In the winter, British households opened energy bills they could barely afford. International gas markets had exposed that vulnerability. The exposure was brutal and immediate. The UK's reliance on imported gas highlights a structural vulnerability in its energy system, known as energy dependency. Now, the UK has a legally binding target to reach net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050. That target was not written for environmental reasons alone. It is also a strategic move towards energy sovereignty, reducing reliance on external gas supplies. Remember the fiscal credibility lesson from last time: rules without enforcement are just rhetoric. The UK's climate framework is built differently. The Climate Change Act created legally binding five-year carbon budgets, each set twelve years before the budget period begins. That lead time forces governments to plan, not just promise. The 2030 nationally determined contribution requires emissions to fall by at least 68% from 1990 levels. Each step is smaller. Each step is legally binding. Consider the North Sea's potential for renewable energy development. In 2025, renewable sources accounted for 52.5% of Britain's electricity production. Renewable generation reached 152.5 terawatt-hours, a 5.7% increase from the previous year. Offshore wind alone grew 6.6% in the same year. Britain generated zero coal-fired electricity in 2025, following the closure of its last coal plant the year before. That is a genuine milestone. For example, a country that once burned coal to power its factories now runs on wind more than half the time. The government's strategy includes significant investments in solar capacity, aiming for a fully decarbonized electricity system by 2030, while ensuring energy security. Here is the uncomfortable part, Alina. Gas still supplied 31.5% of Britain's electricity in 2025. That is the single largest individual source. And here is the counterintuitive finding: Britain's record renewable share in 2025 coincided with a 4.7% increase in gas-fired generation. More wind did not mean less gas. Nuclear generation actually fell to 12.9 terawatt-hours, reflecting retirements and outages in an ageing fleet. The key idea is intermittency. Wind does not blow on demand. Solar does not shine at night. Without storage, grid upgrades, flexible demand, or backup generation, renewables cannot fully replace dispatchable power. Gas fills that gap. Closing it requires either large-scale storage or new firm low-carbon capacity. That is where Small Modular Reactors enter the picture. Small Modular Reactors are factory-built nuclear units, smaller and faster to deploy than conventional plants. The government's energy-security plans explicitly combine wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen, and other low-carbon sources. Nuclear offers reliable, weather-independent power, crucial for balancing a renewable-heavy grid. Net electricity imports fell significantly to 29.7 terawatt-hours. That is progress. But 29.7 terawatt-hours of imports is still substantial. [short pause] Energy sovereignty does not mean complete self-sufficiency. It means reducing the leverage that volatile global markets hold over your economy. Faster decarbonisation, counterintuitively, increases that sovereignty even when it requires heavy upfront investment. More domestic clean power means less exposure to gas-price shocks. The takeaway, Alina, is this. The Net Zero target is not just an environmental commitment. It is a strategic hedge against the kind of energy shock that can hit households. The UK's legal carbon-budget framework forces governments to plan across decades, not just electoral cycles. Renewables now supply more than half of Britain's electricity. But gas still runs nearly a third of the grid, and nuclear is shrinking. The transition is real. It is also incomplete. The countries that close that gap fastest will be the ones least exposed to the next geopolitical energy crisis. Britain has the wind, the legal architecture, and the industrial ambition. The question is whether the investment follows at the speed the carbon budgets demand.