News

Stephen Lezak looks at Alaska's recent foray into carbon credits in an opinion piece for The New Republic. "The world of carbon markets is predominantly composed of ecological sleights of hand. But even by the low standards of carbon markets generally, Alaska stands out for its open-armed embrace of the contradictions that undermine credibility and endanger climate progress."

Dr Alex Money, Director of the Innovative Infrastructure Investment programme, comments on water security and climate change risk for Bloomberg and The Washington Post. 

Mishcon de Reya has today announced that it has partnered with organisations from three leading academic institutions - the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Imperial College London and the University of Oxford - to launch the Climate Science and Law Forum. Dr Rupert Stuart-Smith commented: "Climate science has a crucial role to play in supporting legal claims for climate accountability. If the full potential of legal action on climate change is to be realised, it is essential that lawyers have access to scientific insight that provides a firm factual basis for claims. We are delighted to contribute to the Forum and look forward to collaborating with our partners to support high-impact climate litigation in the UK and beyond."

Oxford Smith School’s latest policy brief explores the feasibility and benefits of a fast net zero transition for the UK. It finds that a shift to clean energy would save us money – and that the faster we go the more we could save. It also highlights the challenges of the transition and explores potential solutions. 

Financial institutions and data providers should not be able to prevent important studies from being published, writes Dr Ben Caldecott in the FT. Dr Caldecott is the founding director of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group and Lombard Odier Associate Professor of Sustainable Finance at the University of Oxford.

Singapore's reliance on air conditioning has an enormous cost. It has trapped a nation already hot – and getting hotter – in what experts describe as a “dangerous, vicious cycle,” writes CNN. With comment from Dr Radhika Khosla, Principal Investigator of the Oxford Martin School Programme on the Future of Cooling.

Anupama Sen, Head of Policy at the Oxford Smith School, commented on the UK Labour party's decision to delay their green investment plans. "Policymakers shouldn’t be hesitant about or delay investing in technologies that speed up the transition to clean energy. Renewable energy technologies are inherently capital intensive, and require significant amounts of upfront capital investment, but have very low running costs once they are up and running," she said.

Billions of people across the world will be exposed to dangerously hot temperatures and extreme weather if the planet heats by 2.7C, a new study has found. Dr Laurence Wainwright commented: "Humans have got used to living in particular areas at certain temperatures. When things change, serious problems arise, whether in terms of physical health, mental health, crime and social unrest." 

Dr Radhika Khosla was interviewed about the impact of rising temperatures across the world. "Air conditioning demand is expected to rise three fold up to 2050.... The implications of that for the environment are of course very damaging," she said. 

Recent net zero trends - like distant timelines and an over-reliance on numerical targets - are exacerbating climate injustices, according to new research by Smith School and Oxford Net Zero academics. Dr Radhika Khosla told Bloomberg's Lara Williams that "each ton of carbon emitted, or not emitted, has different implications for equity which the mere numerical balancing of emissions and removals fails to take into consideration."