A summer to make real progress before big autumn 2026 decisions

Synopsis: – London Climate Action Week in June 2026 will set important precedents for November’s pivotal COP31 global summit. RedCAT will be bending influential top-level ears at both events. We also detail Part 2 of our all-party crossbench case for a clean energy self-sufficient Britain reaching well beyond individual Parliaments. RedCAT CEO Prof. Miranda Barker OBE DL reviews the state of the ageing oil and gas industry, performance and potential of off- and onshore wind, plus solar energy. Next month she will look at the precedent set by a major new UK onshore energy source.

News – stepping aside for a moment (see below)

♦  Global clean energy technology shipments rose to $479 billion in 2025 according to BloombergNEF, with a 1% increase after falls between 2023 and 2024. A new report says the clean energy technology trade is likely to continue to rise as volatile fossil fuel markets push countries to invest in alternative power sources to shield themselves from rising oil and gas costs. Read more…

♦  The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts total global energy investments will reach $3.4 trillion this year led by renewable power. Some $2.2 trillion will be for grids, low-emission fuels, nuclear, renewables, efficiency and electrification. Electricity supply and infrastructure investments could reach nearly $1.6 trillion – or $2 trillion with end-use electrification taken into account. Battery storage investments will top $100 billion. Read more…

More on this later.

… and a budget to make the UK energy self-sufficient and a global green leader

– London Climate Action Week could set the 2026 stage for a cleaner safer planet

London Climate Action Week (LCAW) is a multi-stakeholder event focusing on clean-tech solution implementation, innovation, and private finance that complements COP global summits where nations negotiate binding treaties and national targets – including the phase out of fossil-fuels.

LCAW is an important test-bed and launchpad for green innovations which brings together 75,000 city officials, investors, academics, business leaders, and the general public keen to support and fund the low-carbon transition – including a RedCAT team with climate-tech innovators from the North.

The annual event is an important staging post on the road to the COP summits with opportunities to trial policies, build coalitions, and showcase well-commercialised climate solutions to ensure aims hammered out at COP – which are often controversial – can be translated into real-world practice.

London, innovation, and the world’s clean future

RedCAT co-founder and CEO, Prof Miranda Barker OBE DL, puts into context LCAW, the rapidly-emerging UK clean-tech sector, and the evolving future of UN climate events.

“London Climate Week demonstrates the sheer size and scale of peoples’ concern, support, and belief that we can develop technical solutions in the UK for what the CBI estimates is a £105 billion market. When this number of thousands of people get together, politicians really need to pay attention and act positively for the sake of both the economy and the climate,” she says.

The North heads south

As well as showcasing leading examples of post-prototype clean technology successfully commercialised by RedCAT consultants and experts, the main aim will be to make a direct case for Government financial-backing for a nascent clean-tech sector that could burst into life using the same model that made fledgling wind and solar industries mainstream a decade ago.

“This is an opportunity which we certainly won’t miss to influence numerous Government ministers very strongly, including Ed Miliband,” Miranda adds.

She already works closely with Mr Miliband regularly as a Net Zero Committee delivery group member.

Low-carbon wins ground even as the natural and human-triggered green crisis deepens

– Jobs, the economy, and financial returns, all win with a progressive clean green innovation sector

Last month, RedCAT co-founder and CEO Prof Miranda Barker began to set out the case for an all-party crossbench campaign to achieve complete UK clean-energy self-sufficiency free from volatile international supply chains and markets that set high costs.

Below, she continues by looking at production projection and dependency figures. But as she notes, there are other important developments on the road to a fossil-fuel-free future.

New COP31 no-fossil force to be reckoned with

RedCAT teams on the ground have represented the interests of Northern clean-tech innovators every year since COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 – and anticipate being at 2026’s COP31 (Türkiye) where a new low-carbon superpower is expected to make a major difference.

At 2025’s COP30 (Amazonia) global climate summit in Brazil a caucus of vested interests adamantly blocked a global call to completely ‘phase-out’ rather than half-heatedly ‘phase-down’ the use of oil, gas, and coal as primary energy sources.

Fossil-fuel phase out advocates club together

In response, some 86+ nations committed to a full net-zero future put their heads together.

The result is an action agenda that they will push forward ferociously in the second half of this year, as Miranda, who was at COP30 and will join global leaders again at COP31, explains.

“The long-anticipated splintering of the COP principle of complete consensus being the only way forward finally happened at COP30. The fossil-fuel phase out grouping talks of a faster road to transition but is determined not to leave the slow movers too far behind,” she says.

Following the COP30 disappointment, Colombia and the Netherlands recently hosted a ‘coalition of the willing’ conference in Santa Marta to identify ‘concrete’ strategies to phase out fossil fuels.

Their solidarity in pressing for no compromise on a genuine life or death issue supports the emergence of a new High Ambition Coalition (HAC) low-carbon superpower originally of 85 nations that has grown to more than 120.

High ambition and determination

HAC unites developed and developing countries – including the UK, EU, Pacific island states, plus African and Latin American nations – in the belief that climate change is an urgent existential threat.

They will be testing their mettle in five months’ time at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November 2026. Before then, the COP30 Presidency and incoming COP31 Presidency are working hard to overcome last year’s road block.

While Türkiye presides over the conference and manages logistics, Australia will act as President of Negotiations. Because of the global magnitude of the problem, Pacific Island Nations will lead pre-COP processes to elevate the concerns of vulnerable Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

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Before looking at Part 2 of the cross-party case for energy self-sufficiency transcending the life of individual Parliaments, a number of news developments need to be explained here: –

Building momentum for the Government to formally recognise the growing crisis

The People’s Emergency Briefing is a grassroots campaign asking the Government to acknowledge the climate and nature crisis like with Covid via a multi-channel televised national emergency broadcast as the first step toward a massive, society-wide response to environmental breakdown.

Rather than campaigning online, the organisers including naturalist and conservationist Chris Packham are building support through local screenings of the 50-minute film, ‘The People’s Emergency Briefing’, like the one facilitated recently by Chamber Low Carbon at Red Rose Court.

A series of summary presentations from experts in their field offer many disturbing warnings – such as while we are now living through the most extreme climate conditions of our lives so far, today is benign compared to what will come.

Another forecast is that huge differences between winter and summer temperatures and weather conditions will make agriculture and horticulture in the UK impossible just a few decades ahead.

The film was presented to MPs and leaders at Central Hall Westminster in late 2025. Supporters introduced an Early Day Motion (EDM 93) asking the government to broadcast the briefing.

Making a difference

As many people and organisations as possible are being encouraged to join or arrange their own community screening using the NEB Screening Map.

Alternatively, the NEB Parliamentary Call will show if local MPs have signed the call, with an email facility demanding their action. You can also put your name behind the issue at the Government Petitions Website.

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Global clean energy technology shipments rose to $479 billion in 2025 according to BloombergNEF Energy Transition Supply Chains.

The 1% increase after a fall between 2023 and 2024 indicates that despite US President Trump signing an executive order for tariffs on imported products attempts to stifle clean-tech trade have largely failed. Goods covered include solar equipment, lithium batteries and electric vehicles (EVs).

The report says the clean energy technology trade is likely to continue as volatile fossil fuel markets pushing countries to invest in alternative power to shield themselves from rising oil and gas costs.

Another report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) says renewable energy investments will reach $665 billion in 2026 – with $365bn for solar – as countries look inwards for their power needs.

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In another scenario, a client wanted to change manufacturer after production costs were.

However, the manufacturer sent a threatening letter detailing patent rights they had for the specific manufacturing process.

This led to the relationship being maintained with increased costs. This shows the power that IP can have in manging commercial relationships. The first lesson learned was that it is important to watch partners for their IP filings.

The second lesson is that is important to protect processes and not just products.

In ‘… over an oil barrel for the second time in five years’ in last month’s Part 1 we considered: –

• The all-party case for an energy self-sufficient Britain not limited to individual Parliaments
• The innovative clean-tech we need – and fortunately, have – to take back control of our energy
• RedCAT innovators at their best – the North working for the UK and world

This month, we look at: –

• The 2030 threshold and last opportunity for urgent action
• UK oil and gas, off- and on-shore wind, plus solar renewable resources

In Part 3 next month we will home in on: –

• UK ‘invisible’ geothermal energy – a modern precedent for a fully-fledged clean-tech sector?
• The good, bizarre, and extremely promising – low carbon limited only by our imaginations

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Where we are, where we have been, and why 2030 is so important

– Exciting, clever, renewable, and downright bizarre alternatives to fossil fuels we must have

Four years from now – 2030 – is widely noted as a critical threshold for keeping global warming within liveable limits. Otherwise, climate scientists warn irreversible environmental damage and runaway self-reinforcing ‘hothouse Earth’ feedback loops could block off all escape.

Arabian Gulf problems have further underlined the fact that meeting rising energy demands when the oil and gas supply side is politically constricted will be increasingly difficult and chaotic.

So, do we have any workable solutions?

What we urgently need to do – and how we can do it

Last month, we set out the case for a cross-party UK energy self-sufficiency commission across the UK political spectrum to wean us off hydrocarbons and commit to a low carbon energy base and economy as a logical long-term remedy.

This month, we look at some exciting, clever, and downright odd ways of creating clean energy that with could become commonplace. Burning rock (coal) to generate heat was an innovation once!

A quick overview of our national energy mix is a useful starting point to find balance and compromise – and identify innovative opportunities for UK to become more energy independent.

– Global oil and gas

The North Sea powered UK self-sufficiency in the 90s but is now a dwindling resource with little long-term potential past tie-backs to existing fields. Investment is better focused on renewables.

Regrettably, we are more tied to gas then our European neighbours – and swift fluctuations in marginal prices that hit the pockets of businesses, households, and utility providers.

Research sources suggest the global oil and gas market was valued at between $4.4 trillion and $8.1 trillion in 2024 and could grow to $10 trillion or $15 trillion by 2032 as energy demand increases.

“That’s a heck of a lot of eggs in one rickety basket,” comments RedCAT co-founder and CEO Prof Miranda Barker OBE DL.

– Offshore and onshore wind

In contrast, the global wind power market was worth $97 billion to $120 billion in 2024. Global solar power came in at circa $253 billion to £368 billion between 2023 and 2025 – but is expanding rapidly and could reach more than $436 billion to $600 billion by 2030 to 2032.

The good news is that UK wind delivered consumer benefits in excess of £104 billion between 2010 and 2023 and could see a 15.04% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) from 2026 to 2031 – with a 79.94 GW capacity by 2031. Each new large offshore wind project added £2billion to £3 billion to the economy.

An April 2026 Renewables UK report says expanding the UK onshore wind supply chain to 2050 could add £56 billion in economic value (GVA) in addition to £98 billion from the current onshore wind supply chain up to 2050 – raising total GVA to £154 billion.

The caveat is the oft repeated message that continuing Government policy support is vital!

“That’s a message I must most strongly endorse – with the addition that our fully-commercialised clean-tech projections are even more promising,” adds Miranda.

“Absolutely crucially, our clean-tech products and services can deliver essential additional benefits – if we can secure Government-backing that will give UK Plc a high rate of return on investments.”

– Solar

The rapidly expanding UK solar energy industry had an estimated value of $3.9 billion (circa £3.1 billion) in early 2025 and operating capacity of more than 18 GW.

2025 records show that solar supplied 6.3% of UK electricity via large solar farm investments and rooftop installations

In fact, UK solar power in 2025 beat previous records significantly.

According to the National Energy System Operator (NESO), circa 18,314GWh of solar electricity was generated in 2025 compared to 14,067GWh in 2024. Solar Energy UK (SEUK) says this coincided with the second lowest carbon intensity average of only 125g of CO₂ per kilowatt-hour.

Some 1,622 hours of sunshine from January to December helped – the highest since official Met Office records began in 1910.