Alex Clark

Stranded states: Public management of fossil fuel assets in the international system

Alex is a PhD researcher at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on the identification and transmission of fossil-fuel related economic risks in the public sector, and how governments and their agents (particularly state-owned enterprises, SOEs) should respond to these risks. His work focuses on China, both internally and in its role as a global actor in the energy and power sectors. Alongside this research, Alex supports Oxford's engagement with policymakers and academics in China as part of the Economics of Energy Innovation and Systems Transition (EEIST) project, and works with colleagues at the Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme on the real economy impact of sustainable finance instruments. He was previously the Director of the GeoAsset Project, within the Spatial Finance Initiative. Alex is a Global China Initiative Fellow at Boston University, and a Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a Europaeum Scholar, and a 2021 Young Scientists Summer Programme fellow at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). He also works as a consultant to the Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP) at Columbia University, and Climate Policy Initiative (CPI).

Prior to Oxford, Alex worked as a full-time climate finance analyst at CPI, a non-profit organisation specialising in climate and energy finance. He co-authored a study on implementing alignment with the Paris Agreement for members of the International Development Finance Club; led data development and processing for the 2019 Global Landscape of Climate Finance; and supported the development of a financial mechanism for accelerating electric bus deployment with the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance. He has worked with clients including the Green Climate Fund, ClimateWorks Foundation and European Climate Foundation.

Alex’s current research revolves around developing a new approach to evaluating stranded asset and labour risks from the perspective of governments and state-owned enterprises, with a particular focus on China in the context of post-COVID-19 stimulus measures and the continuation of approvals for new coal-fired power generation capacity. Much research to date on stranded assets has implicitly assumed asset owners to be profit maximising private sector actors, which is of limited use in economies with a significant state presence. Through his research, Alex hopes to understand and model the behaviour and incentives of SOEs in detail, and in so doing help design policies and institutions better suited to a rapid, just and permanent transition to a net zero emissions economy.

Journal Articles

• Caldecott, B., Clark, A., Koskelo, K., Mulholland, E. and Hickey, C. (2021) Stranded Assets: Environmental Drivers, Societal Challenges, and Supervisory Responses. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 46(1): 417-447.

Reports

• Clark, A., Ives, M., Fay, B., Lambe, R., Schiele, J., Larsson, L., Krejcie, J., Tillmann-Morris, L., Barbrook-Johnson, P. and Hepburn, C. (2021) Zero-Emissions Shipping: Contracts-for-difference as incentives for the decarbonisation of international shipping. Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford.
• Benoit, P. and Clark, A. (2020) Engaging State-Owned Enterprises in Climate Action: Workshop Report. Centre on Global Energy Policy.
• Barreira, A., Purroy Sánchez, L., Clark, A., O'Callaghan, B., Robinson, D. and Hepburn, C. (2020) Breve guía para contribuir a la reconstrucción y recuperación 'verde' tras la crisis de la COVID-19 en España. Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford. Working Paper 20-05.
• Clark, A., Schiele, J., Hepburn, C. and Llewellyn Smith, C. (2020) Leveraging Private Capital to Scale up Hydrogen. Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford.
• Buchner, B., Clark, A., Falconer, A., Macquarie, R., Meattle, C., Tolentino, R. and Wetherbee, C. (2019) Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2019. Climate Policy Initiative.
• Clark, A., Choi, J., Tonkonogy, B., Micale, V. and Wetherbee, C. (2019) Implementing alignment recommendations for the International Development Finance Club. Climate Policy Initiative.
• Lee, H. and Clark, A. (2018) Charging the Future: Challenges and Opportunities for Electric Vehicle Adoption. Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP18-026, Harvard Kennedy School.