Stephen Lezak

Programme Manager, Sustainable Future of Commodities & Infrastructure

Profile

Stephen Lezak is a geographer working at the intersection of climate politics, environmental justice, and the Arctic.

His research has been published in journals such as Nature Climate Change, Nature Sustainability, Climatic Change, Environmental Research Letters, One Earth, and Progress in Environmental Geography. His work has been covered by The Washington Post, BBC, The Guardian, The Financial Times, Al Jazeera, and more.

His essays and op-eds appear regularly in The New York Times, The New Republic, and many other outlets.

In the past, he served as an expert reviewer for the IPCC's 6th Assessment Report and advised two U.S. Presidential campaigns on climate policy. He received my PhD in Polar Studies and Geography from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar.

Publications

Journal (9)

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Lezak S and others, ‘UNFCCC Carbon Trading Could Undermine Global Climate Action’ [2025] Nature Climate Change 1

Johnstone I and others, ‘The Revised Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting’ (2025) 20 Environmental Research Letters

Lezak S and Rock G, ‘On Micropolitics: Climate Adaptation and Indigenous Governance in Western Alaska’ (2024) 177 Climatic Change

Lezak S, ‘From Capacity Building to Capacity Sharing’ (2024) 7 Nature Sustainability 1

Lezak S, ‘Environmental Ethnography’ (2023) 2 Progress in Environmental Geography 289

Lezak S and others, ‘The Case Against Gold Mining’ (2022) 18 Environmental Research Letters 011001

Lezak S and others, ‘Frameworks for Conflict Mediation in International Infrastructure Development: A Comparative Overview and Critical Appraisal’ (2019) 239 Journal of Cleaner Production

Lezak S, ‘David Sneath, Mongolia Remade: Post-Socialist National Culture, Political Economy, and Cosmopolitics’ (2019) 23 Nomadic Peoples 148

Lezak S, ‘Re-Placing the Desert in the Conservation Landscape: Charisma and Absence in the Gobi Desert’ (2019) 8 Land 3

Report (1)

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Johnstone I and others, ‘Oxford Principles for Responsible Engagement With Article 6’ (Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford 2025)