(Credit: Pixabay)The Oxford Net Zero initiative has launched to address the critical issue of how to reach global net zero – limiting greenhouse gases – in time to halt global warming.
Academics from across the university’s disciplines, including Geography, Physics, Economics, Biology, Law, and Earth Sciences, will come together to focus on the long-term questions necessary to achieve equitable, science-based solutions.
The team will be led by research director Professor Sam Fankhauser, who is joining Oxford from his current position as director of the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and director Professor Myles Allen, physicist and head of the Climate Research Program in Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute.
Oxford Net Zero is a growing network and collaboration of leading researchers from across the university to provide advice and expertise in the global ‘race’ to net zero by national governments, global industry leaders, and international organizations.
Oxford Net Zero convenes and undertakes research to support policy interventions, and this month has been boosted by a £2.2 million ($2.9 million) investment from the University’s new Strategic Research Fund (SRF). The SRF was formed in early 2020 to re-invest some of the University’s revenues from commercialization activities into transformative research programs.
To achieve net zero and avoid the worst impacts of global warming, carbon dioxide emissions must be drastically reduced, and any residual emissions removed from the atmosphere and stored. More than 120 countries are committing to net zero, representing more than 49% of global economic output, but official commitments with developed plans cover less than 10% of global emissions.
Oxford Net Zero’s key aim is to address the issue of how to limit the cumulative net total carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This means tackling emission sources and removing surplus carbon from the atmosphere – since more CO2 may be generated by the energy, industry, and land-use change than can safely be emitted, if the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement are to be met.
Essential questions that Oxford Net Zero will address include:
