With flooding and wind farms in the news, we're sharing the latest climate and biodiversity updates.

SEPA's latest climate change allowances for flood risk assessment land use planning sets 59% as the climate change allowance for Flood Risk Assessments for developments on the Tweed Catchment. New developments must be outwith the flood area not just of the largest flood on record, but outwith the flood area modelling an additional 59% flow on top of the historic peak.

SEPA's guidance is based on the latest Climate change trends and projections from Adaptation Scotland, using climate modelling from the Met Office and others.

1. Peebles warming (Met Office)

UK Climate Projections (UKCP) for Peebles are shown in fig 1.

UKCP data are relative to 1990, so if we want to compare Met Office predictions against the 2015 Paris Agreement ambition to hold global warming within 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, we need to add around 0.6°C (Paris Agreement FAQ pg 8)

2. Paris Agreement FAQ How close are we to 1.5°C?

UK facts & figures

The UK emits 0.83% of global energy related CO₂ emmissions, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

"On a historical scale, the UK is in the top ten for cumulative emissions since the nineteenth century, reflecting its early industrialisation." [Carbon Copy]

13.58% of the UK's final energy consumption comes from modern renewables, ranking the UK 75th globally – behind countries such as Congo, Tanzania, Honduras, El Salvador, Mozambique, Ecuador, Peru, India, Bulgaria, Sudan and Eswatini [source IEA].

"In 2024 alone, China added 277 GW of solar power and 80 GW of wind, in contrast to 2.7 GW of total renewable capacity added in the UK" [Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies].

DEFRA's warning

On 20 Jan 2026, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs published their National security assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security.

The report makes sobering reading, offering 7 key judgments:

1. Global ecosystem degradation and collapse threaten UK national security and prosperity (high confidence).

2. Cascading risks of ecosystem degradation are likely to include geopolitical instability, economic insecurity, conflict, migration and increased inter-state competition for resources (moderate confidence).

3. Critical ecosystems that support major global food production areas and impact global climate, water and weather cycles are the most important for UK national security (high confidence).

4. Ecosystem degradation is occurring across all regions. Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse (high confidence).

5. There is a realistic possibility that some ecosystems (such as coral reefs in South East Asia and boreal forests) start to collapse from 2030, and others (rainforests and mangroves) start to collapse from 2050 (low confidence).

6. All countries are exposed to the risks of ecosystem collapse within and beyond their borders (moderate confidence).

7. Without significant increases in UK food system and supply chain resilience, it is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food (moderate confidence).

Read DEFRA's full National security assessment

"WMO’s State of the Global Climate report 2025 confirms that 2015-2025 are the hottest 11-years on record, and that 2025 was the second or third hottest year on record, at about 1.43 °C above the 1850-1900 average." World Meteorological Organization State of the Global Climate 2025 23 Mar 2026.

Is it too late to keep global warming below 1.5°C? The challenge in 7 charts

Nature, 21 Nov 2023.

This immersive special feature visually explains the current state of the climate crisis.

"Chances are rapidly disappearing to limit Earth’s temperature rise to the globally agreed mark, but researchers say there are some positive signs of progress."

"At first glance, it seems that nations have no chance of meeting the Paris agreement’s headline goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C. The rate of warming has picked up over the past decade, and the average global temperature for 2023 is likely to be 1.4°C above the average for 1850–1900."

1. Exceptional Warming Spike in 2023–24 (Berkeley Earth)

Read Nature's full Article and this Feb 2026 article on renewables

Exceeding 1.5°C requires rethinking accountability in climate policy

Nature comment, 26 Jan 2026.

"In 2024, global average temperatures exceeded 1.5°C for the first time. Going above 1.5°C in one year does not mean that the Paris threshold itself is technically breached — it is defined as an average over at least 20 years to account for year-to-year variations — but it indicates that the world is on track to pass it in a decade or less.

In July, an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice firmly anchored 1.5°C as the primary limit of the Paris agreement, reducing ambiguity over its aim. Although severe negative effects of climate change materialize below 1.5°C, this limit demarcates the minimum threshold of dangerous human interference that governments agreed as unacceptable.

In an ‘overshoot’ world – one in which global warming exceeds 1.5°C but is later brought back below this limit – countries’ obligations to meet this temperature limit remain. However, the pursuit of the 1.5°C limit from above poses further challenges.

Countries will need to commit not only to reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions, but also to achieve and sustain net-negative emissions — by removing billions of tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere and durably storing it. They will need to confront the further loss and damage and the adaptation needs that arise as a result of exceeding the 1.5 °C limit. And governments need to ask why they failed to prevent dangerous human interference, and who is responsible."

Read Nature's full Article

Bending the curve of terrestrial biodiversity needs an integrated strategy

Nature, 10 Sep 2020.

2. DEFRA assessment figure pg 5

This article explains the image on page 5 of DEFRA's security assessment.

"Increased efforts are required to prevent further losses to terrestrial biodiversity and the ecosystem services that it provides. Ambitious targets have been proposed, such as reversing the declining trends in biodiversity; however, just feeding the growing human population will make this a challenge. Here we use an ensemble of land-use and biodiversity models to assess whether—and how—humanity can reverse the declines in terrestrial biodiversity caused by habitat conversion, which is a major threat to biodiversity."

Figure 1e shows estimates of "the global number of species not already extinct or committed to extinction (measured using the fraction of globally remaining species metric)."

Read the full article courtesy of the International Institute for Sustainability

Or watch this Astrum Earth video

Belltown Power have written to the communities of Peebles, Eddleston and Innerleithen explaining why they rejected all three requests PCC put to Belltown Power in April 2025.

"Dear Community Councils,

As discussed in the latest meeting of the Leithenwater Wind Energy Hub Community Liaison Group, held on the 14th of January 2026, please find below a clarification of Belltown Power’s community offering. I hope this helps explain why we feel the community offering is industry-leading and represents a real benefit to the local community. Our FAQs on community benefit and community ownership are also provided to answer any broader questions.

Community Benefit

Belltown Power offers a community benefit fund of £5000 per MW of installed capacity per year in line with Scottish Government guidance as published in 2019^[1]. With the current proposal of 13 turbines, assuming 6.6MW per turbine, the fund would be £420,000 per year. This figure is index-linked to CPI so it will increase with inflation. The base date of indexation will be the commercial operation date of Leithenwater Wind Energy Hub, i.e. the date of first generation^[2]. This is how the standard guidance is generally employed by the wind industry in Scotland^[3]. We are also highly motivated to get the project operating and subsequently get the community benefit payments flowing as soon as possible, since commercial operation will provide the first project revenues. In reality, since 2019, project economics have become more challenging due to significant rises in equipment cost. Despite this, we (along with most other developers) have retained our previously stated commitments to be at the suggested level of £5000 per MW per year.

Community Ownership

Belltown goes well above and beyond the industry benchmark through our generous community ownership offer, which donates 1% of the project to the community at no cost and offers a further 4% at cost once operational (which should be well below the true market value of the share at that point). The ultimate value of the 1% donation and the 4% at cost will depend on several inputs ranging from technical (wind speed, final turbine candidate, total capital expenditure) to financial influences (power price, inflation, CfD pricing, etc.). Indicatively, it could have a value of several thousand pounds per MW. Once the project is further developed, we will be able to share more detailed and accurate information regarding the community ownership offering. Belltown expect to support the community in sourcing and delivering the financing required to acquire the 4% cost if the community chooses to subscribe to that portion of the offer.

Yours sincerely,

Benjamin Thorne
Development Manager for Leithenwater Wind Energy Hub"

Read Belltown Power's letter

[1] Page 5 of the guidance says:

"We will continue at a national level to promote community benefits of the value equivalent to £5000 per installed megawatt per annum, index linked for the operational lifetime of the project."

[2] Belltown Power do not expect Leithenwater to start generation before 2030. Legal advice to our three Community Councils says that accounting for the time period between 2019, and the first anniversary of commercial operation, it would be prudent to request that this £5,000 per MW figure be index linked using 2019 as the base date. Broadly speaking, this would allow for the £5,000 per MW to be adjusted for inflation between 2019 and the relevant date of payment (rather than solely adjusted for inflation between payment dates after the commercial operation date).

[3] Index linking (i.e. taking inflation into account) a payment of £5000 in Dec 2025 would only have been worth £3540 in May 2019. This is already a reduction of 30% – and the later Leithenwater wind farm starts, the less Belltown Power's offer is worth.

If this is standard practice within the wind industry, communities receive less money in real terms (after inflation) the later wind farms start.

On the 19th of April 2025, PCC wrote to Belltown Power responding to their community benefit offering. We asked for the following changes to the memorandum of understanding (MOU):

1. In accordance with legal advice taken collectively by Eddleston, Innerleithen and Peebles Community Councils, we asked that the base date for inflation indexing specified in the Scottish Government Good Practice Principles for Community Benefits from Onshore Renewable Benefits be specified as 8 May 2019 (the day the guidance was last issued).
2. With Scottish government consultations in progress for Community benefits from net zero energy developments, and the Scottish Community Coalition on Energy calling for community benefits of 5% of revenue from on-shore wind farms with a minimum of £7300 per MW per annum – substantially above Belltown Power's offering – we asked that signing these MOUs now should not lock our communities into the current, lower rate, preventing us benefitting from any increases resulting from consultations (see News 13 Mar 2025).
3. We asked for administrative costs to be paid by Belltown Power – not Community Benefit funds.

Belltown Power rejected all three proposed changes.

Read our 19 Apr 2025 letter