Last year saw yet another year of weather extremes. The Copernicus Climate Change Service run by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Commission (Copernicus, 2024) measured 2023 as being globally the warmest year since records began in 1850. This was by a large margin (0.17 per cent) over the previous record in 2016, with global surface air temperature at nearly 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. While last year’s observations embodied an El Niño effect, which every few years sees temperatures affected by warmer waters coming to the surface of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, changes and anomalies consistently observed over the last few years across the globe are becoming more pronounced. What is commonly labelled “climate change” is turning into a global climate emergency. No economy or society are immune to its effects. Today, we see the global average temperature at over 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels, a rise that has been extraordinarily rapid on a planetary timescale, and one that has been primarily caused through our (humans) burning fossil fuels. Nearly a decade has passed since the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference in 2015, COP21, where 196 nations adopted The Paris Agreement – a legally binding international treaty on climate change. Its goal was to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and to pursue efforts “to limit the increase to 1.5°C”.

Net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the UK’s current target, requires bridging a dramatic energy transition and eliminating all other net sources of emissions while ensuring a just transition. Key components like renewable electricity generation and electric vehicles are well developed, but many issues remain. Public support for a green economy may wane if the economic costs are too high or seen as unfair. Therefore, although renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels, it is essential to maintain employment, real per capita growth and reduced inequality. Decarbonizing the UK economy requires an integrated sequential approach and need not be delayed while dealing with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, energy crisis and resulting inflation.

Climate change is a complex global issue that requires widespread understanding, support and collaboration for effective solutions. This research delves into the crucial role of communication in tackling climate change and reaching net-zero goals. Leveraging advanced machine learning techniques, we focus on 10 core climate change topics derived from social media conversations over time. This analysis underscores the importance of a holistic and interconnected approach, involving a diverse array of policies at local, national and global levels to combat climate change effectively and attain net-zero objectives. We offer key policy suggestions that can significantly contribute to this vital cause.

Offshore wind farms (OWF) are now in operation and increasingly under construction as scalable, sustainable energy sources. In fact OWFs are currently the cheapest form of new energy projects in Europe. The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for OWF has fallen drastically due to decades of innovation facilitated by both taxpayer and private sector funding. This emerging industry is experiencing massive worldwide growth with the potential to accelerate the decarbonization of regional and the global economy as well as bring a reliable source of green hydrogen into commercial use, all with minimal disruption to ecosystems and impacts on biodiversity. This paper provides a historical perspective of wind energy harnessing and shows that wind turbines are the oldest, largest and one of the smartest machines. We also highlight the potential of offshore wind energy to provide new solutions to (a) meet clean energy demand for a growing world population, (b) improve energy security of nations through other downstream technologies such as production and storage of dispatchable fuel (such as green hydrogen battery storage) and (c) through supply complementarity improve resilience of nuclear power plants in high-seismic-activity areas. Offshore wind industry can also become a gold standard for future industries, and the paper provides insights into the new green economics and jobs and factories for the future. We show that environment-friendly regulation is driving innovations even further to enhance sustainability of OWF. Examples include material recycling, landfill ban on blade disposal and ecofriendly low-noise offshore construction to protect biodiversity.

We discuss ten key priorities, innovations and actions to mitigate the climate crisis. These priorities were identified by the Hutton Series on Climate Change, which took place across 2020–2021 at Adam Smith’s Panmure House. The Hutton Series brought together a diverse cross section of experts, business leaders, scientists and concerned citizens in open discourse around energy, climate change and resource use and availability. The priorities highlight the increasing need for reasoned debate and action between industry, NGOs, government and the public.

The prospects are considered of deploying batteries and fuel cells in order to reduce the carbon emissions from various modes of transport. It is proposed that the government has not done enough to advance these technologies and that Britain is lagging behind other countries. The adequacy of Britain’s future supplies of energy is called into question.