School of Geography and the Environment

13 March 2009

Eight Oxford Martin School Fellows provide leadership at Copenhagen Conference on "Climate change, global risks, challenges and decisions"

Eight Oxford Martin School Fellows have been playing a prominent role in this week’s major international climate science conference in Copenhagen. The Conference, "Climate change, global risks, challenges and decisions", is the scientific precursor to the Copenhagen InterGovernmental Conference of Parties later this year.

The team of eight James Martin Fellows were led by Professor Diana Liverman, Director of the Environmental Change Institute and Leader of the ECI James Martin Fellows Programme, who gave the first of today’s keynote presentations. She was accompanied by former Fellow Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who gave the second keynote speech today. Professor Schellnhuber (as director of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) is Climate Adviser to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, while Professor Liverman is a leading member of the new Committee on America’s Climate Choices, convened by Congress and the National Academies (Professor Liverman is ice-Chair of the Panel on ‘Informing Effective Decisions and Actions Related to Climate Change’). Today’s third keynote speech was given by Oxford alumnus Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the high-impact Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.

Other ECI/ Oxford Martin School Fellows contributing to the Copenhagen conference included:

• Dr Max Boykoff, chaired the session on the "Role of the Media in Contributing to Combating Climate Change". He also gave his own presentation on "The cultural politics of climate change: focusing on mass media"
• Dr Cameron Hepburn (former ECI James Martin Fellow and now at Oxford’s Smith School for Enterprise & the Environment), was co-Chair of the session on "Equity in Time: Past, Present and Future Emitters and Victims". His work was also featured in three presentations
• Former ECI James Martin Fellows Professor Maria Carmen Lemos (University of Michigan) [Co-Chair, Climate Change and Water Systems], and Professor Timmons Roberts (College of William and Mary) [Co-Chair, Equity between Nations and Regions]
• Dr Heike Schroeder, presentation on "The importance of being partners: exploring horizontal and vertical interplay in urban climate governance"
• Dr David Frame (former ECI James Martin Fellow and now Deputy Director of Oxford’s Smith School for Enterprise & the Environment), presentation on "How does attributable human influence on climate constrain forecasts of the future?" [et al, including Dr Myles Allen, Oxford Physics Department]
• Dr Nathan Hultman (former James Martin Fellow), presentation on "Firm decisions to invest in low-carbon projects in developing countries: the influence of climate policy and evolving carbon markets"

In total, 20 Oxford researchers were present at the Copenhagen conference, including the James Martin Fellows.