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Articles by Alex Luta
How has the refendum result impacted the UK's electricity transition?
There has been some evidence that the UK’s energy transition will continue largely unchanged, but – unsurprisingly – there is some uncertainty. On Wednesday, both energy and climate ministers – Amber Rudd and Andrea Leadsom – made speeches, with varying degrees of passion, to reassure us that life goes on. Both reiterated commitments to the Climate Change Act, coal phase-out, renewables investment, and new nuclear.
EU must walk the talk on climate ambition and Paris
Tomorrow the European Union, alongside over 150 states, will sign the Paris agreement at a ceremony in New York. But can we really live up to the promise of keeping the world below 1.5 degrees warming with the current low level of ambition in the European 2030 climate and energy framework? In a letter to the EU leaders, together with a Coalition for Higher Ambition, Sandbag asks the European leaders to “walk the talk” and boost Europe’s carbon reduction targets.
We must close the loopholes in Britain's carbon budget
This piece is reprinted from a piece written for The Guardian. Please folow this link for original This is our opportunity to fix the accounting rules and keep national emissions within UK carbon budgets Last month the government made a landmark decision to reduce the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions to zero sometime this century. This makes Britain the first country to commit to one of the key pledges in the Paris Climate Change Agreement reached last December.
Top 10 European polluters still dominated by German lignite
Today, the European Commission published the preliminary 2015 emissions data for all ~12,000 industrial installations covered under the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme. Four out of five of the biggest polluters in Europe are still German lignite plants. Three of these are owned by RWE. There are two new entrants to the list – a Polish hard coal plant, and a Bulgarian lignite plant. The biggest riser was RWE’s Weisweiler, which increased its emissions by 8% to 18.1 million tonnes of CO2.
Cement - The Final Carbon Fatcat
Sandbag’s new report reveals European climate laws are increasing emissions in the cement sector, whilst multinational cement companies reap huge financial windfalls. The cement sector must be the final Carbon Fatcat; real reform to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is urgent to tackle climate change.[1] Perverse incentives in the design of the EU’s ‘flagship’ climate change policy, the Emissions Trading Scheme, have increased cement sector emissions.
Capacity Mechanism reform: The final hurrah for unabated gas?
Today, DECC has launched a consultation on some big changes to the UK’s Capacity Market. The Government needs to be sure it can keep the lights on, especially as 8.4GW of coal has decided in the last 12 months that it will close this year. The aim of the capacity market changes is to build more gas generation, and the changes will almost certainly ensure that happens.
UK coal closures will make the UK a cleaner, greener place
This time last year, no-one knew when the UK’s remaining 11 coal power stations would close. Since then, incredibly 5 of them have announced they will close this year, equal to almost half the UK coal fleet. In total, this means 8,400MW will close this year, out of a total 18,300MW open today (see figure 1). The latest announcement was yesterday, that Rugeley would close[1].
Farewell Sandbag!
This is my last blog as Executive Director of Sandbag. From January I’ll be leaving to take up a new role at the international charity the Environmental Defense Fund. I’m viewing this new chapter as I imagine a parent might their child going off to college: I’m going to really miss it and am anxious about its future but am confident it will flourish in new circumstances. I first decided to set Sandbag up nearly eight years ago after returning from a holiday to Mali.
Polish industry looks forward to the New Year’s opportunities
We hope you are spending your last days before Christmas as busily as we are! Last weekend Sandbag was invited by the Polish Economic Forum to Karpacz, on the Polish-Czech border, to speak about low carbon technologies for industrial growth. The agreement in Paris sets a clear direction for the world to usher in zero emissions by the second half of this century. Sandbag hopes to support Polish industry in finding its own way of addressing the challenge.
UK pulls rug from under the CCS industry
The government's decision to the UK’s £1 billion Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) competition is a devastating blow to the technology, and throws the UK’s plans for decarbonisation into disarray. In the fourth carbon budget, the Committee on Climate Change estimated that without CCS, costs would almost double to reach the target of 80% greenhouse gas reductions by 2050.
Green taxes are not killing UK steel
The primary reason for the raft of steel plant closures over the past month is the slowdown in construction in China, not the small increases in electricity costs caused by green levies. Electricity costs are only ~6% of the costs of steel production,[1] and the government compensates companies for any rise in bills caused by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), and from the UK Carbon Price Support.
Ovo goes Coal-Free
Today, Ovo Energy have announced that all the electricity they supply to their 500,000 customers will be coal-free. The UK’s coal power stations produced 17% of total greenhouse gas emissions last year, so it is a very welcome move that customers can now buy electricity coal-free, not as a premium product, but as part of their standard electricity tariff.
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