About Us – Oxford Net Zero

PROF CAMERON HEPBURN

PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS

Cameron Hepburn is the Director of the Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment and the Economics of Sustainability Programme, based at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School. He is also Director and Professor of Environmental Economics at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, a Fellow at New College, Oxford, and a Professorial Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics.

He has published widely on energy, resources and environmental challenges across a range of disciplines, including engineering, biology, philosophy, economics, public policy and law, drawing on his degrees in law, engineering and doctorate in economics. He is on the editorial board of Environmental Research Letters and is the managing editor of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy. Cameron’s research is often referred to in the printed press, and he has been interviewed on television and radio in many countries. Cameron provides advice on energy and climate policy to government ministers (e.g. China, India, UK and Australia) and international institutions (e.g. OECD, UN organisations) around the world.

PROF NATHALIE SEDDON

PROFESSOR OF BIODIVERSITY

Nathalie Seddon is Professor of Biodiversity in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford. She has broad interests in understanding the origins and maintenance of biodiversity and its relationship with global change. Nathalie trained as an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Cambridge and has over 20 years of field experience in tropical forests. Her research now focusses on determining the ecological and socioeconomic effectiveness of nature-based solutions to societal challenges, and how best to increase the influence of robust biodiversity and ecosystem science on the design and implementation of climate and development policy.

In 2017, she founded the Nature-based Solutions Initiative (www.naturebasedsolutionsinitiative.org), a programme of interdisciplinary research, policy advice, and education aimed at bringing the equitable protection of nature to the centre of the sustainable development agenda.

She is a Senior Associate of the International Institute for Environment and Development and a Senior Fellow of the Oxford Martin School.

PROF MIKE KENDALL

PROFESSOR OF GEOPHYSICS

Mike Kendall is Professor of Geophysics Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford. Mike’s research interests cover pure and applied seismology, with connections to mineral physics, geodynamics and engineering. Current research concentrates on the nature of the core-mantle boundary, continental cratons, continental rifting, mid-ocean ridges, and subduction zones

Mike has led seismic field experiments in a range of geologic settings. Techniques developed to study wave propagation in the deep Earth have also been applied to his research in exploration seismology. His interests lie in microseismicity and passive seismic monitoring, rock-fracture characterization, and linked geophysics, geomechanics and fluid-flow modelling. He has managed a number of large industry-funded consortia.

Dr SteVE Smith

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OXFORD NET ZERO

Dr Steve Smith joins the Smith School from the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) where he co-led the Climate Science Team for two years. He played a key role in the legislation of the Net Zero emissions target last year, and on developing the Government’s approach to greenhouse gas removal. As well as advising ministers and policy teams he oversaw several areas of climate research, including the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme, the Greenhouse Gas Removal Programme co-funded with UKRI, and understanding of carbon sources and sinks on land for the UK emissions inventory.

Before joining BEIS, Steve was Head of Science at the Committee on Climate Change. There he was involved in setting the UK’s 2050 target and carbon budgets, as well as starting up the committee’s work on climate adaptation. He gained a PhD in atmospheric physics from Imperial College London after studying Physics at Oxford. He is a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and of the Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy.

dr ben caldecott

DIRECTOR OF THE OXFORD SUSTAINABLE FINANCE GROUP

Dr Ben Caldecott is the founding Director of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group at the University of Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. At the University of Oxford, he is the inaugural Lombard Odier Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow of Sustainable Finance, the first ever endowed professorship of sustainable finance, and a Supernumerary Fellow at Oriel College, Oxford. Ben is also the founding Director and Principal Investigator of the UK Centre for Greening Finance & Investment (CGFI), established by UK Research and Innovation in 2021 as the national centre to accelerate the adoption and use of climate and environmental data and analytics by financial institutions internationally. 

Ben specialises in environment, energy, and sustainability issues and works at the intersection between finance, public policy, and academe, having held senior roles in each domain. He has authored and edited a substantial number of publications related to sustainability and is an experienced media commentator and public speaker. His expertise and expert evidence have been recognised in high profile legal cases, including in the Federal Court of Australia and the High Court of England and Wales. He is a regular peer reviewer and has a number of trustee, board, and advisory panel appointments, including serving on the UK Climate Change Committee’s Adaptation Committee, DBS Bank’s Board Sustainability Committee, UK Export Finance’s Export Guarantees Advisory Council, and as a Trustee of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). 

He has conceived and initiated a number of initiatives related to sustainable finance. Ben founded and is Co-Chair of the Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investment (GRASFI), an alliance of global research universities promoting rigorous and impactful academic research on sustainable finance. He established and leads the Sustainable Finance Theme at The Alan Turing Institute and initiated the Spatial Finance Initiative, which aims to mainstream geospatial capabilities enabled by space technology and data science into financial decision-making globally. He co-founded and serves on the board of the Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI), which is examining the legal basis for directors and trustees to consider, manage, and report on climate-related risk, and the circumstances in which they may be liable for failing to do so. He established and is the Faculty Chair of the Public and Third Sector Academy for Sustainable Finance (P3SA) at the University of Oxford, a global centre of learning on sustainable finance for the public and third sectors. Ben is also a Co-Director for the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery where he leads its work on finance. 

Ben is Co-Head of the Secretariat for the high-level Transition Plan Taskforce established by HM Treasury in 2022. From 2019, he was seconded part-time to the UK Cabinet Office for two years to work on COP26 in Glasgow as the COP26 Strategy Advisor for Finance. He has also served on the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Climate-Related Market Risk Subcommittee, the UK Government’s Green Technical Advisory Group, and in his capacity as a Member of the UK Green Finance Taskforce, chaired its Workstream on Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Implementation. 

Ben is an advisor to financial institutions across different parts of the financial system internationally, including as a Senior Advisor at Global Infrastructure Partners and by serving on Neuberger Berman’s ESG Advisory Council, Columbia Threadneedle Investments’ Responsible Investment Advisory Council, ATLAS Infrastructure Partners’ Climate Advisory Board, and Climate Impact X’s International Advisory Council. 

Ben teaches and supervises a wide range of students at the University of Oxford and beyond. In addition to supervising Ph.D./D.Phil. students, he established and leads B.A., M.Sc., and M.Phil. options and electives on finance and sustainability. He is an experienced lecturer and tutor and has created and course directs a number of executive education courses at Oxford each year, including the Sustainable Finance Executive Programme. He contributes to training and capacity building across different finance professions internationally, including as the Academic Advisor to the CFA UK Certificate in Climate and Investing and as lead author of the Global Association of Risk Professional’s Sustainability and Climate Risk Certificate textbook. He has previously served as an Academic Associate at the Chartered Banker Institute and on the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries’ ESG Investment Working Party.

Prior to joining the University of Oxford, he was a Vice President at investment bank Climate Change Capital, one of the early leading asset management and advisory firms focused on the net zero carbon transition, where he ran the firm’s research centre and advised clients and funds on the development of policy-driven markets. Ben has previously worked as Research Director for Environment and Energy at the think tank Policy Exchange, as Head of Government Advisory at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, as a Director in the Strategy Directorate of the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (on secondment), as a Deputy Director in the Strategy Directorate of the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (on secondment), as an Advisor to The Prince of Wales’ International Sustainability Unit, as Sherpa to the UK Green Investment Bank Commission, and as the Senior Advisor to the Chair and CEO of the UK Green Finance Institute.

Ben holds a doctorate in economic geography from the University of Oxford. He initially read economics and specialised in development and China at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and the University of Cambridge. He has been an Academic Visitor at the Bank of England, a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University and Peking University, and held Visiting Fellowships at the University of Oxford, the University of Sydney, and the University of Melbourne. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment. Ben is also a Senior Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, a Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Payne Institute for Earth Resources at the Colorado School of Mines.

PROF MICHAEL OBERSTEINER

DIRECTOR, ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE INSTITUTE

Michael Obersteiner is Director of the Environmental Change Institute and joins the institute from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).

Obersteiner joined the IIASA Forestry Program in 1993 and has been leading and developing the ESM Program, which is currently the largest research program at IIASA with over 100 staff, since 2011. His background includes the fields of global terrestrial ecosystems and economics, having completed graduate studies both in Austria (BOKU University and Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna) and abroad (Columbia University, New York and Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk). His research experience stretches from biophysical modelling in the areas of ecosystems, forestry and agriculture to economics, finance and integrated assessment. Under his leadership several national and international organizations, including inter alia the European Commission, WWF, OECD, and other national and international institutions have received science-based policy advice using quantitative modelling techniques. He is author of over 250 scientific papers covering many disciplinary science fields.

Prof Lavanya Rajamani

PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

Lavanya Rajamani is a Professor of International Environmental Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, and Yamani Fellow in Public International Law, St Peter’s College, Oxford. She was formerly a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, where she now holds a Visiting Professorship. Lavanya serves as Coordinating Lead Author of the chapter on ‘International Cooperation’ in the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She has also served as Rapporteur for the International Law Association’s Committee on Legal Principles Relating to Climate Change, and as Research Director for the Hague Academy of International Law’s Centre for Studies and Research.

Lavanya’s academic work on the international climate change regime is informed by extensive practice. She has worked on and tracked the climate negotiations in different capacities, including as a negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, and legal advisor to the UN Climate Secretariat, the Danish Ministry of Climate Change and the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests. She was part of the UNFCCC core drafting and advisory team at the 2015 Paris negotiations, and, was identified by Climate Home News as one of the ‘Women to watch ahead of the UN’s 2015 Climate Summit.’ She is also involved in differing capacities, but in particular in providing the evidence base, in current and prospective climate cases before national and international courts.

DR THOM WETZER

DR JAVIER LEZAUN

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

Javier Lezaun is Associate Professor in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography and Director of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS).

Javier’s research lies at the intersection of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS). His work explores the interplay of scientific and political change. Specifically, Javier is researching the development and governance of new technologies that might be used to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. He directs the Greenhouse Gas Removal Instruments and Policies project, focused on the international politics of large-scale carbon dioxide removal, and is part of the new H2020 project Ocean NETs, which will explore the feasibility of ocean-based interventions to tackle climate change.

prof TOM HALE

PROFESSOR OF GLOBAL PUBLIC POLICY

Thomas Hale is Professor of Global Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government.

Prof Thomas Hale’s research explores how we can manage transnational problems effectively and fairly. He seeks to explain how political institutions evolve – or not – to face the challenges raised by globalisation and interdependence, with a particular emphasis on environmental and economic issues. He holds a PhD in Politics from Princeton University, a master’s degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics, and an AB in public policy from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School. A US national, Hale has studied and worked in Argentina, China and Europe. His books include Beyond Gridlock (Polity 2017), Between Interests and Law: The Politics of Transnational Commercial Disputes(Cambridge 2015), Transnational Climate Change Governance (Cambridge 2014), and Gridlock: Why Global Cooperation Is Failing when We Need It Most (Polity 2013).

PROF ROS RICKABY

PROFESSOR OF BIOGEOCHEMISTRY

Ros has pioneered an interdisciplinary blend of biology and chemistry to resolve questions of past climates, evolution, and the future of the phytoplankton. Ros leads the OceanBUG research group developing inventive ways to reconstruct oceans of the past, and to understand the adaptation of organisms to changing ocean chemistry in the past and modern perturbed world. Ros has authored over 100 papers and co-authored a book “Evolution’s Destiny: Co-evolving chemistry of the environment and life”.

She has lead 2 ERC grants, 3 NERC standard grants, a BBSRC IB-Carb, and co-Ied 9 further NERC-funded projects. Her research work towards net zero has focussed on approaches to accelerate weathering and/or manipulate ocean chemistry to sequester carbon. She co-authored a GESAMP report on proposed marine geoengineering techniques and has tackled the response of marine calcifiers to elevated alkalinity through the NERC funded GGREW project. She will co-host a Net Zero Research Fellow in Earth Sciences and contribute collaborative expertise on the geochemistry of CO2 storage.

Dr Aoife Brophy

LECTURER IN INNOVATION AND ENTERPRISE

Aoife holds a joint appointment between the Saïd Business School and the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. She studies the role of business in contributing to system transitions for sustainable development and net-zero. Her research focuses on new business models and forms of collaboration between different organisations (public, private and non-profit) that are required to support sustainable system transformations. Her work spans a range of contexts including research on utilities in the energy transition, sustainable districts, circular economy, and energy access in sub-Saharan Africa. Aoife was previously a senior researcher at the Group for Sustainability and Technology (SusTec) at ETH in Zurich. She received her PhD from the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and her MA from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.

Charmian Love

CO-FOUNDER & CHAIR AT B LAB UK

ENTREPRENEUR IN RESIDENCE, SAID BUSINESS SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Charmian believes in the power of business as a force for good. She is the Co-Founder and Chair of B Lab UK and Entrepreneur in Residence at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. Her areas of focus include the rise of profit and purpose business models, regenerative and circular economic systems and how to mobilise a ‘Movement of Movements’.

Kate Cullen

ASSOCIATE | UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

Kate Cullen is a PhD Student in the Energy & Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. Drawing on a background in earth sciences and public policy, her research takes a data-driven approach to key questions of the global governance of climate mitigation and local operationalization of adaptation in the water sector in mountain regions. She arrives to the role of Associate following a year of research with ONZ that included co-authoring the net zero global stocktake, leading a US net zero working paper and serving on the Oxford organizing teams for the UN Race to Zero criteria consultations and UK Net Zero All-Party Parliamentary Group decarbonisation series. Kate’s current work includes co-leading an Oxford/Berkeley research group on operationalizing equity in net zero targets, among other projects. She holds an MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management from the University of Oxford and a dual BA in Earth Sciences and History from Wesleyan University. Kate is a Fulbright Fellow and NSF Food-Energy-Water Nexus Fellow.

DR EMILY COX

ASSOCIATE

Emily Cox is a researcher on responsible innovation and societal engagement at CO2RE. Emily is a researcher in environmental policy and social psychology at Cardiff University and the University of Oxford. She is an expert on technologies to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, focusing on social science dimensions such as public perceptions, policy, and ethics. Her work aims to embed principles of public engagement and responsible innovation in technology development.  She is currently researching public attitudes to negative emissions technologies, and has also published papers on the ethics and policy of CO2 removal, ocean-based technologies, and the social and psychological impacts of major disruptive events.  She is affiliated with numerous research centres examining energy infrastructures and carbon dioxide removal, and leads a project looking at public perceptions of new renewable energy technologies. Emily is a part-time lecturer in Psychology at Cardiff University, and previously taught MSc Climate Change and Energy Policy at the University of Sussex. 

Kate Cullen

ASSOCIATE

Kate Cullen is a PhD Student in the Energy & Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. Drawing on a background in earth sciences and public policy, her research takes a data-driven approach to key questions of the global governance of climate mitigation and local operationalization of adaptation in the water sector in mountain regions. She arrives to the role of Associate following a year of research with ONZ that included co-authoring the net zero global stocktake, leading a US net zero working paper and serving on the Oxford organizing teams for the UN Race to Zero criteria consultations and UK Net Zero All-Party Parliamentary Group decarbonisation series. Kate’s current work includes co-leading an Oxford/Berkeley research group on operationalizing equity in net zero targets, among other projects. She holds an MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management from the University of Oxford and a dual BA in Earth Sciences and History from Wesleyan University. Kate is a Fulbright Fellow and NSF Food-Energy-Water Nexus Fellow.

Dr Jessica Omukuti

RESEARCH FELLOW ON INCLUSIVE NET ZERO

Jessica is a Research Fellow on Inclusive Net Zero, working with the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS) in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography. Together with Prof Javier Lezaun and Dr. Radhika Khosla, Jessica will lead ONZ’s research on how net zero can be made to be more inclusive to the Global South and to diverse groups within the Global South and Global North. She will lead ONZ’s engagement with stakeholders in the Global South to outline pathways to inclusive net zero strategies, policies and actions. Jessica comes to this role with extensive research and practitioner experience. Jessica has led research on climate finance, climate justice and equity climate finance and governance of climate change adaptation. She has also managed development and resilience programming in the Global South. She has previously worked with international finance institutions such as the Green Climate Fund and international NGOs such as Mercy Corps and CARE International, and has developed a regional expertise from work in Sub-Saharan Africa. Jessica has a PhD in climate justice and equity in climate finance from the University of Reading (2020). She has also been appointed as the Oxford Net Zero Research Fellow at St John’s College, Oxford.

Kaya Axelsson

POLICY ENGAGEMENT FELLOW | ENGAGEMENT TEAM LEAD

Kaya Axelsson is the jointly appointed Net Zero Policy Engagement Fellow, working with the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and the Environmental Change Institute to support the practical application of net zero research insights. Kaya leads a team of researchers to aggregate and clearly communicate resources for defining and achieving net zero and host regular engagement events with the business and policy community. Kaya comes to this position from her post as the Vice-President at the Oxford Student Union where she helped to the University of Oxford develop its own sustainability strategy, including outlining a pathway to net zero. Kaya consults regularly for organizations seeking to raise their ambition in response to the climate crisis. She holds an MPhil in Comparative Government from the University of Oxford, earning distinction for her thesis on unlikely political coalitions in the renewable energy transition.  Kaya began working in environmental activism and political campaigns at the age of 15 and comes to this work from the perspective ‘does the planet care’.

cath ibbotson

PROGRAMME MANAGER

Cath Ibbotson is the Programme Manager for Oxford Net Zero and is responsible for the day-to-day management of the initiative.

Cath is a Chartered Engineer and comes to the University from industry where she has 15 years’ experience in the development of commercial-scale onshore wind farms. Her most recent role was as Director of a specialist independent development company, working with multi-national joint venture partners to deliver onshore wind energy projects throughout the UK. She is also a Director of a community owned onshore wind farm in the North West of England in a voluntary capacity. 

Christian Schroeder de Witt

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE | BUSINESS ENGAGEMENT & PRODUCT LEAD

Christian is currently a senior DPhil student at the University of Oxford Department of Engineering Science, specialising in deep multi-agent reinforcement learning and AI applications to climate change. He holds distinguished master’s degrees in physics, as well as computer science (both University of Oxford). Before returning to Oxford for his DPhil, Christian served as Head of Engineering of one of Germany’s largest voucher and coupon eCommerce companies, where he led a team of web developers. Subsequently, he has gained work experience at a variety of high-profile work environments, including Google AI, Man AHL and the ESA Frontier Development Lab. As local policy officer of a UK political party with a strong environmental focus, Christian ideated and co-founded the Oxford Climate Policy Forum (OxCPF), a cross-party initiative of young representatives of major UK political parties working on cross-party consensus on regional climate policy baselines. A trained classical concert pianist, Christian enjoys public speaking and performing for large audiences.

Tristram Walsh

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE | PRODUCT MANAGEMENT & STRATEGY LEAD

Tristram currently researches climate science at the University of Oxford, supervised by Prof Myles Allen, specialising in quantifying global warming sensitivity to anthropogenic emissions, and its implications for net zero emissions budgets – this work continues from his masters research at the University of Oxford, where he recently graduated with a double First-Class MPhys Physics. Alongside his research, Tristram holds advisory positions at Oxford Climate Policy Forum and Oxford Climate Society (OCS), following his two years of multiple-award-winning Presidency of OCS. Tristram has experience generating net zero engagement from a variety of initiatives: he co-designed, with Dr Thomas Hale, an intergenerational policy dialogue method between policy leaders, academic experts, and youth voices; he co-founded the Oxford Climate Action Plan, providing solutions to institutions’ barriers in adopting and achieving net zero plans; he hosted large-scale events translating the latest insights from the academic to public spheres, and is connecting businesses on climate by building alumnus networks. Tristram also enjoys opportunities for regular public speaking, for example giving a keynote speech at the Oxford Climate Assembly, being interviewed for leadership education sessions, and featuring on podcasts such as FutureMakers to talk about climate policy.

María Lemos González

RESEARCH ASSISTANT

María is a Colombian graduate student at the University of Oxford where she is currently completing her MSc in Environmental Change and Management. Before doing her masters, she worked for four years at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia on climate change, forests and environmental governance where she followed national implementation of commitments and joined the Colombian delegation in multilateral environmental fora. She was the leading voice on climate finance for the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC), a grouping of eight countries in international climate negotiations. Currently, she is also an associate at Transforma, a Colombian Think Tank where she focuses on developing diplomatic strategies around COP26 to increase ambition in Latin America. She is looking forward to beginning her Master’s in Public Policy at Oxford in September 2021 and is honoured to be a member of the Oxford Net Zero’s outreach team.

HEATHER WALLER

ADMINISTRATOR  and pa to prof myles allen

Sophie Littlewood

RESEARCH ASSISTANT

Sophie is studying for an undergraduate Masters in Chemistry at the University of Oxford. She is interested in development economics and the intersection of media and climate action, and has written on sustainability and entrepreneurship. She was President of the Oxford University Media Society and Editor-in-Chief of Oxford University’s science magazine, and is delighted to be part of Oxford Net Zero.

George Hope

COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER

George Hope is the Communications Manager for Oxford Net Zero and the CO2RE Hub. George is part of the core management team for Oxford Net Zero and ensures effective communication of high impact research and engagement to the programme’s key target audiences.

Prior to joining the University of Oxford, George led Imperial College London’s flagship policy engagement programme. He was responsible for managing and developing Imperial’s relationships with key stakeholders in government and the third sector on a range of science policy issues, and communicating academic research to support evidence-informed policy through events and communications. He also helped establish the comms and engagement around Imperial’s Transition to Zero Pollution initiative. He holds a BA in Modern Languages from the University of Southampton and an MA in International Relations from the University of Sussex.

DR TOM KETTLETY

RESEARCH FELLOW IN GEOLOGICAL CARBON STORAGE

Tom Kettlety is the Oxford Net Zero Research Fellow in Geological Carbon Storage, working within the Department of Earth Sciences. Tom studies earthquakes triggered by fluid injection, and methods to mitigate induced seismicity. This has involved using a range of techniques from observational seismology, geomechanical modelling, and earthquake statistics to analyse microseismic datasets from injection operations around the world.

Tom’s work has looked at fluid-fault interaction and the geologic controls of fault activation. His current research involves using seismological techniques to better quantify the state of stress and seismic hazard around developing and prospective CO2 reservoirs, leading to improved assessment of risks to longterm geologic CO2 storage. His work has lead to frequent interaction with industry and regulatory stakeholders. He completed his MSci in Physics at the University of Bristol in 2016, and his PhD in Geology at Bristol in 2020.

DR SELAM KIDANE ABEBE

SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW IN NET ZERO LAW

Selam Kidane Abebe is a Senior Research Fellow in Net Zero Law at Oxford Net Zero. She is also a member of the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme. Her research focuses on net zero law, including designing legal frameworks for implementing net zero commitments and understanding the multiple layers of net zero governance under domestic and international law.  

Selam has extensive experience working on multilateral environmental agreements. She led the legal and procedural negotiations of the Paris Agreement for the African Group and negotiated the rule book of the Paris Agreement. She continues to serve as the legal advisor to the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).   

Selam is a member of the Article 15 Committee of the Paris Agreement that facilitates the implementation and promotes Parties’ compliance with the obligations of the Agreement. She is also an advisor to African constituency Board Members of the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Before that, she worked for the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forest of Ethiopia as the director of the environmental law and policy department, where she led the development of environmental laws, policies, and climate strategies of the country. Selam has advised governments, international organisations, and UN agencies on climate change laws, policies and financing for the implementation of climate action.  

Selam received her PhD in Law from the University of Reading as a Leverhulme Scholar in climate justice.

DR ALINE SOTERRONI

RESEARCH FELLOW ON NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS

Aline Soterroni is a Research Fellow on Nature-based Solutions at ONZ. Together with Prof. Nathalie Seddon and Prof. Michael Obersteiner, she will investigate the socioeconomic and ecological outcomes of different pathways to net zero with a particular interest in understanding the value and the limits of nature-based solutions in achieving net-zero over the long term. She aims to understand the timeframes and spatial scales over which restoration, protection and sustainable management of working lands can enhance carbon stocks and reduce GHG emissions whilst supporting biodiversity, human adaptation to climate change and food security. To this end, Aline will work on the establishment of an open-source land use model, to guide societal and policy decisions towards a sustainable development. 

 Aline has experience with regional partial equilibrium land use modeling for quantitative climate change policy evaluation in Brazil. Her research has provided science-based results to inform local stakeholders and policymakers. Aline has a PhD in applied mathematics from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (2012). She is also a Guest Research Scholar at the Integrated Biosphere Futures Research Group of the IIASA Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program. 

tom maidment

ASSOCIATE | HILTON FOODS

Tom Maidment is Group Product Sustainability Senior Manager at Hilton Foods, leading the development of the company’s supply chain decarbonisation strategy and providing LCA expertise across the company. He studied MEng Automotive Engineering & Sustainability at the University of Warwick. In his first year he began working for Jaguar Land Rover, spending five years developing their first electric vehicle before moving into the Product Sustainability team where he developed the company’s net zero strategy. He is also Founder and Technical Director of E.Mission, a consultancy specialising in improving public understanding of the carbon footprint of food.

DR JOSE MARIA VALENZUELA

RESEARCH FELLOW ON THE GOVERNANCE AND STANDARDS OF CARBON NEUTRALITY

Jose Maria Valenzuela works on global and comparative studies on decarbonisation and energy transition with an emphasis in emerging economies. He joined InSIS as a postdoctoral researcher for the Governance and Standards for Carbon Neutrality (GASCONE) programme. He is Doctor in Public Policy from the Blavatnik School of Government with previous studies at El Colegio de Mexico, Tsinghua University, and the University of Chicago. Between 2011 and 2017, he worked for Mexico’s Department of Energy and WWF Mexico and consultant to UNIDO, UNEP, and the US-National Renewable Energy Lab. In 2021 he was awarded the Giandomenico Majone Prize from the European Consortium for Political Research for his research on expertise and regulation in electricity markets in Europe, China and Latin American. He is also an active member of the Oxford Scenarios Programme and the Oxford Martin Programme on Integrating Renewable Energy. 

DR CONOR HICKEY

RESEARCH FELLOW IN SCENARIOS AND BUSINESS MODELS FOR THE TRANSITION TO NET ZERO

Conor leads research under the Oxford Net Zero initiative identifying commercialisation pathways for negative emissions technologies and practices in the context of adaptive net zero mitigation scenarios. He is also a Junior Research Fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford.

Conor has previously and continues to lead projects which investigate phasing out carbon-intensive infrastructure in Asia and Europe, net-zero aligned offsetting and the climate-related risks to and environmental impact of corporations and financial institutions.

He holds a BCom and PhD in Finance. His thesis evaluated the impacts of legacy infrastructure and stranded assets on energy markets and utilities in low carbon energy systems. The methods for his doctoral work focused on integrating techno-economic energy system modelling methods into asset valuation techniques.

A list of Conor’s published work is available on Google Scholar.

For more information see Conor’s LinkedIn profile.

STUART JENKINS

RESEARCH FELLOW ON PHYSICAL CLIMATE CHANGE AND SUPPLY-SIDE MITIGATION POLICY

Stuart Jenkins is the Oxford Net Zero Research Fellow in physical climate change and supply-side mitigation policy, working between the Department of Physics and School of Geography. Stuart’s background includes research on the remaining carbon budget, quantifying non-CO2 contributions to recent and future climate change, and the design of novel GHG metrics for the comparison of various pollutants in terms of their physical characteristics. 

More recently Stuart has developed the Carbon Takeback Obligation, a supply-side mitigation policy which requires extractors and importers of fossil fuels to recapture and store a progressively increasing fraction of the CO2 embedded within their products. He is studying how this policy could be implemented in national, regional and global climate policy. “We consider the CTBO acting as a backstop policy, requiring 100% of produced CO2 to be recaptured and geologically stored by mid-century, and creating a long-sighted investment environment where geological carbon storage capacity can grow to required levels before it is required”. Learn more about the CTBO policy here: carbontakeback.org. He is currently completing a PhD in the Dept. of Physics, having finished a Masters in Physics there in 2018.

mia clement

RESEARCH ASSISTANT

Mia is a current second year geography undergrad at Christ Church college, University of Oxford. Mia is interested in the importance of communications in climate activism and the significance of representation and a just transition for all. 

Mia also works with both environmental university societies and broader nature societies to understand how accessible media and information is key in improving individual agency.  

Mia wants to continue researching the relevance of nature based solutions for biodiversity net gain and the implications for climate mitigation once finishing her degree.