Bill Hare

White text on blue background with CAT logo. Text is a quote saying "China's 15th five year plan is a missed opportunity. While it continues to strongly emphasise clean energy development, it could have gone further. A 17% reduction in carbon-intensity target would actually allow China's emission to increase by 3% under a conservative GDP growth.”

China released its 15th Five-Year Plan (FYP). The plan reinforces the rapid expansion of clean energy, but it does not translate this momentum into stronger binding emissions targets.

Read our full reaction here 🔗 climateactiontracker.org/press/reacti...

Adaptation planning must include 1.5°C overshoot scenarios Adaptation planning should include the impacts that can be avoided by high mitigation ambition – including which impacts are reversible from overshooting the 1.5°C limit and which are irreversible. Th...

We need to start including #overshoot in #adaptation planning.

This way we’ll know which impacts can be avoided by high mitigation ambition – including which are reversible and which are irreversible.

New blog outlines how👇:
climateanalytics.org/comment/adap...

Australia’s most costly anti-climate policy hits taxpayers for $30m a day as calls mount to wind back fuel tax credits | Adam Morton The government will hand over $10.8bn this financial year under the scheme that makes it cheaper for miners and other industries to use diesel and petrol

Excellent piece in @us.theguardian.com by Adam Morton on massive fossil fuel subsidies in Australia to diesel.

“Thanks to fuel tax credits, big companies are allowed to pay significantly less to burn dirty fuels than households”

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

“Tamboran…donated $169,500 to both sides of politics ….Tamboran Resources plans to sell fracked gas to the NT government, and develop a major LNG project at the Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct in Darwin, which has been allocated $1.5 billion in equity by the Federal Labor Government.”

“Australia’s largest oil and gas company, Woodside, donated $53,775 to the Australian Labor Party and $40,140 to the Coalition prior to the 2025 Federal Election. Just 25 days after the election, the government conditionally approved extending the company’s North West Shelf LNG plant out to 2070.”

Dirty data: How coal and gas money fuelled 2025 election campaigns By Claire Snyder

What fossil fuel companies paid to Australia’s political parties in 2025 federal election and what they seem have gotten in return.

cheekmedia.substack.com/p/dirty-data...

Bottom line: Don’t confuse “hard” with “obsolete.” The world doesn’t need permission to lower ambition. It needs governments to implement what they already agreed—at the speed and scale that 1.5°C demands.

The pursuit of 1.5°C endures as a legal and ethical imperative in a changing world As the world nears 1.5°C of global warming, near-term emissions reductions and adequate adaptation become ever more important to ensure a safe and livable planet for present and future generations

As @joerirogelj.bsky.social put it "the PA’s goal to pursue efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C therefore endures as the legal and ethical imperative to secure a safe and livable planet for present and future generations."
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

And let us not forget that the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C warming limit remains the world’s enduring legal, political, and moral anchor for climate action – abandoning it would only deepen injustice for vulnerable communities already bearing the brunt of climate change.

In all this that should not be forgotten that since 2015, the Paris Agreement has provided quantified targets at national and global levels consistent with limiting warming as close as possible to 1.5°C.

Whilst “Clean-energy shift” can be a useful slogan it can’t replace the temperature limit and by itself generate the time bound actionable targets needed to protect us from dangerous climate change.

The Paris Agreement provides the basis to design critical clean energy benchmarks to limit overshoot as low as possible and get warming back below 1.5° by 2100. Without the 1.5C limit it is unlikely that the right benchmarks would be calculated or chosen.

On geoengineering: the push for risky interventions grows because of delayed action not because of the 1.5oC limit. The answer is not to abandon 1.5°C—it’s to act fast enough so we don’t drift into an “anything goes” approach unguided by what we need to protect ourselves from and call it pragmatism.

This scenario shows the time bound actionable targets needed globally to strictly limit overshoot and reduce warming below 1.5° by 2100. For example, renewables capacity needs to grow significantly, with a 3.5-fold increase by 2030 – ahead of the global tripling goal agreed at COP28.

In terms of a clean energy shift this highest possible ambition scenario shows that global electricity generation needs to quadruple by 2050, with wind and solar supplying over 90% of electricity demand by then. Fossil fuels would be effectively phased out shortly afterwards.

This work shows how to minimize overshoot and return to well below 1.5°C by 2100 with renewables, electrification, efficiency, methane cuts, deforestation reduction—reaching net zero around ~2060 if governments deliver.

Rescuing 1.5°C: new evidence on the highest possible ambition to… This study shows that, even after years of insufficient action, the world can still return to well below 1.5°C of warming this century if countries pursue the “highest possible ambition” in climate ac...

With colleagues at @pik-potsdam.bsky.social using the Paris Agreement's climate goals we have looked at what can be done using the highest possible ambition to absolutely minimise overshoot of 1.5°C and to get warming back below 1.5° by 2100.

climateanalytics.org/publications...

Three key near-term actions could bend the warming curve; bringing… Tripling renewables, doubling energy efficiency and cutting methane by 2030 and beyond would cut warming rate by a third in ten years, and halve it by 2040. This would cut projected warming this centu...

If implemented the @cop28.bsky.social energy transition goals and benchmarks *** actionable targets *** would actually bend the emission curve. So we already have science actionable targets that would actually work if implemented.

climateanalytics.org/publications...

These climate targets provide the tools to design the critical time bound benchmarks for a clean energy shift to limit overshoot as low as possible and get warming back below 1.5° by 2100. Without this framework there is not real anchor for these benchmarks.

The Paris 1.5° limit provided the rigorous basis for @cop28.bsky.social in 2023 to agree 1.5C aligned clean energy targets - tripling renewables, doubling efficiency, reductions in methane and deforestation by 2030, and transition away from fossil fuels.

www.cop28.com/en/global-re...

The Paris Agreement is working. Ten years later, the world needs to… Whether the Agreement ultimately succeeds depends on whether political leaders and their governments have the courage to close the ambition gap, phase out fossil fuels, scale up finance for a just tra...

Since 2015 the Paris Agreement climate goals have provided the basis quantified renewable energy, energy, efficiency, methane reductions, and deforestation benchmarks at national and global level consistent with limiting warming as close as possible to 1.5°C.

climateanalytics.org/comment/the-...

Overshoot management isn’t “wait until 2100 and see,” as the article suggests.

The Paris Agreement climate goals provide the indispensable scientific basis for what benchmarks for clean energy, energy efficiency, methane reductions and deforestation action are needed and by when.

We all agree we need actionable targets to guide policy.
But here is the big thing: The Paris Agreement’s climate goals - the1.5oC limit and net zero in 2nd half of the century - provide the essential and critical legal and scientific basis for what clean energy targets are needed and by when.

2025 set to be second or third warmest year on record, continuing exceptionally high warming trend

First: yes, we’re heading into overshoot @wmo-global.bsky.social 1.5°C in the next 5 years. This is not a geophysical accident. It is the result of policy failure. Now what's needed is action to limit the magnitude and duration of overshoot to drive temperatures back down.

wmo.int/news/media-c...

As we breach 1.5 °C, we must replace temperature limits with clean-energy targets Actionable goals are needed to guide the world towards what needs to happen most quickly: shifting economies to clean energy sources.

A commentary in @nature.com argues the 1.5°C temperature limit has “outlived its usefulness” because we’re headed towards overshoot and should be replaced by a “clean-energy shift” metric. That’s the wrong diagnosis. Here is why.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Through the heatwave haze, the hypocrisy of Australia’s fossil fuel policy shines bright | Clean Air The heatwave in Melbourne and Adelaide this week is likely to become the norm. We should prepare now

Extreme heat is blasting eastern Australia. It’s driven by fossil fuels, development of which the Albanese government continues to support.

The Guardian Australia’s climate/environment journalist calls it out

@adammorton.bsky.social @theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Massive new Kimberley fracking industry could keep Woodside gas plant going until 2070 Federal Labor's light touch environmental review of a massive new fracking industry threatens one of Australia’s most iconic wild places – and blows out national emissions.

It's difficult to fathom what the WA Envtl "Protection" Agency doesn’t understand abt the climate problem. Wilfully & deliberately authorising a massive gas development in this pristine environment must only be viewed as institutionalised climate denial.
reneweconomy.com.au/massive-new-...

Rising Tide protest: climate activists stop three ships from entering world’s largest coal port in Newcastle NSW police arrest 141 people as campaigners demand federal government cancel planned fossil fuel projects and tax existing operations at 78%

Rising Tide protest: climate activists stop three ships from entering world’s largest coal port in Newcastle

NSW police arrest 141 as campaigners demand govt cancel planned fossil fuel projects + tax existing operations at 78%

By @jordynbeazley.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Last year, the world added a record 582GW of #renewables energy capacity. That’s over 91% of all new power – with #nuclear nowhere. In fact, each year, nuclear adds as much net global power capacity as renewables add every two days.

Vor fast genau zehn Jahren begann die historische Klimakonferenz von Paris. Ein guter Anlass, mal zu schauen, was sich seitdem in Deutschland verändert hat. (1/10)