Our first ask is a target: 🎯 1GW of community-owned energy by 2030. That's 10x higher than now. Ambitious? Yes, but achievable. @rescoop.eu say "In EU countries with such goals in place, clear policy signals and investor confidence has led to significant growth of the community energy movement.”

⚖️🔋 What does a just transition mean for #CommunityEnergy in the UK? Join our live Q&A with @fraserjfstewart.bsky.social on how community energy can drive a fairer #NetZero, and why justice must be at the heart of the UK’s energy future. 👉 Find out more: buff.ly/5gXjykO

The world isn't silent on Gaza - this is by far the most vocal I have seen the general public on a political issue in my lifetime. I have also never seen a bigger difference between the anger of the public and the inaction of specific institutions and governments. That's the crucial disconnect.

We’ve known community energy punches well above its weight for some time. It’s not just about energy - it’s about wealth, resilience, engagement, power and prosperity. It’s also really popular. It won’t do ‘net zero’ alone, but it has to be a core pillar of any successful, just transition.

🧵 REVEALED: Community energy projects in Scotland are generating 100x more local wealth than privately-owned wind farms. But just 0.5% of the renewable power is community-owned. Why this staggering imbalance?

Fact check: it's natural gas, not renewables, keeping electricity prices high in the UK. www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-wh...

Proud to have put my name, with so many colleagues, to this brilliantly drafted letter

#OtD 13 May 2021 local residents in Glasgow won the release of two people who had been detained by immigration officers by surrounding the vehicle and blockading it for several hours stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8509/glasgow-deportat...

Permits, we don't need no stinking permits. In a textbook case of environmental injustice, Elon Musk is poisoning the air in a poor, predominantly black neighborhood in Memphis with unpermitted gas turbines to power his "Grok" AI facility 1/. @politico.com

Unforgivable

So if a Global North govt chases the wish of retreating from the world, this is because they are deeply cynical, gravely misguided, or desperately afraid. It may work for an election, it may work for one short period of time, but global crises will eventually find you and the looks won’t be pretty.

The biggest threat to ‘net zero’ in the UK isn’t the far right: it’s Labour aping their talking points and failing to tackle the austerity and inequality that drives their support. We have to marry these together. Some thoughts from me fraserjfstewart-17.medium.com/picking-up-b...

Normalise telling people their 'concerns' are not, in fact, 'legitimate'.

Reform UK's attempted assault on clean energy infrastructure will have costs for Lincolnshire = not a rich county Too often accusation is all about net-zero zealotry being expensive. Capital investment for sure. But anti-net-zero zealotry definitely has costs www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The effect of Israel’s total siege on Gaza has become catastrophic, doctors say. Shortages of food, water and medicine are prompting a surge of preventable illnesses, and deaths. nyti.ms/3GzOJV1

"...for protests to succeed, they must be backed by movements with the ability to promise to withhold—labor, debt payments, rent payments, or consumer support—and to follow through if demands aren’t met." Glad to have gotten the opportunity to push this line in Time time.com/collections/...

I was on Reporting Scotland last night discussing what the closure of Grangemouth oil refinery, large local job losses and threats to our energy security. This unjust transition could have been avoided if governments had acted. Workers advocated viable greener alternatives. First report ⬇️

Was asked whether the public have lost faith in net zero for radio this morning. I think it's the wrong question. The public still overwhelmingly support climate action. The question is do they trust government to deliver and make good on promises of fairness and prosperity.

Why does Nigel Farage want me to lose my job?

“Net zero is doomed to fail!!!!” I cackle from my infinity pool of oil and gas money

Bath & West Community Energy (a financially sustainable community enterprise operating on the basis of a not-for-profit community energy model, and aiming to reduce carbon emissions) leaves X (2.831 followers). BlueSky: @bwce.bsky.social #BlueSkyWins

1/12 Tony Blair Institute have released a report which is getting a lot of coverage in UK today It says the drive for net zero emissions is flawed and some media outlets have gone to town However it’s a bit odd By odd, I mean there’s a lot of bollocks in it and shouldn't be taken seriously 🧵🧵

Add gas networks to this list in anticipation of winding it down while we're at it, tbh

British Steel is the latest in a growing line of examples of our failure to plan for a just transition for workers and communities. How many more do we need before we accept that current bosses of high-polluting industries will not deliver this of their own accord?

The only logical answer to all of this is to build solar on golf courses and turn club houses into community energy hubs. A just transition in action

3) "What you call green energy [is] driving those prices up, and making it unsustainable to produce steel" This is a statement from Nick, and it is wrong. UK Steel: "The main driver of the price disparity is...driven by the UK’s reliance on natural gas power" www.uksteel.org/electricity-...

Kemi Badenoch ditched the Tories’ commitment to reaching Net Zero by 2050 after accepting donations from funders of the Global Warming Policy Foundation and Net Zero Watch, both of which have campaigned for the target to be scrapped. @adambienkov.bsky.social

The biggest financial risk of “net zero” is doing nothing about it and feigning shock as fossil fuel prices soar again, bills fluctuate uncontrollably, fuel poverty deepens and floods/fires/extreme weather cause damage that we can’t afford to fix or protect people from

They’re bombing Gaza again. Horrors upon horror www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblo...

Some incisive quotes from our main man @fraserjfstewart.bsky.social about how Labour must embrace community ownership to achieve net zero. theecologist.org/2025/feb/13/...

“Climate action can become popular when people understand its benefits [to] their own communities and… lives” How to talk about climate change beyond the climate bubble - a brilliant article by Caroline Lucas and Rupert Read

Transfer deadline day took a turn www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...

Wrote this for @heraldscotland.bsky.social about how both governments have utterly failed to deliver a just transition for Grangemouth workers t.co/Utwa0MkFYB

If we don't build fairness in at the ground floor, there's a big risk that we replicate or exacerbate inequalities through the energy transition. This might seem like a minor case, but it's an example of the middle-class homeowner focus that is still too prevalent in current energy thinking.

“We refuse to leave Gaza and we refuse for anyone to decide these things on behalf of us.” https://theintercept.com/2025/02/08/trump-gaza-palestinians-displace/

Perth & Kinross community groups - interested in developing local energy projects to benefit your community? Join us, Perth & Kinross Council + BABLE Smart Cities for FREE interactive workshop to help navigate process of creating impactful energy initiatives 📅 19 Feb 📍 Perth/online

You don't beat the far right by becoming more far right. Between pandering to anti-immigration and failing (so far) to meaningfully challenge austerity or inequality, UKG is consolidating the exact conditions in which Farage & co thrive.

Almost goes without saying at this point, but a reminder that air pollution hits low income and marginalised communities hardest - despite them being least responsible for the damage. Climate is a class issue. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Community-owned energy delivers well on things like fuel poverty, but there's a clear need to (1) raise awareness among low-income and disadvantaged communities and (2) provide real capacity support for them to capitalise. Great thread with useful insights and evidence:

Racking my brains and getting increasingly nervous that it might be me

The best way to emphasise your “working class roots” IMO is to unashamedly represent and advocate for working class people. Being from a w/c background is politically meaningless if your actions are actively harmful to those communities.

You can’t post your way out of fascism Authoritarians and tech CEOs now share the same goal: to keep us locked in an eternal doomscroll instead of organizing against them 🔗 www.404media.co/you-cant-pos...

Fossil fuel companies will not drive the energy transition of their own accord. Dinosaurs don't invest in asteroids. We have to take the lead to put power back in our own hands, starting with gov clearly ruling out new oil and gas including Rosebank (as promised).

SMRs aside, I feel increasingly nervous about the "just fix planning" narrative. It misses a much wider context of decades of underinvestment, systematic privatisation of public goods and a growing sense that the transition is being imposed from the top down. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Unpopular opinion (?): Private interests have been systematically eroding democratic power, legitimacy and public service around the world over decades. It’s just never been so brazen.

Breaking: Uplift welcomes a very sensible decision from the Court of Session invalidating the decision to approve the Rosebank oil field. Rosebank is a disaster for the climate & will do next to nothing to create the prosperity & stability that the UK needs. 🧵 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Fantastic news and immense effort from everyone involved in @stopcambo.bsky.social. We neither need nor can have new oil and gas if we want a secure, affordable and future-proof energy system - difficult to overstate how positive this is for the vast majority of us who aren’t O&G developers.

We’re talking all things energy for our next foreCASt webinar. @fraserjfstewart.bsky.social will join colleagues from across @citizensadvicescot.bsky.social to discuss the challenges& opportunities in how we ensure affordable, accessible and sustainable energy solutions. Book your place now ⬇️

Had some fun this morning giving evidence to the UK Parliament Scottish Affairs Committee on GB Energy, just transition and community ownership, including getting the phrase “proud Forfar loon” onto parliamentary record. Have a swatch here: parliamentlive.tv/event/index/...

Have been asked I push community-owned energy so much. Not only is it popular and delivering immense value, but it helps build strong grassroots political networks. In a world of rapid change, economic extraction and political chaos, ownership and organising are two sides of an important coin