News

In a new study led by the University of Oxford’s Department of Physics, an international group of researchers including Prof Myles Allen and Dr Stuart Jenkins from SoGE/ECI, who developed the science behind net zero demonstrate that relying on ‘natural carbon sinks’ like forests and oceans to offset ongoing CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel use will not actually stop global warming. The findings have been published in Nature.

The University of Oxford, in partnership with five leading institutions, has launched the Interdisciplinary Life and Environmental Science Landscape Award (ILESLA). This ambitious doctoral training programme will prepare a new generation of creative, collaborative, and entrepreneurial researchers who are equipped to meet the complex, cross-disciplinary challenges the world faces. The new programme is part of a major £500 million investment in doctoral training announced this week by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Keir Starmer’s pledge to cut the UK’s emissions by 81% by 2035 is undoubtedly ambitious. However, his assertion at the COP29 climate conference that it can be achieved without “telling people how to live their lives” is probably not true – at least, not according to what scientists, like Dr Sam Hampton and Prof Lorraine Whitmarsh, who study this problem have found. Article in The Conversation.

Dr Flurina Wartmann, a former researcher at the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) and Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, and Prof. Jamie Lorimer explore why debates about what nature recovery looks like are vital for tackling biodiversity loss and climate change.

Launching today, the UN Climate Change Conference for 2024 (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, will bring together around 200 countries to develop renewed plans for addressing climate change. With global progress currently ‘falling miles short’ of that needed to avoid catastrophic climate change, there is urgent pressure for these negotiations to result in more ambitious actions. A delegation of University of Oxford researchers will be attending the conference in person, with many more following the proceedings virtually. Throughout the summit (11-22 November), they will be contributing their expertise and presenting new research findings to inform the discussions.

A comprehensive review of the economic impacts of nature-based solutions (NbS), led by the University of Oxford and published this week in PLOS Climate, concludes they can unlock prosperity by boosting local economies, increasing agricultural productivity and creating jobs.

Thousands of people had descended on the Colombian city of Cali for the UN biodiversity summit COP16, among them is ECI DPhil student Paola Fajardo.

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.