This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience while browsing it. By clicking 'Got It' you're accepting these terms.
Most recent
Trending
The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!
For the first time since the world's first coal-fired plant opened in London in 1882, the UK has gone a week without burning the highly-polluting fossil fuel, The Independent reported Wednesday.
All coal generators were offline from 1:24 p.m. May 1 through 1:24 p.m. May 8, The Guardian reported. The record follows closely on a five-day coal-free stretch over the Easter weekend, The Independent noted.
"As more and more renewables come on to our energy system, coal-free runs like this are going to be a regular occurrence," National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) director Fintan Slye said, according to ITV News.
Great Britain's record #Coal free run has now passed one week. #CoalFreeWeek pic.twitter.com/VB0s643ZCj
— UK Coal (@UK_Coal) May 8, 2019
The UK government has promised to phase out coal entirely by 2025.
"Going a week without coal for the first time since the Industrial Revolution is a huge leap forward in our world-leading efforts to reduce emissions, but we're not stopping there," Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark said, as ITV News reported. "To combat climate change growth, we're phasing out coal entirely by 2025 and building a cleaner, greener energy system."
The UK has broken its record and gone a whole week without using coal for power - over 1,000 total hours so far this year!
— Dept for BEIS (@beisgovuk) May 8, 2019
We’re phasing out coal entirely by 2025 and on a path to become the first major economy to legislate for #netzero emissions.#cleangrowth #climatechange pic.twitter.com/mJcGvacMGN
However, Slye said he believed the country's entire electricity system could be run without carbon by that time, though it would require work.
"Zero-carbon operation of the electricity system by 2025 means a fundamental change to how our system was designed to operate — integrating newer technologies right across the system — from large-scale offshore wind to domestic-scale solar panels to increased demand-side participation, using new smart digital systems to manage and control the system in real time," he said.
In 2018, the UK got a record 27.5 percent of its electricity from renewable energy. Low-carbon energy, which includes nuclear, accounted for 49.6 percent of the country's supply the same year, also a new high. Natural gas accounted for 43.9 percent of electricity and coal only six percent, a new low.
Greenpeace UK chief scientist Dr. Doug Parr said that the country now needed to move beyond eliminating coal to ban diesel and gas vehicles, improve building efficiency, reduce meat consumption and plant millions of trees to fight climate change.
"Just a few years ago we were told Britain couldn't possibly keep the lights on without burning coal," he said, according to ITV News. "Now coal is quickly becoming an irrelevance, much to the benefit of our climate and air quality, and we barely notice it."
The coal-free milestone comes a little less than a week after the UK's Committee on Climate Change (CCC) released a report saying the country both should and could achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, The Guardian reported.
The UK can get to net-zero emissions by 2050 by using known technologies alongside improvements to quality of life pic.twitter.com/BRkj25USxW
— CCC (@theCCCuk) May 2, 2019
But CCC Chief Executive Chris Stark said some government policies were still hampering renewable energy development, among them a proposed hike to VATs on solar panels and a failure to fully back onshore wind power.
"We will need to throw everything at this challenge, including onshore wind and solar," Stark told Members of Parliament on the business committee Wednesday, according to The Guardian. "Anything that makes it harder is really not in line with the net-zero challenge overall."
Historic Day in Britain: First Coal-Free Day Since 1882 https://t.co/0m5w2qHWEP @BeyondCoal @dirtyenergy
— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) April 24, 2017
- Environmentalists Celebrate First UK Coal Mine Rejected Over ... ›
- Britain Achieves the 'Unthinkable' as Renewables Leapfrog Fossil ... ›
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
New Trump Admin Hog Slaughtering Rule ‘Will Result in the Fox Guarding the Henhouse’
Trump's U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) finalized a new hog slaughtering rule Tuesday that environmental and food safety advocates warn could harm animals, plant workers and public health, Reuters reported.
A unique subpopulation of ancient walrus in Iceland was likely hunted to extinction by Vikings shortly after arrival to the region, according to new research.
Trump Admin to Officially Revoke California’s Waiver to Set Stricter Emissions Standards
In its latest move to undermine action on the climate crisis, the Trump administration will formally rescind California's waiver to set stricter auto emissions standards under the Clean Air Act.
By Tara Smith
Fires in the Brazilian Amazon have jumped 84 percent during President Jair Bolsonaro's first year in office and in July 2019 alone, an area of rainforest the size of Manhattan was lost every day. The Amazon fires may seem beyond human control, but they're not beyond human culpability.
Trending
By Natalie Hanman
Why are you publishing this book now?
I still feel that the way that we talk about climate change is too compartmentalised, too siloed from the other crises we face. A really strong theme running through the book is the links between it and the crisis of rising white supremacy, the various forms of nationalism and the fact that so many people are being forced from their homelands, and the war that is waged on our attention spans. These are intersecting and interconnecting crises and so the solutions have to be as well.
As the climate crisis takes on more urgency, psychologists around the world are seeing an increase in the number of children sitting in their offices suffering from 'eco-anxiety,' which the American Psychological Association described as a "chronic fear of environmental doom," as EcoWatch reported.
Trending
Fees on Electric Cars, Influenced by Koch Network, Unfairly Penalize Drivers, Consumer Reports Says
By Ben Jervey
Drivers of electric cars are being unfairly punished by punitive fees in several states, according to a newly published analysis by Consumer Reports. Legislators in 26 states have enacted or proposed special registration fees for electric vehicles (EVs) that the consumer advocacy group found to be more expensive than the gas taxes paid by the driver of an average new gasoline vehicle.