ECI 25: programme archive
Conference Programme
Theme 1: Where are We?
Session 1: Where We Are
Overview of the gap between action that is being taken and the ambition of the Paris Agreement in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Speakers:
Amory Lovins, Co-founder and Chief Scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute, USA
Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science in the Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment and Department of Physics, University of Oxford
Rupert Read, Reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia
Session 2a: What do we mean by net zero?
The explicit climate goal of the Paris Agreement as stated in Article 2 is ‘holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C’. Article 4 points to this long-term goal and describes a goal related to emissions: the need to achieve ‘balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases’. This statement on ‘greenhouse gas balance’ is consistent with multiple interpretations which differ in their implications for emissions. Clear interpretations are needed to make Article 4 well-aligned with Article 2, and operational for national and international climate policies. Furthermore, a number of countries have made a political commitment to Net Zero emissions; yet it is unclear exactly what this means. This session discussed how the GHG balance objective of Article 4 can be interpreted alongside Article 2 and the implications that may follow from this.
Speakers:
Dr Jan Fuglestvedt, Research Director, Cicero, Norway
Richard Millar, Senior Analyst for Climate Science at the Committee on Climate Change, United Kingdom
Heleen van Soest, International Climate Policy Researcher with PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
Duncan McLaren, Visiting Researcher at Linköping University, Sweden, and Professor in Practice and Research Fellow at Lancaster University
Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Head of Climate Science and Impacts at Climate Analytics, Berlin
Session 2b: How Much Can We Reduce Emissions Using Currently Available Approaches?
Achieving net zero will require a major transition in global energy systems and could also have great implications for land use. Papers should focus on what can be achieved without major innovation, through techniques that are already deployed, and/or the critical constraints to these approaches. The scope of this session included changes to demands for energy and land use services, improvements in resource and energy efficiency, deployment of zero carbon energy resources, and options for greenhouse gas removal on the land.
Speakers:
Prof Nick Eyre, Director of the UK Centre for Research on Energy Demand
Ella Adlen, Research and Programmes Manager, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
Zakia Soomauroo, Doctoral Student at the Chair of Economics of Climate Change Studies of the Technical University of Berlin
Kate Dooley, Political Scientist, University of Melbourne
Session 3: How Can We Achieve Net Zero on a Flourishing Planet?
The policies and practices required to achieve net zero will have profound impacts on economic and socio-ecological systems, and hence our capacity to achieve goals such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This session outlined the challenges and explored how different pathways to Achieving Net Zero might promote synergies and minimize negative consequences for societies and ecosystems, with a focus on food, water, biodiversity, health and equity.
Speakers:
Prof Pete Smith, Professor of Soils and Global Change at the Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland
Shilpi Srivastava, Research Fellow, Resource Politics at Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex
Jo House, Reader in Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Bristol
Nathalie Seddon, Professor of Biodiversity at the University of Oxford
Theme 2: Where do we want to get to?
Session 4: How Can Innovations Reduce Emissions?
This session explored the potential and, where possible, actual outcomes of radical approaches for reducing emissions into the atmosphere. Innovations may be social, ecological, organisational, technical or combinations. Innovations may relate to any emitting activity or system, ranging from land use, ecosystem management, food and the built environment to mobility, communications, and digitalisation. Contributions will analyse not only the type of innovation but its applicability at different scales.
Speakers:
Dr Sarah Darby, Acting Leader of the Environmental Change Institute’s Energy Programme at the University of Oxford
Barbara Hammond, CEO of Low Carbon Hub, United Kingdom
Gunnar Luderer, Leader, Energy Systems Group at PIK and Lead Scientist for the REMIND Integrated Energy Economy Climate Model
Nick Eyre, Director of the UK Centre for Research on Energy Demand
Frederic Bauer, Postdoctoral Fellow at Environmental and Energy Systems Studies, Lund University, Sweden
Session 5: How can we recapture the already emitted?
This session explored the wide range of proposed and pilot approaches to recapture already-emitted GHG. Is recapture from the atmosphere at high purity inevitable, or is innovative recapture at lesser purity possible and advantageous from the atmosphere, biomass, or ocean? How will recaptured GHG be isolated for millennial timescales, and is that scalable to national impact. Is re-use or utilisation limited by Life Cycle scrutiny, and how will this be assessed?
Speakers:
David Hone, Chief Climate Change Advisor in the Shell Scenarios Team
Phil Renforth, Associate Professor at Heriot-Watt University and an Associate Director of the Research Centre for Carbon Solutions
Andrew Cavanagh, Geologist, SCCS, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh
Andrew R. Barron, Sêr Cymru Chair of Low Carbon Energy and Environment at Swansea University
Session 6a: How can net zero fit into international governance and regulatory frameworks?
This session considered the international governance and regulatory framework within which a net zero goal is set. It explored in particular the potential (and limits) of the climate change regime, in light of the recently concluded 2018 Katowice Rules, to instil clarity, transparency, understanding and accountability for delivering on nationally determined contributions (NDCs). It also considered the potential (and limits) of the existing legal and regulatory framework in enhancing ambition and ensuring progression of parties’ NDCs towards achieving the net zero goal, and ways to strengthen it.
Speakers:
Lavanya Rajamani, Professor of International Environmental Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford
Andrew Higham, Ecologist and Political Strategist, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford
MJ Mace & Claire Fyson, Lawyer and Independent Consultant & Research Analyst at Climate Analytics
Cleo Verkuijl, Researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute
Janos Pasztor, Executive Director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G), USA
Session 6b: How can we achieve net zero in cities, regions, and the private sector?
Dozens of cities, sub-national jurisdictions, and businesses have set net zero targets. What does Net Zero mean to these different actors and how might they contribute to it? How can this action from below help countries scale up their own ambition and contribute to the global goal? This session explored the state of efforts toward net zero by sub- and non-state actors, examined their interactions with national governments, and discussed methods for increasing the impact of such actions.
Speakers:
Thomas Hale, Associate Professor in Public Policy (Global Public Policy), Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford
Tom Hayes, Oxford City Council’s Cabinet Member for a Zero Carbon Oxford
Galina Alova, DPhil Candidate, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford
Margot Pellegrino, Assistant Professor in Spatial Planning and Urbanism at the Lab’Urba laboratory at Université Paris Est Marne la Vallée
Kathy Mulvey, Accountability Campaign Director, Climate & Energy Program, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), United Kingdom
Session 7: What implications does net zero have on equity, ethics, and intergenerational justice?
Attempting to achieve Net Zero will raise a wide range of social and ethical issues, including issues of fairness within countries, across borders, across sectors and between generations. How should the burden of reducing emissions and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere be shared? How should we navigate the synergies and trade-offs between effective, enduring policy, and principles of justice?
Speakers:
Dr Matthew Ives, Senior Research Officer in Complex Systems Economic Modelling, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
Henry Shue, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford
Celeste Renaud, Postgraduate Student at Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford
Dave Frame, Director of the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute (NZCCRI) at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Oliver Geden, Head of the EU Research Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and Research Associate at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS), University of Oxford
Theme 3: How do we get there?
James shaw, new zealand minister of climate change
In order to achieve net zero by 2050, New Zealand has delivered their first ever cross government action plan, a climate change response zero carbon bill, and is in the process of fixing the ETS and reducing agricultural emissions. The Government has taken up more than half of the Parliamentary Commission’s recommendations, which resulted in establishing an independent climate change commission to set clear targets for net zero. The zero carbon bill limits warming to 1.5C, reduces all GHGs except biogenic methane to zero by 2050, includes legislation for climate change adaptation, and ensures that emissions will be 10% below 2007 levels by 2030.
Session 8: What policy developments and financial incentives are required to achieve net zero?
How can policy be developed in a way that appropriately incentivises timely investment in reductions in emissions, removal of carbon dioxide, and/or both reductions and removal from the atmosphere? How can these relevant policy designs be effectively implemented and what are the techno-economic, social and institutional challenges and opportunities in doing so in different country and trans-national contexts? How might proposed approaches be appropriately incentivised at the different stages of research, development, demonstration and deployment for both emissions reduction and emissions removal?
Speakers:
Dr Radhika Khosla, Research Director of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development at Somerville College, University of Oxford
Bjorn Haugstad, Director General of the Department of Climate, Industry and Technology in the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, Norway
David Hawkins, Director, Climate Policy, Clean and Clean Energy Program, USA
Jessica Strefler, Researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Germany
Jamie Clarke, Executive Director, Climate Outreach, United Kingdom
Session 9: How Can we enhance ambition towards sustainable net zero?
While a number of countries have a stated policy of achieving Net Zero there is a lack of clarity as to what is meant by Net Zero and few details as to timelines. This session looked ahead to the global stocktake in 2020 and asked what it will take to enhance ambition towards Net Zero in the context of sustainable development – increasing the number of countries making such a commitment and refining the scope and timeline for the achievement of this objective.
Speakers:
Clare Shakya, Director of IIED’s Climate Change Group, United Kingdom
Jonathan Scurlock, Chief Policy Adviser, Renewable Energy and Climate Change National Farmers’ Union, Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire
Rebecca Heaton, Head of Climate Change, Drax
Barry Gardiner, Shadow Minister (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) (Energy and Climate Change), United Kingdom
Achieving Net Zero Town Hall Meeting
This meeting allowed members of the public to hear and pose questions to key participants of Achieving Net Zero.
Speakers:
Amory Lovins, Cofounder and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute, USA
David Hone, Chief Climate Advisor for Shell, United Kingdom
Radhika Khosla, Research Director of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development, University of Oxford
EJ Fawcett, Oxford Youth School Strikes for Climate
This event is summarised in briefing note 12.
Steering Committee Members:
Roger Aines1, Myles Allen2, Katherine Calvin3, Sarah Darby2, Nick Eyre2, Dave Frame4, Jan Sigurd Fuglestvedt5, Stuart Haszeldine6, Gideon Henderson2, Cameron Hepburn2, Matthew Ives2, Radhika Khosla2, Tim Kruger2, Lavanya Rajamani7, Nathalie Seddon2, Clare Shakya8, Pete Smith9, Phil Williamson10, Charlie Wilson11
Conference Administrator: Heather Waller2, Amber Prime2
Affiliations
1. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; 2. University of Oxford; 3. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; 4. Victoria University of Wellington; 5. CICERO; 6. University of Edinburgh; 7. Centre for Policy Research; 8. International Institute for Environment and Development; 9. University of Aberdeen; 10. Natural Environment Research Council; 11. University of East Anglia
Speakers
Co-founder and Chief Scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute
Physicist Amory Lovins is cofounder and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute; energy advisor to major firms and governments in 65+ countries for 40+ years; author of 31 books and more than 600 papers; and an integrative designer of superefficient buildings, factories, and vehicles. He has received the Blue Planet, Volvo, Zayed, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell Prizes, the MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, the Happold, Benjamin Franklin, and Spencer Hutchens Medals, 12 honorary doctorates, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Right Livelihood (“alternative Nobel”), National Design, and World Technology Awards. In 2016, the President of Germany awarded him the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit.
Myles Allen
Professor of Geosystem Science in the Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment and Department of Physics, University of Oxford
Myles Allen is Professor of Geosystem Science in the Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment and Department of Physics, University of Oxford, and Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Climate Pollutants. His research focuses on how human and natural influences on climate contribute to observed climate change and risks of extreme weather and in quantifying their implications for long-range climate forecasts. He was a Coordinating Lead Author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on 1.5 degrees, having previously served on the IPCC’s 3rd, 4th and 5th Assessments, including the Synthesis Report Core Writing Team in 2014.
He proposed the use of Probabilistic Event Attribution to quantify the contribution of human and other external influences on climate to specific individual weather events and leads the www.climateprediction.net project, using distributed computing to run the world’s largest ensemble climate modelling experiments.
Rupert Read
Reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia
Rupert Read is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, an author, a blogger, and a climate and environmental campaigner. Most recently, he has been a frequent spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion and a member of their political liaison team. This has involved meetings with senior politicians from across the political spectrum; including the environment secretary and shadow chancellor. He has also represented Extinction Rebellion on national radio and television, including on Radio 4’s Today Program and on the BBC’s Politics Live.
Jan S. Fuglestvedt
Research Director, Cicero
Dr. Jan S. Fuglestvedt is Research Director at CICERO. He holds a PhD in atmospheric chemistry from the University of Oslo. He has centered his research on modelling of atmospheric and climatic impacts of different human activities, in particular the climate impacts of the transport sectors. He has also contributed to research on carbon budgets as well as the effects of short-lived climate forcers and their potential role in mitigation strategies.
He is member of Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment’s Climate Advisory Board. He was Lead Author in IPCC AR5 Working Group I and Member of the Core Writing Team for the AR5 Synthesis Report. In October 2015 Fuglestvedt was elected Vice-Chair of IPCC Working Group I.
Richard Millar
Senior Analyst for Climate Science at the Committee on Climate Change
Richard is the Senior Analyst for Climate Science at the Committee on Climate Change, the official independent advisory body to the UK government on reducing emissions and adapting to the risks of climate change. Prior to joining the Committee on Climate Change, Richard worked at the interface of climate science and policy as a post-doc researcher, including on the recent IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C as a chapter scientist for Chapter 1 and a contributing author to Chapters 2, 3 and the Summary for Policymakers. Richard holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford in atmospheric physics.
Heleen van Soest
International Climate Policy Researcher with PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
Heleen van Soest is an international climate policy researcher with PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and holds a Master of Science in Climate Studies. She has been working on projects for the European Commission, supporting DG Climate Action, as well as the Horizon 2020 project CD-LINKS. She further jointly manages the COMMIT project. This work involves providing DG Climate Action with scientific input for the climate negotiations, e.g. a report about greenhouse gas emissions neutrality and a policy brief for the Talanoa Dialogue. It further includes evaluating national climate and energy policies by quantifying their expected effect on greenhouse gas emissions until 2030 and comparing them to international emission reduction pledges (most notably NDCs).
She has co-authored reports presenting these results, and presented them at various COP and SBSTA sessions. Her work further involves developing 2 °C-consistent scenarios starting from these policies and NDCs, using PBL’s IMAGE model, as well as equity-based scenarios. In addition, she analyses and compares country-level energy system and emission pathways from both global and national mitigation scenarios, including their implications for and links with other sustainable development goals. Finally, she has mapped which SDG targets and interactions can be quantified by integrated assessment models.
Duncan McLaren
Visiting Researcher at Linköping University, Sweden, and Professor in Practice and Research Fellow at Lancaster University
Duncan McLaren is a visiting researcher at Linköping University, Sweden, and Professor in Practice and Research Fellow at Lancaster University, where he examines the interactions between greenhouse gas removal and emissions reduction in climate policy. His PhD, completed in 2017, examined the justice implications of geoengineering. He is also a freelance researcher and writer on issues including justice, sustainability, cities, climate change and energy. In his previous career, Duncan worked as an environmental researcher and campaigner, most recently as Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland from 2003 to 2011.
Carl-Friedrich Schleussner
Head of Climate Science and Impacts at Climate Analytics, Berlin
Dr. Carl-Friedrich Schleussner is Head of Climate Science and Impacts at Climate Analytics, Berlin. He has longstanding expertise in climate modelling and climate impact science, multi-year experience in providing scientific advice at the climate-policy interface including as a science advisor to small islands states in the UNFCCC process. Carl’s publication record spans a wide range from climate extreme and climate impact projections including water availability and food production to tipping elements and societal implications of climate change. Over the recent years, Carl work has focused on the Paris Agreement and its 1.5°C degree warming limit. Carl also leads a research group at Humboldt University Berlin on Barriers to Climate Adaptation and Loss and Damage.
Dr Ella Adlen
Research and Programmes Manager, Oxford Martin School
Dr Ella Adlen is responsible for the active management of the School’s research portfolio and for the co-ordination of new funding applications. Ella is involved in the School’s Restatements series, and in other areas of evidence synthesis.
Zakia Soomauroo
Doctoral Student at the Chair of Economics of Climate Change Studies of the Technical University of Berlin
Zakia Soomauroo is a doctoral student at the Chair of Economics of Climate Change Studies of the Technical University of Berlin, working under the supervision of Prof. Felix Creutzig. Her research is broadly concerned with the dimensions of socio-technical transitions, the mobility of people, and climate change, with a focus on urban environments and small islands. In particular, she looks at how infrastructure investments and policies can be most effectively implemented in order to achieve the global sustainable development goals. She is also a member of the Off-grid Systems research unit at the Reiner Lemoine Institut in Berlin, where she combines her research with practical applications in small-island states.
Prior to her doctoral studies, Zakia spent four years at the VDI/VDE-IT in Berlin with a focus on the technical and legislative governance of the electric mobility roll-out at a Pan-European level. She holds an MSc in Industrial and Network Economics from the TU Berlin, an MSc in Landscape Ecology and Nature Conservation from the University of Greifswald as well as a BSc in Law and Economics from NYU.
Dr Kate Dooley
Political Scientist, University of Melbourne
Kate is a political scientist whose research focuses on environmental politics, and specifically the politics of carbon accounting in the forests and land-use sector. She is a Research Fellow in the Climate and Energy College at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests focus on the environmental integrity of terrestrial carbon accounting, and the justice and equity implications of land-based climate mitigation, including sustainable limits to the use of ‘negative emissions’.
Professor Pete Smith
Professor of Soils and Global Change at the Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland, UK)
Professor Pete Smith is Professor of Soils and Global Change at the Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland, UK) and Science Director of the Scottish Climate Change Centre of Expertise (ClimateXChange). He has served in various roles for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). His main interests are in climate change mitigation and impacts, soils, agriculture, bioenergy, food security, greenhouse gases, ecosystem services and ecosystem modelling. He is a former member of Defra’s Science Advisory Council, and a current member of DfID’s Science Advisory Group and the Global Food Security Science Advisory Board and has been an advisor to the Committee on Climate Change.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, a Fellow of the Institute of Soil Scientists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, a Fellow of the European Science Academy, and a Fellow of the Royal Society (London). He has published >450 peer-reviewed journal papers with total citations of >26000 and has an H-index (WoK) of 84 (112 on GS). He has been a Highly Cited Researcher each year since 2015.
Shilpi Srivastava
Research Fellow, Resource Politics at Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex
Dr. Shilpi Srivastava is a Research Fellow based with the Resource Politics cluster at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex. She is also an affiliate member of the Health and Nutrition Cluster at the Institute. Trained as a political scientist, Shilpi has over 9 years of experience of working in the fields of water policy processes, access, regulation and rights to water. In her research, Shilpi uses the lens of water to understand issues of power and patterns of authority to explore spaces of justice, rights and accountability, and the politics of intersectoral collaboration. Her current research focuses on understanding and bringing together diverse perceptions on climatic uncertainty in India; decision-making and intermediary politics under uncertainty; and examining the political economy of air pollution in India and China. Shilpi has a PhD from Sussex (UK) and an MPhil and MA from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India.
Jo House
Reader in Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Bristol
Jo House is a Reader in Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Bristol, UK. She is research co-lead for the Global Environmental Change at Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment, is director for the MSc in Climate Change Science and Policy, and is founding Co-Chair of the Bristol Advisory Committee on Climate Change.
Jo specialises in land and climate interactions, including emissions of carbon dioxide from land use change (e.g. deforestation), and climate mitigation potential from the land (e.g. afforestation, bioenergy). She also specialises in climate policy, was recently seconded for a year to the Government Office for Science as Head of Climate Advice, and regularly gives advice to the UK Government, Bristol City Council and other organisations.
She has been a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (who shared the Nobel Prize in 2007) in all three working groups of the IPCC (Science, Impacts, and Mitigation), the Special Report on Climate Change and Land, as well as for the IPCC methodologies for greenhouse gas inventories. She was a convening lead author on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and a lead author on the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils.
Nathalie Seddon
Professor of Biodiversity at the University of Oxford
Nathalie Seddon is Professor of Biodiversity at the University of Oxford with broad interests in understanding the origins and maintenance of biodiversity and its relationship with global change. An evolutionary ecologist by training, her research now focusses on determining the ecological and socioeconomic effectiveness of nature-based solutions to climate change, 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 Senior Associate of the International Institute for Environment and Development and a Senior Fellow of the Oxford Martin School.
Sarah Darby
Acting Leader of the Environmental Change Institute’s Energy Programme at the University of Oxford
Dr. Sarah Darby is acting leader of the Environmental Change Institute’s Energy Programme at the University of Oxford. She interprets energy systems in socio-technical terms and their environmental impact as an outcome of interactions between human activity and expectations, technologies, rules, formal knowledge and practical know-how. Her research has included evaluating the effectiveness of energy advice programmes and the role of consumption feedback in energy systems, assessing prospects for reducing the carbon impact of housing, evaluation of the GB smart metering programme, analysis of community energy projects, and assessment of the potential for distributed demand response in electricity systems. Sarah holds a BSc in Ecological Science from Edinburgh University, a Diploma in Planning from Oxford Polytechnic and a doctorate from Oxford University (Awareness, action and feedback in domestic energy use).
Barbara Hammond
CEO, Low Carbon Hub
From 2000 until 2010, Dr Barbara Hammond was in Government, heading up the UK’s renewable energy programme. During this time she set up the first capital grants programmes to support renewable energy technologies. Prior to this she worked with Sir David King to help influence international partners on climate change in the run up to the UK presidency of the G8 and the EU in 2005.
Since 2008 Barbara has been involved in community energy groups in her own neighbourhood, helping to bring projects like Osney Lock Hydro and Matthew Arnold School’s solar PV project to fruition. In 2010, Oxford City Council asked Barbara to explore the potential for growing community-led energy through social enterprise. This became the Low Carbon Hub which was launched in December 2011.
She was awarded an MBE in the 2015 New Year’s Honours List for services to community energy development, particularly in Oxfordshire.
Gunner Luderer
Leader, Energy Systems Group at PIK and Lead Scientist for the REMIND Integrated Energy Economy Climate Model
Gunnar Luderer leads the Energy Systems Group at PIK, and is the Lead Scientist for the REMIND Integrated Energy Economy Climate Model. He also serves as Deputy Chair of Research Department III – Transformation Pathways, and will start a Professorship in Energy Systems Analysis at the Technical University of Berlin in September 2019. His current research foci include on deep decarbonization pathways of energy systems, renewable energy and electrification, as well as environmental co-benefits and adverse side effects of climate change mitigation. Gunnar was a lead author of the 2013 and 2018 UNEP Emissions Gap Reports, and contributed to the Fifth Assessment Report, the Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources as well as the Special Report on Warming of 1.5°C of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Gunnar studied Physics, Economics and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Heidelberg and Oregon State University, and performed his doctoral studies at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz.
Professor Nick Eyre
Director of the UK Centre for Research on Energy Demand
Nick Eyre is Professor of Energy and Climate Policy at the University of Oxford and Director of Energy Research for the University. Since April 2018, he has been Director of the major UKRI investment on energy use, the Centre for Research on Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS).
Nick has 30 years’ experience in energy and climate policy. Previous roles include Energy Programme leader in the Environmental Change Institute of the University of Oxford, Co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre, and Director of Strategy of the Energy Saving Trust. He is a member of Ofgem’s Sustainable Development Advisory Group and a Fellow of the Energy Institute.
Nick’s main research interest is the role of changing energy demand in the energy transition. He was a lead author of the ‘Buildings’ Chapter of the Mitigation Report of 5th Assessment of the IPCC, and is a review editor of the chapter on energy demand and energy services in the 6th Assessment. He was a co-author of the UK Government’s 2002 Review of Energy Policy, and lead author of the research that underpinned the first UK shadow price of carbon.
Fredric Bauer
Postdoctoral Fellow at Environmental and Energy Systems Studies, Lund University, Sweden
Fredric Bauer is a postdoctoral fellow at Environmental and Energy Systems Studies, Lund University. He holds an MSc in Sustainable energy systems from Chalmers University of Technology and defended his PhD thesis “Innovation for biorefineries – Networks, narratives, and new institutions for the transition to a bioeconomy” at Lund University in 2018. He conducts research on low-carbon innovation in heavy industries, currently with a focus on plastics, with a particular interest in the role of collaboration and networks within and across industries and value chains.
He is part of the EU H2020 research project Realising Innovation in Transitions for Decarbonisation (REINVENT) and the Swedish research programme Sustainable Plastics and Transition Pathways (STEPS).
David Hone
Chief Climate Change Adviser in the Shell Scenarios Team
David Hone works for Shell International Ltd. and is the Chief Climate Change Adviser in the Shell Scenarios Team. He joined Shell in 1980 after graduating as a Chemical Engineer from the University of Adelaide in Australia. He has worked in refinery technology, oil trading and shipping areas for Shell.
David is a board member of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), was Chairman of IETA from 2011-2013 and is a board member of C2ES in Washington and GCCSI in Melbourne.
David is a regular climate blogger and is the author of a recent book on climate change, ‘Putting the Genie Back: Solving the Climate and Energy Dilemma’.
Dr Phil Renforth
Associate Professor at Heriot-Watt University and an Associate Director of the Research Centre for Carbon Solutions
Dr. Phil Renforth is an Associate Professor at Heriot-Watt University and an Associate Director of the Research Centre for Carbon Solutions. His research investigates methods of atmospheric CO2 removal through reaction with rocks and minerals. His published work includes enhanced weathering, ocean alkalinity carbon storage, soil inorganic carbon, waste materials, global resource potential and technoeconomic assessment.
He currently leads the UKRI funded research project investigating greenhouse gas removal in the iron and steel industry which considers the reaction of carbon dioxide with alkaline waste materials. He is also a member of the UKRI funded GGREW consortium which explores, among other things, the impact of enhanced weathering on ocean biogeochemistry. He is Speciality Chief Editor for the journal Frontiers in Climate: Negative Emission Technologies the world’s first dedicated publication on Greenhouse Gas Removal.
Andrew Cavanagh
Principal Researcher, Statoil
Andrew Cavanagh is a geologist with a Ph.D. in petroleum systems analysis and reservoir diagenesis. He has worked as a senior scientist at Statoil and Halliburton. Post-doctoral research at GFZ Potsdam on ice sheets and petroleum systems in the Arctic as natural climate change drivers sparked an interest in CO2 storage models. He is currently working on an EU Horizon 2020 project to strategically plan the development of CCUS in Southern and Eastern Europe.
Andrew R. Barron
Sêr Cymru Chair of Low Carbon Energy and Environment at Swansea University
Andrew R. Barron is a British chemist, academic, and entrepreneur. He is the Sêr Cymru Chair of Low Carbon Energy and Environment at Swansea University, and the Charles W. Duncan Jr.-Welch Foundation Chair in Chemistry at Rice University Texas. He is the founder and director of Energy Safety Research Institute (ESRI) at Swansea University, which consolidates the energy research at the University with a focus on environmental impact and future security. At Rice University, he leads a Research Group and has served as Associate Dean for Industry Interactions and Technology Transfer. Barron has received several awards for his research and work. He received the Humboldt Senior Scientist Research Award in 1997, the Welch Foundation Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research in 2002 and the Lifetime Achievement Award by Houston Technology Center in Nanotechnology in 2011. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry
Professor Lavanya Rajamani
Professor of International Environmental Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford
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 is an expert in the field of international environmental and climate change law. She has authored several books and articles in this field. Her latest co-authored book, International Climate Change Law (OUP, 2017), won the 2018 ASIL Certificate of Merit in a Specialized Area of International Law. She delivered a prestigious Hague Academy Special Course on the International Climate Change Regime in July 2018, which will feature in the Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law, under the title, Innovation and Experimentation in the International Climate Change Regime. She serves as Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. She has also served as Rapporteur of the ILA Committee on Legal Principles Relating to Climate Change (2008-2014) and as a consultant to the UNFCCC Secretariat, a negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, and a legal adviser to the Chairs of Ad Hoc Working Groups under the FCCC. She was part of the UNFCCC core drafting and advisory team for the Paris Agreement.
Andrew Higham
Ecologist and Political Strategist
Andrew Higham is an Australian ecologist and political strategist. He was born in Fremantle, Western Australia in 1972. His diverse career spans roles leading bioregional planning, water policy, marine parks and conservation initiatives, as a political advisor to various Australian politicians, as the Vice President and then Strategies Director for the Australian Conservation Foundation, as International Climate Policy Expert at the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, and as senior advisor and manager within the United Nations responsible for the drafting of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and the strategy for its successful adoption in 2015. He edited and contributed as an author to one of the defining books on the Paris Agreement, published by Oxford University Press in 2016. In 2016, he co-founded Mission 2020 with Christiana Figueres, a global campaign that has injected urgency on climate action and ensured that 2020 will become the next major political moment to address the climate emergency. He is managing director of Plexus Strategy and a Visiting Fellow Of Practice at the Oxford University Blavatnik School of Government.
MJ Mace
Lawyer and Independent Consultant
MJ Mace is a lawyer and independent consultant. She has been involved in the international climate change negotiations for close to 20 years, providing support to the Alliance of Small Island States on the delegations of Micronesia and Saint Lucia. She has served as a spokesperson for AOSIS on many different issues over the years, including on adaptation, loss and damage, the Kyoto Protocol and its rule set, and market-based instruments under the Paris Agreement. MJ began her career practicing environmental law and international trade law for a large private law firm. She subsequently served as General Counsel to the Supreme Court of the Federated States of Micronesia, Assistant Attorney General for the Federated States of Micronesia, and then headed the Climate Change and Energy Programme at the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development in London. From 2011 to 2014 she taught the LLM course on Climate Change Law and Policy at SOAS University of London. She holds a BA from Yale and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.
Claire Fyson
Research Analyst at Climate Analytics
Claire is a research analyst at Climate Analytics, where she provides scientific support to Small Island Developing States during the climate change negotiations under the UNFCCC and IPCC. She also works on projects relating to carbon dioxide removal and land-based mitigation.
Before joining Climate Analytics, Claire worked for the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in the PRIMAP Emissions Team, where her work centred around analysing the mitigation components of the INDCs, with particular focus on the land use sector. She has also worked as a policy analyst in a sustainability consultancy in London (the Carbon Trust), and as a trainee at the European Commission (energy and environment unit of the Secretariat General).
She holds an MSci in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, with focus on geological sciences, and an MSc in Environmental Change and Management from the University of Oxford.
Cleo Verkuijl
Researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute
Cleo Verkuijl is a researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute, based in Oxford. Her research focuses on legal and political dimensions of international climate change governance; including ways to increase international ambition and action to address the supply of fossil fuels. Also, a team leader and writer for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, she has published on a range of UN processes, such as climate, ozone, and forests. Cleo has previously worked for the UN Environment Programme in Brussels, and was a policy officer with the NGO network Climate Action Network International during the Paris climate negotiations. She holds an LL.M in Global Environment and Climate Law.
Janos Pasztor
Executive Director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G)
Janos Pasztor (a Hungarian and a Swiss citizen) is Carnegie Council senior fellow and executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G). He has four decades of work experience in the areas of energy, environment, climate change, and sustainable development. Before taking up his current assignment he was UN assistant secretary-general for climate change in New York under Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Earlier, he was acting executive director for conservation (2014) and policy and science director (2012-2014) at WWF International. He directed the UNSG’s Climate Change Support Team (2008-2010) and later was executive secretary of the UNSG’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability (2010-2012). In 2007 he directed the Geneva-based UN Environment Management Group (EMG). During 1993-2006 he worked, and over time held many responsibilities at the Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC), initially in Geneva and later in Bonn.
He has BSc and MSc degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Thomas Hale
Associate Professor in Public Policy (Global Public Policy), Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford
Dr. 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 globalization and interdependence, with a particular emphasis on environmental and economic issues. He holds a PhD in Politics from Princeton University, a masters 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).
Tom Hayes
Oxford City Council’s Cabinet Member for a Zero Carbon Oxford
Tom is Oxford City Council’s Cabinet Member for a Zero Carbon Oxford. In this role, he leads the development of the Council’s journey to be Zero Carbon by 2030 and develops partnerships with emitters who make up 99% of the city’s overall total. Tom has worked to set up the city’s Citizens’ Assembly for dealing with climate change and leads delivery of the Zero Emission Zone.
Away from the Council, Tom is Chief Executive of Elmore Community Services, a charity which works directly with people with people with several overlapping problems at the same time, who struggle to engage with services, so slip through cracks within existing support networks. In this role, he serves as a chair of the Oxfordshire Anti-Slavery Network.
Previously Tom has worked at the local mental health charity Restore, the global humanitarian aid charity Oxfam GB, and the disability charity Scope. He holds degrees from the Universities of Manchester and Cambridge and previously held a Fellowship at Yale University.
Tom is a councillor for St Clement’s Ward. First elected in 2014, re-elected in 2018, he lives in the ward he represents and is a Governor at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and East Oxford Primary School.
Galina Alova
DPhil Candidate, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford
Galina is working towards her DPhil degree under the direction of Dr Ben Caldecott of the Sustainable Finance Programme and Prof Cameron Hepburn of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. She focuses on the transition of incumbent electricity companies to renewable energy and away from fossil fuel-based power generation. In her research, Galina has a keen interest in employing quantitative methods and, in particular, advanced analytics.
Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked at the OECD in Paris on the policy issues at the nexus of climate change, natural resource management and development finance. Her experience also includes serving in the Government of Namibia, advising the Minister and Permanent Secretary of industrialisation and trade on key policy decisions. She started her career as an economist at the UK Department for Communities and Local Government, and in the Chief Economic Adviser’s Office of the Scottish Government.
Galina holds an MPhil in spatial economics and urban planning from the University of Cambridge and MA in economics from the University of Glasgow.
Margot Pellegrino
Assistant Professor in Spatial Planning and Urbanism at the Lab’Urba laboratory at Université Paris Est Marne la Vallée
Margot Pellegrino is assistant professor in spatial planning and urbanism at the Lab’Urba laboratory at Université Paris Est Marne la Vallée. She works on energy issues in urban and spatial planning. She is in charge of the vocational degree in Assistant Project Management in Spatial Planning and of the Masters 2 program in Sustainable Urban Development.
She is an elected member (2015-2019) of the National Universities Council for section 24 (Urbanism and Urban Planning). She is joint head of the “City and Energy” working group at Labex Futurs Urbains, which works on issues of decentralisation, energy autonomy and energy systems.
Kathy Mulvey
Accountability Campaign Director, Climate & Energy Program, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)
Kathy leads strategic development of UCS’s climate corporate accountability campaign, guides engagement with corporate targets, conducts research and analysis, builds national and international coalitions, and mobilizes experts and supporters. Kathy has designed and led corporate accountability initiatives, programs, and campaigns since 1989. Prior to joining UCS, Kathy was the executive director of the EIRIS Conflict Risk Network of institutional investors. She worked with public pension funds, university endowments and other stakeholders calling on companies to support peace and stability in areas affected by genocide and mass atrocities. Before that, Kathy worked with Corporate Accountability International for two decades, serving as both executive director and international policy director. In her volunteer capacity, she chairs the Socially Responsible Investing Committee for the Unitarian Universalist Association and serves on the Board of Grassroots International.
Dr Matthew Ives
Senior Research Officer in Complex Systems Economic Modelling
Dr Matthew Ives is an economist and complex systems modeller currently working at Oxford University on the Oxford Martin Post-Carbon Transition Programme. This cutting-edge research programme is focussed on developing solutions to climate change through an understanding of sensitive intervention points in our socioeconomic systems that can enable rapid reductions in emissions. Through this programme Matthew is developing a suite of economic models based on complexity science, combining his experience in systems modelling with his passion for sustainability.
Dr Ives has previously worked both in the private and public sectors on a diverse range of programmes related to sustainability on land, air and sea. His past research ventures have included assessing national decarbonisation pathways in the UK; modelling long-term infrastructure strategies for water, energy, waste and transport for the UK and the United Nations; working on sustainability indicators for the US Forest service; and modelling fisheries in Australia. He has also spent a number of years as a professional software developer.
Matthew holds an Honours degree in Economics, a Masters of environmental management, and a PhD in systems modelling. He is an Oxford Martin Fellow, a Research Member of Wolfson College Oxford, and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Professor Henry Shue
Senior Research Fellow, Centre for International Studies, Oxford
Henry Shue was the co-founder of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland (1976 – 1987), the inaugural Hutchinson Professor of Ethics & Public Life at Cornell University (1987 – 2002), and Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford (2002 – 2007). Now he is a Senior Research Fellow, Centre for International Studies, Oxford. Best known for Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton 1980; 2nd ed., 1996), he published his first two decades of writings on climate change as Climate Justice: Vulnerability and Protection (OUP 2014). His articles on the morality of violence appeared as Fighting Hurt: Rule and Exception in Torture and War (OUP 2016), and he recently co-edited Climate Justice: Integrating Economics and Philosophy (OUP 2019) with development economist Ravi Kanbur. Currently he is writing a series of articles on the urgency of action on climate change in light of duties of justice to future generations, including ‘The Pivotal Generation: Why Us Now?’ posted on SSRN.
Celeste Renaud
Postgraduate Student at Environmental Change Institute
Celeste Renaud is a South African postgraduate student at the Environmental Change Institute, currently reading for an MSc in Environmental Change and Management. She completed her undergraduate degree in Environmental and Atmospheric Science at the University of Cape Town in 2017 and continued to work as a research assistant on a project related to water and energy governance in Southern African cities.
Celeste has always had a keen interest in renewable energy technologies and enabling policies in emerging economies such as South Africa, which remains heavily reliant on coal-fired power. Her undergraduate research served as a contribution to the Wind Atlas South Africa Project, which maps out high wind energy zones in the country. She was thrilled to embark on a master’s degree at Oxford University where she has been exposed to global dynamics in carbon mitigation strategies and the complexities involved in meeting carbon emissions targets. Celeste’s current research focuses on the political dynamics of energy reform and questions of equity and justice in carbon mitigation strategies for South Africa.
Professor Dave Frame
Director of the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute (NZCCRI) at Victoria University of Wellington
Professor Dave Frame is Director of the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute (NZCCRI) at Victoria University of Wellington. He has a background in physics, philosophy, economics, history, and policy. Prior to joining the NZCCRI Dave worked at the University of Oxford in the Departments of Physics and Geography, and at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. He has worked at the New Zealand Treasury and the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change. He has been a Lead Author on the Fifth and Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Dave’s work focuses on the boundary between science and policy. Recent work has focused on issues surrounding the comparison of short- and long-lived greenhouse gases, quantifying the fraction of costs of natural disasters that are attributable to climate change, patterns of emergence of climate change signals above background noise, and issues to do with planetary risks and public goods.
Dr Oliver Geden
Head of the EU Research Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and Research Associate at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS), University of Oxford
Dr Oliver Geden is Head of the EU Research Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and Research Associate at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS), University of Oxford. His work focuses on European and global climate policy, including the governance of carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management. Geden has been a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of California Berkeley, among others. During his time at SWP he has been seconded to the policy planning units of both the Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. Recently, Geden has been selected as lead author for the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR6), Working Group III.
Dr Radhika Khosla
Research Director of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development at Somerville College
Dr Radhika Khosla is the Research Director of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development at Somerville College, and a Senior Researcher at the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, School of Geography and the Environment, at the University of Oxford. Radhika works on examining the productive tensions between urban transitions, energy services consumption and climate change, with a focus on developing country cities. As Principal Investigator, she leads the Oxford Martin School interdisciplinary and multi-country programme on the Future of Cooling.
Her previous academic affiliations include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), University of Pennsylvania (USA), the Centre for Policy Research (India), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (USA). She serves on government policy committees, and boards of journals and book presses. Radhika holds a PhD in the Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago and an undergraduate and master’s degrees in Physics from the University of Oxford.
Bjørn Haugstad
Director General of the Department of Climate, Industry and Technology in the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy
Bjørn Haugstad is the Director General of the Department of Climate, Industry and Technology in the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. The department is also responsible for the Norwegian full-scale project on Carbon Capture and Storage (see https://ccsnorway.com/). From 2001 to 2005 he served in Kjell-Magne Bondevik’s Second Cabinet as a State Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Research. He was later research director at the University of Oslo from 2009 to 2013, then briefly Director General in the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. He again became State Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Research with designated responsibility for higher education and research policy. October 2013 – February 2018, in Erna Solberg’s Cabinet.
Bjørn holds a master’s degree in Industrial Economics and Technology Management from NTNU in Trondheim, and a DPhil from University of Oxford, with thesis on strategy realization in knowledge intensive organizations.
David Hawkins
Director, Climate Policy, Clean and Clean Energy Program
David Hawkins joined the nascent NRDC in 1971 and has been with it ever since, minus the four years he spent working at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Carter administration. Upon his return, he dedicated much of his time to getting an improved Clean Air Act reauthorized by Congress in 1990. Hawkins then served as director of NRDC’s Air & Energy program for 11 years until assuming directorship of the organization’s Climate Center in 2001. With expertise in advanced coal technologies and carbon dioxide capture and storage, Hawkins served as a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Climate Change Science Program Product Development Advisory Committee. He is a graduate of the Columbia University School of Law. He is based in NRDC’s New York office.
Jessica Strefler
Researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
Jessica Strefler is a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). She studied physics in Heidelberg, Hamburg, and Berlin and earned her doctorate at the TU Berlin on the topic of non-CO2 emissions in global energy systems. She joined PIK in 2009 where she is a developer of the hybrid energy-economy model REMIND and leads the research on carbon management. Her current research is focused on the influence of different carbon dioxide removal technologies on global climate change mitigation strategies, and on carbon capture use and storage (CCUS).
Jamie Clarke
Executive Director, Climate Outreach
Jamie is motivated by the importance of enabling climate change to be something everyone cares about rather than backs away from. He sees deep and effective public engagement as being fundamental to addressing climate change. He has extensive experience working with academics, government departments, international bodies, NGOs, businesses and community groups. Having been an advocate and educator for many years, Jamie understands that traditional climate messages tend to turn people off rather than engage them but that practical interventions based on social research is pivotal to reversing this trend. He is the co-author, with Adam Corner, of ‘Talking Climate: From Research to Practice in Public Engagement’, published in November 2016.
Clare Shakya
Director of IIED’s Climate Change Group
Clare Shakya is the Director of IIED’s Climate Change Group. She has over 25 years of experience in development, in climate, energy and natural resources. Previously she spent 15 years with DFID, leading the integration of climate change thinking and finance into DFID’s development interventions in Asia and Africa Divisions. She is interested in politically astute, agile processes that learn iteratively about how to support a just transformation to a climate positive future.
Clare is responsible for the oversight of the propositional research of IIED’s climate change group into climate action that is far-reaching, far-sighted and socially just. She works with the group on: getting climate finance to where it matters most, to the local level in support poor people’s priorities for climate positive action; on the governance of risk and mechanisms to tackle the compounding risk for the poorest; and on building southern capabilities to end the culture of fly in fly out technical assistance. She supports the LDC climate group develop their 2050 vision, long term strategies and the LDC initiative for effective adaptation and resilience – exploring how to develop institutional mechanisms that can support resilient development at country scale and to leapfrog to a modern distributed smart grid.
Dr Jonathan Scurlock
Chief Policy Adviser, Renewable Energy and Climate Change National Farmers’ Union, Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire
A senior policy adviser with the NFU since 2007, Jonathan Scurlock leads on analysis and advice about energy and climate change to the NFU’s management, office holders and members. Dr Scurlock’s background is in university and government research, covering energy and climate change policy, plant physiology, all kinds of biomass fuels, bio-based products and other renewable energy technologies. He worked previously on renewable energy with regional and local government in North East England, as well as for the US Department of Energy in Tennessee. The author of more than 50 research papers and book chapters, he was educated at Oxford and London Universities, and is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Open University. His international experience encompasses more than 30 countries.
Dr Rebecca Heaton
Head of Climate Change, Drax
Dr Rebecca Heaton is responsible for Drax Group’s efforts to mitigate climate change, ensuring that sound science underpins climate change polices and business strategy. She is also responsible for developing sustainability and climate change research programmes. She has a 20 year global career working at the interface between business, science and policy. After an early career in academia, she has held senior roles in a number of large energy companies. A Chartered Forester, her expertise spans energy, climate change and land-use, the interaction between them and the role business has to play in enabling the UK to decarbonise. In 2017 she was appointed to the UK Committee on Climate Change, the first business appointee to this committee which acts as an independent advisor to government.
Barry Gardiner
Shadow Minister (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) (Energy and Climate Change)
Barry Gardiner is a Labour Party politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade since 2016, and has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Brent North since 1997.
Gardiner served under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as a junior minister in the Northern Ireland Office, the Department for Productivity, Energy and Industry, the Department of Trade and Industry and finally in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.