UK ‘on track’ to meet ‘challenging’ net zero target, minister declares
The UK is “on track” to meet its “challenging” target of hitting net zero emissions by 2050, a minister has told Sky News.
“I think it’s challenging, but I think we are on track, I think we’re doing quite well,” Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng told Kay Burley about the goal.
“If you look, since 1990 we’ve reduced our emissions by 45% and we’ve managed to grow the economy by 80%, this is a world-beating figure.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
UN: Climate change poses ‘immediate threat’
He added: “It’s 2021 now, I think there’s every chance we will hit the target.
“It’s a lot of work and I think we can do that … it is challenging, it’s not an easy thing, if it were an easy thing we wouldn’t be going on about it.”
Mr Kwarteng was speaking ahead of the release of a landmark United Nations review into climate change.
This found that heatwaves, flooding and droughts will be more frequent and more intense as the world is set to hit the 1.5C global warming limit in the next 20 years.
The milestone scientific assessment says the rate of warming in the last 2,000 years has been “unprecedented” and it was “unequivocal” that human influence is already responsible for 1.1C of global warming since 1850.
Every inhabited region on Earth is already impacted by climate change and the report found that the accepted 1.5C limit will be met even in the best case scenario, causing more regular extreme weather events.
Boris Johnson said the report “makes for sobering reading” and shows “the next decade is going to be pivotal to securing the future of our planet”.
“We know what must be done to limit global warming – consign coal to history and shift to clean energy sources, protect nature and provide climate finance for countries on the frontline,” the prime minister said.
“The UK is leading the way, decarbonising our economy faster than any country in the G20 over the last two decades.
“I hope today’s IPCC report will be a wake-up call for the world to take action now, before we meet in Glasgow in November for the critical COP26 summit.”
But Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said Mr Johnson “still can’t make his mind up whether he cares about the climate or not”.
“The UK should lead the world in tackling the climate emergency, instead we’re showing other countries that climate inaction is acceptable,” he said.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer added: “The IPCC report is the starkest reminder yet that the climate crisis is here right now and is the biggest long-term threat we face. The biggest threat we now face is not climate denial but climate delay.”
Ahead of COP26 gathering later this year, the climate minister has come in for criticism for travelling by plane to 30 countries in seven months.
Labour frontbencher Wes Streeting told Sky News on Monday that the travel was “not a good look”.
“They [the public] want the government to take action, but we can’t have a ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ mantra, ‘One rule for them, one rule for everyone else’ mantra coming from the government, because we’ve got to take the country with us,” the shadow child poverty secretary said.
“We have all got to play our part.”
The business secretary defended Mr Sharma’s foreign travel however, arguing that “if you’re trying to conduct international diplomacy, if you’re trying to build trust with other people, I think face-to-face meetings are critical for that”.
Subscribe to ClimateCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Spreaker.
“COP26 is a big international event, it’s probably the biggest international event of international diplomacy that we’ve hosted in decades and he has to go and forge those alliances, he has to build networks, he has to deliver on people’s commitments and that does involve foreign travel,” Mr Kwarteng said.
He added that Zoom “has its limitations”, saying: “I think it’s effective in some quarters, but if you’re trying to conduct international diplomacy, if you’re trying to build trust with other people, I think face-to-face meetings are critical for that.”
Sky News has launched the first daily prime time news show dedicated to climate change.
The Daily Climate Show is broadcast at 6.30pm and 9.30pm Monday to Friday on Sky News, the Sky News website and app, on YouTube and Twitter.
Hosted by Anna Jones, it follows Sky News correspondents as they investigate how global warming is changing our landscape and how we all live our lives.
The show also highlights solutions to the crisis and how small changes can make a big difference.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has released its annual report detailing complaints and losses due to scams and fraud involving cryptocurrency in 2024.
According to the report released on April 23, the IC3 received more than 140,000 complaints referencing cryptocurrency in 2024, resulting in roughly $9.3 billion in losses. The bureau reported that individuals over the age of 60 had been the most affected by crypto-related fraud, with roughly 33,000 complaints and $2.8 billion in losses.
“Last year saw a new record for losses reported to IC3, totaling a staggering $16.6 billion,” said the report. “Fraud represented the bulk of reported losses in 2024, and ransomware was again the most pervasive threat to critical infrastructure, with complaints rising 9% from 2023,” notes the report, adding that, as a group, those over the age of 60 suffered the most losses and submitted the most complaints.
The report added that the resultant losses had increased roughly 66% since 2023, from roughly $5.6 billion to $9.3 billion. The most significant percentage of losses occurred due to crypto investment schemes, while the largest number of complaints related to “sextortion” schemes, in which fraudsters manipulated photos and videos to create explicit content. Other scams included schemes involving the use of crypto ATMs or kiosks.
Related: Crypto scam uses trade war fears to lure victims, Canadian watchdogs warn
In February, the FBI reported its “Operation Level Up” had saved potential victims of crypto fraud roughly $285 million between January 2024 and January 2025. However, blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis speculated that 2025 could see the largest number of scams to date, given that generative AI is making the practice “more scalable and affordable for bad actors to conduct.”
Globally, Chainalysis estimated that there had been roughly $41 billion in illicit crypto volume in 2024, with roughly 25% of the funds involved with “hacking, extortion, trafficking, or scams.” Some of the most high-profile crimes included the $1.4 billion in crypto stolen from the Bybit exchange in March and North Korean hackers taking more than $1.3 billion.
Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions
United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently called for “Bretton Woods institutions,” such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to reorient themselves, a signal that the global monetary order could be shifting.
Speaking at the Institute of International Finance (IIF) on April 23, Bessent called on the IMF and the World Bank to correct trade imbalances and protect the value of fiat currencies against exchange rate risk.
“The Bretton Woods institutions must step back from their sprawling and unfocused agendas,” Bessent said. He added:
“The IMF’s mission is to promote international monetary cooperation, facilitate the balanced growth of international trade, encourage economic growth, and discourage harmful policies like competitive exchange rate depreciation.”
Bessent’s call for the IMF to correct trade imbalances between countries, specifically the US and China, coincides with a decline in the US dollar to three-year lows, $36 trillion in US government debt, and stiff economic competition from China.
Investor and hedge fund manager Ray Dalio argues that the world is experiencing a global macroeconomic shift that will upend the post-WWII financial order and eventually replace the US dollar as the global reserve currency, potentially with a digital form of money.
Related: Trump tariffs reignite idea that Bitcoin could outlast US dollar
The Bretton Woods Agreement
The Bretton Woods Agreement was signed in 1944 and pegged the currencies of 44 countries to the value of the US dollar, which, at that point, was pegged to the value of gold at $35 per ounce.
Eliminating complex foreign exchange risks between freely floating currencies to make global trade more efficient was the primary goal of the agreement.
In August 1971, US President Richard Nixon announced the end of the dollar’s convertibility to gold — formally ending the Bretton Woods agreement in a move that was supposed to be temporary.
“Your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it does today,” Nixon incorrectly told Americans during his now-infamous address.
The IMF and the World Bank, which were spawned from the Bretton Woods agreement, continue operating in an attempt to curb the effects of free-floating fiat currencies on the foreign exchange market.
Bessent eyes stablecoins to protect the US dollar, BTC advocates have another idea
Speaking at the White House Digital Asset Summit on March 7, Bessent said stablecoins could drive international demand for US dollars and US government debt instruments.
Bessent added that the Trump administration will use stablecoins to protect the US dollar and its status as the global reserve currency.
Bitcoin maximalist Max Keiser argued against this plan, predicting that gold-backed stablecoins would outcompete dollar-pegged tokens due to the desire for low-volatility, inflation-resistant money.
In March this year, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink wrote that the $36 trillion US national debt could drive investors to Bitcoin (BTC) as market participants start to see BTC as a better store of value than the US dollar.
Bitwise executive Jeff Park voiced a similar prediction in February, focused on the effects of US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.
The analyst wrote that the tumult from the ongoing trade war would cause worldwide inflation, which would cause individuals to seek alternative stores of value like Bitcoin, driving its price much higher in the long term.
Magazine: Bitcoin payments are being undermined by centralized stablecoins
The Alabama Securities Commission, a financial regulator for the US state, dropped its lawsuit against crypto exchange Coinbase, which accused the company of violating securities laws by offering staking services to clients.
The regulator cited the ongoing work between the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the crypto industry to develop clear crypto regulations as the primary reason for dropping the litigation, according to the April 23 legal filing shared by Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal.
The filing read:
“The SEC has announced the formation of a new task force to, among other things, provide guidance for the promulgation of rules regarding the regulation of cryptocurrency products and services.”
“Due to the foregoing, the Commission believes it would be apt to allow policymakers time to consider regulatory constructs,” the filing continued.
The Alabama Securities Commission filed its lawsuit against Coinbase in June 2023, alongside state regulators from California, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
The Commission’s dropped lawsuit reflects the positive regulatory shift toward cryptocurrencies in the United States as reform at the federal level matriculates into state-level regulatory policy.
Related: Oregon targets Coinbase after SEC drops its federal lawsuit
US states drop Coinbase lawsuit but half still holding out
Five of the 10 states that filed the litigation against Coinbase for its staking services have dropped their lawsuits.
On March 13, Vermont’s Department of Financial Regulation became the first of the 10 state regulators to drop the staking lawsuit against Coinbase.
South Carolina’s securities watchdog was the next to drop the 2023 litigation against Coinbase, dismissing the lawsuit on March 28.
Grewal announced that Kentucky’s Department of Financial Institutions followed Vermont and South Carolina’s lead on April 1 by also dismissing its Coinbase lawsuit.
Despite the domino effect of states rescinding litigation against the crypto exchange, the Coinbase chief legal officer said that more work needs to be done.
“Five holdouts are still electing to waste taxpayer resources on lawsuits, and four of those have banned staking with Coinbase, depriving consumers of the right to earn on their platform of choice,” Grewal wrote in an April 23 X post.
Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway