Minutes of CCG November 5th 2025 meeting

Item 1: Participants and Apologies

Apologies from Colin, Andy

Present: Sue, Mike, Tom, Cate, Debbie, Ann, Diana, Jacqueline, John, Jan

Item 2 October minutes. – no comments

Items 3: Future Energy Landscapes, Tom Broughton.

Tom summarised the experiences from a Future Energy Landscape Workshop on Lavant. This was one of a series of workshops that have been held in the region, designed by The Centre for Sustainable Energy and delivered by Energise South Downs and funded by South Downs national park authority.

2.5 hour facilitated workshop with up to 50 members of a community having an open discussion about renewable energy technologies.
A participatory process where local people share what is important to them in their local landscape using large maps of their parish
learn about different renewable energy technologies and share how they feel about them
discuss where, and if, different technologies might be acceptable in their local landscape
use data to see on graphs the impact renewable energy technologies would have on current local energy demands and the related carbon emissions.
A workshop report is then circulated to the wider community to get their perspectives on renewable energy via a survey.

Parish community becomes part of a wider initiative to deeply understand how local people feel about renewable

The technologies considered were: Wind power 3 medium wind turbines, 2 x 12 acre solar farms, 30% homes with 10 -12 solar panels and 15% homes with heat pumps,

Lavant has 1 715 residents, 882 homes, 4 300 MWh electricity pa and emissions of 3 300 t C02e pa.

The results were combining the technologies gave 1 200 t CO2e against 3 300 T CO2 before measures.

Items 4 & 5

Mike started by explaining that he had decided to cut back on items 4 & 5 & spend time looking forward 75 years to get people thinking of what and when things were likely to happen and how humanity might be able to influence the future, preparing a little for the possible En Roads session in December. He also wanted to spend a few minutes on clarifying terms that we use frequently. The first slide in his Power point presentation therefore gave a list of the points he wanted to cover, i.e.

New WMO (World Meteorological) report. Grim news, global annual emissions are accelerating upwards, from 0.8ppm in the 1960s to 2.4ppm in the 2011 to 2020 decade, surging to 3.5ppm from 2023 to 2024, the largest increase since modern measurements started. He went through the basic causes, including the surge in energy demand.
BBC announcement. This also focused on emissions from human activities as well as reduced absorption by land ecosystems and the oceans. Concentrations of methane & nitrous oxide had also risen to record levels/
The emergence of the Security Blind Spot Report. Mike went through 9 slides, the first two on the pre-existing central government structure for National Security, from which Climate Change had been generally ignored, followed by brief overviews of the report’s 6 chapters The general message was that climate change must ultimately be the biggest threat to national security, particularly the threats from cascading impacts & tipping points including the AMOC and associated SPG. The text was supported by relevant diagrams.
Looking to the Global Future. This slide simply questioned how we can visualise what is coming and how we can reduce the scale and speed of the adverse changes. Mike asked Tom if he would give a brief overview of the answer to the question, the MIT App, En Roads, which he did. We briefly looked at the possibility of the December CCG meeting being focused on a presentation by Tom. (This had already been discussed with Colin.)
Changes we have caused in global systems that are almost out of our hands. Whilst it is necessary for us to look at things that humanity can do to address climate threats, the main one, cutting emissions has totally failed and tipping points are already with us on oceans, forests, the melting permafrost and consequent methane emissions etc.
The Role of Oceans. 5 slides. Since the Industrial Revolution, oceans have absorbed 25 to 30% of CO2 emissions & around 90% of excess heat trapped in the atmosphere. Without the oceans, it is estimated that atmospheric CO2 today would be more than 40% higher than it is & mean global temperature rise would have already exceeded 2⁰C.

Mike described the mechanisms involved in this absorption and noted that scientists fear that the oceans have started returning the CO2 and heat back into the atmosphere. He explained that the captured heat and CO2 were very largely restricted to the oceans surface layers, anything from 20m to 1000m deep & described the thermocline, the boundary between surface and deep sea which was very often quite distinct as if there were two different liquids, a warm one floating on top of the other. (If only we could increase the depth of the surface layer!)

Surge in Global Energy Demand. Mike focused on an article in the Times, 30^th Oct 2025, on “Climate goals out of reach as (global) demand for energy surges” with a series of slides on discussions with Wood Mackenzie, probably the leading organization on global energy. The article notes the global failure in achieving the Paris climate goal of limiting global warming to 1.5⁰C & sees the world on track for 2.6⁰C. It looks carefully at the failure to date and why it will get worse. We know the traditional reasons for failure but they introduce a much more important reason which is the massive growth in demand for energy, which is growing faster than renewables are growing, meaning that fossil fuels will fill the gap and emissions will increase. Reasons for the accelerating growth in demand are discussed as also are examples of failure to cut emissions including the recent delay in adopting a net-zero framework for global shipping, following efforts by the USA to torpedo the plan, “the latest example of geopolitics & lack of international cooperation.
Note on Emissions. Emissions are THE problem. Do we understand them, can we put them in perspective? 4 slides showing what are the main sectors globally & in the UK, what are the UK emissions per person, what is the difference between territorial and consumption, how do we compare with other countries?
Note on Global Mean Temperature. We are members of a climate change group, so are very much used to this important term. It is nowhere near 21.5⁰C.
Conclusions. 3 slides, Cutting Emissions, Blocking/Reflecting the Incoming Solar Radiation, Local level Adaptation.

Item 6. Countdown to COP 30: Jan

Jan showed a foil from COP 30 AMAZONA, Brazil that split the agenda into “Thematic Themes” with objectives to be Delivered by Countries, Businesses, Subnational Governments and Civil Society; Elevating climate action that begins and ends with people, including Women, Youth among others

Transitioning, Energy, Housing, Transport
Stewarding Forests, Oceans and Biodiversity
Transforming Agriculture and Food systems
Building Resilience for Cities, Infrastructure and Water
Fostering Human and Social Development

Cross Cutting all themes:

Unleashing Enablers Accelerators including on Financing, Technology and Capacity building.

*Women and girls; youth and children; Indigenous Peoples; traditional, rural and coastal communities; distinct groups, such as Afro-descendants; communities in

peripheries of cities; the elderly, ethnic minorities, migrants, people with disabilities, those living in poverty, those facing overlapping inequalities; workers and teachers.

Jan also presented a status summary by the Climate Change Committee from June summarising the UK status to achieve the 2030 NDC commitments.

• Credible plans exist for 38%. This mostly covers emissions savings from the projected roll-out of renewable electricity generation and EVs, as well as some progress in decarbonising the iron and steel sector in industry

. • Some risks are attached to 23%. These are predominantly delivery risks for planning, grid connections, and successful Contracts for Difference auctions to deliver the rest of the renewable’s deployment required by 2030 under the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. There are also some risks around the ability of the Clean Heat Market Mechanism to deliver the required roll-out of heat pumps.

• Significant risks are attached to 20%. This is predominantly for policies to drive industrial electrification and the uptake of CCS in industry, improvement to efficiencies of petrol, diesel, and hybrid vehicles, the decarbonisation of public sector buildings, and plans for peatland restoration and tree planting.

• Insufficient plans exist for 14%. The key area this applies to is the roll-out of heat pumps, where existing programmes and funding cover only a portion of the required market scale-up. There are also insufficient plans for a proportion of the engineered removals required in the Government’s plans. There is a gap of 4% between the quantified plans in

the CBDP and the 2030 NDC.

Jan gave an abstract of key points in the book published 5 November 2025 by Nicholas (Lord) Stern: The Growth Story of the 21^st Century; The Economics and Opportunity of Climate Action.

Action on Climate is an investment of high returns.

Evidence shows that investment in adaptation delivers $10 of benefit for $1 of investment

Boosting financing is a key priority for COP 30. The world must get comfortable with investing the equivalent of more than two or three percentage points more of GDP on average and sustain that over the next two decades.

Item 7: Netherlands city of Utrecht Car Battery Storage Project

Andy for a later meeting.

Item 8 Suggested reading

Reading lists were discussed and circulated prompting the need for updating these. Jan was happy to lend books from his collection.

Also, a list of relevant YouTube subscriptions I recommend as follows

https://youtube.com/@cleaninguppod?si=e1i8rgAX6ON8yMie

https://youtube.com/@justhaveathink?si=hhaPTYkIXG6GZYWk

https://youtube.com/@heatgeek?si=Vn74elO0UDYMcydj

https://youtube.com/@electricviking?si=kv0oJX3KaL9oFcoI

https://youtube.com/@dwplaneta?si=pUZ2BsXw0w8EBuI3

https://youtube.com/@tccalendar9547?si=7X4uFS8PwQteUkEP

Item 9 AOB

It was agreed to have a meeting on December 17 to have a presentation by Tom of En-Roads.

11th November 2025 CMcK

and many thanks to Jan Davis and Mike Cockerell for their meeting notes