News

More than half of the world’s total GDP is at least moderately dependent on nature. Yet arguably, there is no economy (or life) without nature. A quarter of animal and planet species are now threatened, and 14 out of 18 key ecosystem services – including fertile soils to grow food, flood and disease control and regulation of air and water pollution – are in decline. Emma O'Donnell, Dr Jimena Alvarez and Dr Nicola Ranger, all of the ECI, explore how finance can be part of the solution to the world’s biodiversity crisis in an article for The Conversation. 

The UK government has given the go-ahead to carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) schemes worth £22 billion (US$28.6 billion). Critics are insisting that this technology – which involves capturing carbon as it is emitted or taking it back out of the atmosphere, then pumping it into rocks deep underground – is unsafe, unproven and unaffordable. Defenders are responding with painstaking rebuttals. Prof Myles Allen explores why we need CCS to work in an article for |The Conversation.

Congratulations to Professor Louise Slater who has been awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize, which recognises the achievement of outstanding research scholars whose future career is exceptionally promising, and whose work has made original and significant contributions to knowledge as well as shown sustained international impact. 

The University of Oxford is to play a leading role in a major £80m research and innovation investment to harness the latest technology to safeguard heritage for future generations. The funding, from the UKRI Arts & Humanities Research Council, will support a new nationwide Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science (RICHeS) programme to be led by Professor Heather Viles, Professor of Biogeomorphology and Heritage Conservation in the School.

Dr Linda Speight, from Oxford's School of Geography and the Environment, comments on how UK infrastructure could be adapted to better withstand heavy rainfall and flooding events. 

A new report developed with SoGE researchers, Dr Ariell Ahearn and Elizabeth Hempstead, in collaboration with the UN, addresses urgent challenges faced by Mobile Indigenous Peoples. It focuses on legal recognition, land rights, and mobility, responding to demands from the Dana+20 Manifesto.

Oxford University researchers have recorded the wettest month in Oxford in 250 years at the School's Radcliffe Meteorological Station. Data from the station this week confirmed that September 2024 saw an extraordinary 193.3 mm of rainfall, making it Oxford’s wettest month since 1774 and the second wettest of any month since rainfall records began in 1767.

As the climate crisis accelerates, the Net Zero Stocktake 2024 identifies a commitment gap across cities, states and regions, which is holding back the necessary economy-wide transition. The Net Zero Tracker’s annual assessment of the intent and integrity of global climate commitments, shows only a modest increase in net zero targets set by subnational governments (states and regions, and cities) in the past year.