energy – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Are you a journalist looking for climate experts for COP30? We’ve got you covered

Posted on October 16, 2025October 24, 2025 by amanda.woodman-hardy

We’ve got lots of media trained climate change experts at the University of Bristol. If you need an expert for an interview, here is a list of our experts you can approach. All media enquiries should be made via press-office@bristol.ac.uk.

Cabot Institute for the Environment at COP30

We will have four academics in attendance at the Blue Zone at COP30 who will be available for media interviews. These are: Dr Alice Venn (climate law, loss and damage, just transition), Dr Filipe França (Amazon rainforest changes, deforestation, biodiversity), Dr Laurence Hawker (population mapping, flooding, climate hazards) and Dr Karen Tucker (indigenous knowledges). We will also have several academics attending virtually: Dr Alix Dietzel, Dr Katharina Richter, Dr Ailish Craig, Dr Ruby Lieber, and Stefan Zylinski.

Read more about our participation at COP on our website at https://bristol.ac.uk/cabot/what-we-do/projects/cop/

Action for Climate Empowerment & Children and Youth

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety in children and educational psychologist.

Dr Camilla Morelli – expert in how children and young people imagine the future, asking what are the key challenges they face towards the adulthoods they desire and implementing impact strategies to make these desires attainable.

Dr Helen Thomas-Hughes – expert in engaging, empowering, and inspiring diverse student bodies as collaborative environmental change makers. Also Lead of the Cabot Institute’s MScR in Global Environmental Challenges.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Dani is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports. Also part of the Waves of Change project with Dr Camilla Morelli, looking at the intersection of social, economic and climatic impacts on young people’s lives and futures around the world.

Dr Oscar Berglund – expert on climate change activism and particularly Extinction Rebellion (XR) and the use of civil disobedience.

Climate finance / Loss and damage

Dr Rachel James – Expert in climate finance, damage, loss and decision making. Also has expertise in African climate systems and contemporary and future climate change.

Dr Katharina Richter – an expert in sufficiency-based, postgrowth climate change mitigation approaches and the environmental justice aspects of global energy transitions. Her regional expertise is in Latin America, focussing on sustainable and equitable development in times of climate crisis, with a particular emphasis on the impacts of critical raw materials extraction on biodiverse, water scarce and/or indigenous territories, and indigenous alternatives to growth-based development such as Buen Vivir. Katarina will be virtually attending COP30.

Dr Josephine Walker – health economic modelling.

Climate science / Adaptation and resilience / Mitigation

Dr Laurence Hawker – expert on refugees, flooding, population mapping, displaced people, hazards. Laurence will be at COP30 between 17 and 21 November 2025.

Dr Ailish Craig – expert in improving climate services and climate adaptation across Southern Africa. Ailish will be attending COP30 virtually.

Dr Eunice Lo – expert in changes in extreme weather events such as heatwaves and cold spells, and how these changes translate to negative health outcomes including illnesses and deaths.

Professor Lizzie Kendon – Lizzie is a Scientific Manager and Met Office Science Fellow at the Met Office and University of Bristol. She is an expert in using climate models to understand future changes in high impact weather events.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Daniela is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports.

Dr Katerina Michalides – expert in drylands, drought and desertification and helping East African rural communities to adapt to droughts and future climate change.

Professor Dann Mitchell – expert in how climate change alters the atmospheric circulation, extreme events, and impacts on human health. Dann is also a Met Office Chair.

Professor Dan Lunt – expert on past climate change, with a focus on understanding how and why climate has changed in the past and what we can learn about the future from the past. Dan is also a Lead Author on IPCC AR6.

Professor Jonathan Bamber – expert on the impact of melting land ice on sea level rise (SLR) and the response of the ocean to changes in freshwater forcing.

Professor Paul Bates CBE – expert in the science of flooding, risk and reducing threats to life and economic losses worldwide.

Dr Matt Palmer – expert in sea level and ocean heat content at the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Bristol.

Professor Guy Howard – expertise in building resilience and supporting adaptation in water systems, sanitation, health care facilities, and housing. Expert in wider infrastructure resilience assessment.

Dr Ryerson Christie – expert in human security, peacebuilding, and natural disasters.

Dr Emily Vosper – hurricane and climate science expert.

Climate techonology

Dr Ce Zhang – expert in environmental data science including Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Geospatial Data Mining and Modelling, Landscape Pattern and Process Modelling, Remotely Sensed Image Analysis and their Applications.

Climate change and health

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety and educational psychologist.

Professor Dann Mitchell – expert in how climate change alters the atmospheric circulation, extreme events, and impacts on human health. Dann is also a Met Office Chair.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in influence of climate change on infectious water-related disease, including waterborne disease and vector-borne disease.

Professor Rachael Gooberman-Hill – expert in health research, including long-term health conditions and design of ways to support and improve health.

Dr Adrian Flint – expert in poverty, sustainable development, disease and political economy.

Dr Josephine Walker – health economic modelling.

Just transition

Dr Alix Dietzel – climate justice and climate policy expert. Focusing on the global and local scale and interested in how just the response to climate change is and how we can ensure a just transition. Alix will be attending COP30 virtually.

Dr Ed Atkins – expert on environmental and energy policy, politics and governance and how they must be equitable and inclusive. Also interested in local politics of climate change policies and energy generation and consumption.

Dr Karen Tucker – expert on colonial politics of knowledge that shape encounters with indigenous knowledges, bodies and natures, and the decolonial practices that can reveal and remake them. Karen will be in attending the Blue Zone of COP30 between 10 to 15 November 2025.

Land Use / Forests / Nature / Food

Dr Filipe França – expert on changes in tropical Amazonia forests including biodiversity, logging, land use etc. Filipe will be in the Blue Zone of COP30 from 10 to 15 November 2025.

Dr Jo House – expert on land and climate interactions, including emissions of carbon dioxide from land use change (e.g. deforestation), climate mitigation potential from the land (e.g. afforestation, bioenergy), and implications of science for policy. Previously Government Office for Science’s Head of Climate Advice.

Dr Taro Takahashi – expert on farming, livestock production systems as well as programme evaluation and general equilibrium modelling of pasture and livestock-based economies.

Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello – expert on tensions and intersections between livestock farming and the environment.

Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples

Dr Katharina Richter – expert in decolonial environmental politics and equitable development in times of climate crises. Also an expert on degrowth and Buen Vivir, two alternatives to growth-based development from the Global North and South. Katarina will be virtually attending COP30.

Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello – expert on tensions and intersections between livestock farming and the environment.

Net Zero / Energy / Renewables

Dr Sam Williamson – sustainable and equitable energy systems.

Dr Caitlin Robinson – expert on energy poverty and energy justice and also in mapping ambient vulnerabilities in UK cities.

Professor Charl Faul – expert in novel functional materials for sustainable energy applications e.g. in CO2 capture and conversion and energy storage devices.

Oceans

Professor Steve Simpson – expert marine biology and fish ecology, with particular interests in the behaviour of coral reef fishes, bioacoustics, effects of climate change on marine ecosystems, conservation and management.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Daniela is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports.

Pollution

Dr Aoife Grant – expert in greenhouse gases and methane. Set up a monitoring station at Glasgow for COP26 to record emissions.

Professor Matt Rigby – expert on sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in contribution of waste and wastewater systems to methane emissions in low- and middle-income countries

Dr Charlotte Lloyd – expert on the fate of chemicals in the terrestrial environment, including plastics, bioplastics and agricultural wastes.

Dr Jagannath Biswakarma – expert in water quality, pollution and treatment. Water contamination.

Cities

Dr Ges Rosenberg – investigates how ‘systems’ approaches (‘systems thinking’ and ‘systems engineering’) can be applied to structure socio-technical problems, and to design and analyse a wide range of engineering solutions and policy interventions, with specific application to infrastructure and city futures.
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This blog was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Communications and Engagement Officer at the Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Britain’s nuclear future? What small reactors, fusion and ‘Big Carl’ mean for net zero

Posted on May 6, 2025May 6, 2025 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair recently argued nuclear power is an “essential part of the answer” to net zero. Writing in the foreword of a report by his thinktank, the Tony Blair Institute, he claimed small modular nuclear reactors, nuclear fusion and other advanced technologies can help lower the emissions of the electricity sector.

It’s worth looking at what these technologies involve, and how far off the UK is from integrating them into its electricity system. But we should first recognise great progress in the electricity sector in the past 15 years, and how dramatic reductions in the cost of wind and solar have led to huge increases in renewable capacity across the globe.

The UK completely removed all coal-fired power in 2024, largely replaced by offshore wind and gas. However, relying on any one technology makes an electricity grid less resilient, and nuclear is zero-carbon and can help stabilise the grid when so much electricity comes from intermittent renewables.

Historically, nuclear has contributed around 15% to 25% of the UK’s electricity supply, however most reactors have closed or are approaching the end of their life. The fleet of 26 Magnox reactors built in the 1960s finished operation by 2015 and are now being decommissioned.

Over the past three years three other sites have also closed, with the remainder currently anticipated to run until 2028-2030. At this point, what was once 41 reactors will have shrunk to just Sizewell B, a power plant operational on the Suffolk coast since 1995.

Replacing this drop in electricity production must be a big priority. The construction of two new reactors at Hinkley Point C in south-west England started in 2016 but won’t finish until at least 2029. Significant planning has taken place for an identical site at Sizewell C in Suffolk, and a final decision is expected shortly.

The pressurised water reactor design at these two sites produces significantly more electricity than past UK designs, and these four reactors will together produce 6.4GW of electricity, replacing all 14 of the reactors that are retiring.

Supporting the construction of new reactors at Hinkley Point and Sizewell is essential for maintaining the UK’s electricity supply, but basically returns the country to the status quo. Beyond, there are number of exciting new developments.

SMRs

Small modular reactors (SMRs) and advanced modular reactors (AMRs) have frustratingly similar names, but have become the main way to categorise the two options. The “small” in SMRs is because they produce between 30MW and 300MW of electricity, compared to 1,600MW for each reactor at Hinkley Point C.

The “modular” is driven by a desire to produce multiple identical reactors at once in a factory, rather than constructing on site. This can dramatically reduce manufacturing and installation time, potentially making them much cheaper.

A combination of new SMRs and one or two new Hinkley C-sized reactors would enable UK nuclear capacity to expand beyond the status quo in the 2030s, further reducing the carbon emissions of the electricity sector.

The next generation

Further into the future, exciting research is taking place on the next “generation IV” nuclear designs: advanced modular reactors (AMRs).

Some AMRs can run at much higher temperatures, which could help decarbonise tricky industries like steelmaking or produce hydrogen for energy storage or low-carbon plane fuel. Some designs can even reuse nuclear waste, reducing how long it needs to be stored safely.

Even further in the future, nuclear fusion – the same process that powers the sun – could offer clean electricity without producing long-lasting radioactive waste. The UK is supporting this by building a demonstration fusion plant called STEP which aims to start operating by 2040.

One of the biggest criticisms of nuclear is the cost. Building a nuclear plant is a massive project that can take many years or even decades. Hinkley Point C, for example, has up to 10,000 workers and more than 100 cranes on site, including the world’s biggest crane “Big Carl”.

Because plants take so long to build, the money is borrowed years before any electricity is generated, gathering significant interest in the meantime. These interest payments can ultimately make up as much as two-thirds of the total cost.

A new funding model, similar to that used for big infrastructure projects like Crossrail, should lower costs.

But once a nuclear plant is built and paid off, it’s one of the cheapest ways to generate electricity – especially as modern reactors can run for up to 80 years. That’s why government support to cover upfront construction costs can pay off in the long run.

The previous UK government ambition was to build 24GW of new nuclear power by 2050 – about four times more than the country has today. However, the current government has not confirmed it will stick to this target.

To get there, the UK would need to approve several new nuclear projects every few years starting in 2030, which will require major investment in skills, resources and collaborations.

We urgently need to decarbonise our energy system, and future nuclear reactors can play an important role in that alongside renewables and other technologies.

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This blog is written by Tomas Martin, Associate Professor in Materials Physics, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Repression of climate and environmental protest is intensifying across the world

Posted on January 8, 2025 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Climate and environmental protest is being criminalised and repressed around the world. The criminalisation of such protest has received a lot of attention in certain countries, including the UK and Australia. But there have not been any attempts to capture the global trend – until now.

We recently published a report, with three University of Bristol colleagues, which shows this repression is indeed a global trend – and that it is becoming more difficult around the world to stand up for climate justice.

This criminalisation and repression spans the global north and south, and includes more and less democratic countries. It does, however, take different forms.

Our report distinguishes between climate and environmental protest. The latter are campaigns against specific environmentally destructive projects – most commonly oil and gas extraction and pipelines, deforestation, dam building and mining. They take place all around the world.

Climate protests are aimed at mitigating climate change by decreasing carbon emissions, and tend to make bigger policy or political demands (“cut global emissions now” rather than “don’t build this power plant”). They often take place in urban areas and are more common in the global north.

Four ways to repress activism

The intensifying criminalisation and repression is taking four main forms.

1. Anti-protest laws are introduced

Anti-protest laws may give the police more powers to stop protest, introduce new criminal offences, increase sentence lengths for existing offences, or give policy impunity when harming protesters. In the 14 countries we looked at, we found 22 such pieces of legislation introduced since 2019.

2. Protest is criminalised through prosecution and courts

This can mean using laws against climate and environmental activists that were designed to be used against terrorism or organised crime. In Germany, members of Letzte Generation (Last Generation), a direct action group in the mould of Just Stop Oil, were charged in May 2024 with “forming a criminal organisation”. This section of the law is typically used against mafia organisations and had never been applied to a non-violent group.

In the Philippines, anti-terrorism laws have been used against environmentalists who have found themselves unable to return to their home islands.

Criminalising protest can also mean lowering the threshold for prosecution, preventing climate activists from mentioning climate change in court, and changing other court processes to make guilty verdicts more likely. Another example is injunctions that can be taken out by corporations against activists who protest against them.

3. Harsher policing

This stretches from stopping and searching to surveillance, arrests, violence, infiltration and threatening activists. The policing of activists is carried out not just by state actors like police and armed forces, but also private actors including private security, organised crime and corporations.

In Germany, regional police have been accused of collaborating with an energy giant (and its private fire brigade) to evict coal mine protesters, while private security was used extensively in policing anti-mining activists in Peru.

4. Killings and disappearances

Lastly, in the most extreme cases, environmental activists are murdered. This is an extension of the trend for harsher policing, as it typically follows threats by the same range of actors. We used data from the NGO Global Witness to show this is increasingly common in countries including Brazil, Philippines, Peru and India. In Brazil, most murders are carried out by organised crime groups while in Peru, it is the police force.

Protests are increasing

To look more closely at the global picture of climate and environmental protest – and the repression of it – we used the Armed Conflicts Location Event database. This showed us that climate protests increased dramatically in 2018-2019 and have not declined since. They make up on average about 4% of all protest in the 81 countries that had more than 1,000 protests recorded in the 2012-2023 period:

This second graph shows that environmental protest has increased more gradually:

We used this data to see what kind of repression activists face. By looking for keywords in the reporting of protest events, we found that on average 3% of climate and environmental protests face police violence, and 6.3% involve arrests. But behind these averages are large differences in the nature of protest and its policing.

A combination of the presence of protest groups like Extinction Rebellion, who often actively seek arrests, and police forces that are more likely to make arrests, mean countries such as Australia and the UK have very high levels of arrest. Some 20% of Australian climate and environmental protests involve arrests, against 17% in the UK – with the highest in the world being Canada on 27%.

Meanwhile, police violence is high in countries such as Peru (6.5%) and Uganda (4.4%). France stands out as a European country with relatively high levels of police violence (3.2%) and low levels of arrests (also 3.2%).

In summary, while criminalisation and repression does not look the same across the world, there are remarkable similarities. It is increasing in a lot of countries, it involves both state and corporate actors, and it takes many forms.

This repression is taking place in a context where states are not taking adequate action on climate change. By criminalising activists, states depoliticise them. This conceals the fact these activists are ultimately right about the state of the climate and environment – and the lack of positive government action in these areas.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member, Dr Oscar Berglund, Senior Lecturer in International Public and Social Policy, University of Bristol and Tie Franco Brotto, PhD Candidate, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Reducing the reliance of traditional fuels in informal settlements

Posted on November 15, 2024November 19, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

The pilot of a community kitchen in Portee-Rokupa, Freetown, Sierra Leone

There is political controversary around the total population of Freetown, Sierra Leone. The 2021 mid-term Population and Housing census noted a significant decrease in Freetown’s population which has subsequently been challenged by the mayor and other leading stakeholders. Statistics vary from 600,000 to 1.35million. Regardless, it is estimated that 36% of the city’s population live within densely populated informal settlements scattered across Freetown’s eastern peninsula. These communities, not too dissimilar to other low-income settlements across the city, and indeed other densely populated urban centres, are often located in geographically vulnerable areas and prone to increased hazards, risks and disasters.

It is in the informal settlement of Portee Rokupa where researchers from the University of Bristol have been working since 2021 (Figure 1). The ESRC funded ‘Beyond the Networked City’ project (grant number: ES/T007656/1) is a collaboration between the University of Bristol, Loughborough University, Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC), Makerere University, and the University of Cape Town that seeks to further understand urban service delivery of key infrastructure such as water, sanitation and energy in Freetown and Kampala. In close partnership with SLURC, over 360 households in Portee Rokupa were surveyed on their energy services such as electricity and cooking.

Figure 1: Map of Portee Rokupa, Freetown

In Portee Rokupa, like most of these communities, their residents, mainly women and young girls, carry out the daily task of cooking. Cooking, whether for personal consumption or income generating purposes, is usually prepared using traditional biomass fuels such as charcoal with basic, inefficient metal stoves called coal pots (Figure 2). The use of traditional coal pot stoves are contributors to air pollution and environmental degradation affecting health of users and local forest cover.

Figure 2: A stereotypical charcoal coal pot used in Freetown

Working closely with the residents and community actors in Portee Rokupa, there is an overwhelming desire to transition to cleaner cooking solutions, but there are challenges around accessibility, availability, finance, and imposed knowledge that hinders the sustainable uptake of ‘clean’ cookstoves. Whilst trying to further understand what could be done to improve their cooking service delivery, the idea for a communal cooking space, which offers a range of cooking technologies, to be used on a pay-as-you basis, was both desirable and aspirational for the community.

SLURC project managed the community kitchen project whilst also facilitating community dialogue to ensure that residents themselves were part of the design and construction, and management of the kitchen. They also fostered new and existing partnerships with key stakeholders including the Government Technical Institute (GTI), the Electricity Generation and Transmission Company (EGTC), and Afrigas, a national LPG supplier. What started as ad-hoc discussions around the need to improve cooking service delivery within informal settlements, turned into the creation of the Platform for Energy Safety, innovation, and Access Consortium (PESIA), a call to action for stakeholders to further understand the cooking needs of residents living in informal settlements.

To ensure long-term sustainability of the kitchen, community members were selected to become community Energy Champions and were trained by the above stakeholders on the use, maintenance, finance and safety of different cooking technologies that would enable them to provide tailored support in the community kitchen as well as broader advice around energy choices within the community. The community were involved at every stage of the project from kitchen design, choice of location, selection of preferred stoves and fuels as well as overall kitchen management. For example, because Portee Rokupa is predominantly a fishing community, the desire for larger stoves and ovens that would help smoke, preserve and process fish was something residents regularly communicated. The community kitchen does not only provide access to improved cooking facilities, but also serves as a hub for broader community interaction, something that is of importance to the community.

So, what has the Community Kitchen achieved? Since it’s official launch in May 2024 (Figure 4), the pilot has received significant attention within Freetown, especially on social media channels and within local news outlets. Management of the kitchen has been fully handed over to the community and energy champions who have elected a chairwoman and a chairman who will oversee the use of the kitchen and be responsible for financial accountability. Residents of Portee Rokupa are now regularly using the kitchen facilities, not only for their mealtime cooking, but for community events such as parties and weddings, and local entrepreneurs are using the kitchen for productive uses such as food preparation, fish smoking and soap making.

The broader impact of this initiative extends beyond the immediate benefits of access to cleaner, more efficient cooking solutions. The kitchen is now an official vendor of Afrigas bottles, bringing a consistent supply of LPG to the community for the first time. Community buy-in, consistent dialogue, co-creation of kitchen design and the training of energy champions has fostered a sense of ownership and responsibility, encouraging them to advocate for and implement sustainable practices within their communities. This grassroots approach has also extended into other informal communities such as Susan’s Bay and Dwazark where energy champions are spreading their knowledge to ensure households are more aware of different cooking options available rather than solely relying on traditional ways of cooking. The Portee-Rokupa community kitchen was a pilot initiative driven by a community desire to have access to alternative cooking services. It is now forging its way as a beacon of knowledge, empowerment and sustainability. It demonstrates how targeted training and community engagement can drive significant changes, paving the way for a more sustainable and resilient future for all. As these Energy Champions continue their work, they are not just transforming kitchens; they are transforming lives and building a brighter, greener future for their communities.

Figure 4: Cooking in the community kitchen on launch day, May 2024

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This blog is written by Amadu Kamara Labor and Dora Vangahun from Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre, Freetown, Sierra Leone; and Charlotte Ray and Sam Williamson from the School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Energy Management Research Group, University of Bristol.

The background research behind this work was funded by the ESRC through grant ES/T007656/1, Beyond the Networked City: Building innovative delivery systems for water, sanitation and energy in urban Africa. The Community Kitchen was funded by a joint EPSRC/ESRC Impact Acceleration Account Award, grant numbers EP/X525674/1 ES/X004392/1.

Climate summits are too big and key voices are being crowded out – here’s a better solution

Posted on December 18, 2023December 18, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Every year, the official UN climate summits are getting bigger. In 2021 at COP26 in Glasgow there were around 40,000 participants, COP27 in 2022 in Sharm el-Sheikh had 50,000.

But this year blew all previous records out of the water. More than 97,000 participants had badges to attend COP28 in Dubai in person. This raises questions about who is attending COPs and what they are doing there, who gets their voices heard and, on a more practical note, how this affects the negotiations.

For those not familiar with the COP setup, there are two “worlds” that exist side by side. One is the negotiations, which are run under the UN’s climate change body the UNFCCC, and the other is a very long list of talks and social events. These take place in pavilion exhibition spaces and are open to anyone attending, in contrast to the negotiations which are often closed to the media and sometimes closed to observers.

There is a stark difference between these worlds, with pavilion spaces featuring elaborate and inviting settings, particularly if they are well funded, while negotiations often happen in windowless rooms.

A growing sense exists among those invested in the “traditional” side of the COPs that many delegates have no intention of observing the climate talks themselves, and instead spend their time networking in the pavilions.

Indigenous people visiting COP28 from Brazilian Amazon.

In terms of who attends, at COP28 there were around 25,000 “party” (country) delegates, 27,000 “party overflow” delegates (usually guests, sponsors, or advisors), 900 UNFCCC secretariat members (who run the COPs), 600 “UN overflow”, and 1,350 from “specialised agencies” such as the World Health Organization or World Bank and their overflows. That makes up just under 55,000 or half of the attendees.

The rest are intergovernmental organisations (2,000), UN Global Climate Action award winners (600), host country guests (5,000), temporary passes (500 – many issued to big private companies), NGOs (14,000 – including one of us, as part of a university delegation), and media (4,000). This is according to the UNFCCC, which places the number of attendees closer to 80,000.

The “party overflow” badges are particularly concerning. The number of delegates connected to the oil and gas industries has quadrupled from last year to around 2,400, many of whom were invited as part of country delegations. As another example, meat industry representatives became part of Brazil’s delegation, while dairy associations organised official COP side events. In the official programme, the Energy and Industry, Just Transition, and Indigenous Peoples Day featured more events by industrial giant Siemens than by indigenous people.

Practically speaking, huge numbers cause problems – this year for example there were delayed meetings, long queues, and several negotiation rooms were beyond capacity with observers and even party delegates asked to limit their numbers and leave.

Even with access to an observer badge, there is little one can contribute to negotiations. The negotiating positions are decided long before the COPs begin, and observers are rarely permitted to speak in negotiations. In addition, a lot of the negotiations are either conducted behind closed doors (called “informal-informals” with no access for the UN or observers) or even in the corridors, where negotiators meet informally to cement positions. The negotiations you can (silently) observe are usually a series of prepared statements, rather than a discussion.

So if COPs are too big and bloated, what is the alternative?

Smaller and more online

One alternative is being a virtual delegate, which one of us tried. This year’s COP trialled live streams and recordings of some of the negotiations, side events and press conferences on an official UNFCCC virtual platform for the first time. The option is a long overdue, but welcome addition. It reduces travel emissions and makes it more accessible, for instance for people with caring responsibilities and others who are unable to travel (or perhaps who refuse to fly).

Some technical teething problems are to be expected. Yet when we queried why the virtual platform didn’t livestream many of the sessions, the COP28 support team pointed us to the official COP28 app. Our employer, the University of Bristol, had advised us not to download the app because of security concerns, which again raises serious issues around transparency and accountability in UNFCCC spaces, as well as freedom of speech and assembly in COP host countries.

Not being there in person also has downsides. As a virtual observer, it’s harder to judge the atmosphere in a negotiation room, to stumble upon and observe spontaneous negotiations happening in corridors, or participate in or observe protests. While indigenous voices were rarely heard in the livestreamed negotiations and events, the Indigenous People’s Pavilion offered a chance to hear them – but only if you were in Dubai. The virtual alternative is a good option to observe negotiations, but it means missing out on some of the civil society lifeblood of COP.

Another option is to limit access to COPs – for example, limiting the in-person negotiations only to the most vital participants. Party tickets could be limited, with lobbyists from fossil fuel industries tightly controlled and priority given to climate victims, indigenous communities and underrepresented countries. Side events and pavilions could take place a few months before the COPs, increasing the chances of influencing negotiations, since positions are cemented early. There is no reason these only need to happen in one place once a year, there could be regional meetups in between, allowing for formal contact more often.

These issues of access, transparency and influence have serious implications on negotiation outcomes and climate action. After undergoing various draft iterations that offered options ranging from “no text” to “phasing out” or “down” fossil fuels, this year’s final agreement does not include a commitment to phasing out. This watered-down agreement reflects the inability of indigenous peoples and the most climate vulnerable countries to meaningfully participate in the negotiations – future COPs must trim down to make their voices heard.

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members, Drs Alix Dietzel, Senior Lecturer in Climate Justice, University of Bristol and Katharina Richter, Lecturer in Climate Change, Politics and Society, University of Bristol.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Are you a journalist looking for climate experts for COP28? We’ve got you covered

Posted on October 30, 2023November 28, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

We’ve got lots of media trained climate change experts. If you need an expert for an interview, here is a list of our experts you can approach. All media enquiries should be made via Victoria Tagg, our dedicated Media and PR Manager at the University of Bristol.

Email victoria.tagg@bristol.ac.uk or call +44 (0)117 428 2489.

Climate change / climate emergency / climate science / climate-induced disasters

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Dani is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports.

Dr Katerina Michalides – expert in drylands, drought and desertification and helping East African rural communities to adapt to droughts and future climate change. Follow on Twitter/X @_kmichaelides.

Professor Dann Mitchell – expert in how climate change alters the atmospheric circulation, extreme events, and impacts on human health. Dann is also a Met Office Chair. Follow on Twitter/X @ClimateDann.

Professor Jonathan Bamber – expert on the impact of melting land ice on sea level rise (SLR) and the response of the ocean to changes in freshwater forcing. Follow on Twitter/X @jlbamber

Professor Paul Bates CBE – expert in the science of flooding, risk and reducing threats to life and economic losses worldwide. Follow on Twitter/X @paul_d_bates

Dr Matt Palmer – expert in sea level and ocean heat content at the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Bristol. Follow on Twitter/X @mpclimate.

Net Zero / Energy / Renewables

Dr Caitlin Robinson – expert on energy poverty and energy justice and also in mapping ambient vulnerabilities in UK cities. Caitlin will be virtually attending COP28. Follow on Twitter/X @CaitHRobin.

Professor Philip Taylor – Expert in net zero, energy systems, energy storage, utilities, electric power distribution. Also Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Bristol. Follow on Twitter/X @rolyatlihp.

Dr Colin Nolden – expert in sustainable energy policy, regulation and business models and interactions with secondary markets such as carbon markets and other sectors such as mobility. Colin will be in attendance in the Blue Zone at COP28 during week 2.

Professor Charl Faul – expert in novel functional materials for sustainable energy applications e.g. in CO2 capture and conversion and energy storage devices. Follow on Twitter/X @Charl_FJ_Faul.

Climate finance / Loss and damage

Dr Rachel James – Expert in climate finance, damage, loss and decision making. Also has expertise in African climate systems and contemporary and future climate change. Follow on Twitter/X @_RachelJames.

Climate justice

Climate change and health

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety and educational psychologist. Follow on Twitter/X @edpsydan.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in influence of climate change on infectious water-related disease, including waterborne disease and vector-borne disease.

Professor Rachael Gooberman-Hill – expert in health research, including long-term health conditions and design of ways to support and improve health. @EBIBristol (this account is only monitored in office hours).

Youth, children, education and skills

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety in children and educational psychologist. Follow on Twitter/X @edpsydan.

Dr Camilla Morelli – expert in how children and young people imagine the future, asking what are the key challenges they face towards the adulthoods they desire and implementing impact strategies to make these desires attainable. Follow on Twitter/X @DrCamiMorelli.

Dr Helen Thomas-Hughes – expert in engaging, empowering, and inspiring diverse student bodies as collaborative environmental change makers. Also Lead of the Cabot Institute’s MScR in Global Environmental Challenges. Follow on Twitter/X @Researchhelen.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Dani is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports. Also part of the Waves of Change project with Dr Camilla Morelli, looking at the intersection of social, economic and climatic impacts on young people’s lives and futures around the world.

Climate activism / Extinction Rebellion

Dr Oscar Berglund – expert on climate change activism and particularly Extinction Rebellion (XR) and the use of civil disobedience. Follow on Twitter @berglund_oscar.

Land / Nature / Food

Dr Taro Takahashi – expert on farming, livestock production systems as well as programme evaluation and general equilibrium modelling of pasture and livestock-based economies.

Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello – expert on tensions and intersections between livestock farming and the environment.

Air pollution / Greenhouse gases

Dr Aoife Grant – expert in greenhouse gases and methane. Set up a monitoring station at Glasgow for COP26 to record emissions.

Professor Matt Rigby – expert on sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances. Follow on Twitter @TheOtherMRigby.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in contribution of waste and wastewater systems to methane emissions in low- and middle-income countries

Plastic and the environment

Dr Charlotte Lloyd – expert on the fate of chemicals in the terrestrial environment, including plastics, bioplastics and agricultural wastes. Follow on Twitter @DrCharlLloyd.

Cabot Institute for the Environment at COP28

We will have three media trained academics in attendance at the Blue Zone at COP28. These are: Dr Alix Dietzel (week 1), Dr Colin Nolden (week 2) and Dr Karen Tucker (week 2). We will also have two academics attending virtually: Dr Caitlin Robinson and Dr Katharina Richter.

Read more about COP on our website at https://bristol.ac.uk/cabot/what-we-do/projects/cop/
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This blog was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Communications and Engagement Officer at the Cabot Institute for the Environment. Follow on Twitter @Enviro_Mand and @cabotinstitute.

Watch our Cabot Conversations – 10 conversations between 2 experts on a climate change issue, all whilst an artist listens in the background and interprets the conversation into a beautiful piece of art in real time. Find out more at bristol.ac.uk/cabot/conversations.

Bats are avoiding solar farms and scientists aren’t sure why

Posted on August 10, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

The common pipistrelle. Rudmer Zwerver/Shutterstock

As our planet continues to warm, the need for renewable energy is becoming increasingly urgent. Almost half of the UK’s electricity now comes from renewable sources. And solar accounts for one-fifth of the energy capacity installed since 2019.

Solar farms are now a striking feature of the British landscape. But despite their growth, we’re still largely in the dark about how solar farms impact biodiversity.

This was the focus of a recent study that I co-authored alongside colleagues from the University of Bristol. We found that bat activity is reduced at solar farms compared to neighbouring sites without solar panels.

This discovery is concerning. Bats are top predators of nighttime insects and are sensitive to changes in their habitats, so they are important indicators of ecosystem health. Bats also provide valuable services such as suppressing populations of insect pests.

Nonetheless, our results should not hinder the transition to renewable energy. Instead, they should help to craft strategies that not only encourage bat activity but also support the necessary expansion of clean energy sources.

An aerial shot of a solar farm in south Wales. — Solar farms are now a striking feature of the British landscape. steved_np3/Shutterstock

Reduced activity

We measured bat activity by recording their ultrasonic echolocation calls on bat detectors. Many bat species have distinctive echolocation calls, so we could identify call sequences for each species in many cases. Some species show similar calls, so we lumped them together in species groups.

We placed bat detectors in a solar farm field and a similar neighbouring field without solar panels (called the control site). The fields were matched in size, land use and boundary features (such as having similar hedges) as far as possible. The only major difference was whether they contained solar panels.

We monitored 19 pairs of these sites, each for a week, observing bat activity within the fields’ centre and along their boundaries. Field boundaries are used by bats for navigation and feeding.

Six of the eight bat species or groups studied were less active in the fields with solar panels compared to the fields without them. Common pipistrelles, which made up almost half of all bat activity, showed a decrease of 40% at the edges of solar panel fields and 86% in their centre. Other bat species or groups like soprano pipistrelles, noctules, serotines, myotis bats and long-eared bats also saw their activity drop.

Total bat activity was almost halved at the boundaries of solar panel fields compared to that of control sites. And at the centre of solar panel fields, bat activity dropped by two-thirds.

Why are bats avoiding solar farms?

Conflict between clean energy production and biodiversity isn’t just limited to solar farms; it’s an issue at wind farms too. Large numbers of bats are killed by colliding with the blades of wind turbines. In 2012, for example, one academic estimated that around 888,000 bats may have been killed at wind energy facilities in the United States.

The way solar farms affect bats is probably more indirect than this. Solar panels could, in theory, inadvertently reduce the abundance of insects by lowering the availability of the plants they feed on. We’re currently investigating whether there’s a difference in insect numbers at the solar farm sites compared to the control sites.

Solar panels may also reflect a bats’ echolocation calls, making insect detection more difficult. Reduced feeding success around the panels may result in fewer bats using the surrounding hedgerows for commuting, potentially explaining our findings.

However, bats are also known to collide with smooth vertical flat surfaces because they reflect echolocation calls away from bats and hence appear as empty space. Research has also found that bats sometimes attempt to drink from horizontal smooth surfaces because they interpret the perpendicular echoes as coming from still water. But, given the sloped orientation of solar panels, these potential direct effects may not be of primary concern.

Improving habitats

An important lesson from the development of wind energy is that win-win solutions exist. Ultrasonic acoustic deterrents can keep bats away from wind turbines, while slightly reducing the wind speed that turbines become operational at (known as “cut-in speeds”) has reduced bat fatality rates with minimal losses to energy production. Research suggests that increasing turbine cut-in speeds by 1.5 metres per second can reduce bat fatalities by at least 50%, with an annual loss to power output below 1%.

A slightly different approach could be applied to solar farms. Improving habitats by planting native trees along the boundaries of solar farm fields could potentially increase the availability of insects for bats to feed on.

Research that I have co-authored in recent years supports this theory. We found that the presence of landscape features such as tall hedgerows and even isolated trees on farmland has a positive effect on bat activity.

Carefully selecting solar sites is also important. Prior to construction, conducting environmental impact assessments could indicate the value of proposed sites to bat populations.

More radically, rethinking the siting of these sites so that most are placed on buildings or in areas that are rarely visited by bats, could limit their impact on bat populations.

Solar power is the fastest-growing source of renewable energy worldwide. Its capacity is projected to overtake natural gas by 2026 and coal by 2027. Ensuring that its ecological footprint remains minimal is now particularly important.

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This blog is written by Gareth Jones, Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Limiting global warming to 2℃ is not enough – why the world must keep temperature rise below 1℃

Posted on June 29, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Warming of more than 1℃ risks unsafe and harmful outcomes for humanity.
Ink Drop/Shutterstock

The Paris Climate agreement represented a historic step towards a safer future for humanity on Earth when it was adopted in 2015. The agreement strove to keep global heating below 2℃ above pre-industrial levels with the aim of limiting the increase to 1.5℃ if possible. It was signed by 196 parties around the world, representing the overwhelming majority of humanity.

But in the intervening eight years, the Arctic region has experienced record-breaking temperatures, heatwaves have gripped many parts of Asia and Australia has faced unprecedented floods and wildfires. These events remind us of the dangers associated with climate breakdown. Our newly published research argues instead that humanity is only safe at 1℃ of global warming or below.

While one extreme event cannot be solely attributed to global heating, scientific studies have shown that such events are much more likely in a warmer world. Since the Paris agreement, our understanding of the impacts of global heating have also improved.

A fishing boat surrounded by icebergs that have come off a glacier. — Fishing boat dwarfed by icebergs that came off Greenland’s largest glacier, Jakobshavn Isbrae.
Jonathan Bamber, Author provided

Rising sea levels are an inevitable consequence of global warming. This is due to the combination of increased land ice melting and warmer oceans, which cause the volume of ocean water to increase. Recent research shows that in order to eliminate the human-induced component of sea-level rise, we need to return to temperatures last seen in the pre-industrial era (usually taken to be around 1850).

Perhaps more worrying are tipping points in the climate system that are effectively irreversible on human timescales if passed. Two of these tipping points relate to the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. Together, these sheets contain enough ice to raise the global sea level by more than ten metres.

The temperature threshold for these ice sheets is uncertain, but we know that it lies close to 1.5℃ of global heating above pre-industrial era levels. There’s even evidence that suggests the threshold may already have been passed in one part of west Antarctica.

Critical boundaries

A temperature change of 1.5℃ might sound quite small. But it’s worth noting that the rise of modern civilisation and the agricultural revolution some 12,000 years ago took place during a period of exceptionally stable temperatures.

Our food production, global infrastructure and ecosystem services (the goods and services provided by ecosystems to humans) are all intimately tied to that stable climate. For example, historical evidence shows that a period called the little ice age (1400-1850), when glaciers grew extensively in the northern hemisphere and frost fairs were held annually on the River Thames, was caused by a much smaller temperature change of only about 0.3℃.

A sign marking the retreat of a glacier since 1908. — Jasper National Park, Canada. Glaciers used to grow extensively in the Northern Hemisphere.
Matty Symons/Shutterstock

A recent review of the current research in this area introduces a concept called “Earth system boundaries”, which defines various thresholds beyond which life on our planet would suffer substantial harm. To avoid passing multiple critical boundaries, the authors stress the need to limit temperature rise to 1℃ or less.

In our new research, we also argue that warming of more than 1℃ risks unsafe and harmful outcomes. This potentially includes sea level rise of multiple metres, more intense hurricanes and more frequent weather extremes.

More affordable renewable energy

Although we are already at 1.2℃ above pre-industrial temperatures, reducing global temperatures is not an impossible task. Our research presents a roadmap based on current technologies that can help us work towards achieving the 1℃ warming goal. We do not need to pull a technological “rabbit out of the hat”, but instead we need to invest and implement existing approaches, such as renewable energy, at scale.

Renewable energy sources have become increasingly affordable over time. Between 2010 and 2021, the cost of producing electricity from solar energy reduced by 88%, while wind power saw a reduction of 67% over the same period. The cost of power storage in batteries (for when the availability of wind and sunlight is low) has also decreased, by 70% between 2014 and 2020.

An aerial photograph of a photovoltaic power plant on a lush hillside. — A photovoltaic power plant in Yunnan, China.
Captain Wang/Shutterstock

The cost disparity between renewable energy and alternative sources like nuclear and fossil fuels is now huge – there is a three to four-fold difference.

In addition to being affordable, renewable energy sources are abundantly available and could swiftly meet society’s energy demands. Massive capacity expansions are also currently underway across the globe, which will only further bolster the renewable energy sector. Global solar energy manufacturing capacity, for example, is expected to double in 2023 and 2024.

Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

Low-cost renewable energy will enable our energy systems to transition away from fossil fuels. But it also provides the means of directly removing CO₂ from the atmosphere at a large scale.

CO₂ removal is crucial for keeping warming to 1℃ or less, even though it requires a significant amount of energy. According to research, achieving a safe climate would require dedicating between 5% and 10% of total power generation demand to effective CO₂ removal. This represents a realistic and attainable policy option.

Various measures are used to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. These include nature-based solutions like reforestation, as well as direct air carbon capture and storage. Trees absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and then lock it up for centuries.

A group of people planting a mangrove forest next to the sea. — A mangrove forest being planted in Klong Khone Samut Songkhram Province, Thailand.
vinai chunkhajorn/Shutterstock

Direct air capture technology was originally developed in the 1960s for air purification on submarines and spacecrafts. But it has since been further adapted for use on land. When combined with underground storage methods, such as the process of converting CO₂ into stone, this technology provides a safe and permanent method of removing CO₂ from the atmosphere.

Our paper demonstrates that the tools and technology exist to achieve a safer, healthier and more prosperous future – and that it’s economically viable to do so. What appears to be lacking is the societal will and, as a consequence, the political conviction and commitment to achieve it.

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This blog is written Cabot Institute for the Environment member Jonathan Bamber, Professor of Glaciology and Earth Observation, University of Bristol and Christian Breyer, Professor of Solar Economy, Lappeenranta University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Archers’ electric vehicle row shows why rural areas may oppose chargers – but they also have so much to gain

Posted on April 19, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Long-running BBC radio soap opera The Archers might conjure images of an idyllic country life, but its storylines frequently highlight real tensions in British society.

The series, set in the fictional village of Ambridge, has been criticised in recent years for storylines which supposedly pander to younger listeners or fail to represent rural life accurately. But the Archers has never shied away from environmental issues, from the escapades of eco-warrior Tom Archer in the late 1990s to more recent episodes about soil health.

Lately, Ambridge has been gripped by a campaign to halt the construction of a new electric vehicle charging station, proposed on a parcel of land being sold by David and Ruth Archer – long-running characters at the centre of the series. This has provoked protests, debates about civic duty and police involvement in the rural idyll.

The placards and slogans of local opponents have fused topics of net zero and the energy transition with anxieties about the future of the countryside. What does this storyline tell us about real rural opposition to such changes?

Charging into trouble

The UK government has pledged to phase out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. If electric vehicles (EVs) are to replace them, charging infrastructure must be expanded to help people switch.

By some estimates there are over 35,000 active EV charging ports across the UK. The Department for Transport has pledged 300,000 public chargers by 2030 to stop a patchy network of charging points putting some drivers off buying EVs and allay concerns about their potentially shorter driving range.

An electric vehicle charging point in a quiet, coastal car park. — A public charging point in Shetland, Scotland.
AlanMorris/Shutterstock

Infrastructure built to fulfil national commitments to cut emissions will have important local consequences. The concerns voiced in Ambridge might resonate in rural communities playing host to new construction projects which can bring with them increased traffic, noise and damage to the landscape.

When researching opposition to energy infrastructure for a new book, we learned about Littlehampton in Sussex, a seaside town where residents successfully opposed an on-street EV charging scheme. Residents complained about not being consulted beforehand and argued that charging points, built without off-street parking, would draw drivers from elsewhere who would take spaces from them.

Rural communities have also opposed new renewable energy projects, such as solar farms, for their potential disruption or effect on property values. Many who moved to a rural area to enjoy its natural beauty argue that new infrastructure industrialises the countryside.

Finding community support

In The Archers – like in Littlehampton, Sussex – local opposition to new EV charging stations derives from a feeling that something is happening to residents, rather than with or for them. Some Ambridge residents are suspicious of the shell corporation behind the scheme. In real-life Sussex, residents said that they weren’t properly consulted.

Rural opposition is not inevitable, however. With amenities and services often clustered in bigger towns, rural households must travel further to access them, making them particularly vulnerable to rises in the price of petrol or diesel.

This vulnerability has been exacerbated by dramatic cuts to rural bus routes. An analysis by the Guardian found that one in ten routes were axed in 2022, with 42 routes lost from the west of England alone.

Withdrawing public transport funding cuts off rural communities from essential services and friends and family elsewhere. These same communities could benefit the most from an expanded EV charging network.

A bus shelter beside an empty rural road. — Cuts to public transport funding have hit rural communities particularly hard.
Harry Wedzinga/Shutterstock

Some rural communities aren’t waiting for this to happen and have taken to sharing electric cars to fill the gaps left by lost services instead. For example, new EV clubs are being formed in Wales to give people easier access to shared transport.

These schemes ask people to pay an annual membership fee in return for being able to book a car 48 hours in advance. This is helping people get to GP appointments or job interviews.

But while those living in Greater London might access a charging point every mile on average, this number jumps to one every 16 miles in rural areas.

Plugging the gaps

One reason why rural areas are underserved by EV chargers concerns their cost-effectiveness. In areas where there might be less immediate demand, the upfront investment needed to install a charging point will take longer to pay off.

New subsidies and grants could help install more chargers in more places. But it will be necessary to work with communities to prevent conflict.

Despite the uproar in Ambridge, rural areas have a lot to gain from charging infrastructure. Residents will have differing views which planners must address.

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members Dr Ed Atkins, Senior Lecturer, School of Geographical Sciences and Dr Ros Death, Lecturer in Physical Geography, University of Bristol.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Four ways winter heatwaves affect humans and nature

Posted on January 11, 2023April 14, 2023 by janet.crompton

Temperature anomaly in Europe, Jan 1. Much of the continent was 10°C or more (dark red and grey) above the long-term average.
WX Charts, CC BY-NC

An extreme winter heatwave meant countries across Europe experienced a record-breaking New Year’s Day. New daily temperature records for the month of January were set in at least eight countries: Belarus, Czechia, Denmark, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Netherlands and Poland.

In many cases the temperatures were not just breaking the old highs, but smashing them by massive margins. On a typical January day in Warsaw, Poland, temperatures would barely go above freezing, yet the city recently experienced 19℃, breaking the previous January high by 5.1℃.

New January records were set at thousands of individual stations in many other countries such as 25.1℃ at Bilbao airport in Spain, 0.7℃ hotter than the previous record set only last year. Large areas of central and Eastern Europe experienced temperatures 10℃ to 15℃ warmer than average for this time of year – and that has persisted through the week.

When Europe experienced extreme heat in July of last year, more than 20,000 died. Fortunately winter heatwaves are much less deadly, but they can still affect both human society and natural ecosystems in many ways.

1. Less energy is needed

In Europe deaths due to cold weather vastly outweigh those caused by extreme high temperatures – in the UK there are ten times more. Warmer winters will reduce this excess mortality and, with the current cost-of-living crisis, many will have been relieved that a heatwave meant less energy was needed to heat their homes.

Electricity demand is influenced by things like the time of day, the day of the week and socio-economic factors like the COVID pandemic or the war in Ukraine. The weather also makes a difference. For example, in Poland and the Netherlands demand was noticeably lower than average, especially since January 1 was a Sunday. The extent of the heatwave also meant countries could refill some of their winter gas reserves, or large batteries.

Energy consumption in Poland December 28 to January 5. The red line shows the 2022-2023 heatwave period, and the grey lines show available data from 2015-2022.
Hannah Bloomfield / data: transparency.entsoe.eu, Author provided

2. Reduced yields for some crops

Winter warm spells don’t always have such a positive impact though. For instance a lack of snow in the mountains affects agriculture and can reduce crop yield, since snow creates an insulating blanket that prevents frost from penetrating into the soil. This means snow can actually increase soil moisture more than rainfall, thus improving growing conditions later in the season.

The big snow melt in spring time replenishes reservoirs and allows hydroelectricity generation, but unexpected snow melt can lead to flooding. Changes to the timings of these events will require preparation and adaptation to enable a steady supply of water to where we need it.

Warmer temperatures will create longer growing seasons in many regions. This is not always the case though. A recent study showed that for alpine grasslands an earlier growing season (the point when snow has melted entirely) leads to ageing and browning of the grasses in the later part of the summer.

3. The snow economy is in trouble

The heatwave caused ski resorts across the Alps to close in what should be their busiest time of year. In January the slopes would be expected to have a good covering of snow – but instead we saw green grassy fields.

This hits the local economy where many people rely on winter sports tourism. Events such as the Adelboden alpine ski World Cup are relying on artificial snow, which comes with a further environmental cost increasing the carbon footprint of ski resorts and requiring a large water supply. Indeed, the Beijing winter Olympics used the equivalent of daily drinking water for 900 million people to generate the artificial snow it required.

4. Animals out of sync with the climate

We humans are perhaps fortunate, as we are able to adapt. Some ski resorts have already opened mountain bike trails in winter to offer alternative tourism, but wildlife and ecosystems cannot adjust so rapidly.

In the mountains many species, such as ptarmigan and mountain hares, change their colouring for winter to camouflage in the white snow. The timing of this change is determined by length of day – not the temperature or amount of snow. These creatures are at greater risk of being preyed on when it is warmer.

White rabbit, brown background — Mountain hares are dressed for a climate that has changed.
Mark Medcalf / shutterstock

Over the past century heat extremes in Europe have increased in intensity and frequency. Both the general warming and heatwave events have been firmly attributed to humans.

Future projections suggest these trends will continue and heatwaves in both summer and winter will get hotter, last longer, and occur more often. We need to learn to adapt for these changes in all seasons and think about the impacts on everyone – and everything – on our planet.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members Dr Vikki Thompson, Senior Research Associate in Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol and Dr Hannah Bloomfield, Postdoctoral Researcher in Climate Risk Analytics, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.