Apolitical has featured Kate Raworth and Myles Allen from the Environmental Change Institute, and Sam Fankhauser and Ben Caldecott from the Oxford Smith School on their annual list of climate luminaries.
Professor Sam Fankhauser sets out his expectations as COP27 gets underway. Will this year mark a return to 'businesslike' COPs?
The BBC reports on a new Oxford study that finds switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy could save the world as much as $12tn (£10.2tn) by 2050. The report said it was wrong and pessimistic to claim that moving quickly towards cleaner energy sources was expensive. "Our latest research shows scaling-up key green technologies will continue to drive their costs down, and the faster we go, the more we will save," said Dr Rupert Way, the report's lead author from the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.
The idea that going green will be expensive is ‘just wrong’. Transitioning to a decarbonised energy system by around 2050 is expected to save the world at least $12 trillion compared to continuing our current levels of fossil fuel use, according to a peer-reviewed study by Oxford University researchers, published in the journal Jo
Brian O'Callaghan
The US’s new inflation-busting bill, with $369bn for clean energy, is the largest US investment in climate ever. It is also, according to our research, the largest national climate investment in history anywhere. Let that sink in for a moment.
This funding will certainly speed renewable energy deployment and green job creation in the US. However, the bill’s investments are so large that they are likely to influence global prices too, and impact the energy transition in other countries in real, tangible ways.
Greenhouse gas emissions from transport have been reduced by up to a quarter through targeted public policies – especially when authorities ‘double down’ on restrictions – according to a paper today in Nature Energy from an international team including Moritz Schwarz at the University of Oxford.
Canadian publication The Walrus explores the UK's climate policies and approach. With comment from Professor Sam Fankhauser, who sat on the UK's Climate Change Committee for its first eight years and now teaches climate policy at Oxford University.
Brian O’Callaghan, lead researcher at the Smith School's Economic Recovery Project, provided expert commentary on the US Inflation Reduction Act 2022 - a transformative new climate bill. He noted, among other points, that the bill has nothing to fulfill America’s broken promise of billions of dollars in climate aid for poor nations.
To slash emissions, slow the loss of biodiversity and secure food for a growing world population, there must be a change in the way meat and dairy is made and consumed.
The i newspaper speaks to Greg Jackson, founder and CEO of Octopus Energy, and references recent research on energy security from the Oxford Smith School. “The choices made now will determine the course of the next 10 years – in terms of energy security, cost and our future environment,” said Professor Sam Fankhauser, Dr Steve Smith and Dr Anupama Sen. “More renewables actually raises security and lowers cost.”