding director of the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, who has studied climate tipping points since the 1990s. Steve Smith, the report’s author and a research fellow at the University of Exeter, said: “The cascade of clean energy that we’re seeing now is just doing so much more than anybody expected even 10 years ago.” . . . Research cited in the analysis suggests coordinated policies supporting clean power, transport and heating could bring forward tipping points in those sectors by between two and eight years. Progress in one sector makes the others easier by increasing demand for clean electricity, encouraging investment and driving costs down further.” The article makes the important poi.nt that finance often does more harm than good. About $7.3tn flows each year to activities that degrade nature, compared with about $220bn for nature-based solutions, according to UN figures cited in the report. “For every £1 invested in protecting nature, you’ve got £30 spent trying to degrade it,” Smith said. “So that’s a political choice and it’s not a lack of finance. It’s where it’s used.” It’s a political choice that we’ve failed to properly address. The report gives us hope. All is not lost. But there is much, much more to do.
The New York Times reports that California has ambitious plans for textile waste. California is trying to become the first state to make fashion brands, manufacturers and retailers pick up the tab for textile waste, and the details of the plan are taking shape now. California residents discarded nearly 1.2 million tons of textiles in 2021 alone, according to a report from the recycling company USAgain. Worldwide, about 120 million metric tons of clothing are discarded every year, research by Boston Consulting Group has found. “The vast majority of textile waste is landfilled,” said Sheng Lu, a professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware. “There’s no solution.” The article notes that this approach had been tried once before, in France. “A similar law in France, which passed in 2008, increased the collection of clothing. But with a fee that was often less than five cents per garment, the program didn’t have the resources to build adequate systems for managing those collected castoffs. The result was an increase in exports of clothes to lower-income countries. So, a lot depends on how well-funded the program will be.” Here’s hoping it works.
We read regularly about national plans to expand nuclear energy quite significantly. Well, energy security concerns should definitely be considered. The Financial Times writes that “Russia could control more than a third of mined uranium supply by 2040, a dominance that would compromise western energy security as demand from new nuclear power plants soars, researchers have warned. . . . “By 2040, we could be looking at a dependency on Russian-mined uranium akin to our reliance on Russian oil and gas in 2022,” said Gareth Heywood, special project lead at the centre, ahead of the annual World Nuclear Symposium taking place in London. . . . Russia produced about 5 per cent of the world’s mined uranium in 2024. But its domestic production masks the nation’s much greater international operations: when accounting for Russian-controlled mines overseas, its share of global production capacity across the world’s major uranium sources was almost a quarter in 2024, the centre found.” Russia is developing mines in Tanzania and Namibia and has recently reached an agreement with Niger to boost its uranium supply after France was expelled. The article explains how OECD countries could promote investment in new uranium mines. Well, maybe they should focus on more energy secure alternatives such as renewable energy and maybe even on addressing energy demand through more effective energy efficiency measures. Let’s see how influential the OECD can be in this climate and energy transition.
To ensure that the zero carbon energy transition gains momentum we need a new generation of experts to continue the good work. EiD encourages all young researchers (born after 1991) in energy efficiency and biomass to submit contributions for next year’s Young Energy Researchers Conference next March 2nd as part of World Sustainable Energy Days, March 2-5, 2027 in Wels, Austria. Altogether there are five dedicated conferences and a tradeshow packed into the four days. See the overview of the conferences. The young energy researchers conference has 2 tracks, one for energy efficiency and one for biomass. Submissions (in English only) are welcome from all scientific fields (e.g. technology, engineering, economics, social sciences, architecture, law, arts). The deadline for submissions for all the events is October 9th.
In planning travel over the upcoming weeks, here are some useful ideas to help you along:
- Check out the Good Night Train website for the unique way to travel through Europe while you sleep.
- There’s never been a more important moment to travel right in Europe with masses of overdevelopment, cruise ships, walking pollution and captive cetaceans still hot topics when it comes to responsible tourism issues in Europe. Check out the Responsible Travel website.
- Wilderness Scotland encourages you to experience the beauty of Scotland in autumn.
- Autumn is the best time for a cycling trip in Europe because the summer heat is gone, the roads are quiet, and the trees turn bright red and gold. Check out Bike Tours in Europe for some inspiration.
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885), an American poet and writer who became an activist for improved treatment of Native Americans by the US government, once more lets us feel good about this seasonal transition: “Ah, September! You are the doorway to the season that awakens my soul.”
EiD welcomes your views about this week’s selection of posts on the zero-carbon energy transition:
- Strong economic case for tackling pollution and climate change together, UN finds
- New EEA report on impact of clean energy technologies in Europe
- Are climate plans betting too much on carbon capture?
- Smart clothes, stupid waste?
- Canada’s climate has already changed — is the country ready?
- First gas, now coal: Australia’s battery revolution accelerates
- Aviation faces a climate it wasn’t built for
- Electric cars aren’t carbon neutral — but they’re still much cleaner
- Drought knows no borders. The world’s response still does.
Please send your comments on any of the posts. Please recommend EiD to your friends and colleagues.
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Energy in Demand - Sustainable Energy - Rod Janssen 