Tackling Emissions LESSONS FROM THE U.K.

Over three decades, the United Kingdom has halved its greenhouse gases. How did they do it?

- By Anne Shibata Casselman FROM THE WALRUS ILLUSTRATION BY ROMAIN LASSER

It's a brisk and sunny day in March 2022, in the coastal town of Wick, Scotland. From shore, you can see the sparkling waters of Wick Harbour and, farther out, the Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm, its giant propellers hypnotically spinning in the steady winds of Moray Firth.

The wind farm is named after the defunct Beatrice oil field, on which it is situated. The only signs of its earlier incarnation are the rusting oil platforms that sit at the feet of towering turbines nearly 200 metres tall; up close, you can hear the whooooooossshhh of the giant blades, steady as a heartbeat. The gleaming turbines, 84 in all, are pumping renewable electricity into the United Kingdom's national grid. A single full rotation of one turbine's blades churns out enough power to run a home for nearly a day.

Zoom out and you'll find evidence of a wider transformation. The Beatrice wind farm has two new siblings: the adjacent Moray East, which came online last year, and its neighbour, Moray West, which aims to be fully operational by early 2025.

Just north of Wick, four undersea tidal turbines are being tested. In 2021, Scotland's first hybrid-electric plane began running trial flights between Wick and the Orkney Islands.

Also north of town, SSE, the energy giant that owns part of the Beatrice wind farm, is building a converter station to feed renewable power to the Shetland Islands. And SSE has refurbished two derelict harbour buildings to use as the wind farm's operation and maintenance base. Two-thirds of the workers in the base's control room moved over from jobs in oil and gas.

The way many locals power their homes has changed, too. On a sunny day, solar panels on roofs run basic appliances. And, thanks to government incentives, some people have replaced water heaters with air-to-water heat pumps, making a further dent in their electricity bills.