Hamish Beath
@hamishbeath.bsky.social
100 followers 140 following 12 posts
Post-doctoral researcher @ Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London. Work on societal transitions required for deep decarbonisation pathways.
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Reposted by Hamish Beath
hausfath.bsky.social
In a UN speech today, President Trump said that "all of these [climate] predictions were wrong".

Back in 2019 I led a research effort to digitize old climate model projections and assess how well they did. Turns out they got future warming pretty spot on!
Reposted by Hamish Beath
joerirogelj.bsky.social
In a new study, we estimate how much geological CO2 storage capacity would be available when considering social, environmental, seismic and other risks.

Lead author @gidden.bsky.social wrote an extensive 🧵on the work 👇
hamishbeath.bsky.social
#LowCarbon #MiniGrid assets face risk of asset stranding, with the expansion of or improvement in reliability of national grids. Good #Policy to ensure these assets can interconnect can reduce this risk, + improve reliability, #emissions and costs! Read the paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
hamishbeath.bsky.social
The study uses #energy system #modelling to explore different scenarios of national grid/mini-grid reliability in #India, and how under different #scenarios, national grid connected mini-grids can offer a promising solution providing clean, affordable and reliable power.
‪@powerforall.bsky.social
hamishbeath.bsky.social
Sharing our new paper in #NatureCommunications on solar-based mini-grids interconnecting with national grids can boost reliability, cut costs + emissions, and reduce the risk of asset stranding, co-led by @benwinchester.bsky.social & with @shivmit.bsky.social, + others! @natureportfolio.nature.com
Reposted by Hamish Beath
Reposted by Hamish Beath
ember-energy.org
Solar PV made up 81% of new power capacity in 2024, putting it on track to meet the global goal of tripling renewable capacity by 2030.

Check out the latest report from REN21 #GSR2025 https://www.ren21.net/renewables-2025-global-status-report-global-overview/
Reposted by Hamish Beath
ketanjoshi.co
A new International Energy Agency (IEA) assessment of the lifecycle emissions of coal vs LNG shows that LNG only offers a pitiful reduction in emissions compared to coal

Gas talking points present themselves as a 'climate solution', but they're a climate cause

www.iea.org/reports/asse...
a chart showing that lng is almost as bad for climate as coal
Reposted by Hamish Beath
granthamicl.bsky.social
⚠️ Scientists find three years left of remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C

The remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C will be exhausted in a little more than 3 years at current levels of CO2 emissions, according to the latest Indicators of Global Climate Change study published today🧵

📒 buff.ly/0BQAsfp
hamishbeath.bsky.social
Read the full paper here! iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1... #ClimateChange #ScenarioAnalysis #IntegratedAssessmentModels #Feasibility
hamishbeath.bsky.social
💻 The framework (named IAMEE) is available in #Python code and is #OpenSource for the community to use and adapt. Code and data are available here github.com/hamishbeath/.... We hope it can enhance the utility of scenario databases for a range of users.
GitHub - hamishbeath/IAMEE: IAM Scenario Exporation and Evaluation Framework
IAM Scenario Exporation and Evaluation Framework. Contribute to hamishbeath/IAMEE development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
hamishbeath.bsky.social
Our framework performs well at selecting contrasting scenarios when looking at primary #energy and #CDR. We also highlight important #trade-offs and #synergies between dimensions, and see regional differences in challenges, like higher societal #resilience challenges for the #GlobalSouth. (6/8)
hamishbeath.bsky.social
🌡️ We apply our framework to 1.5°C scenarios from the #AR6 Database. We demonstrate some uses for the framework:

1. Illustrative scenario selection with cluster analysis
2 . Exploring tradeoffs and gaps in the scenario database
3. Understanding regional feasibility/desirability challenges

(5/8)
hamishbeath.bsky.social
The framework allows users to explore and evaluate scenarios across seven dimensions:

💰 Economic Feasibility
🪨 Mineral Resource Availability
🏘️ Societal Resilience
🌱 Environmental #Sustainability
⚖️ Interregional #Fairness
💪 Scenario Robustness
📈 Societal Transition Rate

(4/8)
hamishbeath.bsky.social
Our paper presents a new, open-source, quantitative, multidimensional framework designed to explore and evaluate these scenarios systematically. It can be used to assess scenarios globally or regionally.
hamishbeath.bsky.social
Large collections of #climate action #scenarios are crucial for guiding #policy, but can be challenging to extract insights from. It's helpful to understand the relative feasibility and also desirability for society of scenarios across a range of relevant dimensions 🧭 (2/8)
Reposted by Hamish Beath
thewaroncars.bsky.social
"According to the International Energy Agency, in 2023 the growth in big cars increased oil consumption worldwide by 500,000 barrels per day and generated 20 percent of the entire global increase in manmade CO2." Via @davidzipper.bsky.social
America is Exporting One of Its Worst Characteristics. It Has to Do With Cars.
There are ways to fight back.
slate.com
Reposted by Hamish Beath
davidrvetter.bsky.social
✈️Tourism carbon emissions: new study in Nature Comms.
🔴Emissions from tourism grew 2x the rate of the wider economy from 2009-2019.
🔴Tourism made up 8.8% of global emissions in 2019.
🔴The 20 highest-emitting countries generated 75% of tourism emissions.
Drivers of global tourism carbon emissions - Nature Communications
The tourism carbon footprint grew 2.3 times faster than the rest of the economy, reaching nearly 9% of global emissions by 2019. Rapid tourism demand growth (3.8% per year) has outpaced energy efficie...
www.nature.com
Reposted by Hamish Beath
brenttoderian.bsky.social
“We found there’s this perfect one-to-one relationship. If a city increased its road capacity by 10% then driving in that city went up by 10%.” Still one of the best articles on why building bigger roads leads to more driving. Understanding #InducedDemand Via @wired.com www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt...
What's Up With That: Building Bigger Roads Actually Makes Traffic Worse
The concept is called induced demand, which is economist-speak for when increasing the supply of something (like roads) makes people want that thing even more. Though some traffic engineers made note ...
www.wired.com
Reposted by Hamish Beath
glenpeters.bsky.social
We have been banging on about it for more than 10 years, but anyway:
2014: www.nature.com/articles/ncl...
2016: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
(and loads of papers ever since)

Of course, some DACCS / BECCS / etc is quite reasonable, the scale (level and growth) is the issue.
Reposted by Hamish Beath
benmsanderson.bsky.social
Keeping 1.5C as a goal isn't fantastical, it's the only acceptable option.

Moving goalposts allows indefinite broken promises. A fixed goal highlights urgent reality: every extra tonne of CO2 we emit will need to be removed to get back to that agreed level

The longer we stall, the harder it gets.