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Air-to-air Heat Pumps

Introduction During a recent online forum about the UK’s Warm Homes Plan, a question was asked about the role of air-to-air heat pumps in low-carbon heating policy. The UK plan will be briefly outlined below, followed by a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of air-to-air heat pumps compared to air-to-water heat pumps, based on an EIRO publication. The Warm Homes Plan 2026 The plan is discussed in relation to the housing sector in an article from the Carbon Literacy Project (CLP, 2026). “Homes and buildings account for roughly one-fifth of UK emissions” and £15 billion is to be invested with the aim of upgrading five million homes by 2030. The existing Boiler Upgrade Scheme will continue to offer grants of up to £7,500 per property for installation of heat pumps and a “£2,500 grant per property will also be available for air to air (as opposed to air to water) heat pumps which can also provide cooling.” The UK Warm Homes Plan (DESNZ, 2026) notes the increase in sales...
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Optimising building efficiency with genetic algorithms

Introduction The use of digital twins in the planning, construction and operation of buildings was outlined in the previous post. The following discussion touches on the use of genetic algorithms and related software to optimise building design and performance. A selection of papers describing the use of genetic algorithms in this way will be cited together with references to background information. Genetic Algorithms The origins of software based on natural selection have been traced back to early computer scientists such as Alan Turing, John Von Neumann and Norbert Weiner (Mitchell, 1995). Genetic Algorithms (GAs) have found application in many areas where more conventional methods are difficult to apply, such as problems involving many variables. The ‘solutions’ proposed by a GA need to be evaluated, and this may require additional software specific to the problem in hand, in this case the computer modelling of buildings. Building Information Modelling The history of build...
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Digital Twins: from space to the home

Introduction The idea of a digital twin may stem from the explosion of an oxygen tank in the Apollo 13 space mission of 1970. “NASA employed multiple simulators to evaluate the failure and extended a physical model of the vehicle to include digital components. This “digital twin” was the first of its kind, allowing for a continuous ingestion of data to model the events leading to up to the accident for forensic analysis and exploration of next steps” (NASA, 2021). The importance of accurate digital models is clear in programs such as Artemis, which is intended to facilitate missions to Mars, when the constant communication needed to allow human intervention in case of problems will not be available. Digital twins also have many earth-bound applications such as product research and design, replacing costly prototypes; supply chain operations, giving manufacturers a comprehensive view of logistics, operations and potential bottlenecks; collecting data about products and their use, al...
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State of climate action 2025

  State of climate action 2025 is the title of a research report by the World Resources Institute (WRI), and is the subject of an article by the C40 Knowledge Hub. Here the report is described as setting out how to close “the global gap in climate action” so as to keep the Paris Agreement goals within reach. It “grades collective efforts … across key sectors” and finds that in each sector climate action has not been adequate to “achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal.” Forty-five indicators are assessed in the report and none are on track to meet their targets by the end of this decade. The report sets “actionable targets for 2030, 2035 and 2050 across the world’s highest-emitting sectors  – power, buildings, industry, transport, forests and land, and food and agriculture” and assesses recent progress and the rates of progress needed for the future. A few examples of the targets are: to phase out coal at least ten times faster than at present; to reduce deforestation ...
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Climate, Exxon, AI and the Law

A recently published article from the Centre for Climate Integrity marked ten years since “investigative journalists first exposed Exxon’s secret internal climate knowledge and campaign of deception”. The journalists were from Inside Climate News, the Los Angeles Times and Columbia Journalism School, and their investigations and reports became known as #ExxonKnew. Exxon was not the only company which decided to “emphasize the uncertainty in scientific conclusions” about climate change and to execute decades-long campaigns of climate deception (CfCI, 2025a). The article claims that Exxon and other Big Oil companies “have faced growing scrutiny and efforts to hold them accountable” during recent years, and that ten U.S. states and many communities have sought to “hold the companies accountable for their deception and make them pay for the damage they’ve caused.” The Road Not Taken   Investigations into Exxon’s early work on climate modelling and its later attempts to conceal th...
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Abandoning Net Zero

On 2 nd October Kemi Badenoch announced that the Conservative Party would drop the UK’s Net Zero target if it came into office. An article from Energy Live quoted her saying that her party wants “to leave a cleaner environment for our children, but not by bankrupting the country. Climate change is real. But Labour’s laws tied us in red tape, loaded us with costs, and did nothing to cut global emissions. Previous Conservative governments tried to make Labour’s climate laws work – they don’t. Under my leadership we will scrap those failed targets. Our priority now is growth, cheaper energy, and protecting the natural landscapes we all love.” She now regards the 2050 net zero target as impossible and wishes to “maximise” oil and gas extraction from the North Sea. (Energy Live, 2025). The article comments that her position ‘rips up more than 15 years of cross-party consensus’. It notes that the Climate Change Act was passed in 2008 under Gordon Brown’s Labour government when Ed Miliband w...
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Climate Resources Online

Some online resources with climate change content are outlined below. Many are blogs or include blogs. They vary in geographic scope from global to regional: many are US based, and some of the views expressed oppose the current climate change consensus. Resources are listed alphabetically and are drawn from the Feedspot online reader, which interacts with media outlets such as blogs, podcasts, magazines and news websites. URLs or web addresses for all the resources mentioned are listed in the References section. List of Resources   Carbon Brief is UK-based and covers developments in climate science, climate policy and energy policy. Topics covered include Carbon Offsets: their history and impacts, with a glossary and Q&A; China Policy: its growing solar power, continued use of coal, clean-energy exports and low-carbon transition in cities; and UN Climate Talks: a carbon-pricing system for international shipping, missed deadlines for 2035 climate pledges, COP 29 outcomes ...
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