Despite a surge in renewables and plummeting energy use the
UK remains a long way from its long-term climate goals. We’ve
plotted six charts to help explain why, using annual UK energy
statistics from the department for energy and climate change
(DECC).

Russian gas firm Gazprom has claimed a 15 per cent share of the
UK’s gas market selling to clients including the NHS and Oxford
University, according to analysis from Greenpeace EnergyDesk. The
firm is Russian but the gas isn’t necessarily. Yesterday BBC Radio
4’s Today programme heard that less than 5 per cent of UK gas comes
from Russia, according to Sam Laidlaw, boss of British Gas owner
Centrica. Europe is already receiving a trickle of oil from the
Arctic, Greenpeace campaigner Ben Ayliffe said in aQ&Awith Road to
Paris.

Two of the most important participants in any future global climate
deal have promised to work together actively on that goal, reports
RTCC. A high-level US delegation is currently visiting India where
new prime minister Narendra Modi is said to be “much committed” to
the climate change debate.

The row over home energy bills is in the news again following a
report from energy regulator Ofgem that predicts firms’ profit
margins will double over the next year. But Ofgem’s figures are
inaccuratesaysBritish Gas owner Centrica, which has just
reported a slump in profits because a warmer winter meant it did
not sell as much gas.

Welsh hippies ushered in an era of sustainable living well before
the world had woken up to climate change says Roger Harrabin, in a
retrospective on the Centre for Alternative Technology in mid
Wales. The centre’s latest report, Zero Carbon Britain, argues that
a zero-emissions UK is possible using current
technology.

Fossil fuels are “widely and substantially underpriced” according
to a new study from the International Monetary Fund, reports RTCC.
The IMF says national governments should not wait for a global
climate deal before they start to address this because the case for
action does not rest on climate concern alone. Traffic and air
pollution would be cut too, the IMF points out.

Energy firm RWE will go to the High Court to challenge communities
secretary Eric Pickles’ decision to block a windfarm that had the
backing of planning officials. The battle is the latest in a
growing line of renewable energy projects rejected by Pickles
against planning advice, leading the Guardian’s Damian Carrington
todescribehim as a “petty dictator” on
green issues. Meanwhile two firms havepulled outof a large planned windfarm in
the Irish Sea known as the Celtic Array. The project was for up to
4.2 gigawatts of capacity with an initial phase of half that
figure.

Renewables accounted for almost 15 per cent of total UK electricity
generation in 2013 after 4.2 gigawatts of wind, solar and bioenergy
capacity was added reports Business Green. Output from wind grew by
nearly 50 per cent year on year, it adds. Reutersreportsthat the UK became a net oil
importer in 2013 for the first time in a generation. We’ve taken
adifferent lookat the figures, which come
from the UK’s annual energy statistics.

The UK’s foreign office has cut its climate diplomacy budget by 39
per cent over the past three years, RTCC reports, following a
freedom of information request. The cuts reflect a shrinking role
for the UK on the international climate diplomacy stage since 2010,
a former foreign office climate adviser says.

The great economies of the past have all developed on the
back of coal, argues Shell climate adviser David Hone, with only a
couple of exceptions like Japan. The UN clean development mechanism
was supposed to help developing economies bypass the coal era but
hasn’t quite worked out like that. This is one of the puzzles that
will need to be solved at the 2015 Paris climate talks, says
Hone.

The latest government survey shows the public prefer wind
turbines to fracking with 70 per cent support against 29, points
out wind trade body Renewable UK in a letter to the Guardian. The
letter was prompted by a recent Guardian article that asserted many
would choose a fracking well in a nearby field over a wind turbine
on a hill. The Times carries an articleon a row over the
credentials of anti-fracking scientist David Smythe. We haven’t
heard of him either.

People in the UK are travelling less and less, reports Chris
Goodall. The latest National Travel Survey (NTS) shows UK adults
made fewer trips in 2013 than they did in 1973 and declining real
incomes over the past decade don’t seem to be the reason. Those
that can afford the most travel are cutting back the most, Goodall
says, so we needn’t expect travel mileage to grow as incomes
rise.

The former boss of M&S Sir Stuart Rose says politicians
and business leaders should push climate action back up the agenda
in an interview with Business Green. Climate sceptic and former
chancellor Nigel Lawson gets short shrift from Rose, who describes
him as a “lost cause, a flat-earther”.

Effective communication about severe weather requires that
providers of weather information disseminate accurate and timely
messages and that the population at risk receive and react to these
messages, says a new study. But is Twitter an effective platform to
spread the message? The researchers say it could be.

A new study estimates 8.5 billion tons of atmospheric carbon
dioxide – or about 18 percent of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide
emissions – comes from biomass burning. Wood burning also releases
black and brown carbon, which absorb heat and reduce the
reflectivity of snow and ice – accelerating warming. Of the 0.9
degrees warming the study’s model expects in the next 20 years from
all human-caused greenhouse gases, 0.4 degrees of it will come from
biomass burning, the team estimates.

A new study quantifies the changes in ocean biology using
satellites for the period 1998 to 2012. The team found all of the
northern hemisphere oceans and the equatorial Indian basin have
experienced large declines in chlorophyll – the pigment in green
plants that allows them to photosynthesise, drawing carbon out of
the atmosphere. They found no significant global trend,
however.