Jeremy Williams's Blog, page 78

What the most affected regions need from COP26

I’ve been in Glasgow for the last couple of days, a city full of people, groups, campaigns and delegations all competing for attention. My email inbox is the same – packed with demands from every conceivable interest group, legitimate or illegitimate. Why COP26 must hold a session on vegan diets. Why this is the COP for hydrogen. Or public transport. Or young people. Or women. Or the internet of things. Everyone wants their piece of the pie.

I may or may not catch up with these emails later. ...

Book review: Earthshot, by Colin Butfield and Jonnie Hughes

I expect you’ll have heard about the Earthshot Prize, as it’s one of those climate initiatives with global ambitions. It’s easy to be cynical about it, with their celebrity judges, billionaire funders and corporate partners. But ultimately, the value of the prize is going to be its outputs. Does it highlight great projects from all over the world? Will it look beyond the obvious candidates? Will it be truly international? Or will it deliver a Bill Gates toilet*?

You can look up the first...

What we learned this week

Rapanui are my favourite clothing company, for their constant experimentation on sustainability. Founder Mart Drake-Knight talks to the Sage podcast about building a circular economy business from scratch, at the age of 19 and with £200.

Did you catch the UNDP’s campaign Don’t Choose Extinction? Complete with video of dinosaur addressing the UN.

The notion of ‘failure demand’ – demand that is generated by failings elsewhere in the system – is a theme in my book The Economics of Arrival, c...

Greenpeace asks: is climate change racist?

I saw this video last week from Greenpeace, which includes many of the points I make in my book. It’s a really good introduction to how these two big issues connect, and great to see them covering the topic in a concise and accessible fashion.

The risk of hydrogen colonialism

Last week I wrote about the moral hazard of hydrogen, a cautionary tale of how the ‘hydrogen revolution’ could lead us astray and play into the hands of the fossil fuel industry. With more of a global perspective, there’s another risk that I want to briefly look at today: hydrogen colonialism.

What do I mean by that?

Well, a lot of the time colonialism refers to political status, and whether countries are being occupied by an imperial power. But it’s always been bigger than that. As Kwam...

Book review: A Bigger Picture, by Vanessa Nakate

Africa is the continent that will suffer most from climate change, and yet it is the most invisible in global climate discussions. So Vanessa Nakate is absolutely right when she says that “it’s vital that the fight against climate change includes voices like mine.”

Nakate is a climate striker from Uganda, pioneering the local movement while at university. The culture of protest is of course completely different in Kampala than it is in Stockholm, where Greta Thunberg began the action. The...

What we learned this week

The airline Alitalia went bust (again) this month. Italy’s succesful high speed train network is a big part of the reason why.

The formal objectives of the upcoming COP26 climate talks have been published. Worth a browse if you’re following the talks.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism expose the connections between deforestation in the Amazon and supermarket brands such as Cadburys and Cathedral cheese.

The government has announced a new £5,000 grant for replacing gas boilers wit...

Colonised countries and carbon footprints

In my book I write about the connection between climate change and colonialism, and how old injustices and power structures are reproduced through the climate crisis. There’s a whole other book to be written about how colonialism has shaped global emissions, contributes to specific vulnerabilities, and holds back solutions. But that’s for another time.

Today, I wanted to share a simple comparison that I’ve been presenting in talks this week. First of all, here is a map of the world showing c...

The moral hazard of hydrogen

I’ve been writing about hydrogen over the last few weeks, investigating its various benefits in decarbonising the energy system, transport, industry and much else besides. But there also drawbacks and potential risks.

The biggest of them is kind of obvious when you realise that gas companies are among the most vocal advocates of hydrogen. The author of The Hydrogen Revolution , which I reviewed recently, is the CEO of a gas company. For him, hydrogen is a way to use his firm’s infrastructure...

Book review: The Great Melt, by Alister Doyle

Rising sea levels are a well known consequence of climate change, but they’re not necessarily well understood. The exact processes of why it happens, how it happens – and who it happens to – are quite complex. And there’s no better guide to those vital questions that Alister Doyle’s book on the subject, The Great Melt: Accounts from the Frontline of Climate Change.

Alister Doyle is an experienced climate journalist, having served as Reuters’ first ever environment correspondent for 15 ye...