Skip to content

 School of Geography and the Environment

Header Image


The TippingPoint Debate

Carbon Offsetting: solution or distraction?
Reducing emissions: Does the solution lie in new technology or behaviour change?
How urgent is urgent – is it one second or one minute to midnight?
What is the role of artists in engaging with climate change?


2.00pm – 4.00pm, Sunday 14th September
The Examination Schools, High Street, Oxford

As part of Oxfordshire's The Planet Earth Season the ECI and TippingPoint have organised a set of debates on key themes in climate change.

Chaired by Professor Diana Liverman, Director of the Environmental Change Institute of Oxford University

As the subject of climate change gains in public acceptance and understanding, and its import becomes ever clearer and more urgent, a handful of themes are emerging that are at once enduring and contentious. The ECI and TippingPoint are holding a series of public debates to explore them. The subjects are:

  1. Carbon Offsetting: solution or distraction?
  2. Reducing emissions: Does the solution lie in new technology or behaviour change?
  3. How urgent is urgent – is it one second or one minute to midnight?
  4. What is the role of artists in engaging with climate change?

The objective is to help everyone present to refine and develop their own opinions; as far as possible, speakers will be presenting their ideas as the starting point for conversation and exploration so questions and points of view are much appreciated. For some of the sessions we will also be encouraging the active participation of the audience.

Please note: the event is not ticketed – please arrive in good time for a prompt start at 2pm

Speakers will be:

  1. Peter Newell, Professor of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia and Oxford Martin School Fellow at the Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University, and Mike Mason, founder of Climate Care, a leading provider of carbon offsetting solutions.
  2. Dr Malcolm McCulloch, leader of the Electric Power Group at the Department of Engineering Science, and Dr Brenda Boardman, expert on energy use and formerly Director of the Low Carbon Futures group, both of Oxford University.
  3. Dr Dave Frame, Oxford Martin School and Smith School for Enterprise and Environment Research Fellow at Oxford University, and Professor Mark Maslin, Director of the Environment Institute at University College, London both experts on climate science and its links to policy.
  4. James Marriott, writer, artist, activist and naturalist, and founder and Co-Director of PLATFORM, and artist Heather Ackroyd, who as part of Ackroyd & Harvey creates time-based interventions that frequently reflect both scientific and architectural concerns.