01/05/2026 – Climate- Science.press

Media ring the climate alarm but 2025 was the year of Record-Low Extreme Weather Deaths

The claim that 2025 saw the fewest deaths from extreme weather ever is partially accurate but requires context. Preliminary data from reliable sources indicate 2025 had one of the lowest recorded annual totals and rates of deaths from weather-related disasters, though final figures may adjust slightly as reporting completes.

A dramatic depiction of extreme weather, featuring swirling storm clouds, lightning, and a turbulent landscape with trees and rocky formations, illustrating the power of nature.

The claim that 2025 saw the fewest deaths from extreme weather ever is partially accurate but requires context.

Preliminary data from reliable sources indicate 2025 had one of the lowest recorded annual totals and rates of deaths from weather-related disasters, though final figures may adjust slightly as reporting completes.

Data from the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT, maintained by CRED at UCLouvain and visualized on Our World in Data) show approximately 4,500 weather-related deaths through October 2025, with late-year events (e.g., cyclones and floods in South/Southeast Asia causing ~1,600–1,750 deaths) pushing the provisional total to around 6,000–7,000.

This yields a death rate of less than 0.8 per 100,000 people — the lowest on record, comparable only to years like 2015 and 2018.

A polar bear stands on a small ice floe in a turbulent ocean environment, surrounded by melting ice, floating newspapers discussing climate change, and a fiery background illustrating extreme weather events.

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Media continues to ring climate alarm, but 2025 saw the fewest deaths from extreme weather ever

A dramatic composite image showcasing extreme weather phenomena, including lightning strikes, ice, fire, a tornado, and dark storm clouds.

As 2025 came to a close, the legacy media was topping off its coverage of climate in the preceding 12 months. CBS News reported the year was so hot, “it pushed Earth past the critical climate change mark.”

ABC News had a “year in review” article recounting stories about wildfires, floods and extreme heat, and The Guardian reported on a study tallying the costliest disasters of 2025. Just The News has the story.

“Cyclones and floods in south-east Asia this autumn killed more than 1,750 people and caused more than $25bn (£19bn) in damage, while the death toll from California wildfires topped 400 people,” The Guardian article states in the opening paragraph.

One story The Guardian and other outlets aren’t reporting is that extreme weather in 2025 claimed the fewest lives in recorded history.

Less than 1 per 100,000

Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, spent 30 years researching the impacts of climate change while he was a professor of environmental science at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

On his “The Honest Broker” Substack, Pielke estimates that there were 0.8 deaths per 100,000 people across the globe in 2025. Despite media reports that climate change is bringing death and destruction at every turn, deaths from extreme weather per 100,000 people have been falling rapidly for decades.

There were more than 320 deaths per 100,000 in 1960, and approximately 1.3 deaths per 100,000 in 1990. There have been six years since 2000, Pielke notes, in which deaths per 100,000 population were less than 1, and they all have happened since 2014.

Selling extremes aligned with funding sources

David Blackmon, author of the “Energy Absurdities” Substack and an analyst with more than 40 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, told Just the News that the drive to generate audiences plays a role in why the legacy media ignore good news when it comes to climate.

“Catastrophe sells better than calm weather,” Blackmon said.

Beyond those incentives, to which all media businesses are susceptible, is the funding directly and indirectly flowing into the legacy media from anti-fossil fuel activist groups, Blackmon said. Inside Climate News, for example, is funded by numerous climate advocacy groups, including the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.

To promote news favorable to its political goals, Inside Climate News has regularly partnered with broadcast networks and newspapers, including NBC News, the Dallas Morning News, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Last year, CBS News teamed up with the activist publication for an article that was critical of efforts to recycle plastics.

The Associated Press received $8 million from climate advocacy groups in 2022 directly in support of its climate and energy reporting. These political advocacy groups include the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Quadrivium and the Rockefeller Foundation, which has pledged over $1 billion between 2023 and 2028 to eliminate the use of fossil fuels.

The Associated Press discloses this funding at the bottom of articles on climate and energy issues. However, it refers to the groups simply as “philanthropies” without any mention of their pro-green energy agendas.

“Many of these outlets take money from billionaires and their charitable foundations who have created these phony media operations like Inside Climate News to run negative stories about the climate and to try to hide the climate emergency that doesn’t exist. And so, there’s no financial incentive for these platforms taking all that money to report any of this good news,” Blackmon said.

Media climate alchemy

The CBS article reporting that 2025 was the “hottest year ever” cites an analysis by the World Weather Attribution, which helped develop the field of “attribution science” for the purpose of environmental litigation. The field produces studies immediately following extreme weather events that purport to find that global warming is making the event many times more likely.

The World Weather Attribution was founded to help climate activists win lawsuits against fossil fuel companies. Its co-founder, climatologist Friederike Otto, told Politico in 2019, “Unlike every other branch of climate science or science in general, event attribution was actually originally suggested with the courts in mind.”

Otto explained in a Concordia University interview last year that this field of science is part of a legal strategy to arm plaintiffs in lawsuits against oil companies with a scientific basis for their complaints. Pielke has criticized its methods and compared its conclusions to the ancient pseudo-scientific practice of alchemy. The organization’s research gets extensive media coverage, but rarely do the reports include critics of its conclusions.

Read the full story here.

A busy street scene in London featuring pedestrians walking past the iconic Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament on a sunny day.

Finding the 1859 Carrington Event in Tree Rings

The 1859 Carrington Event, the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history (peaking September 1–2, 1859), was driven by a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun, causing widespread telegraph disruptions, brilliant auroras visible near the equator, and white-light solar flares observed by Richard Carrington.

A vibrant display of the Northern Lights (auroras) illuminating the night sky with green, purple, and blue hues, framed by tall power lines and silhouettes of people observing the natural phenomenon.

Tree rings detect solar events via spikes or anomalies in radiocarbon (Δ¹⁴C). High-energy solar protons from solar energetic particle (SEP) events collide with atmospheric nitrogen, producing excess ¹⁴C that mixes into CO₂ and gets fixed into tree cellulose during photosynthesis. This creates sharp, annual spikes for extreme “Miyake events” (e.g., AD 774, 993), but subtler signals for moderate storms like Carrington.

Breakthrough in 2024: Researchers led by Joonas Uusitalo (University of Helsinki) detected the first tree-ring signature of the Carrington Event in subarctic Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris) from Lapland, Finland (high latitudes: Inari, Värriö, Hetta; ~68–69°N). They analyzed 5–8 replicate annual samples per year from 1853–1871 across three trees, measuring Δ¹⁴C via accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) at three labs (Helsinki, ETH Zurich, Yamagata).

Close-up of a tree trunk showing tree rings with a vibrant aurora borealis in the night sky.

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From Watts Up With That?

By Anthony Watts

An illustration of the Sun's surface showing a coronal mass ejection along with a historical sketch of sunspots from September 1, 1859, by astronomer Richard Carrington, including a scale reference for Earth.

A research group coordinated by the University of Helsinki was able to measure a spike in radiocarbon concentration of trees in Lapland that occurred after the Carrington flare. This discovery helps to prepare for dangerous solar storms.

The Carrington Event of 1859 is one of the largest recorded solar storms in the last two centuries. It was seen as white light flares on a giant sunspot group, fires at telegraph stations and disturbances in geomagnetic measurements, as well as aurorae even in tropical regions.

In a joint study carried out by the University of Helsinki, Natural Resources Institute Finland and the University of Oulu, a sign of an increase in radiocarbon concentrations following the Carrington storm was detected for the first time in tree rings. Previously, radiocarbon traces have only been detected from far more intense solar storms.

Discovery through a cosmic marker

Encounters between strong magnetised clouds of charged particles released from the Sun, known as solar plasma flows, and Earth’s geomagnetic field result in geomagnetic storms. The geomagnetic field directs the solar storm particles into the atmosphere primarily through the Polar regions. The most visible consequence of the phenomenon are aurorae.

In the upper atmosphere, sufficiently high-energy particles can, through nuclear reactions, also produce radiocarbon (14C), a radioactive isotope of carbon. Over the course of months and years, radiocarbon ends up in the lower atmosphere as part of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and eventually in plants through photosynthesis. The process of photosynthesis preserves the information contained in carbon dioxide in the annual rings of trees.

To obtain the information held by radiocarbon, samples are extracted by carving from the wood material grown over individual years. The samples are processed to cellulose and the cellulose into pure carbon by burning and chemical reduction. The fraction of radiocarbon in pure carbon is measured using a particle accelerator.

“Radiocarbon is like a cosmic marker describing phenomena associated with Earth, the solar system and outer space,” says Markku Oinonen, Director of the University of Helsinki’s Laboratory of Chronology, who headed the study.

Mapping solar storms

A solar storms corresponding to the Carrington event in modern times would disrupt electrical and mobile networks and cause major problems for satellite and navigation systems, leading to problems in, for example, air traffic. This is why accurate knowledge of solar behaviour benefits society.

Solar storms smaller and more common than the Carrington storms can be studied with measuring devices and satellites nowadays, while larger ones can be investigated, for example, by measuring radiocarbon concentration in tree rings.

So far, it has not been possible to study specifically medium-sized storms such as the Carrington event, which have not occurred in modern times, using conventional radiocarbon techniques. This recent study opens up a potential new way of investigating the frequency of Carrington-sized storms, which may help to better prepare for future threats.

Increasingly accurate information on the carbon cycle

The results were interpreted using a numerical model of radiocarbon production and transport developed by researchers at the University of Oulu.

“The dynamic atmospheric carbon transport model was specifically developed for describing geographical differences in the distribution of radiocarbon in the atmosphere,” says Postdoctoral Researcher Kseniia Golubenko from the University of Oulu.

What was significant in the recently published study was how the radiocarbon content of trees in Lapland differed from that of trees at lower latitudes. The first measurements were carried out at the Accelerator Laboratory of the University of Helsinki, while repeat measurements conducted in two other laboratories significantly reduced the previous uncertainties.

The discovery can help to better understand atmospheric dynamics and the carbon cycle from the time before human-generated fossil fuel emissions, enabling the development of increasingly detailed carbon cycle models.

“It’s possible that the excess of radiocarbon caused by the solar flare was primarily transported to the lower atmosphere through northern regions, contrary to the general understanding of its movement,” muses Doctoral Researcher Joonas Uusitalo from the Laboratory of Chronology.

Other sources of radiocarbon

“It’s also possible that the cyclic change in the production of radiocarbon in the upper atmosphere caused by the variation in solar activity has resulted in the local differences on the ground level seen in our findings,” Uusitalo adds.

According to Uusitalo, the dominant fraction of radiocarbon is produced by galactic cosmic rays coming from outside the solar system, even though exceptionally strong solar storms generate individual bursts of the isotope in the atmosphere. Cosmic rays, in turn, are weakened by solar wind, a continuous flux of particles originating in the Sun that fluctuates between stronger and weaker in 11-year cycles.

The topic requires further research. Historical records show that significant geomagnetic storms also took place in 1730 and 1770, which is why their tracking is likely to be in focus next.

The recently published study was carried out as a collaborative project of the University of Helsinki’s Laboratory of Chronology and Department of Physics, and Natural Resources Institute Finland. Researchers from the University of Oulu, Nagoya University, Yamagata University and ETH Zurich also contributed to the study. The study received funding from the Research Council of Finland, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Emil Aaltonen Foundation.

Original article: Joonas Uusitalo, Kseniia Golubenko, Laura Arppe, Nicolas Brehm, Thomas Hackman, Hisashi Hayakawa, Samuli Helama, Kenichiro Mizohata, Fusa Miyake, Harri Mäkinen, Pekka Nöjd, Eija Tanskanen, Fuyuki Tokanai, Eugene Rozanov, Lukas Wacker, Ilya Usoskin, Markku Oinonen. Transient Offset in 14C After the Carrington Event Recorded by Polar Tree Rings. AGU, 2024.

DOI: 10.1029/2023GL106632

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Transient Offset in ¹⁴C After the Carrington Event Recorded by Polar Tree Rings

Researchers analyzed annual Δ¹⁴C from subarctic Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris) in Finnish Lapland (>68°N). Multiple replicates (5–8 per year) from three trees were measured via accelerator mass spectrometry across 1853–1871.

No immediate spike in the 1859 or 1860 ring.

A statistically significant transient offset (excess Δ¹⁴C) appeared in high-latitude trees compared to mid-latitude records, peaking during 1861–1863 (~3–6‰ higher, with averages around 3.5‰ in 1862).

The offset faded by ~1864–1865, lasting ~4 years.

Solar energetic particles (SEPs) from the Carrington Event entered the atmosphere preferentially over the poles due to Earth’s geomagnetic funneling. Excess ¹⁴C production occurred mainly in the polar stratosphere.

Faster stratosphere-troposphere exchange (STE) in the Arctic (due to polar vortex dynamics and weaker stratification) transported this ¹⁴C downward more rapidly. Trees at high latitudes incorporated it into cellulose during photosynthesis, creating a delayed but persistent local excess not diluted globally.

Atmospheric models (e.g., SOCOL-AERv2) partially reproduce this polar enhancement but underestimate its magnitude, suggesting gaps in understanding high-latitude carbon transport.

A Scots pine tree with a cut tree ring is illuminated by colorful northern lights in the background, surrounded by a snowy landscape.

From The Geophysical Research Letters – Wiley Online Library

.Geophysical Research Letters – 2024 – Uusitalo – Transient Offset in 14C After the Carrington Event Recorded by Polar Tree Herunterladen

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Hydrogen emissions heat up the climate – study shows the risks of the energy transition

A recent study published in Nature (December 2025) by an international team led by researchers from Stanford University and Auburn University provides the first comprehensive global hydrogen budget from 1990–2020. It highlights how rising atmospheric hydrogen levels contribute indirectly to climate warming, posing risks for the expanding hydrogen economy during the energy transition.

An illustration of renewable energy sources, featuring wind turbines, solar panels, and hydrogen storage tanks in a green landscape.

Atmospheric hydrogen concentrations have increased significantly since 1990, largely due to human activities. The primary driver is the oxidation of rising methane (CH₄) emissions from sources like fossil fuels, agriculture, and landfills — this alone added about 27 million tons of hydrogen annually by 2020.

Hydrogen itself is not a direct greenhouse gas, but it indirectly warms the climate by reacting with hydroxyl radicals (OH), the atmosphere’s “detergent.” This reduces OH availability, allowing methane (a potent greenhouse gas) to persist longer. Additional effects include increased tropospheric ozone, stratospheric water vapor, and influences on aerosols/clouds.

The study estimates hydrogen’s 100-year Global Warming Potential (GWP-100) at around 11 (±4), and 20-year GWP at 37 (±18) — meaning it’s roughly 11 times more warming than CO₂ over 100 years on a per-mass basis.

Over 2010–2020, rising hydrogen levels contributed about 0.02°C to global warming, a small but non-negligible amount comparable to the cumulative emissions impact of a country like France.

Soil bacteria absorb ~70% of hydrogen emissions, acting as a major sink, but rising levels still alter atmospheric chemistry.

Hydrogen is key for decarbonizing sectors like steel, shipping, and aviation. However, leaks across the value chain (production, storage, transport, use) could exacerbate indirect warming, especially short-term.

Diagram illustrating the global hydrogen budget, showcasing the relationship between methane (CH4), hydrogen (H2), and their effects on atmospheric chemistry, including increased water vapor and tropospheric ozone. — The Global Hydrogen Cycle

From Blackout- News

Hydrogen is considered the engine of the energy transition, but hydrogen emissions can worsen the climate balance. The reason is methane degradation, because additional reactions change the chemistry of the atmosphere. At the same time, leaks along production, transport and storage remain a real weak point, and soil microbes act as a sink to determine the net effect (science: 17.12.25).

Hydrogen storage tanks with 'H2' labels against a blue sky, highlighting the role of hydrogen in the energy transition.

How hydrogen emissions slow methane degradation
Methane escapes from gas infrastructure, livestock farming and landfills, and it has a very strong effect on temperature in the first few years. Nevertheless, it usually disappears after ten to twelve years because hydroxyl radicals break it down in a chain of reactions. Experts summarize this process as methane degradation, and they measure it by the availability of these radicals. CH4 degradation produces water and carbon dioxide, but also hydrogen as a by-product.

Zutao Ouyang of Stanford University clearly describes the bottleneck because hydrogen requires the same reaction partners. “More hydrogen means less OH in the atmosphere, which means that methane persists longer and thus warms the climate for longer,” he explains. As a result, H2 releases shift the rate of degradation and methane degradation slows down. This indirect pathway makes hydrogen emissions relevant to climate policy, even though H2 itself absorbs hardly any thermal radiation.

Why infrastructure and control determine the benefits

Ouyang and his team have taken stock of the global hydrogen cycle from 1990 to 2020, and they wanted to bring sources and sinks to a sustainable scale. Robert Jackson formulates the goal as follows: “We need a deeper understanding of the global hydrogen cycle and its links to global warming to support a climate-safe and sustainable hydrogen economy,” he says. For the energy transition, therefore, it is not enough to look at final consumption, but rather the energy conversion in industry and grids.

Jackson also refers to a technical fact, because H2 escapes particularly easily. “Hydrogen is the smallest molecule in the world and easily escapes from pipelines, production plants and reservoirs,” explains Jackson.

Operators can reduce leaks, but they need measurement routines, material standards and fast repairs. Leaks cost efficiency, and at the same time they exacerbate the climate effect if more hydrogen is released into the air.

Soil processes determine how much H2 remains in the air

The study attributes the growing inflows to several drivers, and it explicitly mentions human activities. “H2 sources increased from 1990 to 2020, mainly due to the oxidation of methane and other anthropogenic volatile organic compounds, biogenic nitrogen fixation, and leakage in H2 production,” the research team reports. This produces more hydrogen, and at the same time changes the reaction conditions in the atmosphere.

On the sink side, soil microbes play the main role because they use H2 as an energy source. “The world’s most important way hydrogen is removed from the atmosphere is through microbes in the soil that use H2 for their energy production,” the researchers write. These soil bacteria work over a large area, and they react directly to the concentration. In this way, they partially buffer increases, but they do not completely close the balance.

Figures show where politics and technology can start

Between 2010 and 2020, an average of 69.9 million tonnes of hydrogen per year was released into the atmosphere, and the sinks reabsorbed a large part. This balance sheet counts for the energy transition because it makes the biggest levers visible. Soil microbes removed around 50 million tonnes, and chemical reactions removed another 18.4 million tonnes. Nevertheless, a gap of about 1.55 million tons remained, so the grade continued to rise. This trend is coupled to methane sources, and hydrogen emissions thus amplify the indirect warming effect. Leaks remain controllable if operators check consistently.

“We estimate that the increase in atmospheric H2 between 2010 and 2020 contributed to an increase in global surface air temperature of 0.02 degrees Celsius,” the team said. In practice, therefore, two things count, and both can be planned: networks must remain tight, and operators must find leaks quickly. At the same time, projects need robust sinks, because soil microbes only have a sufficient effect if soils remain intact. Hydrogen emissions must therefore be reduced, and the energy transition needs dense systems and stable soils.

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The global hydrogen budget

The global hydrogen budget | Nature

Hydrogen (H₂) has received increased attention as an energy carrier to help decarbonize heavy industry and transport and to provide long-duration energy storage¹. When produced by electrolysis with renewable energy, hydrogen can, in principle, be produced and consumed with near-zero carbon emissions. As a result, many energy-system scenarios project substantial growth in H₂ production and utilization this century^1,6.

At present, hydrogen production is energy- and greenhouse gas-intensive. More than 90% of hydrogen produced today is grey hydrogen, derived mainly from steam methane reforming or coal gasification, which are both carbon-intensive¹. In anticipated net-zero scenarios, however, a shift towards cleaner, low-carbon hydrogen production is projected^1,7. This transition encompasses both green hydrogen produced through electrolysis powered by low- or zero-carbon electricity, and blue hydrogen generated by reforming fossil fuels coupled with carbon capture and storage. Ultimately, green and blue hydrogen are projected to dominate hydrogen manufacturing by 2030–2040 (ref. ⁶).

.s41586-025-09806-1 Herunterladen

Infographic illustrating the global hydrogen budget and atmospheric hydrogen concentrations, showing trends in methane and non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs), along with soil uptake and anthropogenic emissions.

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UAH v6.1 Global Temperature Update for December 2025: +0.30 deg. C

This monthly update from Dr. Roy Spencer and John Christy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville is typically released early in the following month (e.g., around January 3-5, 2026). If this is the official release, it suggests continued cooling into early 2026, potentially making 2025 one of the warmer years on record but below the peaks of 2023-2024.

Graph displaying the UAH satellite-based temperature anomalies of the global lower atmosphere from 1979 to December 2025, with a highlighted temperature departure of +0.30°C above the 1991-2020 average.

This value, reported as +0.30 deg. C above the 1991-2020 baseline, indicates a notable cooling from recent months in 2025. For context:

November 2025: +0.43°C
October 2025: +0.53°C
September 2025: +0.53°C

This drop aligns with the ongoing La Niña conditions (which began influencing global temperatures with a lag) and the fading effects of the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption’s stratospheric water vapor injection, which had temporarily boosted anomalies in prior years.

Roy Spencer, PhD

January 5th, 2026 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

2025 was the 2nd warmest year (a distant 2nd behind 2024) in the 47-year satellite record

The Version 6.1 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for December 2025 was +0.30 deg. C departure from the 1991-2020 mean, down from the November 2025 value of +0.43 deg. C. (In the following plot note that the 13-month centered-average trace [red curve] has now been updated after several months of not being updated).

Graph showing UAH satellite-based temperature anomalies of the global lower atmosphere from 1979 to December 2025, indicating a +0.30 deg. C deviation from the 1991-2020 mean, with a red curve representing the 13-month centered average.

The Version 6.1 global area-averaged linear temperature trend (January 1979 through December 2025) remains at +0.16 deg/ C/decade (+0.22 C/decade over land, +0.13 C/decade over oceans).

2025 Ended the Year as a Distant 2nd Warmest Behind 2024

The following plot shows the ranking of the 47 years in the UAH satellite temperature record, from the warmest year (2024) to the coolest (1985). As can be seen, 2024 really was an anomalously warm year, more than can be attributed to El Nino alone.

Graph showing UAH Global Lower Atmospheric Temperature ranked annual averages from 1979 to 2025, highlighting 2024 as the warmest year followed by 2025 in second place.

The next plot shows how our UAH LT yearly anomalies compare to those posted on the WeatherBell website (subscription required) for the surface air temperatures from NOAA’s Climate Data Assimilation System (CDAS). There is pretty good correspondence between the two datasets, with LT having warm outliers during major El Ninos (especially 1987, 1998, 2010, and 2024). This behavior is due to extra heating of the troposphere (which LT measures) during El Nino by enhanced deep moist convection in the tropics when the tropical Pacific Ocean surface warms from reduced upwelling of cold water from below, an effect exaggerated by the several-month lag of tropospheric warming behind surface warming during El Nino:

Graph showing yearly global average temperature anomalies in degrees Celsius, comparing NOAA CDAS surface temperature data to UAH lower tropospheric temperature from 1979 to 2025, with trend lines and key years labeled.

The following table lists various regional Version 6.1 LT departures from the 30-year (1991-2020) average for the last 24 months (record highs are in red).

YEAR	MO	GLOBE	NHEM.	SHEM.	TROPIC	USA48	ARCTIC	AUST
2024	Jan	+0.80	+1.02	+0.57	+1.20	-0.19	+0.40	+1.12
2024	Feb	+0.88	+0.94	+0.81	+1.16	+1.31	+0.85	+1.16
2024	Mar	+0.88	+0.96	+0.80	+1.25	+0.22	+1.05	+1.34
2024	Apr	+0.94	+1.12	+0.76	+1.15	+0.86	+0.88	+0.54
2024	May	+0.77	+0.77	+0.78	+1.20	+0.04	+0.20	+0.52
2024	June	+0.69	+0.78	+0.60	+0.85	+1.36	+0.63	+0.91
2024	July	+0.73	+0.86	+0.61	+0.96	+0.44	+0.56	-0.07
2024	Aug	+0.75	+0.81	+0.69	+0.74	+0.40	+0.88	+1.75
2024	Sep	+0.81	+1.04	+0.58	+0.82	+1.31	+1.48	+0.98
2024	Oct	+0.75	+0.89	+0.60	+0.63	+1.89	+0.81	+1.09
2024	Nov	+0.64	+0.87	+0.40	+0.53	+1.11	+0.79	+1.00
2024	Dec	+0.61	+0.75	+0.47	+0.52	+1.41	+1.12	+1.54
2025	Jan	+0.45	+0.70	+0.21	+0.24	-1.07	+0.74	+0.48
2025	Feb	+0.50	+0.55	+0.45	+0.26	+1.03	+2.10	+0.87
2025	Mar	+0.57	+0.73	+0.41	+0.40	+1.24	+1.23	+1.20
2025	Apr	+0.61	+0.76	+0.46	+0.36	+0.81	+0.85	+1.21
2025	May	+0.50	+0.45	+0.55	+0.30	+0.15	+0.75	+0.98
2025	June	+0.48	+0.48	+0.47	+0.30	+0.80	+0.05	+0.39
2025	July	+0.36	+0.49	+0.23	+0.45	+0.32	+0.40	+0.53
2025	Aug	+0.39	+0.39	+0.39	+0.16	-0.06	+0.82	+0.11
2025	Sep	+0.53	+0.56	+0.49	+0.35	+0.38	+0.77	+0.30
2025	Oct	+0.53	+0.52	+0.55	+0.24	+1.12	+1.42	+1.67
2025	Nov	+0.43	+0.59	+0.27	+0.24	+1.32	+0.78	+0.36
2026	Dec	+0.30	+0.45	+0.15	+0.19	+2.10	+0.32	+0.38

The full UAH Global Temperature Report, along with the LT global gridpoint anomaly map for December, 2025 as well as a global map of the 2025 anomalies, as well as a more detailed analysis by John Christy, should be available within the next several days here.

The monthly anomalies for various regions for the four deep layers we monitor from satellites will be available in the next several days at the following locations:

Electrical equipment shortage threatens net zero, Hitachi warns Ed Miliband

Hitachi Energy, a major manufacturer of high-voltage transformers and other critical grid equipment, has warned that a severe shortage of electrical components could prevent the UK from expanding its power grid quickly enough to meet the government’s ambitious clean power by 2030 target.
This warning, reported in The Telegraph on January 4, 2026, highlights risk to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s flagship net zero policy of decarbonising the electricity system by 2030.

A comic-style illustration of a male superhero wearing a red and gold armored suit, reminiscent of Iron Man, standing confidently among ruins with a dramatic background.

This warning, reported in The Telegraph on January 4, 2026, highlights risk to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s flagship net zero policy of decarbonising the electricity system by 2030.

A portrait of a man in a suit, set against a background of wind turbines, emphasizing renewable energy themes.

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Headline about electrical equipment shortage threatening net zero targets, emphasizing Hitachi's warning and increased demand for electricity.

A woman with glasses wearing a white jacket over a blue sweater stands in front of a green, leafy backdrop. — Laura Fleming, Hitachi’s UK managing director

A shortage of electrical equipment threatens to derail Ed Miliband’s flagship net zero targets, a leading manufacturer has warned. The Telegraph has the story.

Hitachi, the world’s leading producer of high-voltage transformers, said a critical lack of kit could leave UK power operators unable to expand the grid fast enough to achieve clean electricity by 2030.

Laura Fleming, Hitachi’s UK managing director, said this shortfall was caused by unprecedented demand for electricity combined with a shortage of raw materials and skilled labour.

This has led to soaring prices and delayed deliveries for electrical equipment crucial to net zero.

Ms Fleming said: “In the UK and Europe, we’ve had 30-40 years of growing these [electrical] systems only on an as-needed basis and we’ve actually not seen electricity consumption go up dramatically.

“But we are now in a very different place where we’ve got very ageing systems with ageing equipment that needs replacing.

“At the same time, we’re trying to expand that grid because we’re moving from an energy system that is predominantly oil and gas-based to an energy system that is much more based on renewables, nuclear and a handful of other technologies.

“This is creating pressure on the system in a number of ways.”

The scale of the planned changes to Britain’s energy system is huge, inspired by the Energy Secretary’s move to embrace green electricity and slash the country’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Currently, the UK’s power stations, wind farms and other electricity producers have a total generating capacity of about 100 gigawatts.

This comes from a diverse mix of generators, ranging from massive gas-fired or nuclear power stations that produce steady, reliable power to intermittent wind and solar farms dependent on the weather.

Transformers are the unseen technology that unifies this system, converting the power they produce into the standardised voltages and frequencies needed by the UK’s power networks.

They work by “stepping up” power to the high voltages needed to efficiently transmit it long distances, typically around 400,000 volts.

Then, at the other end of the line, they reduce it back down to the 240 volts we need to run our homes.

But the 500 or so supergrid transformers that form the backbone of Britain’s high-voltage power transmission system are no longer enough to meet the nation’s needs.

Mostly installed between five and six decades ago, their age is showing – as highlighted by the catastrophic substation fire that shut down Heathrow last year, subsequently traced to a faulty 60-year-old transformer.

There are also far too few of them to support Mr Miliband’s ambitions of decarbonising the entire grid by 2030, along with a significant increase in power generation by 2050.

He has pledged to displace the oil and gas that now supply over 75pc of our total energy with green electricity from wind, solar and nuclear plants.

Such promises are easy to make but require mammoth upgrades to Britain’s grid.

Transformer capacity is measured in megavolt-amperes (MVA), with the UK currently boasting a capacity of about 170,000MVA.

By 2035, that will have to reach up to 280,000MVA – a two thirds increase – with even more needed by 2050.

That’s an unprecedented increase – and Britain’s problem is that its plans to expand and update its transmission network have coincided with everyone else’s across Europe.

The UK has three transmission operators: National Grid covering England and Wales, Scottish Power covering southern Scotland and SSE covering northern Scotland.

Read the full story here.

A cartoon illustration of a man in a suit with a distressed expression, shouting 'I AM OUT OF CONTROL!' in a speech bubble.

CLAIM: Efficient method to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere developed

In late December 2025, researchers at the University of Helsinki’s Department of Chemistry, led by Professor Timo Repo and Postdoctoral Researcher Zahra Eshaghi Gorji, introduced a reusable chemical compound based on a superbase (1,5,7-triazabicyclo [4.3.0] non-6-ene, or TBN) combined with benzyl alcohol. This compound selectively absorbs CO₂ directly from ambient air without reacting with nitrogen, oxygen, or other gases.

Illustration depicting the process of carbon dioxide absorption from the atmosphere using a new chemical compound, featuring three Earth images and symbols representing sunlight and chemical activity.

This compound selectively absorbs CO₂ directly from ambient air without reacting with nitrogen, oxygen, or other gases.

This lab-scale breakthrough, published in Environmental Science & Technology, addresses key DAC challenges: high energy use and selectivity at low CO₂ concentrations (~420 ppm).

It could enable more cost-effective and scalable atmospheric carbon removal if scaled up.

Illustration depicting the process of carbon dioxide capture from the atmosphere using a chemical compound. The Earth is shown at the center, with arrows indicating CO₂ absorption and heat application at 70°C to release captured CO₂.

From Watts Up With That?

By Anthony Watts

Illustration of a person capturing CO₂ emissions with a net, set against a turquoise background with industrial structures.

From the University of Helsinki and the “of miniscule importance” department comes this exercise in futility.

A new method to capture carbon dioxide from the air has been developed at the University of Helsinki’s chemistry department.

The method developed by Postdoctoral Researcher Zahra Eshaghi Gorji is based on a compound of superbase and alcohol. Tests done in professor Timo Repo’s group show that the compound appears promising: one gram of the compound can absorb 156 milligrams of carbon dioxide directly from untreated ambient air. However, the compound does not react with nitrogen, oxygen or other atmospheric gases. Capasity clearly outperforms the CO₂ capture methods currently in use.

The CO₂ captured by the compound can be released by heating the compound at 70 °C in 30 minutes. Clean CO₂ is recovered and can be recycled.

The ease of releasing CO₂ is the key advantage of the new compound. In current compounds, releasing CO₂ typically requires heat above 900 degrees Celsius.

– In addition, the compound can be used multiple times: the compound retained 75 percent of its original capacity after 50 cycles, and 50 percent after 100 cycles.

Non-toxic and cost-effective

The new compound was discovered by experimenting with a number of bases in different compounds, says Eshagi Gorji. The experiments lasted more than a year in total.

The most promising base proved to be 1,5,7-triazabicyclo [4.3.0] non-6-ene (TBN), developed at in the professor Ilkka Kilpeläinen’s group, which was combined with benzyl alcohol to produce the final compound.

– None of the components is expensive to produce, Eshaghi Gorji points out. In addition, the fluid is non-toxic.

The compound will now be tested in pilot plants at a near-industrial scale, rather than in grams. A solid version of the liquid compound must be made for this purpose.

– The idea is to bind the compound to compounds such as silica and graphene oxide, which promotes the interaction with carbon dioxide.

Link to article https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.5c13908

Journal: Environmental Science & Technology

DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5c13908

Think tank IREF: ‘Against All Rationality, the EU Persists in its Net-Zero Delusion’

The headline you mentioned refers to a January 2026 report from IREF (Institut de Recherches Économiques et Fiscales), a French libertarian think tank focused on economic freedom, low taxes, and limited government intervention. IREF critiques the EU’s ambitious net-zero emissions target by 2050, calling it irrational and economically damaging.

A dystopian landscape depicting a ruined city with abandoned cars, under a dark, cloudy sky, and the text 'NET ZERO 2040' prominently displayed in red.

The headline refers to a January 2026 report from IREF (Institut de Recherches Économiques et Fiscales), a French libertarian think tank focused on economic freedom, low taxes, and limited government intervention. IREF critiques the EU’s ambitious net-zero emissions target by 2050, calling it irrational and economically damaging.

From Clintel

The European Commission has approved a new step towards its 2050 ‘net-zero’ objective, targeting a 90% reduction in net greenhouse gas emissions relative to 1990 levels by 2040. But a recent report by the French think tank IREF (Institut de Recherches Économiques et Fiscales) delivers a sobering reality check.

A desolate landscape featuring a tattered European Union flag, with the year '2040' prominently displayed in the foreground. Wind turbines and solar panels are visible amidst abandoned buildings and overgrown vegetation. — *ChatGPT*

The European Commission now targets a 90% reduction in net greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. Final adoption is expected in 2026, followed by mandatory transposition into national laws. The scale of the plan is staggering. The EU estimates required investments at €21 trillion by 2040—around 7–8% of EU GDP—excluding financing costs. Policymakers expect a mix of subsidies, carbon pricing, and coercive regulation to push most of the burden onto the private sector. The key question is no longer ambition, but feasibility.

A recent report by the French think tank IREF (Institut de Recherches Économiques et Fiscales) delivers a sobering reality check. Simple arithmetic already raises red flags. EU emissions fell by 37% over the 33 years from 1990 to today. Achieving an additional 68% reduction in just 17 years would require nearly tripling the pace of decarbonization. If this acceleration fails, the economic consequences of such a quick drop in emissions would be severe.

EU strategy rests on the assumption that technologies are sufficiently mature to justify a rapid dismantling of decades of fossil-based capital. The plan relies on three pillars: a power system dominated by variable renewable electricity (VRE), massive electrification of industry, transport and buildings, and deep changes in agriculture. The flaw lies in the need for perfect coordination. Grids must expand for renewables, storage must scale faster than intermittency, and demand must rise exactly on schedule. Any mismatch turns ‘transition investments’ into stranded assets.

IREF shows that these mismatches are already widespread. Large-scale VRE deployment produces alternating periods of oversupply—negative prices and forced curtailments—and shortages, when prices spike but renewables cannot respond. Subsidies, initially promised to be temporary, are rising again. These dynamics were warned about years ago by institutions such as the OECD and the Nuclear Energy Agency, but largely ignored.

The April 2025 Spanish blackout exposed another weakness. Despite early denials, investigations showed that excessive reliance on non-dispatchable power sources reduced grid stability. Beyond this event, European transmission operators report a dramatic rise in voltage incidents since 2015, pointing to growing systemic fragility.

The EU response is to call for faster grid expansion and large-scale storage, especially hydrogen. Yet progress lags far behind renewable additions. The Netherlands illustrates the problem: grid congestion now blocks new connections for households and firms, weighing on growth. According to sources cited by IREF, fixing the Dutch grid alone could cost €200 billion by 2040. By contrast, the Commission estimates only €1.2 trillion for the entire EU, only 6 times more—an implausibly low figure that suggests systematic underestimation.

Germany tells a similar story. Only one-sixth of planned transmission lines have been built under the Energiewende. The German development bank KfW estimates that grid investment capacity would need to quadruple to meet 2030 targets, but nobody knows where the money should come from. Hydrogen fares no better. European and national audit institutions have concluded that hydrogen strategies are driven more by political aspiration than by technical or economic realism. Few projects are advancing, and key technologies remain immature. Storage targets for 2040 or 2050 are therefore largely speculative.

Ironically, Germany itself is now acknowledging the limits of its model. Chancellor Friedrich Merz has announced plans to build 71 gas-fired power plants by 2035 to secure backup during recurring wind and solar droughts, alongside subsidies for industrial electricity prices. Correcting the failures of the Energiewende now risks distorting competition within the EU.

On the demand side, reality is equally harsh. Energy-intensive industries are discovering that global markets are unwilling to pay large premiums for ‘decarbonized’ products. For instance, European aluminum production has fallen by 25% since 2010, while global demand rose by more than 70%. High electricity prices and mandatory carbon allowance purchases further restrict investment capacity.

Households face similar limits. Electric vehicle sales have plateaued as concerns over cost, convenience and reliability persist. Heat pumps and insulation followed the same trajectory: early enthusiasm, disappointing returns, collapsing demand once subsidies decline. Only stricter mandates could close the gap—but such mandates would come at the expense of individual freedoms.

IREF concludes that the EU’s net-zero plan is effectively dead on arrival. Its internal coherence is unachievable at this scale, across member states moving at different speeds. Persisting regardless will damage prosperity and liberties, repeating the classic failure of grand central plans—what the Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek once described as fatal conceit.

The irony is that the climatic impact would be negligible. Based on IPCC formulas, IREF deduces that for Europe, reaching net zero in 2100 rather than 2050 would alter global temperatures by only 0.02 to 0.06°C—below any meaningful measurement threshold.

IREF therefore calls for a strategic reversal: a slower, more realistic path to decarbonization, centered on innovation rather than mandates. France’s nuclear-based electricity system already delivers far lower emissions than the EU’s renewable-heavy vision inspired by Germany’s failed experiment. Gradual replacement of remaining coal and gas with dispatchable low-carbon generation—potentially including advanced nuclear technologies—over the next three decades would be both economically and technically credible. This pathway would avoid radical grid overhauls, unrealistic storage schemes, and mismatches between supply expansion and actual demand.

Europe is beginning to adjust at the margins, softening EV mandates and allowing electricity subsidies. But cosmetic fixes will not rescue a fundamentally flawed strategy. A genuine reassessment is overdue. Better to correct course now than to persist in an illusion that risks undermining the European project itself.

Climate Intelligence (Clintel) is an independent foundation informing people about climate change and climate policies.

The report, in French: « European Union climate law: an economic and societal disaster with no effect on the climate », Authored by Vincent Bénard, IREF, December 2025 – Vincent Bénard is a civil and territorial planning engineer and economic analyst, who authored several articles and reports for IREF since 2021.

The story behind Trump’s order halting Virginia offshore wind

On December 22, 2025, the Trump administration’s Department of the Interior announced an immediate suspension of federal leases for all large-scale offshore wind projects under construction in U.S. waters, explicitly including the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project developed by Dominion Energy. This 2.6 GW farm off Virginia Beach—poised to become the largest in the U.S., with 176 turbines capable of powering around 660,000 homes—was about 60% complete and on track for full operation in late 2026.

Aerial view of a busy naval base with multiple aircraft carriers docked, surrounded by a large parking lot filled with cars and a grassy area.

This 2.6 GW farm off Virginia Beach—poised to become the largest in the U.S., with 176 turbines capable of powering around 660,000 homes—was about 60% complete and on track for full operation in late 2026.

The administration cited national security risks, referencing classified Pentagon reports and unclassified findings that large turbine blades and towers create radar “clutter”—interference that could obscure real targets or generate false ones, potentially complicating military operations near East Coast bases. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum emphasized prioritizing “America First” security amid evolving adversary technologies, noting the projects’ proximity to population centers and military assets.

From CFACT

By Collister Johnson

An aerial view of a harbor filled with various boats, including a large tall ship and several smaller vessels, surrounded by military ships and a waterfront with buildings in the background.

The media has been awash with indignant stories about the Department of Interior’s recent order halting further construction for the Virginia Wind project. The grousing by opponents runs the gamut from “arbitrary and capricious” to “illegal and unconstitutional” to “spiteful and retaliatory.”

But what is missing from all this noise is an understanding of the long history of the Pentagon’s objections to any and all industrial development of the ocean waters lying off Norfolk, VA — the home of the largest military complex in the world. These objections have included resistance to both oil and gas exploration as well as offshore wind.

The Pentagon’s objections to any kind of commercial development in the waters off the Norfolk Navy Base began several decades ago. Former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell was particularly eager to promote oil and gas exploration off Virginia’s coast. This prompted the Navy to issue two classified reports in 2010 and 2015 that vigorously objected to oil and gas exploration adjacent to the Norfolk naval base. Further efforts to advance oil and gas exploration died a relatively quick death in the face of this military opposition.

After the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) was amended in 2005 to authorize offshore wind development, the Pentagon once again issued a report in 2017 objecting to any wind energy construction in 94% of the ocean waters off Norfolk. This report was reinforced by another report in 2022, which further dismissed offshore wind as incompatible with military operations. Both of these Navy reports were classified, and the precise national security liabilities have remained sealed. But the ultimate conclusion was not — offshore wind development of any size in federal waters off Norfolk posed unacceptable risks to national security.

But then, the Obama and Biden administrations arrived with their zeal for renewable energy. They started pressuring the Navy to retract its objections to offshore wind. The result was the emergence of the Commercial Virginia Offshore Wind project, which Dominion Energy eagerly embraced both as a means of pacifying the green energy lobby and also of deriving extravagant profits from a bloated, expensive asset base.

However, the location of Virginia Wind off the coast of the Norfolk Naval Base violated the preexisting Navy reports. Accordingly, the Construction and Operations Plan (COP), approved by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) for Virginia Wind, required Dominion Energy to enter into a series of “mitigation agreements” with the Navy to ameliorate its national security objections. But because BOEM knew that the Navy might not agree to these mitigation measures, it included in the COP a provision which stated that BOEM “reserved the right … in its sole discretion” to override these concerns. All that Dominion had to do was attempt to obtain Navy approval. That effort alone, even if unsuccessful, would be enough justification for BOEM to greenlight the construction plan anyway.

Despite this strong-arming, the Navy continued to fight back. It dug in its heels so adamantly that the Biden administration was forced to concoct a bizarre document, published just one week prior the 2024 presidential election, called a “Memorandum of Cooperation.” This agreement between BOEM and the Navy compelled the Navy to “cooperate” with BOEM and to drop any future opposition during the second term of the Biden administration. Of course, there was no second term, and the Trump administration promptly rescinded the Cooperation Memorandum within a few months after its inauguration.

So where does this leave the situation now?

The Code of Federal Regulations, OCSLA, and the terms of Virginia Wind lease and COP clearly give BOEM the power to suspend Virginia Wind based on national security considerations. Even so, Dominion Energy has filed suit against the Department of Interior in U.S. District Court, claiming the pause is “arbitrary and capricious.” However, since this is a contractual dispute between the Government and a vendor — Dominion Energy — the U.S. Court of Claims has exclusive jurisdiction to hear the case, not the Federal District Court. The Court of Claims does not issue injunctions, so unless the case is settled, a trial on the merits will proceed while construction is halted.

Since most of the national security grounds for the suspension are classified, the public may never know the details and specifics behind the order. Unclassified reports suggest that wind turbines would create “clutter” that interferes with military radar. But it is obvious that there are more worrisome liabilities against military preparedness than just radar clutter. In any event, the days when renewable energy zealotry topped national security have come to an end.

The Virginia Wind project will finally receive the same, honest assessment of its potential impact on national security as oil and gas did several decades ago.

And the results may very well be the same.

U.S. Navy image

Church’s net zero crackdown forces parish to rip out new boilers

A Church court (Consistory Court) ruled in October 2025 that the parish had not adequately explored sustainable alternatives, such as heat pumps, as required under the Church of England’s net zero policy. The chancellor granted a temporary faculty allowing the boilers to stay for up to three years but ordered their removal and replacement with a more sustainable system before the 2030 net zero target.

A stone church at night, illuminated by a glowing 'NET ZERO' sign on its bell tower, with a dark sky in the background.

The headline refers to a recent controversy involving Christ Church Chineham, a parish in Basingstoke, Hampshire, under the Diocese of Winchester.

In 2024–2025, the parish spent £18,200 replacing two failing gas boilers with new, efficient gas models expected to last decades. However, they installed them without fully obtaining the required faculty (ecclesiastical permission), amid urgency to have heating for winter.

The Church of England provides grants (e.g., Boiler Replacement Hardship Fund), advice, and funding for transitions, noting successes where churches cut bills dramatically via electric or biomass systems. It views the policy as stewardship of creation, with support available through diocesan net zero leads.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Sallust

Exterior view of Christ Church Chineham, a modern brick building with a round section and a conical roof, surrounded by trees and parking spaces.

The Church of England and the National Trust are two of the UK’s most ardent woke epicentres, so it is no surprise that both are in the news almost daily with fresh revelations about their antics.

One of the latest, according to the Telegraph, concerns Christ Church, Chineham, in Basingstoke, which spent £18,200 last year replacing two [sic] clapped-out gas boilers with new models. Sadly, the church had not taken into account the Church of England’s aspiration to reach Net Zero by 2030:

New rules require churches to obtain a faculty – ecclesiastical planning permission – and prove there is no viable green alternative before new oil or gas boilers can be installed.

The church chose to install gas boilers after commissioning a report from a mechanical engineer, who was a member of its congregation, which found heat pumps would require “extensive and intrusive works” and be far more expensive than gas.

The church also commissioned an Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) report, which estimated the cost of installing heat pumps at £62,000, but still recommended their installation before the Net Zero target date of 2030.

The church instead chose to install the gas boilers at a third of the price and then applied retrospectively for a faculty.

But when the case came before the Diocese of Winchester’s consistory court, it ruled that the gas boilers were “undesirable as it locks the church into significant fossil fuel use well beyond 2030”.

“If the 2030 objective means anything, it is in churches such as this that sustainable heating solutions need to be installed now, not in 2045 or thereafter,” Cain Ormondroyd, the diocese’s chancellor, said.

The decision was made reluctantly to allow the church a faculty:

In the judgment handed down in October, Mr Ormondroyd ordered the church to remove the boilers within three years and replace them with “a more sustainable form of heating before the 2030 target date”.

It is not clear how the enforced obsolescence of nearly new gas boilers, and the installation of a heat pump consuming electricity generated by gas- or wood chip-burning power stations, will assist the Church of England in its march to the Promised Land.

Mike Foster, chief executive of the Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA), said gas boilers were “being sacrificed on the altar of worshipping heat pumps” by the Church of England.

“It is entirely a matter for the Church of England to explain to its parishioners that perfectly good boilers have to be ripped out to maintain the green virtue-signalling of the church,” he told the Telegraph.

According to the Church Times, which covered the story in November last year, three boilers were involved in the works. However, it adds that during the three-year grace period:

a condition was imposed, as suggested by the guidance, requiring that any carbon emissions from the operation of the gas boilers be offset.

The knotty issue of replacing old church boilers has clearly been around for some time, but in certain other instances begrudging pragmatism appears to have prevailed – for example at St Mary the Virgin, Dedham, according to the Ecclesiastical Law Association:

The church’s oil-fired heating boiler, installed 35 years previously, had come to the end of its working life and spare parts were no longer available. The churchwardens sought permission to replace the boiler with a new gas boiler. The Diocesan Advisory Committee expressed its disappointment that the church had not opted for a more environmentally friendly heating system. The Chancellor granted a faculty, being satisfied that the petitioners had considered the Church of England’s ‘Net Zero Roadmap’ and the Church Building Council’s guidance, and that the petitioners had also considered several alternative options, which had been discounted for various reasons, including costs, aesthetic considerations, and the potential impact of the different proposed solutions on the fabric and special character of the Grade I listed building. The Chancellor made it a condition of the faculty (inter alia) that so far as was practicable, gas supplied under a green tariff was to be used for the new system.

Given how cash-strapped most churches are, the point must be approaching when these infrastructure projects – and thus the buildings themselves – are simply abandoned. The Church of England appears determined to hasten that moment. Still, at least it can feel good about itself, and perhaps that is all that matters.

The Telegraph’s piece is worth reading in full.

Day: January 5, 2026

Media ring the climate alarm but 2025 was the year of Record-Low Extreme Weather Deaths

Less than 1 per 100,000

Selling extremes aligned with funding sources

Media climate alchemy

Like this:

Finding the 1859 Carrington Event in Tree Rings

Discovery through a cosmic marker

Mapping solar storms

Increasingly accurate information on the carbon cycle

Other sources of radiocarbon

Like this:

Hydrogen emissions heat up the climate – study shows the risks of the energy transition

Why infrastructure and control determine the benefits

Soil processes determine how much H2 remains in the air

Figures show where politics and technology can start

Like this:

UAH v6.1 Global Temperature Update for December 2025: +0.30 deg. C

Like this:

Electrical equipment shortage threatens net zero, Hitachi warns Ed Miliband

Like this:

CLAIM: Efficient method to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere developed

Journal: Environmental Science & Technology

DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5c13908

Like this:

Think tank IREF: ‘Against All Rationality, the EU Persists in its Net-Zero Delusion’

Like this:

The story behind Trump’s order halting Virginia offshore wind

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Church’s net zero crackdown forces parish to rip out new boilers

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