Newsletter

Talking Climate Tech 053

Kane Watkinson

06 Feb 2026 — 8 min read

Photo by Fredrick F. / Unsplash

🗞️ News Roundup

EV Powering Up 🚗

European EV sales up 30% to a record high last year, outselling ICE in December. Despite a 38% drop in Tesla’s annual sales [I wonder why 🤔] - BYD is picking up the slack, and cash on the table, for 17% of EU car sales, up from 14% in 2024. Further reading.

Floating Wind UK Hub 🛟

Positive updates from our friends at EMEC:

...commenced an 18‑month project to advance its proposed deepwater and floating wind test facility – DeepWind.

Backed by 50% match funding through The Crown Estate’s Supply Chain Accelerator, the programme will build on EMEC’s earlier concept design for a national floating wind test site.

More from EMEC here. I will be recording an interview with MD, Matthew Finn of EMEC soon!

AR7 Impact Recap 🌬️

Now that the bluster and noise have settled, great recap on the effects and implications of a positive result for UK wind and clean power from Carbon Brief:

🔎 Deeper Dive

Russian Bonanza 💰

As the war-machine limps on with its invasion of Ukraine, it continues to be fuelled by oil and gas revenues.

Surprising to learn the scale of support we provide Russia - hang on, isn't that the wrong way round!?

Enter the CREA Russia Fossil Tracker:

...since the beginning of the war, Russia earned EUR 1014 billion in revenue from fossil fuel exports. European Union countries purchased more than EUR 219 billion of these exports.

Hundreds of millions of reasons and thousands of lives reinforce our need to get off fossil fuels asap.

View the live ticker here.

Dark Waters, Dark Times ◼️

Sticking with Russia, how does all that oil and gas get about? The Russian shadow fleet continues to shuttle its reserves to any buyer it can find.

Over the last few years, around 800 sanctioned tankers have continued to sail the seas; here are a few on the live tracker:

If the politicians aren't going to do something about it, maybe with some funding and open-source community investigations, Dark Waters with everyone's support, can:

Through transparency, collaboration, and coordinated action, the Dark Waters Initiative will build a coalition to drag the shadow fleet and its enablers into the spotlight.

Political Shenanigans 👀

The intersection of politics and climate is one of the great conundrums of the transition, and critical to the future success of our adaptation to climate change.

We have seen the ebb and flow of climate policy, commitments, false narratives and denials, [looking at you DJT!] - could we be entering a new era of pure public obstruction and knowledge, as a protection from what's to come?

This report, tucked away from public view by Gov. was due last year, then delayed and hidden away - it has finally surfaced, and it makes for shocking reading.

It's not political or from climate lobbyists. It's labelled as from DEFRA, but it's the clear and concise factual analysis from the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee that resonates.

That JIC includes MI5 and MI6 - you know, those types don't mess about.

...strategic assessment explores how global biodiversity loss and the collapse of critical ecosystems could affect the UK’s resilience, security and prosperity

Here are a couple of choice quotes:

It is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food.

geopolitical instability, economic insecurity, conflict, migration and increased inter-state competition for resources.

It's only 12 pages, but they are very impactful and critically important ones. The public needs to be trusted with and be aware of this critical information.

Please share far and wide. Reporting, The Guardian.

Big Data, Big Gas 🧠

Not a day goes by without one of the Tech Bros announcing another CAPEX investment in more power to feed to apparent AI boom. Anything and everything is in the power grab - geothermal, nuclear, SMR, fusion, and our old friend gas.

You know that boom that they keep pumping up, but as yet no one really recognises the value or purpose of the AI they will be shelling out lots of money for in the near future.

Summarised nicely here:

the risk here: a gap between the immense value creation being projected and how much of that value these companies can actually capture

With Gas to fuel the apparent build-out of hyper-scale data centres with GW compute power consumption needs, interesting tracker from Global Energy Monitor:

Challenge is Gas Turbines - the OEM production lines are stacked out, and you need to be in the queue, which is around 5-7 years long. 🤯

Let's hope this bubble does pop, or at least that this gas build-out isn't realised, as that's a lot of emissions. Reminder of Elon's AI gas turbine burn here, in Elon Memphis Madness 😷 section.

💥 Trump Watch

Here we go, your weekly catch-up on the madness:

⚖ All the US wind farms Trump blocked are back after legal challenges; he is 0-5. More here.

☢️ Downgrading nuclear safety rules here to facilitate the expansion plans, but at what cost? More here.

Another great read from Justin Mikula on the state of the US energy strategy - The Donroe Disaster:

What else has he been up to?

There was the FBI raid on Fulton, making sure he could get some electoral role tampering in before he might need to cancel the midterms. More Here.

He shut the Kennedy Centre for a couple of years, as no artists will perform now it's under his jackboot control. More here.

The lawsuit grift continues. After strong-arming a suit onto JP Morgan for $5bn for 'political debanking', more here, he now turns the gun on himself 🤔

He has decided to sue the IRS, yes his own government, for $10bn, for releasing his tax return. The irony being, he was also President when it was released. More here. To quote him this week, mulling over the conflict of interest:

...to work out a settlement with myself.

And finally, the Arc of Trump, I kid you not:

At 250ft tall, it would be the largest triumphal arch in the world, beating the Monumento a la Revolución in Mexico City at 220ft, Pyongyang’s Arch of Triumph at 197ft and France’s Arc de Triomphe at 164ft.

93 days / 383 days in office = 24.3%, taxpayer cost $130.2m

🏡 Konfab News

I was in London on Thursday for the Project InnerSpace launch event for the new UK Future of Geothermal Report.

Quick take LinkedIn post here, more on the report next week

😃 Good Stuff

Check out this new podcast from Antidote, we have written about their great advocacy work for community energy before - you might recall the Lawrence Western Community Energy 4.2MW wind turbine project in Bristol.

Power to the People! ⚡

🌍 Climate Watch

The Human Cost ☠️

A stark reminder, the cost of the transition is not just felt in emissions, biodiversity, and economies, but also in lives. Tanalum extracted from coltan, is used in electronics, battery and capacitator applications for its high energy density, superior conductivity and excellent thermal properties.

That's it for this week - enjoy your weekend reset...

Thanks for your time, interest, and support as always, let's keep pushing forward - remember, the momentum is unstoppable despite everything you might see and hear! 🌍

Kane

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