News

Satellites Are Helping the Municipal-Bond Market Assess Climate Risk

The potential financial applications for satellite technology led researchers at the Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme to coin the term "spatial finance" and to launch an initiative last year with groups like the Green Finance Institute to foster the use of geospatial data in markets.

IN THE MEDIA

Prof Myles Allen's scientific life profiled on BBC Radio 4

On 'The Life Scientific' Myles Allen tells Jim Al-Khalili how our ability to predict climate change has evolved from the early days, when scientists had to rely on the combined computing power of hundreds of thousands of personal computers. He sheds light on how the IPCC works and explains why, he believes, fossil fuel industries must be forced to clean up the carbon dioxide that they emit - a plausible solution, he says, to the "deeply solvable problem" of human-induced climate change.

IN THE MEDIA

Climate Assembly UK

Nick Eyre joined the UK's first nationwide citizens' assembly on climate change to provide expert information on heat and energy use in the home. Five other members of the Oxford-led Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDs) also provided advice. Climate Assembly UK brings together over 100 members from all walks of life and of all shades of opinion to discuss how the UK should achieve net zero.

IN THE MEDIA

Going freelance

A study from Zurich and the Smith School on agile workforce has found that 38 percent of respondents in Malaysia who are currently in full-time employment are looking to enter the gig economy in the next 12 months. Globally, an average of 20 percent of the workforce plan to go freelance.

IN THE MEDIA

Do Carbon Offsets Really Work? It Depends on the Details

Purchasing carbon offsets "is clearly better than doing nothing," Cameron Hepburn tells Wired. But key considerations include the need for companies to already be reducing emissions and assurance that offsets aren't replacing other actions.

IN THE MEDIA

A brief history of electric cars

The idea that electric vehicles, or 'EVs', are new is thoroughly misguided. In a video for The Times, Tim Schwanen explains the history of the EV, from its birth in the early 1800s through to the climate emergency today, being touted "an important part of the future of urban mobility". However, he explains, to make our transport systems truly sustainable "we will need to move away from owned vehicles towards walking, cycling and public transport".

IN THE MEDIA

Rewilding the Arctic could stop permafrost thaw and reduce climate change risks

A new paper from the School of Geography and the Environment, and the Environmental Change Institute, suggests that wide-scale introduction of large herbivores to the Arctic tundra could be an economically viable way of restoring the 'mammoth steppe' grassland ecosystem and mitigating global warming.

IN THE MEDIA

Finding the Heads: Oxford's mystery statues

Central Oxford is guarded by statues of 17 unknown figures. What is the history behind the mysterious Oxford heads, scattered across the city? Professor Heather Viles and Dr Katrin Wilhelm explore who they are and how they came to be here, in this short video.

IN THE MEDIA

The UN climate talks ended in deadlock. Is this really the best the world can manage?

Opinion piece in the Guardian on the disappointing outcome of COP25 from journalist Aruna Chandrasekhar, currently on the MSc in Environmental Change Management. "But dysfunctional as they are, COPs are perhaps the only international legal forum that are partly open to observers to witness geopolitics and global call-out culture first-hand. And it's those witnesses - all of us - who must apply the pressure," writes Aruna.

IN THE MEDIA