News

Lake Palcacocha is at increased risk of bursting its banks and flooding the town of Huaraz below it, because of climate change, reports the The Guardian. The article cites research led by Dr Rupert Stuart-Smith, which concluded that human-caused climate change has shrunk the glacier which feeds the lake, in turn raising the water to dangerous levels. 

In a guest essay for the New York Times, Stephen Lezak comments on the 'rotten politics' of the so-called Anthropocene era. 

Companies and regulators are waking up to potential threats from climate litigation, but have only just begun to grapple with how these risks should be evaluated, states Environmental Analyst in a report on new research by the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme. 

A report from the World Meteorological Organization sounded the alarm on extreme temperatures and their impact on human life. The report also said that the rapid progress of renewables offered some hope. Cameron Hepburn, Battcock Professor of Environmental Economics, commented: "Renewables, combined with storage, offer humanity's best hope of reducing our emissions to safe levels.

"The faster we transition to using them, the more money we save the global economy, whilst insulating ourselves from the damaging impacts of volatile fossil fuel markets.

"The WMO's stark findings should provide policymakers with all the incentive they need to double down on investments into renewable energy."

The U.K. government has announced a decision to extend the life of the country's gas-fired power plants, as well as building more. But the plan has received widespread criticism. Professor Sam Fankhauser comments, "New gas-fired power plants... will need a firm obligation for any CO2 to be captured and stored safely underground."

Thom Wetzer, Associate Professor of Law and Finance and Director of the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme, guest edited the European Corporate Governance Institute’s latest Blog Review. Titled “Governance & Climate Change,” the Review explores the “pivotal questions that boardrooms across the globe will have to address in the years ahead.” 

Stephen Lezak and Kaya Axelsson detail the problems with carbon offsetting markets, and how Oxford's revised Offsetting Principles can help solve them. "Current offsetting practices must be overhauled to meet critical climate targets. And until governments finally intervene to regulate carbon offsetting, the responsibility for reform falls at the feet of buyers and investors. Our updated principles can help them live up to this planetary responsibility."