ECI Annual Review 2006/2007 - Environmental Change Institute ...
ECI Annual Review 2006/2007 - Environmental Change Institute ...
ECI Annual Review 2006/2007 - Environmental Change Institute ...
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<strong>Environmental</strong><br />
<strong>Change</strong> <strong>Institute</strong><br />
<strong>Annual</strong> <strong>Review</strong> <strong>2006</strong>
Thanks and Acknowledgements<br />
Benefactors Principal research grantors<br />
The University of Oxford is immensely<br />
grateful to the benefactors<br />
who enabled the founding of the<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> <strong>Institute</strong> in<br />
1991 and have invested since in its<br />
development.<br />
Dr James Martin<br />
The Jackson Foundation<br />
Mr and Mrs Colin Trapnell<br />
MOA International<br />
IBM United Kingdom Trust<br />
Merton College, Oxford<br />
Powergen plc<br />
Nuclear Electric<br />
Andrew W Mellon Foundation<br />
Environment Now Foundation<br />
Thames Water plc<br />
Charterhouse Charitable Trust<br />
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation<br />
The Strachan Donnelley Family Trust<br />
Rhodes Trust<br />
Riche Monde<br />
John S Cohen Foundation<br />
Dulverton Trust<br />
The Higgins-Trapnell<br />
Family Foundation<br />
TSB Lloyds Bank plc<br />
BOC Foundation<br />
Loke Wan Tho Foundation<br />
Solar Century<br />
EcoSecurities<br />
Climate Care<br />
and over 1,000 graduates of the<br />
University of Oxford<br />
advisory board<br />
Professor Tim O’Riordan (Chair)<br />
Sir Victor Blank<br />
Sir Anthony Cleaver<br />
Mr Vic Cocker CBE<br />
Dr Strachan Donnelley<br />
The Rt Hon John Gummer MP<br />
The Rt Hon Lord Holme of<br />
Cheltenham CBE<br />
The Principal, Linacre College<br />
Professor Jacqueline McGlade<br />
Mr Derek Osborn<br />
Mr Francis Sullivan<br />
Sir Crispin Tickell<br />
Dr Angela Wilkinson<br />
europe<br />
Danish Energy Agency, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, (GTZ)<br />
GmbH, ECOFYS, EDF SA, Electrolux, EU Interreg Programme, European Commission,<br />
ALTENER Programme, European Commission SAVE Programme, European Environment<br />
Agency, European Social Fund, European Tropical Forest Research Network, French<br />
Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME), Grundfos - Denmark,<br />
Netherlands Agency for Energy and the Environment (NOVEM), Swiss Agency for<br />
Development and Co-operation.<br />
International<br />
International Food & Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, International<br />
Council of Scientific Unions, International Energy Agency, International Geographical<br />
Union, International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), International Human<br />
Dimensions Programme (IHDP), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), United<br />
Nations Environment Programme, World Bank, World Climate Research Programme<br />
(WCRP), World Conservation Union-IUCN.<br />
usa<br />
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, US Government Environment Protection Agency.<br />
united kingdom<br />
AEA Technology, Arts Council, Biffaward, British Academy, British National Space<br />
Centre, Building Research Establishment, Carbon Trust, Chartered <strong>Institute</strong> of Building<br />
Services Engineers, Darwin Initiative - UK Government, Department for International<br />
Development - UK Government, Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs<br />
- UK Government, Economic and Social Research Council, Electricity Association,<br />
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, English Nature, Environment Agency,<br />
Environment and Heritage Service (Northern Ireland), Heritage Lottery Fund, Joint Nature<br />
Conservation Committee, Napier University, National Endowment for Science, Technology<br />
and the Arts, Natural Environment Research Council, National Trust, National Trust for<br />
Scotland, Research and Development Fund - University of Oxford, Royal Commission<br />
on <strong>Environmental</strong> Pollution, Royal Geographical Society, Royal Society, Royal Society for<br />
the Protection of Birds, Scottish Executive, Scottish Natural Heritage, Society of Motor<br />
Manufacturers and Traders, Thames Water plc, Trapnell Fund, Tyndall Centre, UK Water<br />
Industries Research, West Oxfordshire District Council, World Wide Fund for Nature.<br />
Financial Summary, 2005-06<br />
Income<br />
Competitive Research Grants (eg, EU & UK £<br />
Governments, UK Research Councils)....................1,845,000<br />
Higher Education Funds (tuition, HEFCE)..........................407,000<br />
Benefactions & other income..................................................308,000<br />
Total....................................2,560,000<br />
Expenditure<br />
Research & Academic Staff ..................................................1,235,000<br />
Administrative, Support, & Communication Staff.............245,000<br />
Non-staff: Research Equipment,<br />
Consumables, Travel, Office expenses..................................610,000<br />
University Costs .....................................................................296,000<br />
Total....................................2,386,000<br />
Surplus...................................174,000<br />
Deficit from 2004-05.........117,000<br />
Carry forward........................57,000
<strong>ECI</strong> in <strong>2006</strong> .............................................................................................2<br />
Director’s Statement .................................................................................3<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> at a glance .........................................................................................4<br />
Climate Research Theme...........................................................................6<br />
Global <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> and Food Systems .........................................8<br />
The Tyndall Centre for Climate <strong>Change</strong> Research ..........................................9<br />
UK Climate Impacts Programme ..............................................................10<br />
Ecosystems Research Theme<br />
Biodiversity and Climate <strong>Change</strong> .............................................................12<br />
Ecosystem Dynamics ...........................................................................14<br />
Human Ecology ..................................................................................16<br />
James Martin 21st Century School and <strong>ECI</strong> Fellows ....................................18<br />
Energy Research Theme<br />
Contents<br />
Lower Carbon Futures: Making the transition to an equitable, low-carbon society ...20<br />
Lower Carbon Futures Research Projects ...................................................22<br />
UK Energy Research Centre: ‘The Meeting Place’ managed by <strong>ECI</strong> .....................24<br />
Ecosystems: Conservation Practice ...........................................................25<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> Science and Policy Journal ...................................................25<br />
Land Degradation Research .......................................................................26<br />
Doctoral Research Students ......................................................................28<br />
Master of Science in <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> and Management ......................30<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> Publications in <strong>2006</strong> ...........................................................................34<br />
‘The Road to San Gimignano’......................................................................36<br />
Ideas for the German G8-EU <strong>2007</strong> Twin Presidency from Professor John Schellnhuber CBE<br />
Tipping Point <strong>2006</strong>: Climate and Art..........................................................37
<strong>ECI</strong> in <strong>2006</strong><br />
January<br />
The highly successful<br />
40% House launch<br />
www.40percent.org.uk.<br />
Dr Pam Berry presents to EU<br />
policy makers in Brussels:<br />
‘assessing the vulnerability<br />
of European biodiversity to<br />
climate change’.<br />
Dr Chris West gives evidence on climate<br />
change to the French Parliamentary<br />
Commission, and Swedish Minister of<br />
Environment Commission.<br />
February<br />
Dr Yadvinder Malhi is awarded a £160K<br />
Natural Environment Research Council<br />
grant to study marginal tropical forests<br />
in Africa, South America and Australia.<br />
Drs Paula Harrison and Pam<br />
Berry win funding from<br />
the European Commission<br />
to coordinate 23 partner<br />
organizations for the<br />
£1.3million project:<br />
‘Rationalising Biodiversity<br />
Conservation in Dynamic<br />
Ecosystems’ (RUBICODE).<br />
March<br />
Professor Diana Liverman delivers a<br />
prestigious 21st <strong>Annual</strong> Darwin College<br />
Lecture at Cambridge University to over<br />
600 people. ‘Survival into the Future’,<br />
focused on the risks and solutions to<br />
climate change.<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> host the Royal Geographical<br />
Society’s Climate <strong>Change</strong> Research<br />
Group Open Meeting for over 50<br />
geographers.<br />
April<br />
Lower Carbon Futures promote 40%<br />
House with 4 presentations at the<br />
<strong>2006</strong> International Solar Cities<br />
Congress.<br />
MSc <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> and<br />
Management secures scholarships<br />
from EcoSecurities and Climate Care<br />
- Oxford based companies that employ<br />
several MSc alumni.<br />
Oxford becomes a core partner in the<br />
Tyndall Centre for Climate <strong>Change</strong><br />
Research, focusing on post-2012 climate<br />
policy, climate and development, and<br />
climate uncertainty.<br />
May<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> win £200K from the<br />
UK Government’s ‘Climate Challenge<br />
Fund’ for the new Climate-X-<strong>Change</strong><br />
- creating a ‘climate buzz’ in Oxfordshire<br />
www.climatex.org.uk<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> brief new Environment Minister,<br />
David Miliband MP, on climate change<br />
and biodiversity during a visit to Oxford<br />
University’s Wytham Woods.<br />
June<br />
Dr Brenda Boardman appears as the<br />
BBC’s Money Programme energy expert<br />
investgating how much energy we are<br />
wasting in the home.<br />
Professor Diana Liverman talks on BBC<br />
Radio 4’s Food Programme, on the impact<br />
of climate change on food security.<br />
July<br />
Dr Yadvinder Malhi secures £300K from<br />
Natural Environment Research Council<br />
to assess ecosystem carbon dynamics in<br />
tropical montane forests.<br />
<strong>ECI</strong>’s Meeting Place host the UK Energy<br />
Research Centre annual assembly in<br />
Edinburgh.<br />
August<br />
Pan-Amazonia Network (coordinated by<br />
<strong>ECI</strong>) host the <strong>2006</strong> workshop in Bolivia<br />
to consolidate research and scientific<br />
findings from across the region.<br />
September<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> host TippingPoint <strong>2006</strong>, the hugely<br />
successful event for artists and scientists<br />
to explore climate change.<br />
Energy team launch the new Quick-<br />
Hits series, to contribute to reducing<br />
carbon emissions by 2010 and designed<br />
to be easy for Government and local<br />
authorities to implement.<br />
October<br />
Predict and decide report is<br />
launched by the All Party<br />
Parliamentary Sustainable<br />
Aviation Group at the House<br />
of Lords and receives sustained<br />
media attention across the airways.<br />
James Martin 21st Century School<br />
Fellow Cameron Hepburn contributes<br />
to the widely publicised Stern <strong>Review</strong> on<br />
the economics of climate change.<br />
Global <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> and Food<br />
Systems (GECAFS) move into <strong>ECI</strong> in a<br />
new partnership.<br />
Dr Anna Lawrence delivers the annual<br />
distinguished ethnobotanist lecture<br />
at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew:<br />
‘Taking stock of nature? Ethnobotany<br />
and action in participatory ecological<br />
governance.’<br />
November<br />
Dr John Boardman consolidates over<br />
3 decades of work as a leading land<br />
degradation expert through his newly<br />
published book Soil Erosion in Europe.<br />
James Martin 21st Century School<br />
Sabbatical Fellow Professor Timmons<br />
Roberts publishes his book Climate of<br />
Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South<br />
Politics, and Climate Policy.<br />
Several <strong>ECI</strong> researchers join a dozen <strong>ECI</strong><br />
alumni at the latest round of UN climate<br />
negotiations in Nairobi.<br />
December<br />
Professor Diana Liverman delivers a<br />
lecture on Global <strong>Change</strong> and Food<br />
Security at the Earth System Science<br />
Partnership (ESSP) summit in Beijing.<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> end <strong>2006</strong> having written over 80<br />
publications; making over 35 national<br />
newspaper, radio and TV appearances<br />
and securing a total of £1.8million in<br />
new research grants.<br />
and so to <strong>2007</strong>...<br />
Dr Kate Parr, the new Trapnell Fellow<br />
in African Terrestrial Ecology, arrives<br />
in January, with Professor Arthur Mol<br />
(Wageningen University) and Dr Roger<br />
Pielke (National Center for Atmospheric<br />
Research, Boulder) both James Martin<br />
21st Century School Sabbatical Fellows<br />
arriving later in the year. <strong>ECI</strong> will be<br />
hosting a major international Conference<br />
on Climate <strong>Change</strong> and the Fate of the<br />
Amazon in March. For <strong>ECI</strong>’s UKERC<br />
Meeting Place, topics range from<br />
European marine renewable energy to<br />
the Japan-UK Low Carbon Society and<br />
US-UK carbon capture and storage.
News from the Director<br />
Diana Liverman, Professor of <strong>Environmental</strong> Science<br />
The <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> <strong>Institute</strong><br />
celebrated its 15th anniversary<br />
in <strong>2006</strong>, fulfilling visions of its<br />
founders by growing to more than<br />
60 staff, hosting several national<br />
and international research centres,<br />
and contributing to several high<br />
profile reports. This <strong>2006</strong> <strong>Annual</strong><br />
Report focuses mostly on our new<br />
initiatives but needs to recognise<br />
the long years of hard work that<br />
brought us to this point. It emerges<br />
at a time of unprecedented interest<br />
in the environment, especially<br />
climate change, with UK political<br />
parties competing over green<br />
credentials and growing corporate<br />
attention to environmental<br />
issues. Graduates from our MSc<br />
in <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> and<br />
Management are taking their places<br />
in the academic, business, NGO<br />
and government sectors around the<br />
world. For example, at the latest<br />
climate negotiations in Nairobi, our<br />
alumni were negotiating for their<br />
countries, reporting for the media,<br />
and lobbying for environmental<br />
organizations and businesses.<br />
The <strong>Institute</strong> has always been guided<br />
by an Advisory Board, chaired for<br />
many years by Professor Andrew<br />
Goudie who stepped down at the<br />
end of 2005 (we have established the<br />
Andrew Goudie Scholarship for an<br />
MSc student in recognition of his<br />
service). I am delighted that the new<br />
Chair, Professor Tim O’Riordan,<br />
has taken on his advisory board<br />
role with enormous enthusiasm<br />
and together with other new<br />
board members Francis Sullivan,<br />
Angela Wilkinson, and Jacqueline<br />
McGlade, is joining us in some<br />
forward looking planning. Tim’s<br />
achievements include many years<br />
of leadership in environmental<br />
science and policy at the University<br />
of East Anglia, in advising UK and<br />
international governments, and<br />
membership of the Sustainable<br />
Development Commission.<br />
Our last report acknowledged<br />
several new benefactions and the<br />
initiation of major new projects<br />
that are now delivering on their<br />
promise. The UK Climate Impacts<br />
Programme (UKCIP) is continuing<br />
to play a pioneering role in working<br />
with stakeholders, now with a focus<br />
on adapting the UK to climate<br />
change. A complementary activity<br />
is the UK Government funded<br />
Climate-X-<strong>Change</strong> that works<br />
on climate outreach to the local<br />
Oxfordshire citizenry. The <strong>ECI</strong><br />
node of the UK Energy Research<br />
Centre has hosted a series of key<br />
discussions in the Meeting Place<br />
and is one of the ways in which our<br />
Lower Carbon Futures group is<br />
addressing the challenge of reducing<br />
demand for fossil fuels. Together<br />
with colleagues in Geography<br />
and Atmospheric Physics we<br />
are now a core member of the<br />
Tyndall Centre for Climate <strong>Change</strong><br />
consortium trying to respond to<br />
the challenges of uncertainty in<br />
climate change science, the design<br />
of the international climate regime,<br />
and of climate and development in<br />
Africa. Climate policy expertise<br />
is enhanced through the group of<br />
James Martin 21st Century School<br />
Fellows. The Ecosystems group is<br />
gaining international recognition for<br />
its work on climate change impacts<br />
on landscapes, especially in Europe,<br />
and in terms of the role of tropical<br />
forests in the earth system. Recently<br />
we welcomed the international<br />
project office for the Global<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> and Food<br />
Systems (GECAFS) programme,<br />
coordinating the activities of<br />
researchers around the world to<br />
understand how the changing<br />
environment affects food security.<br />
After the excitement of moving<br />
everyone to the new location and<br />
administrative structures of the<br />
Oxford University Centre for the<br />
Environment (OUCE) in 2005, we<br />
have settled in to our new home<br />
during <strong>2006</strong>. The OUCE brings<br />
together <strong>ECI</strong>, the Transport Studies<br />
Unit, and the School of Geography<br />
under one roof and is starting<br />
to foster greater collaboration<br />
across the three groups as well<br />
as bringing our MSc and DPhil<br />
students together with the more<br />
than 100 postgraduates with<br />
environmental interests in areas<br />
such as biodiversity and water.<br />
<strong>2006</strong> saw one final administrative<br />
restructuring as the OUCE moved<br />
from the now extinct Life and<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> Sciences division of<br />
the University to the Social Sciences<br />
division. This move is opening<br />
up new opportunities for <strong>ECI</strong> to<br />
bridge to other departments such<br />
as the Said Business School and<br />
International Development (Queen<br />
Elizabeth House, QEH).<br />
We are very grateful for new<br />
postgraduate scholarships funded by<br />
Climate Care and by EcoSecurities,<br />
two local Oxford companies who are<br />
world leaders in carbon offsetting.<br />
We are always looking for new<br />
partnerships that can help bring<br />
outstanding students to work with<br />
us in Oxford.<br />
Finally, let me recognise the<br />
renewed commitment of the <strong>ECI</strong><br />
staff to academic scholarship,<br />
innovative teaching and policy<br />
impact. This includes significant<br />
growth in our publication output,<br />
the continued popularity of our MSc<br />
programme and DPhil supervision,<br />
and the prominent contributions<br />
of <strong>ECI</strong> staff to debates about policy<br />
including that on the economics of<br />
climate change (the Stern <strong>Review</strong>),<br />
aviation and climate, and the<br />
fate of the Amazon. All of this is<br />
underpinned by the hard work of<br />
our support staff to whom I am very<br />
grateful.
only got<br />
30 seconds ?<br />
After 16 years Oxford’s <strong>ECI</strong> is increasingly recognised as an<br />
innovative and successful environmental enterprise.<br />
Uniquely in the UK it is playing a lead role in the<br />
Government’s three major climate and energy research<br />
initiatives: UK Climate Impacts Programme, the Tyndall<br />
Centre for Climate <strong>Change</strong> Research, and the UK Energy<br />
Research Centre. <strong>ECI</strong>’s cross-disciplinary innovation has been<br />
acknowledged in it becoming a founding partner of Oxford’s<br />
£60m James Martin 1st Century School.<br />
The <strong>ECI</strong>’s research and teaching focus is grouped around three<br />
interlocking themes: Climate, Ecosystems, and Energy. The<br />
research brings together the natural and social sciences, with an<br />
orientation to applied and public policy by considering: ‘How<br />
and why is the global and regional environment changing?<br />
and ‘How can we respond, through public policy, private<br />
enterprise, and social initiatives?’<br />
<strong>ECI</strong><br />
Ecosystems<br />
Research Theme<br />
Climate<br />
Research Theme<br />
Energy<br />
Research Theme<br />
Master of Science<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong><br />
<strong>Change</strong> &<br />
Management<br />
Ecosystem Dynamics<br />
Biodiversity & Climate <strong>Change</strong><br />
Human Ecology<br />
Conservation Practice<br />
James Martin 21st Century School<br />
Tyndall Centre<br />
UK Climate Impacts Programme<br />
Lower Carbon Futures<br />
UK Energy Research Centre<br />
Carbon Vision<br />
Newly appointed James<br />
Martin Fellows begin making<br />
their mark on the world’s<br />
21st century problems<br />
Examining questions like: “How do uncertainties in<br />
predictions of global climate change models affect<br />
climate policy?”; and “Can foreign aid help drive<br />
positive change at the level of national economies,<br />
moving countries toward lower-carbon/higher value<br />
pathways of development?”<br />
Grabbing runaway media attention<br />
for newly released ‘Predict and<br />
Decide’ the Lower Carbon Futures<br />
report strives for emissions<br />
reductions throughout society.<br />
p 20<br />
p 18<br />
Ecosy<br />
MSc Environm<br />
Energy group facilitate<br />
the shift towards a low<br />
carbon society<br />
E
p 14<br />
p 24<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> coordinates 23 global<br />
partners to assess the value of<br />
biodiversity<br />
The new Rubicode project, led by<br />
<strong>ECI</strong>, aims to aid policy makers in<br />
reducing biodiversity loss.<br />
stems<br />
p 12<br />
Ecosystem researchers are<br />
awarded over £675,000<br />
during <strong>2006</strong> spread over 8<br />
new projects<br />
From carbon dynamics in tropical<br />
forests, to environmental governance<br />
in the Netherlands, <strong>ECI</strong> continues to<br />
bring in global funding grants.<br />
nergy<br />
UK Energy Research<br />
Centre Meeting Place<br />
hosts 26 events for<br />
the international energy<br />
community in <strong>2006</strong><br />
Climate<br />
UKCIP expands to<br />
16 staff following a<br />
£3.8million boost in<br />
13th year of the MSc<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> and<br />
Management gets underway with<br />
35 students from 16 nationalities<br />
Over 350 students have<br />
now completed the MSc<br />
and are increasingly<br />
commanding<br />
influential positions in<br />
worldwide businesses,<br />
governments, NGOs,<br />
and academia.<br />
p 30<br />
2005<br />
p 10<br />
13 <strong>ECI</strong> MSc Alumni gather in professional capacities for the<br />
<strong>2006</strong> United Nations Climate <strong>Change</strong> Conference (COP12)<br />
Oxford Tyndall begins to examine<br />
how international action on<br />
climate change can be effectively<br />
developed post-2012<br />
p 9<br />
<strong>ECI</strong>’s largest ever intake of 12<br />
new DPhil students begin<br />
doctoral degrees in <strong>2006</strong><br />
At the close of<br />
<strong>2006</strong>, <strong>ECI</strong> researchers<br />
are supervising 27<br />
doctoral students, the<br />
highest number since<br />
establishment in 1991.<br />
ental <strong>Change</strong> and Management<br />
p 28
6<br />
CLimate<br />
Following the success of winning<br />
three major climate initiatives<br />
(Tyndall Centre for Climate<br />
<strong>Change</strong> Research – core partner;<br />
UK Climate Impacts Programme<br />
– host; UK Energy Research Centre<br />
– core partner), the <strong>ECI</strong> has further<br />
increased its portfolio in respect to<br />
climate change research.<br />
Our climate research is carried<br />
out within the Oxford University<br />
Centre for the Environment Climate<br />
Systems and Policy Research<br />
Cluster, by our James Martin 21st<br />
Century School Research Fellows;<br />
and Tyndall Research Fellows; as<br />
well as through projects in our<br />
Energy and Ecosystems research<br />
themes. The UK Climate Impacts<br />
Programme (UKCIP) helps<br />
businesses and organisations assess<br />
how they might be affected by<br />
climate change, so they can prepare<br />
for its impacts. <strong>ECI</strong> also hosts the<br />
Global <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong><br />
and Food Systems Secretariat<br />
(GECAFS), which works on climate<br />
and food security.<br />
Climate research at <strong>ECI</strong> consists<br />
of projects grouped around five<br />
core topics: Science, Impacts,<br />
Adaptation, Mitigation, and<br />
Communication.<br />
Climate Science Research<br />
The climate science and policy<br />
communities are moving beyond<br />
the traditional “one size fits all”<br />
products which provide best<br />
guesses, towards products which<br />
allow for more nuanced approaches.<br />
This allows policy makers and<br />
climate modellers to do a much<br />
better job of quantifying projections<br />
than has been possible under<br />
traditional approaches. In particular,<br />
probabilistic approaches allow us to<br />
explore a more representative range<br />
of possible future climates, and may<br />
permit meaningful estimation of<br />
risk. These developments in turn<br />
open up interesting new ways to<br />
examine interactions between the<br />
human decisions and the climate<br />
response on timescales from<br />
decades to centuries.<br />
ScienceProjects<br />
Climate Response<br />
How do uncertainties in projections<br />
of global climate change models<br />
affect climate policy?<br />
Atmosphere-Biosphere interactions in<br />
Amazonia<br />
The <strong>ECI</strong>’s Ecosystems research<br />
theme is undertaking a number<br />
of projects to further scientific<br />
understanding of biosphere -<br />
atmosphere interactions in tropical<br />
forests.<br />
Climate Impacts Research<br />
Climate change will have wideranging<br />
impacts on human and<br />
non-human life. Focusing attention<br />
Leader:<br />
Professor Diana Liverman<br />
on, and quantifying, these potential<br />
impacts is vital to advising public,<br />
private, and voluntary organisations<br />
of the societal implications of a<br />
changing climate. Equally, climatic<br />
changes are likely to have effects<br />
on ecosystems and observing and<br />
predicting these changes are critical<br />
challenges. Building understanding<br />
between climate science and<br />
impacts communities provides<br />
the basis for constructing suitable<br />
adaptation strategies.<br />
ImpactsProjects<br />
UK Climate Impacts Programme<br />
UKCIP provides the public,<br />
private, and voluntary sectors, as<br />
well as the scientific community with<br />
a range of tools and datasets which<br />
support climate impact assessment<br />
and adaptation planning.<br />
Impacts of Climate <strong>Change</strong> on<br />
Biodiversity<br />
The <strong>ECI</strong>’s Ecosystem research<br />
theme includes projects which<br />
examine species’ response to<br />
changing climate. This includes the<br />
MONARCH and BRANCH projects.<br />
Impact of the 2005 drought in<br />
Amazonia<br />
The severe drought which affected<br />
Amazonia in 2005 provides a unique<br />
opportunity to assess the impact and<br />
response of biodiversity to extreme<br />
conditions, which may become<br />
more widespread in a warmer global<br />
climate.
Climate Mitigation Research<br />
The attribution of current climate<br />
change to increased greenhouse<br />
gases, particularly carbon dioxide,<br />
from anthropogenic sources has<br />
centred policy attention on the<br />
reduction of these emissions.<br />
Exploring potential avenues for<br />
reducing emissions is necessary<br />
to preventing dangerous climate<br />
change and is a central part of<br />
research on developing a low carbon<br />
society. Current policy debates focus<br />
on reducing emissions at personal<br />
and corporate level; the potential<br />
of markets to efficiently reduce<br />
emissions; and the mechanisms that<br />
link lower carbon economies with<br />
developmental aid. Informing these<br />
policies post-2012, the end of the<br />
Kyoto Protocol’s ‘first commitment<br />
period’, is a critical arena for<br />
contemporary work.<br />
MitigationProjects<br />
Informing international climate policy<br />
This Tyndall research question led<br />
by <strong>ECI</strong>’s Professor Diana Liverman<br />
examines how international action<br />
on climate change can be effectively<br />
developed after 2012<br />
Lower Carbon Futures<br />
<strong>ECI</strong>’s energy research theme<br />
undertakes projects to understand<br />
the links between consumer<br />
behaviour, new technologies, policy<br />
formulation and the markets, with<br />
the goal of lowering future carbon<br />
emissions.<br />
Climate Adaptation Research<br />
Managing and adapting to future<br />
climate changes will be critical<br />
for the welfare of humans and<br />
non-humans in various parts<br />
of the world. This adaptation<br />
may be in advising businesses of<br />
future impacts, or exploring the<br />
adaptation of societies or ecological<br />
communities at present with<br />
questions about how and why some<br />
societies or communities adapt to<br />
changes more readily than others.<br />
Critical issues focus on questions<br />
of water, food, and energy at local,<br />
national, and international scales.<br />
Successful adaptation will depend<br />
on the climate scientists and the<br />
social scientists working together to<br />
implement wide-ranging solutions<br />
that build our capacity to adapt to<br />
future climate change.<br />
AdaptationProjects<br />
Foreign assistance and low carbon<br />
economies<br />
Can foreign aid help drive positive<br />
change at the level of national<br />
economies, moving countries toward<br />
lower-carbon/higher value pathways<br />
of development?<br />
Adaptive capacity to climate variability<br />
and change in water management in<br />
Brazil<br />
Using survey data from eighteen<br />
river basin committees and consortia<br />
across different regions, this project<br />
explores the implications of the<br />
use of technoscientific knowledge,<br />
including climate information, to<br />
foster adaptation and democracy in<br />
the management of vulnerable water<br />
resources.<br />
Adaptation of societies for sustainable<br />
development<br />
This project aims to improve<br />
our understanding of why some<br />
societies, groups, or individuals<br />
adapt to risks and hazards better<br />
than others.<br />
Weather derivatives and climate<br />
policy<br />
Examining the relationships between<br />
weather derivatives, emissions<br />
trading, and climate change policy,<br />
particularly focusing upon the<br />
energy industry.<br />
Global <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> and<br />
Food Systems (GECAFS)<br />
GECAFS is a comprehensive<br />
programme of interdisciplinary<br />
research focused on understanding<br />
the links between food security and<br />
global environmental change.<br />
Climate Communication Research<br />
Climate change communications<br />
have been increasingly recognized<br />
as key contributors – among a<br />
number of factors – that affect<br />
climate change science and policy<br />
discourse as well as shape actions.<br />
Translation has taken shape through<br />
many media, from news publishers,<br />
editors, and journalists who<br />
disseminate information, largely<br />
through newspapers, magazines,<br />
television, radio and the internet,<br />
to graphic designers, architects,<br />
painters, and sculptors.<br />
The intersection of mass media and<br />
climate change science and policy is<br />
a dynamic and “high-stakes” arena<br />
of communications.<br />
CommunicationProjects<br />
Mass media influences on climate<br />
science, policy, and the public<br />
Comparative analyses of public<br />
discourse between the United States<br />
and the United Kingdom on climate<br />
change at the triple interface of<br />
science, policy, and mass media.<br />
Celebrity involvement in climate<br />
change science, media, and policy<br />
Examining the role of climate<br />
change-related celebrity endeavours<br />
and initiatives, and interrogating<br />
how these activities influence<br />
discourse and actions at the climate<br />
science and policy interface.<br />
Key Publications<br />
West, C. C. and Gawith, M.<br />
J. (Eds) (2005) Measuring<br />
Progress: preparing for climate<br />
change through the UK Climate<br />
Impacts Programme.<br />
Frame D., Stone D., Stott P.<br />
and Allen M. <strong>2006</strong>. “Alternatives<br />
to stabilization scenarios.”<br />
Geophysical Research Letters<br />
33(14).L14707.<br />
Liverman D.M. <strong>2006</strong>. Survival<br />
into the Future in the Face of<br />
Climate <strong>Change</strong>. Survival: The<br />
Survival of the Human Race<br />
(<strong>2006</strong> Darwin Lectures).<br />
E. Shuckburgh (Ed) Cambridge,<br />
Cambridge University Press:<br />
187-205.
Global <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> and Food<br />
Systems (GECAFS) is an international,<br />
interdisciplinary research project<br />
focused on understanding the links<br />
between food security and global<br />
environmental change. Professor Diana<br />
Liverman is Chair of the Scientific<br />
Advisory Committee and <strong>ECI</strong> hosts the<br />
International Project Office.<br />
GECAFS’ Goal<br />
To determine strategies to cope with the<br />
impacts of global environmental change<br />
(GEC) on food systems and to assess<br />
the environmental and socio-economic<br />
consequences of adaptive responses<br />
aimed at improving food security.<br />
This goal will be achieved by improving<br />
understanding of the interactions<br />
between food systems and the Earth<br />
System’s key socioeconomic and<br />
biogeophysical components. The<br />
research agenda is specifically targeted<br />
towards delivering the new science<br />
necessary to underpin policy formulation<br />
for improving food security in the face<br />
of GEC.<br />
GECAFS’ Aims<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
Investigate how GEC affects food<br />
security at regional scale;<br />
Determine options to adapt regional<br />
food systems to cope with GEC and<br />
changing demands for food;<br />
Assess how potential adaptation<br />
options will affect the environment,<br />
societies, and economies;<br />
Engage the international global<br />
environmental change and<br />
development communities in policy<br />
discussions to improve food security.<br />
Research<br />
Conceptual and methodological<br />
research on:<br />
• Food Systems, to improve<br />
understanding of the interactions<br />
between food systems and GEC.<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
Vulnerability and adaptation, to<br />
(i) integrate social science and<br />
natural science concepts of what<br />
makes a food system vulnerable to<br />
GEC; and (ii) use this understanding<br />
to investigate adaptation options.<br />
Scenarios to construct plausible<br />
futures of socioeconomic and<br />
environmental conditions for food<br />
system analyses.<br />
Decision Support to improve dialogue<br />
between scientists and policy-makers<br />
on the interactions between food<br />
security and environment.<br />
Regional Research<br />
Conceptual and methodological<br />
research is integrated with studies on<br />
vulnerability and impacts, adaptation,<br />
and feedbacks in:<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
Indo-Gangetic Plain<br />
Caribbean<br />
Southern Africa<br />
Through this research GECAFS delivers<br />
science-based tools and products,<br />
including:<br />
• An analytical framework for food<br />
systems research (based on<br />
activities related to producing,<br />
processesing, distributing, trading,<br />
and consuming food, and food<br />
security issues related to food<br />
availability, access, and use) to help<br />
assess food system sensitivities to<br />
GEC and identify adaptation options;<br />
• Analytical methods to assess the<br />
factors that make food systems<br />
vulnerable to GEC, and to assess<br />
policy and management options for<br />
reducing exposure to risk and/or<br />
increasing coping capacity to deal<br />
with environmental stresses caused<br />
by GEC;<br />
• Region-specific scenarios of future<br />
socioeconomic, ecological, and<br />
environmental conditions involving<br />
food systems;<br />
• Decision support approaches to help<br />
communicate GEC issues to policymakers<br />
and to analyse how different<br />
adaptation options for food systems<br />
may affect the environment, society<br />
and, economies; and<br />
Science Advisory Committee<br />
Diana Liverman - Chair,<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong><br />
<strong>Institute</strong>, University of Oxford,<br />
UK<br />
Ahsan Ahmed, Bangladesh<br />
Unnayan Parishad Bangladesh<br />
Hans-Georg Bohle, University of<br />
Bonn, Germany<br />
Angela Cropper, Cropper<br />
Foundation, Trinidad & Tobago<br />
Oran Hesterman, WK Kellogg<br />
Foundation, USA<br />
Barbara Huddleston, UN-FAO<br />
Italy<br />
John Ingram - Secretary, GECAFS<br />
IPO, UK<br />
Anne-Marie Izac - Vice Chair<br />
Future Harvest Alliance Office,<br />
CGIAR, Italy<br />
Jim Jones, University of Florida,<br />
USA<br />
Richard Mkandawire, New<br />
Partnership for Africa’s<br />
Development, South Africa<br />
Prabhu Pingali, UN-FAO, Italy<br />
Mark Rosegrant, International<br />
Food Policy Research <strong>Institute</strong>,<br />
USA<br />
Mahendra Shah, International<br />
<strong>Institute</strong> for Applied Systems<br />
Analysis, Austria<br />
Luis Vieira, EMBRAPA, Brazil<br />
International Project Office Secretary: John Ingram<br />
•<br />
Assessment of a number of current<br />
regional food systems, their<br />
vulnerability to GEC, and their policy<br />
contexts for possible adaptation<br />
options.<br />
More info at: www.gecafs.org<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•
Informing international climate<br />
policy research programme<br />
Leader: Professor Diana Liverman, Oxford<br />
Deputy Leaders: Dr Mark New, Oxford<br />
Dr Alex Haxeltine, University of East Anglia.<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> and the Oxford University<br />
Centre for the Environment<br />
(OUCE) are now one of the 6 core<br />
partners for the new Phase 2 of<br />
the Tyndall Centre for Climate<br />
<strong>Change</strong> Research, the UK’s<br />
principal consortium mobilizing<br />
climate change science and policy<br />
research. The other core partners<br />
are the Universities of East<br />
Anglia, Manchester, Newcastle,<br />
Southampton, and Sussex. The<br />
Tyndall Centre brings together<br />
scientists, economists, engineers<br />
and social scientists, who together<br />
are working to develop sustainable<br />
responses to climate change through<br />
trans-disciplinary research and<br />
dialogue on both a national and<br />
international level - not just within<br />
the research community, but<br />
also with business leaders, policy<br />
advisors, the media and the public.<br />
Tyndall Research Strategy<br />
Tyndall Phase 2, running from<br />
<strong>2006</strong>-2009, has been designed to be<br />
relevant to the emerging needs of<br />
climate change policy as well as the<br />
strategic priorities of three of the<br />
UK’s Research Councils: the Natural<br />
Environment Research Council<br />
(NERC), the Engineering and<br />
Physical Sciences Research Council<br />
(EPSRC), and the Economic and<br />
Social Research Council (ESRC).<br />
The research strategy is based<br />
around 7 Programmes (see box),<br />
with <strong>ECI</strong> responsible for leading<br />
Research Programme 1, ‘Informing<br />
International Climate Policy’.<br />
Research Programme 1<br />
Informing international climate<br />
policy: how can international action<br />
on climate change be effectively<br />
developed after 2012 (i.e. the<br />
end of the Kyoto Protocol’s ‘first<br />
commitment period’)?<br />
Programme Leader:<br />
Professor Diana Liverman<br />
Deputy Leaders: Dr Mark New<br />
(OUCE) and Dr Alex Haxeltine<br />
(University of East Anglia).<br />
Aims and objectives<br />
The overall aim for Research<br />
Programme 1 is to provide targeted<br />
and strategic input of research<br />
and assessment knowledge to<br />
the development of plans for the<br />
international climate regime after<br />
2012. This aim will be pursued<br />
through these objectives:<br />
1. to quantify the damages and<br />
benefits implied by different<br />
levels of climate change and to<br />
assess the “benefits of climate<br />
policy” under different options<br />
for the post-2012 regime;<br />
2. to provide policy-relevant<br />
analysis of different options for<br />
global climate governance after<br />
2012, including assessment<br />
using integrated modelling of<br />
both mitigation technologies<br />
and adaptation potentials;<br />
3. to facilitate international<br />
dialogue and understanding<br />
around the future of the<br />
climate regime by focusing on<br />
post-2012 options for selected<br />
critical regions;<br />
4. to re-frame and analyse the role<br />
of non-nation state actors in the<br />
international climate regime;<br />
5. to develop methods for<br />
attributing extreme climatic<br />
events to anthropogenic causes<br />
and to analyse the associated<br />
policy implications.<br />
Oxford’s Sub-Department of<br />
Atmospheric, Oceanic, and<br />
Planetary Physics is leading the<br />
research on Research Programme<br />
1 objective 5, on attribution, and<br />
the OUCE is also playing a major<br />
role in Research Programme 4,<br />
‘International Development and<br />
Climate <strong>Change</strong>’.<br />
Tyndall Research Programmes<br />
1. Informing international climate policy...<br />
how can international action on climate<br />
change be effectively developed after<br />
2012?<br />
2. Constructing energy futures... what are<br />
the pathways to global de-carbonisation?<br />
3. Building resilience to climate change...<br />
what are the limits to adaptation?<br />
4. International development... how can<br />
international development be sustained in<br />
a warming world?<br />
5. Sustainable coasts... how can shorelines<br />
be managed for the third millennium?<br />
6. Engineering cities... how can cities<br />
grow while reducing vulnerability and<br />
emissions?<br />
7. Integrated modeling... innovating<br />
integrated assessment systems.
10<br />
The UK Climate Impacts Programme<br />
(UKCIP) was established by the<br />
Government in 1997 and has been<br />
hosted since then at the <strong>ECI</strong>. The<br />
current contract (2005 – 2010) is<br />
worth £4m, and defines UKCIP’s<br />
aims as:<br />
• to improve knowledge and<br />
understanding of the impacts<br />
of climate change among<br />
stakeholders; and<br />
• to help stakeholders to be<br />
better equipped to undertake<br />
adaptation to climate change.<br />
UKCIP has not undertaken research<br />
in the conventional sense, but<br />
supports its stakeholders to<br />
commission and manage research<br />
into climate change impacts and<br />
adaptation. At the start, our activity<br />
focussed on delivering climate<br />
change impacts research outputs,<br />
but has since evolved into a way of<br />
partnership working to make best<br />
use of research results. Twelve subnational<br />
“regional” impact scoping<br />
studies have been completed along<br />
with a number of sectoral studies.<br />
However, we believe the consequent<br />
formation of twelve active regional<br />
adaptation partnerships and a small<br />
number of sectoral partnerships is a<br />
more significant outcome.<br />
UK Climate<br />
Impacts<br />
Programme<br />
UKCIP now sees itself as an<br />
interface organisation, working in<br />
the communication space between<br />
science, society and policy. UKCIP<br />
is founded on the premise that<br />
whatever actions society takes<br />
to address the causes of climate<br />
change, some change is now<br />
inevitable and society needs to<br />
adapt to those changes. Our role in<br />
this adaptation process is both as<br />
agents of change and as students<br />
of that change. We express this<br />
complexity in the phrase “learning<br />
through doing” which we see as a<br />
means of addressing both of our<br />
aims.<br />
A unique feature of UKCIP is that we<br />
are led by our stakeholders, a group<br />
we define as professional decisionmakers<br />
in the UK, from the public,<br />
private and voluntary sectors.<br />
Our dialogue with stakeholders is<br />
now framed in terms of risk and<br />
uncertainty: the presentation of<br />
adaptation to climate change as<br />
management of climate risk allows<br />
decision-makers to hear familiar<br />
words, and makes climate change<br />
a more immediate issue. We make<br />
the various sorts of uncertainty<br />
explicit and present it as another<br />
variable to be managed. In the<br />
UKCIP typology of adaptation, we<br />
contribute to “building adaptive<br />
capacity” in our stakeholders, while<br />
only our stakeholders, with their<br />
own motivation and attitude to risk,<br />
can begin “delivering adaptation<br />
actions”.<br />
Among the key resources that<br />
UKCIP offer are a core set of<br />
tools for stakeholders, including<br />
scenarios of climate change in the<br />
UK; socio-economic scenarios;<br />
guidance on specific topics; a<br />
framework for managing risk and<br />
uncertainty; and a methodology for<br />
costing impacts and adaptations.<br />
Currently, we are working on the<br />
next set of climate information<br />
(UKCIP08) which will be based on<br />
probabilistic predictions of climate;<br />
will incorporate a well-described<br />
downscaling tool; and will be<br />
presented via a user-customisable<br />
web interface. This tool will be<br />
launched in 2008. Our role will be<br />
to oversee the integration of these<br />
components and the provision of<br />
guidance and training on the use of<br />
the tool.<br />
This last aspect is seen as<br />
increasingly important so UKCIP<br />
now has a training specialist on the<br />
staff who will be running workshops<br />
on the proper use of existing tools,<br />
as well as devising a learning<br />
plan for users of the new set of<br />
climate information, and a means<br />
of empowering our stakeholders to<br />
act for us in raising awareness of<br />
climate change, of impacts, and of<br />
the need to adapt.<br />
Further tools are also under<br />
development: the prototype<br />
Adaptation Wizard is being revised;<br />
guidance on adaptation options<br />
is in draft form, and an illustrative<br />
database of adaptation actions is<br />
being prepared, so stakeholders<br />
can see what others have done.<br />
Two constituencies for whom we<br />
have made special provision are<br />
the business community and local<br />
authorities. For businesses, we<br />
developed a tool (Business Areas<br />
CLimate Impacts Assessment Tool<br />
– BACLIAT) to allow exploration of
impacts throughout all the business<br />
areas in the supplier-processcustomer<br />
chain. We have worked<br />
with regulators, professional bodies,<br />
and trade associations in order to<br />
multiply our effort and we have a<br />
joint programme with a professional<br />
body, the Chartered Institution of<br />
Building Service Engineers (CIBSE),<br />
to look at changing professional<br />
standards to reflect the changing<br />
climate.<br />
The Nottingham Declaration<br />
commits its signatories – mostly<br />
local authorities – to make progress<br />
on the parallel agendas of adapting<br />
to, and mitigating, climate change.<br />
Working in partnership with<br />
local authority organisations and<br />
others, UKCIP has devised the<br />
adaptation thread of the Nottingham<br />
Declaration Action Pack (NDAP)<br />
which gives local authorities an<br />
online framework within which they<br />
can establish a project, design a<br />
way forward to implementation and<br />
monitor the outcome, using terms<br />
and approaches familiar to the<br />
sector.<br />
Furthermore, we are now working<br />
with some of the councils very<br />
local to us, with a view to learning<br />
(about adaptation) through doing<br />
(adaptation with the councils).<br />
One task we have focused on is<br />
to encourage Oxfordshire County<br />
Council to quantify the recent<br />
costs of extreme weather impacts<br />
– a process which we hope will<br />
deliver the first Local Climate<br />
Impacts Profile (LCLIP). This will be<br />
a prototype of a generic method<br />
of exploring future vulnerability by<br />
setting up a system to collect and<br />
use existing impact and adaptation<br />
data.<br />
Director:<br />
Dr Chris West<br />
Information about UKCIP’s<br />
work, and access to its<br />
publications, tools and other<br />
resources can be found at<br />
www.ukcip.org.uk.<br />
Nottingham Declaration<br />
Action Pack<br />
www.nottinghamdeclaration.org.uk.<br />
UKCIP’s enews is a monthly<br />
newsletter containing<br />
updates on latest news,<br />
research and other<br />
information on climate<br />
change impacts and<br />
adaptation. To subscribe<br />
(free of charge) go to<br />
www.ukcip.org.uk/subscribe.asp.<br />
To get in touch with UKCIP,<br />
email enquiries@ukcip.org.uk<br />
or call 01865 285717.<br />
11
1<br />
biodiversity<br />
With increasing pressures on our<br />
environment as a result of climate<br />
change and anthropogenic impacts,<br />
<strong>ECI</strong>’s Biodiversity Research aims to<br />
increase understanding of complex<br />
human-climate-ecosystem interactions.<br />
The <strong>ECI</strong>’s Biodiversity research is at the<br />
forefront of integrating and improving<br />
techniques for the projection of the<br />
impacts of environmental change on<br />
ecosystems and species. We are using<br />
increasingly sophisticated modelling<br />
techniques to assess potential<br />
changes in distributions of species<br />
and ecosystems at local, regional and<br />
European scales.<br />
Species and ecosystems are important<br />
for the services they provide to<br />
humans and we are investigating<br />
how climate change could<br />
affect their ability to<br />
fulfill this role.<br />
Models show<br />
that<br />
Leader:<br />
Dr Pam Berry<br />
there could be some profound effects<br />
over the course of this century as<br />
species and ecosystems become more<br />
vulnerable. So we are now exploring<br />
possible adaptation actions across<br />
a range of sectors and their impact<br />
in offsetting some of the negative<br />
effects. In all projects we are working<br />
with stakeholders to influence the<br />
conservation agenda at all levels.<br />
Projects<br />
RUBICODE - Rationalising<br />
Biodiversity Conservation in<br />
Dynamic Ecosystems<br />
www.rubicode.net<br />
A key problem in developing policies<br />
to stop biodiversity loss is translating<br />
threats into a tangible factor for<br />
decision-making. RUBICODE will<br />
contribute to solving this by defining<br />
and evaluating those components of<br />
biodiversity which provide specific<br />
services to society, such as the<br />
provision of food, fibre and fuel,<br />
regulation of air and water quality,<br />
flood protection, pollination,<br />
control of pests, recreation<br />
and ecotourism. This<br />
will increase our<br />
understanding of the<br />
value of biodiversity<br />
services and,<br />
consequently,<br />
of the cost<br />
of losing<br />
them.<br />
This, in<br />
turn,<br />
will give decision-makers a more rational<br />
base and will help the understanding<br />
of the need for adequate conservation<br />
policies.<br />
The development of flexible and<br />
effective conservation strategies and<br />
their implementation will be essential<br />
in order to halt the loss of biodiversity.<br />
These should concentrate on managing<br />
dynamic ecosystems for maintaining<br />
their capacity to undergo disturbance,<br />
while retaining their functions, services<br />
and control mechanisms (‘ecological<br />
resilience’). RUBICODE, an EU<br />
Coordination Action Project involving<br />
23 partners, will address these issues<br />
through seven project objectives:<br />
1. To develop concepts of dynamic<br />
ecosystems and their services,<br />
covering terrestrial and freshwater<br />
ecosystems.<br />
2. To explore relationships between<br />
service-providing populations,<br />
ecosystem resilience, function<br />
and health, and socio-economic<br />
and environmental drivers of<br />
biodiversity change.<br />
3. To improve and test indicators<br />
for monitoring habitat ecological<br />
quality.<br />
4. To characterise biological traits<br />
that lead to a population becoming<br />
threatened, rare or invasive.<br />
5. To develop habitat management<br />
strategies that take account of<br />
drivers of biodiversity change<br />
in order to maintain threatened<br />
populations or assist populations<br />
to adapt.<br />
6. To suggest priorities for<br />
conservation policy on the basis<br />
of dynamic ecosystems and the<br />
services they provide.<br />
7.<br />
To propose a roadmap for<br />
future research required to<br />
develop innovative pan-European<br />
conservation strategies.
BRANCH: Biodiversity<br />
Requires Adaptations in<br />
North West Europe under a<br />
Changing Climate<br />
www.branchproject.org<br />
Climate change is already influencing<br />
the wildlife of NW Europe. Sea level<br />
rise is affecting coasts and could lead<br />
to unprecedented rates of change to<br />
coastal landscape and wildlife. Climate<br />
change and wildlife responses will<br />
continue to happen for at least another<br />
generation, even if we take all possible<br />
life-style, economic and political<br />
measures to stop fuelling the change.<br />
Understanding and projecting the<br />
response of wildlife is critical to enable<br />
us to manage this response.<br />
BRANCH is a three year multi-partner,<br />
multi-project programme aiming to<br />
identify, develop and advocate spatial<br />
planning mechanisms to allow for the<br />
adaptation of terrestrial and coastal<br />
biodiversity to changing climate in<br />
NW Europe. BRANCH will provide<br />
the evidence and recommendations<br />
to support policy and planning at<br />
all scales by taking further the<br />
science underpinning how our wildlife<br />
might respond to the changes. This<br />
information will provide an analysis<br />
of the risks and benefits of planning<br />
options for responding to change in<br />
terrestrial and coastal habitats and<br />
developing good practice. Natural<br />
England is the lead partner in this<br />
project bringing together partners in<br />
South East England, the Netherlands,<br />
Germany and France.<br />
MONARCH: Modelling<br />
Natural Resource Responses<br />
to Climate <strong>Change</strong><br />
MONARCH is a phased investigation<br />
into the impacts of climate change on<br />
the nature conservation resources of<br />
Britain and Ireland. It is an important<br />
step towards understanding the<br />
complex interactions between climate<br />
change, species and habitats. The<br />
first phase of MONARCH developed a<br />
model, SP<strong>ECI</strong>ES, that projects areas<br />
of potential suitable climate space<br />
for species at a 10km resolution, and<br />
provides a guide to the possible future<br />
distribution of a species within Britain<br />
and Ireland.<br />
MONARCH 2 sought to develop this<br />
approach at the local and regional<br />
scale, downscaling the model to a<br />
1km resolution within four case study<br />
areas of up to 2500 square kms. The<br />
original SP<strong>ECI</strong>ES climate-space model<br />
was expanded to consider the role<br />
of land cover in influencing species’<br />
distributions, the ability of species<br />
to disperse in response to climatic<br />
and land cover changes, and also the<br />
potential effect of these responses<br />
on the structure and function of<br />
ecosystems.<br />
MONARCH 3 has automated the<br />
SP<strong>ECI</strong>ES model and applied it to<br />
120 Biodiversity Action Plan species.<br />
The model was also validated by<br />
hindcasting, using historical species’<br />
distribution data. In addition, the<br />
modelling was refined to include<br />
ensemble forecasting to reduce withinmodel<br />
uncertainty and subsequently<br />
used to quantify uncertainty resulting<br />
from projections of future climate.<br />
MACIS: Minimisation of, and<br />
adaptation to, climate change<br />
impacts on biodiversity<br />
www.macis-project.net<br />
MACIS is an EU project which will review<br />
and meta-analyse existing projections of<br />
climate change impacts on biodiversity.<br />
It will assess available options to<br />
prevent and minimise negative impacts<br />
for EU countries up to 2050 and review<br />
the state of the art on methods to<br />
assess the probable future impacts of<br />
climate change on biodiversity.<br />
The strategic objectives of MACIS<br />
include:<br />
• To review the state of the art on<br />
methods to assess the probable<br />
future impacts of climate change<br />
on biodiversity.<br />
• To review possible climate change<br />
adaptation and mitigation measures<br />
and their potential effect on future<br />
biodiversity.<br />
• To further develop a series of<br />
biodiversity and habitat models<br />
that address biodiversity impacts,<br />
and are capable of calculating the<br />
consequences of changes in the<br />
trends in drivers as specified by the<br />
narrative scenarios provided by the<br />
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate<br />
<strong>Change</strong> (IPCC).<br />
• To identify policy options at EU,<br />
national, regional and local levels<br />
to prevent and minimise negative<br />
impacts from climate change and<br />
from climate change adaptation<br />
and mitigation measures.<br />
Biodiversity, Climate <strong>Change</strong><br />
and Regional Policy<br />
This research project will inform regional<br />
decision-makers about the likely impacts<br />
of climate change on biodiversity and of<br />
the policy implications of such impacts.<br />
The three year project will ascertain<br />
how characteristic species and their<br />
habitats in each of England’s regions<br />
will be affected by climate change over<br />
the next 50 years, and provide clear<br />
concise guidance for those involved<br />
in the decision-making process. It is<br />
envisaged that this will be of particular<br />
relevance to regional spatial planning<br />
and associated activities.<br />
Key Publications<br />
Berry, P.M., Rounsevell, M.D.A.,<br />
Harrison, P.A. and Audsley, E.<br />
(<strong>2006</strong>). Assessing the vulnerability<br />
of agricultural land use<br />
and species to climate change<br />
and the role of policy in facilitating<br />
adaptation.<strong>Environmental</strong><br />
Science and Policy, 9, 189-204.<br />
del Barrio, G., Harrison, P.A.,<br />
Berry, P.M., Butt, N., Sanjuan,<br />
M., Pearson, R.G. and Dawson,<br />
T. (<strong>2006</strong>). Integrating multiple<br />
modelling approaches to predict<br />
the potential impacts of climate<br />
change on species’ distributions<br />
in contrasting regions: comparison<br />
and implications for policy.<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> Science and<br />
Policy, 9, 129-147.<br />
Harrison, P.A., Berry, P.M., Butt,<br />
N. and New, M. (<strong>2006</strong>). Modelling<br />
climate change impacts<br />
on species’ distributions at the<br />
European scale: Implications<br />
for conservation policy. <strong>Environmental</strong><br />
Science and Policy, 9,<br />
116-128.<br />
Berry, P.M., Harrison, P.A.,<br />
Dawson, T.P. and Walmsley,<br />
C.A. (2005). Climate change<br />
and nature conservation in the<br />
UK and Ireland: modelling<br />
natural resource responses to<br />
climate change (MONARCH2).<br />
UKCIP report.<br />
1
Ecosystem Dynamics<br />
1<br />
“We seek to<br />
understand how<br />
ecosystems<br />
function; and<br />
how they may<br />
be affected by<br />
direct human<br />
pressures and<br />
global atmospheric<br />
change.”<br />
Leader:<br />
Dr Yadvinder Malhi<br />
Jackson Fellow<br />
The <strong>ECI</strong> Ecosystem Dynamics Programme<br />
seeks to understand how<br />
contemporary ecosystems function;<br />
and how they may be affected by<br />
direct human pressures and global<br />
atmospheric change. The tools we<br />
employ in our research include:<br />
• Intensive field observation of<br />
carbon, water and nutrient cycling;<br />
vegetation and soil properties;<br />
plant ecophysiology; and<br />
climate.<br />
• Multi-decadal and large-scale<br />
monitoring and analysis of ecosystem<br />
structure, composition<br />
and dynamics.<br />
• Quantitative modelling of ecosystem<br />
ecophysiology and biogeochemical<br />
cycling.<br />
• Satellite remote sensing at local,<br />
regional and global scales.<br />
• Macro-ecological analysis of<br />
plant function and traits.<br />
Our interests are global, but we have<br />
particularly active research in the<br />
lowland tropical forests of Amazonia<br />
and Africa, the montane forests<br />
of the Andes, and the temperate<br />
woodlands of the UK.<br />
Projects<br />
Examining the effect of recent<br />
drought in Amazonia<br />
The severe drought which affected<br />
Amazonia in 2005 provides a unique<br />
opportunity to assess the impact<br />
and responses of biodiversity to extreme<br />
conditions. The drought was<br />
recorded as the most intense dry<br />
period in the region since weather<br />
records began in the mid-20th Century.<br />
With its problems comes the<br />
unique opportunity to evaluate the<br />
impacts and the response of biodiversity<br />
to extreme conditions, which<br />
may be analogous to future climates<br />
in a warming world.<br />
Described as the ‘global centre of<br />
tree diversity’, and containing between<br />
a quarter and a third of the<br />
world’s biodiversity, the Amazon is a<br />
vital component of the biosphere. In<br />
the last 25 years biomass and forest<br />
growth rates in intact Amazonian<br />
forests have been rising, possibly<br />
resulting in a moderate carbon sink,<br />
but this may be under threat from<br />
climate change. This study aims to<br />
use the recent drought to examine<br />
how these tropical humid systems<br />
respond to intense drought, assess<br />
their recovery, and possible subsequent<br />
decline.<br />
North-west Amazonia in particular<br />
usually has no dry season, and<br />
vegetation there is expected to be<br />
unlikely to adapt to even modest<br />
seasonal drought. Therefore, impacts<br />
are likely to exist at many levels,<br />
as shown by earlier studies. They<br />
are expected to include: increases<br />
in rates of tree mortality; increased<br />
litterfall; changes in rates of leaf production<br />
and leaf loss; physiological<br />
effects of drought stress; and inhibition<br />
of photosynthesis.<br />
The main objectives of the project<br />
are to map the spatial and temporal<br />
extent of the drought; to discover<br />
the drought’s impact on tree-level<br />
ecological indicators and on standlevel<br />
ecological indicators (biomass,<br />
growth, mortality, mode of mortality,<br />
composition); and to quantify<br />
drought responses and recovery of<br />
ecosystem processes.<br />
Climate change from the Amazon to<br />
the Andes<br />
We have embarked on a major research<br />
programme in the Andes,<br />
using a transect of study sites ranging<br />
from the lowland Amazon forest<br />
to the high Andes to understand<br />
what determines the carbon dynamics<br />
of Andean montane forests, and<br />
how this may be altered by climate<br />
change. Our field studies will focus<br />
on a valley in the Peruvian Andes,<br />
near Cuzco.<br />
With funding from the Natural Environment<br />
Research Council and<br />
the Moore Foundation, seven members<br />
of the Ecosystem Dynamics<br />
Group are working on this project.<br />
Although some initial fieldwork has<br />
already started, our major fieldwork<br />
investment will start in March <strong>2007</strong>.
Pan-Amazonia Project: for the<br />
Advancement of Networked Science<br />
in Amazonia<br />
Pan-Amazonia is an interdisciplinary<br />
research project coordinated by<br />
the <strong>ECI</strong> and supported by the European<br />
Commission under the FP6<br />
programme. The project encompasses<br />
three integrated scientific<br />
networks designed to meld together<br />
currently disparate research efforts<br />
across the Amazon Basin in terms<br />
of global change and tropical forest<br />
ecosystem function. Pan-Amazonia<br />
involves over 70 researchers from<br />
10 Latin American and 9 European<br />
countries linked together with the<br />
overall aim of advancing our longterm<br />
understanding of Amazonian<br />
forest structure and function in the<br />
face of global change. The project<br />
is also training 11 South American<br />
young researchers in state-of-the-art<br />
scientific techniques.<br />
RAINFOR: Amazon Forest Inventory<br />
Network<br />
RAINFOR is an international network<br />
that has been established to<br />
monitor the biomass and dynamics<br />
of Amazonian forests. Support has<br />
come from the European Commission,<br />
the Max-Planck <strong>Institute</strong><br />
for Biogeochemistry (Germany),<br />
the National Geographic Society<br />
(US), the UK Natural Environment<br />
Research Council (NERC) and<br />
the Royal Society. The project was<br />
founded by scientists at the <strong>ECI</strong><br />
and School of Geography in Leeds,<br />
and involves most of the Amazonian<br />
countries. In recent years RAINFOR<br />
has contributed major advances in<br />
our understanding of tropical rainforests,<br />
resulting in over a dozen<br />
publications in major journals.<br />
LBA Project: Large Scale Biosphere-<br />
Atmosphere Programme in Amazonia<br />
LBA is an international research<br />
programme led by Brazil, and considered<br />
the largest project of international<br />
scientific cooperation ever<br />
created in the environmental area.<br />
LBA seeks to create the knowledge<br />
base and network for understanding<br />
how Amazonia functions as a regional<br />
entity, including the climatological,<br />
ecological, biochemical, and<br />
hydrological interactions. <strong>ECI</strong> has<br />
a number of projects within LBA,<br />
with a particular focus on long-term<br />
measurements at a rainforest site at<br />
Caxiuana, in the eastern Brazilian<br />
Amazon.<br />
Real Time Deforestation Detection<br />
Project<br />
The DETER ‘Near Real Time Deforestation<br />
Detection System’, developed<br />
by the Brazilian space agency,<br />
INPE, uses remote sensing techniques<br />
to detect land cover changes<br />
within the Brazilian Amazon area.<br />
The research is carried out using<br />
MODIS remote sensors with high<br />
temporal observation frequency on<br />
board NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites.<br />
At Oxford we are exploring the<br />
expansion of the DETER approach<br />
to the wider Amazon region, and to<br />
the African and Asian tropics.<br />
QUERCC: Quantifying the Ecosystem<br />
Role in the Carbon Cycle<br />
QUERCC is a NERC funded consortium<br />
that addresses land surface<br />
processes over timescales from days<br />
to centuries, with particular emphasis<br />
on the carbon cycle. Some processes<br />
are already well represented<br />
and validated in Dynamic Global<br />
Vegetation Models (DGVMs), while<br />
others that are known to impact on<br />
the carbon cycle are not. Independent<br />
carbon and vegetation data sets<br />
are being compared against DGVMs<br />
to assess their current state, and further<br />
key modules will be developed<br />
for nutrient cycling (which exerts<br />
a major feedback on carbon exchange)<br />
and for a greater resolution<br />
of plant processes. A global map<br />
of plant functional types that exert<br />
significant impacts on the carbon<br />
cycle will also be developed. <strong>ECI</strong> is<br />
focusing on plant nitrogen modeling<br />
(fixation, uptake, allocation) within<br />
the DGVM.<br />
TROBIT: Tropical Biomes in Transition<br />
TROBIT is a NERC-funded consortium<br />
project looking at what drives<br />
changes in vegetation structure<br />
across wet-dry transitions in the<br />
tropics. Its focus is on fieldwork in<br />
Africa, Australia and South America.<br />
<strong>ECI</strong>’s role within this consortium<br />
is to compile climatic data for these<br />
regions, and to use remote sensing<br />
techniques to look at vegetation<br />
structure and phenology.<br />
Climate change and carbon dynamics<br />
at Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire<br />
Wytham Woods is an ancient<br />
broadleaved woodland just outside<br />
of Oxford. Since 2004 we have been<br />
studying the carbon dynamics of a<br />
one hectare patch of this woodland<br />
(in collaboration with the Centre for<br />
Ecology and Hydrology), with a particular<br />
focus on understanding how<br />
seasonal variations in temperature,<br />
water supply and light affect ecosystem<br />
dynamics. Over the 21st Century<br />
southern England is projected<br />
to experience more frequent summer<br />
droughts, and our long-term<br />
goal is to understand how climate<br />
change will affect British woodlands.<br />
In <strong>2007</strong> the measurements will be<br />
expanded to include the transfer of<br />
carbon dioxide and water above the<br />
forest canopy.<br />
Key Publications<br />
Malhi Y, Wood D, Baker TR, et al.<br />
(<strong>2006</strong>) The regional variation of<br />
aboveground live biomass in oldgrowth<br />
Amazonian forests. Global<br />
<strong>Change</strong> Biology 12 (7): 1107-1138.<br />
Barbier N, Couteron P, Lejoly J, et<br />
al. (<strong>2006</strong>) Self-organized vegetation<br />
patterning as a fingerprint of<br />
climate and human impact on<br />
semi-arid ecosystems. Journal of<br />
Ecology 94 (3): 537-547.<br />
Roman-Cuesta RM, Martinez-Vilalta<br />
J (<strong>2006</strong>) Effectiveness of protected<br />
areas in mitigating fire within their<br />
boundaries: Case study of Chiapas,<br />
Mexico. Conservation Biology 20<br />
(4): 1074-1086.<br />
1
16<br />
Human Ecology<br />
The <strong>ECI</strong>’s Human Ecology research<br />
focuses on the cultural, social, and<br />
political aspects of environmental<br />
management and the interaction<br />
between people and the ecosystem.<br />
We see humans as part of<br />
ecosystems - not as actors having an<br />
effect on the environment ‘out there’,<br />
but each one of us as part of the<br />
environment of everyone else and<br />
as part of the environment of every<br />
other species.<br />
Human ecology is also a<br />
methodology as much as an area of<br />
research. Not only is human ecology<br />
interdisciplinary (integrating lessons<br />
from biology, development studies,<br />
political ecology, psychology, and<br />
anthropology, among others), it<br />
is also participatory, experiential,<br />
and reflexive. Examples of the<br />
questions we research include:<br />
‘How do our cultural, social and<br />
political interactions affect nature,<br />
informally or formally?’ and ‘How<br />
can environmental management and<br />
‘biodiversity conservation’ take on<br />
board the ideas and understanding<br />
of human ecology: the importance<br />
of human values and the diversity of<br />
those values?’<br />
Human Ecology research approach<br />
The common thread through all<br />
our projects is a participatory<br />
approach to learning. This helps<br />
to elicit different values and<br />
knowledge, enable assessment of<br />
the compatibility of information<br />
needs and perceptions of the<br />
different stakeholder groups, and<br />
allow the values and knowledge<br />
of marginalised stakeholders to<br />
be given a more prominent role in<br />
decision-making.<br />
Projects<br />
Sustainable harvests of medicinal<br />
plants from community forests<br />
“Few projects have had a greater<br />
impact on the target community or<br />
have achieved more towards meeting<br />
their long term objectives.” <strong>Review</strong>er<br />
for UK Department for International<br />
Development (DfID).<br />
In collaboration with NGO partners<br />
and four communities in India<br />
and Nepal this project addressed<br />
the question “Can non-timber<br />
forest products (NTFPs) provide<br />
communities with a reliable<br />
livelihood at the same time as<br />
conserving species and habitats?”.<br />
Scientific methods were combined<br />
with participatory approaches to<br />
identify drivers of change in NTFP<br />
populations and forest quality, and<br />
help village research committees<br />
formulate testable hypotheses<br />
and establish monitoring and<br />
experimental plots, in a scientifically<br />
and socially acceptable manner. The<br />
results stimulated recommendations<br />
for management guidelines and<br />
regulations for NTFPs. The scientific<br />
basis of the participatory approach<br />
also improved respect between the<br />
foresters and forest users.<br />
The <strong>ECI</strong>’s methodology has<br />
contributed to DfID’s goals<br />
of supporting environmental<br />
sustainability in the interests of poor<br />
people’s livelihoods by providing<br />
tools to reduce variability and risk<br />
in production and has enhanced<br />
institutional capacity for decisionmaking.<br />
The project is included<br />
in the top 20% of DfID renewable<br />
natural resource research projects<br />
to go into a new Research Into Use<br />
Programme (RIUP), which aims<br />
to maximise the poverty-reducing<br />
impact of the research outputs in<br />
Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.<br />
Participatory forest management for<br />
herbal medicinal production in Peru<br />
In a similar project on sustainable<br />
harvesting, <strong>ECI</strong> and a Peruvian<br />
partner, Centro EORI, are working<br />
with indigenous communities on<br />
a 20-year plan for the cultivation<br />
of medicinal plants. The project<br />
includes a book on indigenous<br />
knowledge of these plants, and a<br />
market study to guide communities<br />
in identifying species with economic<br />
potential, and finding business<br />
partners and available markets.<br />
The black poplar: insights into UK<br />
Biodiversity Action Plans<br />
The UK has a unique and<br />
highly structured approach to<br />
biodiversity conservation through<br />
its Biodiversity Action Plans<br />
(BAPs). How do these affect local<br />
conservation planning and practice?<br />
We used a cross-cutting study of<br />
35 local BAPs to examine how<br />
black poplar has been treated.<br />
This species possibly has cultural<br />
as well as ecological significance,<br />
contributing to the remarkable<br />
diversity of ways in which it has<br />
been included or excluded by<br />
LBAPs. The study finds LBAPs to<br />
be a blend of personal preference,<br />
intuitive practice, and political<br />
pragmatism – a blend which works,<br />
given funding constraints and the<br />
need to rely on existing interest<br />
groups. Criticisms that the ‘rational<br />
planning’ approach focuses too
much on numerical targets appear<br />
to be justified, and more attention is<br />
now being turned to the ecological<br />
impacts of such plans.<br />
Citizen science and community<br />
participation in Protected Area<br />
Management: a new approach for<br />
European Transition Countries<br />
Through its new and acceding<br />
member states the European Union<br />
has inherited an impressive array<br />
of protected areas and traditional<br />
agricultural landscapes with a<br />
wealth of biodiversity that has long<br />
been lost in western member states.<br />
New EU policy and changes in<br />
conservation philosophy provide<br />
openings and challenges for the<br />
central and eastern countries of<br />
Europe.<br />
These include the shift from<br />
centralised, hierarchical planning<br />
to participatory approaches<br />
which recognise the value of local<br />
knowledge, local commitment<br />
to place, and traditional customs<br />
and rules for protecting resources.<br />
Current participatory approaches<br />
rely either on a strong civil society<br />
sector (as in western Europe)<br />
or on rural communities who<br />
depend on their own resources and<br />
develop their own user rules (as in<br />
developing countries). New models<br />
of participatory conservation are<br />
therefore needed in post-socialist<br />
Europe.<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> is testing a model for<br />
community participation in<br />
protected areas in the northern<br />
Carpathians of Romania (the Rodna<br />
Mountains National Park) as part of<br />
a UK Government Darwin Initiative<br />
funded project. The approach<br />
recognises that participation is<br />
a new concept for many of the<br />
stakeholders, and therefore builds<br />
on existing relationships of trust<br />
within communities and schools.<br />
Activities include school children<br />
documenting local and traditional<br />
knowledge about the national park;<br />
schools forming ‘Friends of Rodna<br />
Mountains’ clubs, focusing on the<br />
specific interests of their school (eg,<br />
art); and Friends clubs contributing<br />
to the implementation of the<br />
management plan, by selecting<br />
specific plants or animals to study,<br />
with training in GIS (Geographical<br />
Information Systems). This also<br />
allows the park administration to<br />
consolidate, analyse and map all the<br />
data.<br />
This approach provides a model<br />
which is culturally and politically<br />
appropriate. It is being evaluated<br />
and adapted at interactive multistakeholder<br />
workshops nationally<br />
(Nov <strong>2006</strong>) and internationally (late<br />
<strong>2007</strong>).<br />
Community forests and small-scale<br />
forestry in Romania<br />
In common with other former-<br />
Soviet countries in Central and<br />
Eastern Europe, Romania initiated a<br />
process of ‘restitution’ – the return<br />
of state-appropriated property to<br />
pre-communist owners soon after<br />
the restoration of democracy.<br />
Restitution of forests is notoriously<br />
problematic and controversial,<br />
and <strong>ECI</strong> research is highlighting<br />
the difficult experiences of rural<br />
households, as they have coped<br />
with losing their forests to the<br />
state, regarding the forests as state<br />
property, and then engaging with<br />
the tangled restitution process to get<br />
their forests back.<br />
The diversity of these experiences<br />
provide signposts to the future to<br />
improve the social, institutional and<br />
ecological sustainability of forests,<br />
Key Publications<br />
Leader: Dr Anna Lawrence<br />
including:<br />
1. Establishing examples of good<br />
practice;<br />
2. Education and training:<br />
practical initiatives to integrate<br />
environmental and cultural<br />
values into school curricula;<br />
communication training for<br />
foresters; and management<br />
training for forest owners;<br />
3. Support for associations of<br />
forest owners to simplify<br />
administration and governance;<br />
4. Policy: taking account of the<br />
strong diversity of ownership<br />
and forest history; engaging<br />
with the more abstract, pronature<br />
values of city-based<br />
owners and public;<br />
5.<br />
Media: addressing the negative<br />
effects of foresters’ low selfesteem;<br />
and promoting the<br />
remarkable richness of cultural<br />
attachment to the forest found<br />
in rural Romania.<br />
Lawrence A. and Hawthorne W.<br />
(<strong>2006</strong>) Plant identification: creating<br />
user-friendly field guides<br />
for biodiversity management.<br />
Earthscan, London.<br />
Lawrence, A., Paudel, K.,<br />
Barnes, R. and Y. Malla. <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
Adaptive value of participatory<br />
biodiversity monitoring<br />
in community forestry, Nepal.<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> Conservation<br />
33(4):325-334.<br />
Lawrence, A. (<strong>2006</strong>) “No<br />
personal motive?” Volunteers,<br />
biodiversity and the false<br />
dichotomies of participation.<br />
Ethics, Place and Environment 9<br />
(3): 279-298.<br />
1
1<br />
James Martin 21st Century School<br />
Research Fellows<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> is a founding member of the new James Martin 1st Century School at Oxford. The School was created through<br />
a munificent benefaction by Dr James Martin, with an objective to stimulate Oxford’s capacity for ‘the invention of<br />
invention’. During the first three years of the 21st Century School the <strong>ECI</strong>’s involvement, led by Professor Diana<br />
Liverman, is on two priority topics: climate change and environmental governance. Our association with the School<br />
is enabling us to take a stronger international role in the analysis and formation of policies on climate change, international<br />
environmental policy, and sustainable development.<br />
In climate change there is a great need for research that clarifies uncertainties regarding regional impacts, vulnerabilities,<br />
and economic costs to identify the most effective ways of reducing the risks in the context of sustainable and<br />
equitable development paths.<br />
<strong>ECI</strong>’s new research in environmental governance will lead theoretical and empirical work on new approaches such as<br />
the effectiveness of pricing, privatisation, and changes in scale as ways of managing the global environment.<br />
Dr Emily Boyd<br />
Emily’s current focus is on exploring governance issues in the context<br />
of global environmental change. In particular her research focuses on<br />
aspects of climate change policy relating to development, including the<br />
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). She is focused on developing<br />
understanding of scale, interplay, and institutions in managing climate<br />
change and conservation of natural resources. Other research includes<br />
understanding socio-ecological interactions, resilience and institutions<br />
(e.g. property rights), in particular exploring the concepts of political and<br />
institutional change, as well as social resilience; vulnerability; decision<br />
support tools for environmental management; participatory processes;<br />
and the science-policy interface.<br />
Boyd, E., Gutierrez, M., Chang, M. Small-scale forest<br />
carbon projects: Adapting CDM to low-income<br />
communities. Global <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> in press.<br />
Dr Max Boykoff<br />
Max is undertaking analyses of non-state actors at<br />
the climate science-policy interface. Currently, he is<br />
conducting comparative analyses of media coverage<br />
of climate change between the United States<br />
and the UK. He is also examining the role of climate<br />
change-related celebrity endeavours, and is exploring<br />
links between these projects and environmental<br />
ethics as well as environmental justice social movements.<br />
Previously, he has looked at how United<br />
States mass-media coverage influences international<br />
climate change science and policy cooperation<br />
and conflict, and has explored how these relations<br />
impact upon public understanding. Max’s research<br />
uses insights from critical discourse analysis, political<br />
economy, science studies, political ecology,<br />
and sociology.<br />
Boykoff, M. and J. Boykoff. (2004) Bias as Balance:<br />
Global Warming and the U.S. Prestige Press. Global<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> (14)2, pp. 125-136.
Prof Maria carmen-lemos<br />
Maria Carmen Lemos is an Associate<br />
Professor at the University of Michigan’s<br />
School of Natural Resources and Environment<br />
where the overall focus of her<br />
research is the intersection of technoscientific<br />
knowledge and governance of<br />
environmental issues. During her sabbatical<br />
at <strong>ECI</strong> she investigated the role<br />
of governance institutions in building<br />
adaptive capacity to climate variability<br />
and change in water management in<br />
Brazil. Using survey data from eighteen<br />
river basin committees and consortia<br />
across different regions, she explores<br />
the implications of the use of technoscientific<br />
knowledge, including climate<br />
information, to foster adaptation and<br />
democracy in the management of vulnerable<br />
water resources.<br />
Eakin, H. and M.C. Lemos (<strong>2006</strong>).<br />
Adaptation and the state: Latin America and<br />
the challenge of capacity-building under<br />
globalization. Global <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong>,<br />
vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 7-18.<br />
Dr Dave frame<br />
Dave is looking at how uncertainties in<br />
predictions of global climate change<br />
models can affect climate policy, and<br />
the role of ‘ensemble’ climate forecasts<br />
and what they might imply. He is<br />
interested in how understanding recent<br />
and future global warming rates might<br />
improve the questions policy makers<br />
ask, as well as working on ways of<br />
understanding the uncertainties in the<br />
answers to those questions. He is also<br />
interested in philosophical aspects of<br />
climate research, especially questions<br />
regarding foundational issues in climate<br />
modelling. Formerly Dave was the coordinator<br />
of climateprediction.net,<br />
the world’s largest participatory<br />
computer climate model, with 1/4million<br />
contributors from over 150 countries.<br />
Frame D. J., Stone D. A., Stott P. A., Allen<br />
M. R. (<strong>2006</strong>) Alternatives to stabilisation<br />
scenarios, Geophysical Letters 33 L14707.<br />
Dr Cameron hepburn<br />
Cameron is an environmental economist<br />
specialising in climate policy and longterm<br />
decision-making. He has recently<br />
been working on the functioning of the<br />
European emissions trading scheme,<br />
instrument choice, adaptation finance,<br />
and the absence of a clear carbon<br />
price signal for business post-Kyoto<br />
2012. He assisted the UK Government’s<br />
Stern <strong>Review</strong> on the Economics of<br />
Climate <strong>Change</strong> and is advising OECD<br />
governments on their discounting<br />
frameworks, which determine how a<br />
balance is struck between short-term<br />
and long-term public objectives. He is<br />
a member of the Academic Panel for<br />
the UK Government’s Department of<br />
Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs<br />
(DEFRA).<br />
Hepburn, C., Neuhoff, K., Grubb, M.,<br />
Matthes, F. and Tse, M. (<strong>2006</strong>) Auctioning of<br />
EU ETS Phase II allowances: why and how?<br />
Climate Policy 6:1, 137-160.<br />
Dr samuel randalls<br />
Sam’s research analyzes the nascent<br />
weather derivatives market in relation<br />
to contemporary themes in climate<br />
policy. Can weather derivatives be<br />
used to adapt to the costs of climate<br />
change? How might weather derivatives<br />
interact with the EU emissions trading<br />
scheme and renewable energy<br />
financing? These questions are<br />
explored through empirical research<br />
on weather derivatives examining<br />
both the financial and meteorological<br />
networks underpinning the market. This<br />
work is informed through theoretical<br />
approaches developed in human<br />
geography and the sociology of<br />
science.<br />
Prof Timmons Roberts<br />
While on sabbatical at the <strong>ECI</strong>, Timmons<br />
is researching foreign aid and climate<br />
change mitigation and adaptation in developing<br />
nations. With special funds now<br />
for adaptation and huge carbon trading<br />
activities, the role of aid has been<br />
under-studied. His project will consider<br />
past aid and its impact on carbon emissions;<br />
effectiveness of 1,600 specific<br />
climate change aid projects; and case<br />
studies of China, Brazil, and India. This<br />
work builds on his book Greening Aid?<br />
Understanding Foreign Assistance for<br />
the Environment, analysing 430,000<br />
aid projects between 1970 and 2001.<br />
Timmons uses political economy theory<br />
to explain unequal suffering by poor<br />
nations of climate change impacts, unequal<br />
responsibility for the problem, and<br />
unequal participation in treaties such as<br />
the Kyoto Protocol.<br />
Roberts, J.T. and Hite, A., <strong>2006</strong>. The Globalization<br />
and Development Reader: Perspectives<br />
on Development and Social <strong>Change</strong> (Second<br />
Edition). Blackwell Publishers.<br />
prof john schellnhuber<br />
John is Founding Director of the<br />
Potsdam <strong>Institute</strong> for Climate Impacts<br />
Research and a Distinguished Science<br />
Adviser and former Research Director<br />
of the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate<br />
<strong>Change</strong> Research. He has recently been<br />
appointed as the ‘Chief Sustainability<br />
Scientist’ for the German Government<br />
in the <strong>2007</strong> G8/EU twin presidency<br />
and the overall post-Kyoto process.<br />
His research has advanced crossdisciplinary<br />
understanding of the crucial<br />
processes involved in climate change.<br />
He has contributed more than 230<br />
pertinent articles and books and was,<br />
for instance, Coordinating Lead Author<br />
of the WG II synthesis chapter in the<br />
Third Intergovernmental Panel on Climate<br />
<strong>Change</strong> (IPCC) Assessment Report. He<br />
received an honorary CBE in recognition<br />
of his accomplishments in climate<br />
change science and diplomacy, and<br />
he is an elected member of a number<br />
of learned societies (including the US<br />
National Academy of Sciences and the<br />
German Max Planck Society). Oxford<br />
now provides his UK base when not in<br />
Germany.<br />
Avoiding Dangerous Climate <strong>Change</strong>, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
Edited by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Wolfgang<br />
Cramer, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Tom Wigley,<br />
Gary Yohe. Foreword by Rt Hon Tony Blair<br />
MP, Introduction by Dr Rajendra Pachauri.<br />
Dr Emma Tompkins<br />
Emma researches how societies can<br />
and should adapt to climate change.<br />
Her current projects include societal<br />
responses to natural hazards as an<br />
analogy for preparing for climate<br />
change; processes of institutional<br />
learning and the role of international<br />
conventions; drivers of private sector<br />
responses to weather hazards; and<br />
motivators of individual change. She<br />
is focusing on 4 themes: knowledge<br />
transfer across social groups and<br />
cultural contexts; tools to support<br />
climate change decision making; the<br />
role of governance in enabling and<br />
constraining climate change responses;<br />
and identifying the psychological and<br />
economic limits to adaptation. With<br />
colleagues from the Caribbean she<br />
recently wrote a manual on ‘Surviving<br />
climate change in small islands; a<br />
guidebook‘.<br />
Tompkins, E. L. 2005. Planning for climate<br />
change in small islands: Insights from<br />
national hurricane preparedness in the<br />
Cayman Islands. Global <strong>Environmental</strong><br />
<strong>Change</strong> 15 (2):139-143.<br />
1
0<br />
Energy<br />
The climate is changing because of the way that<br />
we – humans – use fossil fuels. As we are the<br />
problem, it should be possible for us to be the<br />
solution.<br />
<strong>ECI</strong>’s Lower Carbon Futures Team (LCF) develops<br />
policy ideas to support a transition to an<br />
equitable, low-carbon society. The work is funded<br />
by grants from UK research councils and the EU,<br />
and through contracts with government departments<br />
and clients from industry and civil society.<br />
The focus is on policy analysis and the development<br />
of innovative ideas for energy saving and<br />
adoption of low-carbon energy generation technologies<br />
in the medium- to long-term. The UK<br />
Government’s target of a 60% cut in carbon dioxide<br />
emissions by 2050 is taken as a given; every<br />
year this becomes more challenging, as the UK<br />
has achieved only minor carbon reductions since<br />
1990.<br />
We use computer modelling and back-casting<br />
techniques (ie starting with long-term targets<br />
and working backwards from the future to the<br />
present) to analyse how current policy needs to<br />
change. We typically develop scenarios using<br />
bottom-up modelling techniques, built on detailed<br />
options for how society and the economy might<br />
develop. We explore the potential for reducing<br />
demand for energy as well as developing low-carbon<br />
supply options. By comparing these future<br />
scenarios with current policy and practice, we<br />
are able to highlight priorities for policy and set<br />
out key strategic issues. New initiatives are urgently<br />
needed if the 2050 target is to be met.<br />
We work collaboratively with other academic<br />
research groups and partners from government<br />
and industry. At any one time we are normally<br />
working with over a dozen such organisations.<br />
Since October 2004, Brenda Boardman has<br />
been a Co-Director of the UK Energy Research<br />
Centre, leading the Demand Reduction theme.<br />
Several members of the LCF team undertake this<br />
research into all UK energy use, together with<br />
colleagues in other universities.<br />
LCF members produce policy proposals, research<br />
reports, responses to government consultations<br />
on energy and climate change, consultancy<br />
reports, conference and journal papers,<br />
presentations to a wide variety of audiences, and<br />
contributions to the wider debate in the general<br />
media.<br />
Leader:<br />
Dr Brenda Boardman MBE<br />
Key Research Topics<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
Buildings<br />
Energy Behaviour<br />
Energy in the Developing World<br />
Fuel Poverty<br />
Lights and Appliances<br />
Low Carbon Economy<br />
Renewable Energy<br />
Transport<br />
Buildings Research<br />
Our major report, 40% House, identified the scale of<br />
the changes needed in the residential sector. The UK<br />
Domestic Carbon Model (UKDCM) has been developed<br />
and will be made publicly available early in <strong>2007</strong>. The<br />
research is now extending to the non-domestic sector,<br />
through Building Market Transformation. This presents<br />
an even greater challenge, as the base data are so poor.<br />
Energy Behaviour Research<br />
Energy systems are socio-technical - they are strongly<br />
influenced by personal and social variables. We take<br />
a particular interest in individual and social learning<br />
about energy; the uses of feedback on consumption in<br />
altering behaviour; and the changes in people’s ideas of<br />
comfort over time. The importance – and the challenge<br />
- of including behavioural factors is being recognised by<br />
energy modellers and policy makers.<br />
Energy in the Developing World Research<br />
The research emphasis is on initiatives to lift the 2<br />
billion people who lack access to modern or improved<br />
energy services out of poverty, and combat problems<br />
such as indoor air pollution and land degradation<br />
caused by reliance on inefficient traditional forms of<br />
energy. Sustainable energy is critical in meeting the<br />
Millennium Development Goals to halve global poverty<br />
by 2015, as safe, secure and efficient forms of energy<br />
are vital to economic activity, healthcare, education,<br />
transport, and protecting natural resources. Inefficient
energy sources also contribute to<br />
climate change and increase reliance<br />
on diminishing natural resources<br />
or imported fuels, lessening energy<br />
security.<br />
Fuel Poverty Research<br />
The problem of eradicating fuel<br />
poverty in UK households has<br />
increased with the doubling of<br />
domestic energy prices since 2002.<br />
The challenge for the Government<br />
of meeting this legal obligation<br />
and energy policy objective has<br />
become acute. LCF research<br />
assesses the impact of current and<br />
possible future energy policies on<br />
vulnerable households. A network<br />
of researchers across Europe is<br />
being established to enable the UK’s<br />
experience to be shared with central<br />
and eastern European countries,<br />
where fuel poverty is an emergent<br />
problem.<br />
Lights and Appliances Research<br />
LCF has a long-established database<br />
of energy use in residential lights<br />
and appliances, incorporating<br />
ownership levels, energy efficiency<br />
and usage patterns. This enables us<br />
to create detailed scenarios for the<br />
impact of lights and appliances in<br />
the future and to inform EU and<br />
UK policy. Our approach is based<br />
on Market Transformation theory<br />
and provides evidence that product<br />
policies can lead to significant CO2<br />
savings. As with buildings, this<br />
research is now extending to the<br />
use of lights and appliances in non-<br />
domestic buildings. The equipment<br />
may be the same, but the resultant<br />
energy use is poorly understood.<br />
Low Carbon Economy Research<br />
How can carbon dioxide emissions<br />
be best accounted for in relation<br />
to all economic activity? Two key<br />
policy instruments are taxation<br />
and emissions trading, with each<br />
approach having its pros and cons.<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> contributes to this wider debate<br />
in its work on Personal Carbon<br />
Trading, analysing the detail of how<br />
a future scheme might work, based<br />
on emissions trading at the level of<br />
the individual.<br />
Renewable Energy Research<br />
While some renewables provide<br />
energy on demand (eg landfill<br />
gas), the availability of others<br />
changes according to local climate<br />
characteristics. Our research<br />
focuses on the resource properties<br />
of wind, wave, tidal and solar<br />
photovoltaic generating systems,<br />
together with Combined Heat<br />
and Power (CHP) systems. By<br />
understanding the variability of<br />
these (over time and in different<br />
places around the UK), it is possible<br />
to design and optimize a diverse<br />
renewable energy portfolio that<br />
provides greater resource reliability<br />
and lower system variability (or<br />
intermittency). This will in turn<br />
affect key operational aspects of<br />
the electricity grid, such as backup<br />
capacity and load following capacity.<br />
Transport Research<br />
A major focus is on personal travel<br />
profiles, identifying the contribution<br />
to carbon emissions from different<br />
travel patterns. A large proportion<br />
of all emissions comes from the<br />
highest 10% of users.<br />
The debate on the potential conflicts<br />
between climate change policy and<br />
the expected growth in UK aviation<br />
was the focus of an <strong>ECI</strong> publication:<br />
Predict and decide – Aviation,<br />
climate change and UK policy.<br />
Key Publications<br />
Cairns, S., Newson, C.,<br />
Boardman, B. & Anable, J.<br />
(<strong>2006</strong>) Predict and decide:<br />
Aviation, climate change and UK<br />
policy. <strong>ECI</strong> Research Report 33.<br />
Boardman, B., Jardine, C. &<br />
Lipp, J. (<strong>2006</strong>) Green Electricity<br />
Code of Practice: A Scoping<br />
Study.<br />
Boardman, B., Darby, S.,<br />
Killip, G., Hinnells, M., Jardine,<br />
C., Palmer, J. and Sinden, G.<br />
(2005) 40% House.<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> Research<br />
Report 31.<br />
1
Energy:<br />
Lower<br />
CArbon<br />
Futures<br />
research<br />
projects<br />
Solar Schools<br />
Enhancing sustainable energy<br />
education, by providing<br />
educational materials,<br />
presentations, lists of websites<br />
to visit, twinning of schools and<br />
international competitions for both<br />
primary and secondary schools.<br />
Funders: European Commission ALTENER<br />
Programme<br />
Energy planning in developing<br />
countries: facing the challenges of<br />
equitable access, secure supply and<br />
climate change<br />
A research scoping study for UK<br />
Department for International<br />
Development, involving 3 African<br />
and one UK research partners. Aims<br />
to investigate the synergies and tradeoffs<br />
present in energy planning in<br />
Africa.<br />
Funder: UK Department for International<br />
Development ~ Partners: UK research partner:<br />
ESD Ltd African research partners: PDG -<br />
South Africa, CEEEZ - Zambia, ESDA - Kenya<br />
Metering, billing, and displays<br />
Most UK householders have<br />
only a vague idea of how much<br />
energy they are using for different<br />
purposes. This report reviews<br />
options for giving customers<br />
feedback about their usage and<br />
summarises what is known about<br />
effects on behaviour.<br />
Funder: UK Government Department of the<br />
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs<br />
UK Energy Research Centre:<br />
Demand Reduction Theme<br />
How can we reduce the UK’s<br />
burgeoning energy demand? The<br />
programme leads national research<br />
on new technologies and finding<br />
ways of influencing consumer<br />
behaviour whilst covering concerns<br />
about distribution and affordability.<br />
Funders: Research Councils: Engineering and<br />
Physical Sciences (EPSRC), Economic and Social<br />
(ESRC), Natural Environment (NERC)<br />
Partners: Bath University, Robert Gordon<br />
University<br />
40% House<br />
The first ever detailed agendasetting<br />
exercise for a major<br />
sector of energy use in a leading<br />
industrialised country. 40% House<br />
set out a plan for a 60% reduction<br />
in carbon dioxide emissions by<br />
2050 for all energy use in the<br />
whole 25 million+ UK housing<br />
stock, evaluating the behavioural<br />
and technological changes<br />
required.<br />
Funders: Tyndall Centre<br />
Partners: UMIST, Heriot Watt University<br />
Green Electricity: Advising the<br />
customer<br />
With many different green<br />
electricity products on the market,<br />
customers are confused as to<br />
which ones really are best for the<br />
environment. The <strong>ECI</strong> developed<br />
a Code of Practice for suppliers,<br />
to ensure they give clear, accurate<br />
information.<br />
Funder: Good Energy<br />
cRRescendo: Integrating sustainable<br />
energy into homes<br />
Developing sustainable and energyefficient<br />
buildings for communities,<br />
incorporating energy infrastructure<br />
into 6,000 new and existing homes<br />
in four European towns. <strong>ECI</strong> is<br />
coordinating the policy, behavioural,<br />
and non-technical research.<br />
Funding: EC Concerto programme.<br />
Partners: Ecofys, NV Nuon, English Partnerships,<br />
Ove Arup, and the municipalities of<br />
Ajaccio, Almere, Milton Keynes and Viladecans
Supergen: Highly Distributed Power<br />
Systems<br />
How would the electricity network<br />
function effectively with millions<br />
of small scale distributed electricity<br />
generators? Within the SUPERGEN<br />
consortium, <strong>ECI</strong> is modelling the<br />
performance of solar photovoltaic<br />
systems and looking into policies that<br />
support and encourage the uptake of<br />
household-scale energy generation.<br />
Funders: Engineering and Physical Sciences<br />
Research Council ~ Partners: The Turbo Genset<br />
Company Ltd, Scottish Power, Rolls Royce plc,<br />
Intelligent Power Systems Ltd<br />
Integrated Travel Emissions Profiles<br />
Investigating greenhouse gas<br />
pollutant emissions and related<br />
climate change impacts from<br />
transport at the personal,<br />
household and local levels.<br />
Funders: Economic and Social Research<br />
Council<br />
Building MArket Transformation<br />
BMT aims to explore what is<br />
needed to achieve a 50 per cent<br />
cut in carbon emissions from<br />
buildings as quickly as possible.<br />
Although there is significant<br />
potential for existing technology<br />
to reduce carbon emissions in<br />
both domestic and non-domestic<br />
buildings, improvements are<br />
not being made. This applies<br />
both to new buildings and the<br />
refurbishment of existing ones.<br />
The BMT project will explore<br />
social and economic as well as<br />
environmental considerations.<br />
For example, people’s behaviour is<br />
changing in relation to buildings<br />
as they demand more space, heat,<br />
hot water and appliances as living<br />
standards improve. In looking<br />
to develop policy solutions,<br />
the initiative will also explore<br />
institutional, legal and technical<br />
UK Energy Research Centre:<br />
Meeting Place<br />
A networking hub for international<br />
experts across all energy disciplines.<br />
The Meeting Place hosts short<br />
intensive sessions on horizon<br />
scanning, agenda setting, and<br />
promoting collaborative research on<br />
sustainable energy economies.<br />
Funders: Research Councils: Engineering and<br />
Physical Sciences (EPSRC), Economic and<br />
Social (ESRC), Natural Environment (NERC)<br />
issues. A series of seminars will<br />
involve key decision-makers from<br />
industry and government to discuss<br />
the changes necessary to achieve<br />
such a cut. It will also develop a<br />
publicly available computer model<br />
of the UK’s building stock which<br />
will enable policy measures to be<br />
assessed in terms of their direct and<br />
indirect impact on emissions.<br />
BMT will help inform the future<br />
direction of carbon-saving research<br />
and policies. The aim is to help<br />
develop a consensus between<br />
industry and government about<br />
what needs to be done, when and<br />
how. Example reports and papers<br />
include:<br />
• The effectiveness of feedback on<br />
energy consumption: a review<br />
for the UK Government’s<br />
Department of Environment,<br />
Food, & Rural Affairs of the<br />
Wind Power and the UK Wind<br />
Resource<br />
The long-term characteristics of<br />
the UK wind resource, including<br />
temporal and geographical<br />
variability and intermittency.<br />
Funders: UK Government’s Department of<br />
Trade & Industry<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
literature on metering, billing,<br />
and direct displays<br />
Can Energy Services Companies<br />
deliver low carbon new build<br />
homes?<br />
The cost of a 60% cut in CO 2<br />
emissions from homes: what do<br />
experience curves tell us?<br />
Aiming at a 60% reduction<br />
in CO 2 : implications for<br />
residential lights, appliances,<br />
and microgeneration<br />
Liberating the power of Energy<br />
Services and ESCOs in a<br />
liberalised energy market<br />
Funders: Engineering and Physical Sciences<br />
Research Council (EPSRC), Carbon Trust<br />
Partners: Universities of Bath, Cardiff, Strathclyde,<br />
and Surrey
The new UK Energy Research<br />
Centre’s mission is to be the UK’s<br />
pre-eminent centre of research and<br />
source of authoritative information<br />
and leadership on sustainable energy<br />
systems. UKERC undertakes worldclass<br />
research addressing wholesystems<br />
aspects of energy supply<br />
and use, while developing and<br />
maintaining the means to enable<br />
cohesive UK research in energy.<br />
As a lead partner of UKERC,<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> manages The Meeting Place<br />
which is the UK’s international<br />
gateway for the energy research<br />
community. Over the two years<br />
since its inception in October 2004,<br />
the Meeting Place has hosted 1,500<br />
people from 35 countries at some 40<br />
conferences and workshops. Several<br />
of these events have been jointly<br />
hosted with other institutions,<br />
for example, the International<br />
Energy Agency (IEA), the Italian<br />
Government and the British<br />
<strong>Institute</strong> of Energy Economics.<br />
A diversity of audiences is one of<br />
the driving themes for the Meeting<br />
Place and these have included the<br />
ministries of G8+5; UK Government<br />
Departments (e.g. DTI, DfT, Defra);<br />
NGOs such as Transport 2000,<br />
Friends of the Earth and WWF;<br />
and academics from a wide range<br />
of disciplines. Businesses have<br />
come from a wide range of sectors<br />
including finance, construction,<br />
engineering, and transport, as<br />
well as energy, e.g. Arup, Barclays<br />
Capital, BMW, BP, Centrica,<br />
Corus, Crest Nicholson, E.ON ,<br />
EcoSecurities, Faber Maunsell,<br />
Halcrow, Phillips, Pilkingtons,<br />
Prudential, Shell, SolarCentury,<br />
Taylor Woodrow, Whitby Bird, and<br />
Woolwich.<br />
The Meeting Place uses a wide<br />
variety of meeting formats to bring<br />
together these diverse audiences and<br />
promote effective interdisciplinary<br />
working, including: large<br />
conferences; short brainstorming<br />
audio-conference sessions; series of<br />
small workshops spread over several<br />
months; medium-sized residential<br />
workshops, lasting several days; and<br />
longer visits by international visitors<br />
lasting several weeks or months. The<br />
vast and diverse array of facilities<br />
offered by the departments and<br />
colleges of Oxford University are<br />
a valuable resource in this regard,<br />
although the Meeting Place is able<br />
to host events at other UK venues.<br />
A flavour of Meeting Place activities<br />
since its inception include:<br />
• the Climate <strong>Change</strong> Metrics 2day<br />
workshop, November 2004,<br />
Oxford. This event brought<br />
together experts from many<br />
different professions and<br />
disciplines to debate the merits of<br />
different climate change metrics<br />
options to enable inclusion of<br />
other sectors and greenhouse<br />
gases in the EU emissions trading<br />
scheme, particularly aviation and<br />
methane.<br />
• the G8+ 5 Energy Research and<br />
Innovation Workshop (WIRE),<br />
May 2005, Oxford, co-sponsored<br />
by the DTi and Defra. This major<br />
international workshop brought<br />
together senior policy officials<br />
and researchers from G8 nations,<br />
plus five developing nations<br />
(Mexico, South Africa, China,<br />
India and Brazil) to discuss<br />
collaboration on clean energy and<br />
innovation.<br />
• the Italian Carbon Capture<br />
and Clean Coal workshop,<br />
February <strong>2006</strong>, London. This<br />
international workshop, hosted<br />
jointly with the Italian Embassy,<br />
aimed to strengthen UK/<br />
Italian collaboration as a basis<br />
for submitting joint projects<br />
under the EU’s 7th Framework<br />
programme.<br />
•<br />
•<br />
the Innovation and Energy<br />
Systems research workshop<br />
series, March-September <strong>2006</strong>,<br />
Oxford. This two-part intensive,<br />
collaborative and researchfocused<br />
activity brought together<br />
leading representatives from<br />
economic, institutional and<br />
management perspectives<br />
to describe their respective<br />
approaches to innovation in<br />
energy systems, share knowledge<br />
and insights, and come to a<br />
greater degree of common<br />
understanding. The output of<br />
this series of workshops is a peerreviewed<br />
book.<br />
<strong>Annual</strong> UKERC Summer School,<br />
July <strong>2006</strong>, Edinburgh. This annual<br />
activity brings together around<br />
25 UK-based doctoral students<br />
working on interdisciplinary<br />
energy issues to undertake a oneweek<br />
intensive energy training<br />
programme. This event is run in<br />
parallel with the UKERC general<br />
assembly, also managed by the<br />
Meeting Place.<br />
Details of Meeting Place events,<br />
including outputs such as reports,<br />
are available from the website:<br />
www.ukerc.ac.uk<br />
The Meeting Place:<br />
• is dedicated to furthering<br />
policy and research agendas<br />
through interdisciplinary problem-solving<br />
events, networking<br />
activities and interactions<br />
with international visitors.<br />
• provides a forum for proactive<br />
debate of energy policy<br />
issues<br />
• pursues activities based on<br />
proposals received from<br />
members of the energy<br />
research community.<br />
• operates as an activity<br />
development and management<br />
service, rather than a<br />
permanent physical location,<br />
so providing flexibility in the<br />
location and format of events.<br />
•<br />
brings together people from<br />
many different disciplines<br />
and professions that would<br />
not normally meet or work<br />
together.
Ecosystems: Conservation Practice<br />
‘Song of the Cities’: A marketled<br />
conservation response to the<br />
bird-trade in Indonesia<br />
Drs Paul Jepson and Richard Ladle<br />
(Oxford University Centre for the<br />
Environment, <strong>ECI</strong>/Geography)<br />
Bird-keeping is hugely popular in<br />
the cities of Java and Bali and vast<br />
numbers of birds are taken from the<br />
wild each year. This project, funded<br />
by the Darwin Initiative, is assessing<br />
the efficacy of switching the supply<br />
chain from wild-caught to captivebred<br />
birds. A particular innovation<br />
is to extend the consumer-choice<br />
‘pull’ approach of market-based<br />
mechanisms to include broader<br />
collective action whereby hobbyists<br />
mobilise for change.<br />
The research has involved<br />
qualitative and quantitative<br />
research on key aspects of the birdkeeping<br />
pastime. At the centre<br />
of this research has been a major<br />
household survey in six cities on<br />
Java and Bali. The market-research<br />
company ACNielsen shared with us<br />
their sampling frame and protocol<br />
and as a result we have a robust<br />
data set that enables statistical<br />
projections to the population.<br />
Headline results are that 1 in 3<br />
households in the six cities keep<br />
a bird and nearly 1 in 7 have kept<br />
a bird at sometime in the last ten<br />
years. Over 1.4 million of the birds<br />
kept are wild-caught but similar<br />
numbers are captive-bred. Four of<br />
the most popular wild-caught birds<br />
are favourites at bird song-contests.<br />
The 450 song contests organised in<br />
Java and Bali bring together people<br />
from all ethnicities and backgrounds<br />
in a common interest.<br />
Songbird keepers in the six cities<br />
spend approximately £43 million<br />
a year on their hobby. Of this £14<br />
million is spent on birds, nearly<br />
£9 million on live-food and £4.5<br />
million on cages. The hobby<br />
makes substantial economic and<br />
livelihood contributions. Birdbreeding<br />
business models underline<br />
these insights. Many are social<br />
enterprises, in that they deliver<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> Science and Policy Journal<br />
For five years <strong>ECI</strong> has been hosting<br />
the Editorial Office of the journal<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> Science and Policy,<br />
published by Elsevier, the world’s<br />
largest academic publisher. During<br />
these five years the peer-reviewed<br />
journal has doubled in size and<br />
submissions have more than quadrupled.<br />
With a rejection rate of<br />
70% now and the achievement of a<br />
Citation Index rating, ‘ESP’ has an<br />
increasing reputation.<br />
Distinctively the journal focuses on<br />
links between environmental science<br />
and policy, and is concerned<br />
with reaching beyond the academic<br />
community, involving experts and<br />
practitioners in government, business<br />
and industry, and non-governmental<br />
organisations who are<br />
instrumental in the solution of environmental<br />
problems.<br />
ESP seeks to advance interdisciplinary<br />
research of international policy<br />
relevance on a range of environmental<br />
issues such as climate change,<br />
biodiversity, environmental pollution<br />
and waste, renewable and nonrenewable<br />
natural resources, and the<br />
interactions between these issues. It<br />
emphasises the links between these<br />
environmental issues and social and<br />
economic issues such as production,<br />
transport, consumption, growth, demographic<br />
changes, well-being, and<br />
health. However, subject coverage<br />
is not restricted to these issues and<br />
the introduction of new dimensions<br />
is encouraged. The journal also<br />
publishes a number of Special Issues<br />
each year. Recent and forthcoming<br />
Special Issues include:<br />
• Assessing climate change effects<br />
on land use and ecosystems in<br />
Europe.<br />
• Options for including land-use<br />
activities in a post-2012 inter-<br />
social benefits as well as profits.<br />
Bird breeding is labour intensive<br />
and generates employment in the<br />
community for the old, young,<br />
disabled and uneducated.<br />
A key insight emerging from this<br />
research is that catching birds<br />
from the wild, whilst contributing<br />
a livelihood supplement to some<br />
people, undermines the potential to<br />
create a bird-breeding industry that<br />
would provide large numbers of jobs<br />
for urban and rural Indonesians.<br />
The second phase of the project will<br />
involve a social marketing campaign:<br />
developing a system to certify<br />
captive-bred birds and activities to<br />
expand bird-breeding. Our research<br />
has shown that the key conditions<br />
necessary to ‘switch’ a supply chain<br />
from wild-caught to commercial<br />
breeding are present in Java. With<br />
the right investments and tenacity<br />
we can imagine a time 10-15 years<br />
hence where an appreciation of<br />
birds remains central to the Javan<br />
and Balinese cultural identities but<br />
where catching wild birds<br />
is unthought-of.<br />
•<br />
•<br />
national climate<br />
agreement.<br />
Biodiversity<br />
and land use<br />
in<br />
Europe.<br />
Reconciling the supply of,<br />
and demand for, science with a<br />
focus on carbon cycle research.<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> research leaders have been<br />
Guest Editors for some of these Special<br />
issues. Notably Dr Pam Berry<br />
co-edited Assessing Climate <strong>Change</strong><br />
Effects on Land Use and Ecosystems<br />
in Europe (vol 9 issue 2, <strong>2006</strong>) based<br />
on the ACCELERATES research<br />
programme in which <strong>ECI</strong> had been<br />
prominent. Three papers from that<br />
issue are among ESP’s top five in<br />
terms of online readership.<br />
The Editor-in Chief is Professor Jim<br />
Briden, former <strong>ECI</strong> Director. He can<br />
be contacted at esp@eci.ox.ac.uk and<br />
further details of the journal are at<br />
www.ees.elsevier.com/envsci.
6<br />
LAnd Degradation<br />
The year <strong>2007</strong> saw the long-awaited publication of Soil Erosion in Europe (eds<br />
Boardman and Poesen). This is the first state-of-the-art review of erosion in<br />
34 European countries plus consideration of many practical and policy related<br />
issues. The 58 chapter book resulted from a four year EU funded COST Action<br />
involving 21 countries chaired by John Boardman.<br />
John’s own work on erosion in Britain continues, especially in wet autumns<br />
such as <strong>2006</strong>. The focus recently has been on serious erosion in the Midhurst<br />
area of West Sussex, where soil from eroding potato and maize fields reaches<br />
the River Rother. This is a valuable trout stream and sediment impacts on<br />
the gravel bed to inhibit breeding. Such ‘off-farm’ effects of erosion are now<br />
accepted in Europe as of major societal concern. Complex relationships<br />
between land owner, tenant farmer, highway authorities, fisheries interests,<br />
local conservation schemes and the regulatory authority for rivers (the<br />
Environment Agency) are being explored.<br />
The idea of ‘desertification’ has been<br />
widely applied to recent landscape<br />
change in South Africa. Alarmist<br />
fears of creeping desertification have<br />
been expressed. Most researchers<br />
have concentrated on vegetation,<br />
identifying a change from mixed grass<br />
and shrub to predominantly shrub<br />
in the semi-arid Karoo. For farmers,<br />
the implication is a loss of palatable<br />
grazing.<br />
The <strong>ECI</strong> is gaining new insights into<br />
land degradation by studying changes<br />
in specific landscape signatures -<br />
badlands and deep gully systems. We<br />
are collaborating with the University<br />
of Cape Town and Rhodes University<br />
in South Africa and the Universities of<br />
Coventry and Leicester in the UK.<br />
The Karoo<br />
Erosion in the Karoo is typified by<br />
heavily eroded ‘badland’ areas and<br />
deep gully systems. For the past 10<br />
years we have concentrated on an<br />
area of the Klein Seekoei valley in<br />
the Sneeuberg uplands about 70 km<br />
north of the town of Graff Reinet. The<br />
valley is wetter than the lowland Karoo<br />
because of its altitude (ca. 1600 m)<br />
and is an area of sheep farming. In<br />
the past, the valley bottoms (‘lands’)<br />
were used to grow wheat.<br />
There is some evidence in the<br />
Karoo as a whole, and in the Klein<br />
Seekoei valley, that very high stock<br />
numbers (sheep largely) are the<br />
cause of vegetation change and soil<br />
erosion leading to the formation of<br />
badlands and gully systems. We are<br />
investigating:<br />
• the initiation of badlands and<br />
gullies;<br />
• the physical processes associated<br />
with formation and development of<br />
badlands and gullies;<br />
• changes in the degraded areas<br />
through time;<br />
• the knowledge and attitudes of the<br />
farming community;<br />
• the possibilities for rehabilitation<br />
of degraded areas;<br />
• the impact of erosion on<br />
hydrology, particularly dams and<br />
water quality;<br />
• rainfall patterns and climate<br />
change;<br />
• dam sedimentation and changing<br />
patterns of pollen, Cs-137 and<br />
Pb-210 ;<br />
• the fire history of the area.<br />
Methods<br />
The topic requires an interdisciplinary<br />
approach using methodologies from<br />
natural and social science, including:<br />
• monitoring of selected sites for<br />
change;<br />
• mapping of degraded areas using<br />
air photographs from 1945, 1980<br />
and 2000;<br />
• simulated rainfall experiments;<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
Leader:<br />
Dr John Boardman<br />
Land Degradation in the Karoo, South Africa<br />
assembly of database on small<br />
dams;<br />
dating of sediment infill in small<br />
dams (NERC funded project);<br />
interviewing of farmers;<br />
coring of willows.<br />
Findings<br />
The interaction of management,<br />
especially severe overgrazing in<br />
the past, and wet/dry periods (with<br />
limited evidence of climate change)<br />
seems to explain present degraded<br />
landscapes.<br />
Key Publications<br />
Boardman, J., <strong>2006</strong>. Soil erosion<br />
science: reflections on the<br />
limitations of current approaches.<br />
Catena 68: 78-86.<br />
Boardman, J. and Poesen,<br />
J., <strong>2006</strong>. Soil erosion across<br />
Europe: major processes<br />
causes and consequences. In:<br />
J. Boardman and J. Poesen.<br />
(Editors), Soil Erosion in Europe.<br />
Wiley, Chichester. 479-487 pp.<br />
Keay-Bright, J. and Boardman,<br />
J., <strong>2006</strong>. <strong>Change</strong>s in the distribution<br />
of degraded land over<br />
time in central Karoo, South<br />
Africa. Catena, 67: 1-14.
Soil Erosion in Europe provides a unique<br />
and comprehensive assessment of soil<br />
erosion throughout Europe, which is an<br />
important aspect to control and manage<br />
if landscapes are to be sustained for the<br />
future. Written in two parts, this book<br />
primarily focuses on current issues, areaspecific<br />
soil erosion rates, on and off-site<br />
impacts, government responses, soil<br />
conservation measures, and soil erosion<br />
risk maps. The first section overviews<br />
the erosion processes and the problems<br />
encountered within each European<br />
country, whilst the second section takes<br />
a cross-cutting theme approach. Soil<br />
Erosion in Europe is based on a COSTfunded<br />
project that has been running for<br />
five years with 145 erosion scientists<br />
from 1 countries.<br />
Key elements of the book include:<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
Past soil erosion in Europe;<br />
Soil Erosion Processes (major<br />
processes and controlling factors and<br />
research needs; soil surface crusting<br />
and structure slumping; sheet and rill<br />
erosion; gully erosion; piping hazard<br />
on collapsible and dispersive soils;<br />
wind erosion; shallow landsliding;<br />
tillage erosion; soil erosion processes<br />
in non-cultivated land; soil erosion<br />
by land leveling);<br />
Risk Assessment and Prediction<br />
(erosion risk assessment and erosion<br />
maps; rain erosivity; soil erodibility;<br />
erosion modelling; soil erosion<br />
datasets; impacts of environmental<br />
changes);<br />
Off-site impacts and responses<br />
(muddy floods; reservoir<br />
sedimentation; off-site impacts<br />
of erosion: eutrophication as an<br />
example; economic impacts;<br />
government and agency response to<br />
the erosion risk; agri-environmental<br />
measures and soil conservation).<br />
Soil Erosion in Europe is the first overall<br />
assessment of the erosion problem in<br />
Europe.
Doctoral Students<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> are hosting more DPhils than ever before, with 12 students starting research projects<br />
with us in <strong>2006</strong> bringing the total number to 35.<br />
Increasing numbers of these students are undertaking international fieldwork, both utilizing<br />
existing partnerships and forming new ones with research institutions around the world.<br />
We have students examining the impacts of climate change first hand in Amazonia, as well<br />
as studies which take place closer to home, in the University’s Wytham Woods.<br />
New students are also coming to <strong>ECI</strong> from successful business careers, to gain the depth<br />
of knowledge and understanding needed to underpin their experience in the work place<br />
and tackle some of the issues facing the environment in the 21st Century. Allen Shaw<br />
returned to <strong>ECI</strong> to begin his Dphil in <strong>2006</strong> after 15 years working in investment banking,<br />
and a year out to do the <strong>ECI</strong>’s MSc <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> and Management in 2002. His<br />
research examines energy investment in the developing world and its impact on climate<br />
change, energy security and poverty alleviation.<br />
Liana Anderson<br />
Carbon dynamics and land cover<br />
change over the Amazon forest.<br />
Adam Bumpus<br />
Carbon Development: a political<br />
ecology analysis of carbon offset<br />
projects for local development and<br />
global climate benefits.<br />
Adam’s research looks at the<br />
functioning of carbon markets in relation<br />
to carbon offsets and the development<br />
potential they may hold. The work<br />
is internationally focused and has a<br />
specific interest in the multi-scalar<br />
linkages between networks of actors<br />
involved in carbon offsets.<br />
Using a political ecology approach<br />
- incorporating analyses of human<br />
agency, material effects, discourse and<br />
political economy - this work analyses<br />
the implementation and functioning of<br />
carbon offsets projects in Honduras.<br />
Particularly, it is comparing a project<br />
from the compliance (clean development<br />
mechanism) and voluntary (retail carbon<br />
offsets) sectors to understand how<br />
local actors in developing countries are<br />
differentially linked through space and<br />
time to carbon consumers in the north<br />
through these mechanisms.<br />
Nathalie Butt<br />
Investigation of the climate drivers/<br />
constraints of plant distributions<br />
across the Amazon basin.<br />
Ben Champion<br />
Alternative Agro-Food Networks in<br />
Eastern Kansas.<br />
Mintae Choi<br />
Rainfall intensity and soil erosion by<br />
water: implications of future climate<br />
change.<br />
Katie Fenn<br />
Quantifying the seasonal variation<br />
in carbon and nutrient dynamics in<br />
an ancient broadleaved woodland at<br />
Wytham Woods near Oxford.<br />
John Gates<br />
Groundwater recharge and<br />
paleohydrology of the Badain Jaran,<br />
NW China.<br />
Cecile Girardin<br />
How do ecosystem processes vary<br />
with elevation along a transect in the<br />
Peruvian Andes?<br />
Janice Golding<br />
Evaluating the extent to which species<br />
are best adapted to withstand threat,<br />
using species ecological principles<br />
(PP).<br />
Gavin Killip<br />
Low-carbon refurbishment of UK<br />
housing and small-business premises:<br />
a study of delivery options<br />
Lucy King<br />
The interaction between the African<br />
elephant (Loxodonta africana<br />
africana) and the African honeybee<br />
(Apis melifera scutella) and its<br />
potential application as an elephant<br />
deterrent.<br />
Natasha Kuruppu<br />
Climate change and variability in the<br />
Pacific region: piloting adaptation<br />
strategies to facilitate sustainable<br />
development in the water sector of<br />
Kiribati.<br />
Katja Lehman<br />
Seasonal and diurnal variations in the<br />
hydrological processes of a montane<br />
cloud forest in the eastern Andes.<br />
Ana Malhado<br />
The functional biogeography of the<br />
Amazon forest canopy.<br />
Danae Maniatis<br />
Deforestation of the Congo Basin:<br />
patterns, drivers and conservation.<br />
Philip Mann<br />
Energy planning in the developing<br />
world - synergies and trade-offs<br />
between increasing energy access for<br />
poverty reduction, energy security and<br />
climate goals.<br />
Arnoldo Matus Kramer<br />
Adaptation to climate change in the<br />
Mexican Caribbean region.<br />
Mary Menton<br />
The effects of logging on non-timber<br />
forest products in the Brazilian<br />
Amazon: ecological and socioeconomic<br />
perspectives.
Alexandra Morel<br />
To what extent is palm oil the main<br />
driver of deforestation in Malaysia<br />
and Indonesia and what are the<br />
sustainability implications of its<br />
expansion?<br />
Alexandra’s DPhil focuses on the<br />
expansion of oil palm plantations over<br />
time in both Malaysia and Indonesia<br />
through a combination of large-scale<br />
remote sensing at the national scale and<br />
extensive field-based “ground-truthing.”<br />
This will provide some comparison<br />
between rates of expansion in Malaysia<br />
and Indonesia as well as information<br />
on what percentage of deforestation<br />
is due to oil palm cultivation. Current<br />
estimates attribute 40 percent of<br />
deforested areas in Indonesia being<br />
converted to oil palm. It is not<br />
straightforward to assess drivers of<br />
deforestation, however, as there are<br />
several factors to be considered. These<br />
may include but are not limited to: land<br />
tenure rights, national and/or local<br />
forest governance, markets for illegal<br />
logging, climatic and environmental<br />
variables causing extensive forest fires.<br />
Alex Noriega Guerra<br />
Towards more tragic encounters?<br />
Weather-related disaster risk in<br />
Guatemalan highlands.<br />
Yuko Ogawa<br />
Assessing sensitivity of Japanese<br />
forests in response to climate change.<br />
James Paterson<br />
The effects of climate change on<br />
structure and function of calcareous<br />
ash woodlands in the UK.<br />
Bernardo Peredo<br />
Biodiversity, local development and<br />
poverty alleviation in Bolivia in a<br />
market economy: irreconcilable<br />
differences or windows of<br />
opportunity?<br />
Mike Riddell<br />
Participating in a sustainable future?<br />
Community conservation and social<br />
marginalisation in northern Republic<br />
of Congo.<br />
Norma Salinas<br />
Impacts of climate change on tropical<br />
cloud mountain forests.<br />
Sharad Saxena<br />
Carbon commodification and<br />
development: analysing the sectoral<br />
approach to CDM governance as a<br />
route to sustainable development and<br />
global climate mitigation.<br />
Allen Shaw<br />
Policy interaction analysis between<br />
economic development and climate<br />
change with respect to large<br />
industrialising economies.<br />
Tom Simchak (MLitt Student)<br />
Changing cultures and identities in<br />
Shetland’s oil era.<br />
Graham Sinden<br />
Impact of renewable energy sources<br />
on future UK electricity supply.<br />
Erika Trigoso<br />
Vulnerability to drought and<br />
community adaptation in the Andean<br />
high-plateau.<br />
Mandar Trivedi<br />
Conservation in a changing climate:<br />
the potential to exploit microclimate<br />
heterogeneity and management.<br />
Royd Vinya<br />
Dynamics of the Miombo woodlands<br />
along a climatic gradient.<br />
Cindy Warwick<br />
Integrating water and development<br />
under the water framework directive:<br />
a political ecology approach.<br />
Rebecca White<br />
Carbon governance in a consumer<br />
age: an investigation of the UK’s food<br />
system.<br />
The production and consumption of food<br />
is highly carbon intensive. To achieve<br />
the UK’s target of a 60% reduction in<br />
carbon emissions by 2050, the food<br />
system (from ‘plough to plate’) will have<br />
to contribute accordingly. Rebecca’s<br />
DPhil research hopes to contribute a<br />
deeper understanding of how this might<br />
be achieved, using particular food<br />
goods as case studies.<br />
As well as determining carbon reduction<br />
options, the project will critically<br />
analyse current approaches to carbon<br />
governance. In particular it will examine<br />
how factors such as power and the<br />
networked nature of food production<br />
and consumption affect the ability of<br />
players in the food system to reduce<br />
their carbon impact.<br />
Przemyslaw Zelazowski<br />
Remote sensing of spatial and<br />
temporal patterns in primeval forest<br />
areas – from tropical Andes to<br />
Europe.<br />
Przemyslaw explores a range of<br />
techniques which allow for the<br />
application of satellite imagery in<br />
environmental assessment. The main<br />
questions asked are: which forest<br />
properties can be analysed through<br />
the imagery and how close are they<br />
to reality? Comparisons between<br />
datasets allow for conclusions about<br />
environmental change within forested<br />
areas which can be used for predicting<br />
future landscapes.
environmental law<br />
water issues<br />
0<br />
modelling<br />
economics<br />
GIS<br />
desertification<br />
risk management<br />
climate change<br />
remote sensing<br />
audits<br />
energy<br />
soil erosion<br />
corporate environmental liability<br />
geomorphologic consequences<br />
population ecology<br />
deforestation<br />
MSc <strong>Environmental</strong> change<br />
The course aims to produce<br />
students with a broad<br />
appreciation of all aspects of<br />
the management of people<br />
and institutions in relation to<br />
environmental change; who are<br />
analytical in their approach; and<br />
who are competent and aware<br />
decision makers. Successful<br />
applicants develop an in-depth<br />
understanding of not only the causes<br />
and consequences of environmental<br />
change, but also an awareness of<br />
the legal, economic and ethical<br />
underpinnings of remedial action<br />
or management. The central theme<br />
of this course is the development<br />
of a truly inter-disciplinary<br />
approach to the management of the<br />
environment.<br />
The course is a 1-year MSc by<br />
coursework and consists of full<br />
time study, with assessment by<br />
course assignments and written<br />
examinations.<br />
The course includes: 3 compulsory<br />
courses, 2 chosen options, a<br />
dissertation, attending ‘Friday<br />
workshops’ and fieldtrips.<br />
Course 1:<br />
Issues and Driving Forces<br />
Growth and nature of<br />
environmental awareness; critical<br />
issues in current and future<br />
environmental change in terrestrial,<br />
atmospheric, aquatic and marine<br />
systems; the forces driving change<br />
including population growth and<br />
affluence, resource scarcity, climate,<br />
and patterns of energy use; and<br />
concepts of equilibrium, thresholds,<br />
and sustainability.<br />
Course 2:<br />
Managing the Environment<br />
The nature of environmental<br />
management at various levels,<br />
(the household and consumer<br />
behaviour, the business perspective,<br />
special interest groups, national<br />
and international action and<br />
co-operation); the formal legal<br />
framework; and how the above<br />
are mediated by cross-cutting<br />
dimensions of a legal, economic,<br />
ethical, cultural and ecological<br />
nature.<br />
Course 3:<br />
Methods and Techniques for<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> Management<br />
Basic computing and modelling;<br />
sociological and ecological<br />
experimental design; data<br />
acquisition and handling; risk<br />
assessment; and GIS and remote<br />
sensing, surveys and monitoring.<br />
Subject<br />
First degree subjects of alumni<br />
Political Science<br />
Natural Science<br />
Biological Science<br />
Engineering<br />
Business<br />
Miscellaneous<br />
Geography<br />
Arts<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> Science<br />
0% 10%<br />
% Alumni<br />
20%<br />
Option Courses<br />
Students have to complete 2 options<br />
courses. These consist of tutorials<br />
in small groups, and are assessed<br />
through an extended essay. Current<br />
available options are:<br />
• Business and sustainable<br />
development<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
Climate change economics<br />
Conservation and biodiversity<br />
Energy and the environment<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> modelling<br />
Forests and forestry in a<br />
changing world<br />
International environmental law<br />
Land degradation<br />
Latin American environmental<br />
policy<br />
Participation and<br />
environmental governance<br />
Transport and the environment<br />
Vulnerability, resilience and<br />
adaptation to natural hazards<br />
and climate change<br />
Weather, society and finance.<br />
Friday Workshops<br />
These are all-day events and include<br />
lectures, discussions, and report-<br />
back. Current choices include:<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> education<br />
International environmental law<br />
Multi-lateral financial<br />
institutions<br />
Participation and<br />
environmental governance<br />
Raising awareness of<br />
environmental issues: the role<br />
of the media<br />
Stakeholders and research<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> consultancy<br />
Sustainable business<br />
Understanding of science and<br />
the media<br />
Water management and<br />
pollution in the UK.<br />
Field Trips<br />
There are a number of residential<br />
field trips each year, which are<br />
designed to illustrate specific
Over 350 students have successfully graduated from Oxford’s most competitive<br />
and popular graduate science course since its creation in 1994.<br />
The course consistently attracts nearly 200 applicants per year, from over<br />
40 countries, to fill its 32 places. <strong>ECI</strong> particularly welcomes applicants with<br />
career experience.<br />
and management<br />
aspects of the course and to<br />
introduce students to management<br />
issues and the professionals who<br />
deal with them.<br />
• Slapton Field Centre, south<br />
Devon: management issues in<br />
a National Nature Reserve and<br />
along a changing coastline;<br />
• South Downs, East Sussex:<br />
management issues in an<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong>ly Sensitive Area<br />
(ESA) and the future South<br />
Downs National Park; flooding<br />
and erosion; chalk grassland,<br />
Local Nature Reserve and<br />
environmental education;<br />
• Centre for Alternative<br />
Technology, Wales: evaluating<br />
alternative energy sources and<br />
their impacts;<br />
• Brussels, Belgium: European<br />
environment policy;<br />
• Blencathra Field Centre,<br />
Cumbria: management issues in<br />
a National Park.<br />
Dissertation<br />
A dissertation forms a major part<br />
of the course, and provides an<br />
opportunity for individual, original<br />
and specialised in-depth work on<br />
some aspects of environmental<br />
change and management.<br />
Students<br />
The mixture of nationalities, age<br />
and backgrounds of the students<br />
on the MSc is undoubtedly what<br />
makes it so successful, and reflects<br />
the interdisciplinary nature of<br />
the course. To date we have seen<br />
students from 56 countries enrolled.<br />
Student backgrounds are equally<br />
diverse. While environmental<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> Alumni increasingly command influential positions<br />
science and geography are popular<br />
first degree-subjects, there have<br />
been students on the course from a<br />
range of specialisms: from history to<br />
philosophy, natural sciences and law.<br />
Scholarships<br />
Students have received over 240<br />
scholarships since the course began<br />
in 1994. Over 70% of students<br />
receive full or partial support to help<br />
fund their studies. A limited number<br />
of scholarships are available through<br />
the <strong>ECI</strong>, details of which are given<br />
below. Many other scholarships are<br />
sought independently by students,<br />
often from their own countries.<br />
Scholarships administered<br />
by the <strong>ECI</strong><br />
• Applied Materials Scholarship<br />
at Linacre College<br />
• The Andrew Goudie Bursary<br />
• Birkett Scholarship at Trinity<br />
College<br />
• Coca-Cola Water Sustainability<br />
Scholarships at Linacre College<br />
• Climate Care Scholarship<br />
• EcoSecurities Scholarship<br />
• Hitachi Chemical Europe<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> Control<br />
Management Scholarship at<br />
Linacre College<br />
PricewaterhouseCoopers<br />
McKinsey and Company<br />
Japanese Government<br />
World Bank<br />
US Senate<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
•<br />
Joan Doll Scholarship at Green<br />
College<br />
Lloyd African/DfID Shared<br />
Scholarship at Linacre College<br />
Norman and Ivy Lloyd/DfID<br />
Shared Scholarship at Linacre<br />
College<br />
Sir Walter Raleigh post-graduate<br />
Scholarship at Oriel College<br />
Alumni<br />
At the <strong>2006</strong> UN Climate <strong>Change</strong><br />
Summit there were 13 <strong>ECI</strong> alumni<br />
in professional capacities. This<br />
demonstrates that the MSc really<br />
makes a difference to both the<br />
people who take the course and to<br />
managing environmental change.<br />
The variety and relevance of the<br />
career destinations of the students<br />
reflects the real-world measure of<br />
the MSc’s quality. Many alumni<br />
are increasingly commanding<br />
influential positions in multinational<br />
corporations; in national, state and<br />
international government; in nongovernmental<br />
organisations; and by<br />
continuing with further study.<br />
DEFRA<br />
Rio Tinto plc<br />
EcoSecurities<br />
The Carbon Trust<br />
Reuters Ltd<br />
KPMG<br />
European Commission<br />
Lloyds of London<br />
UN World Food Programme<br />
1<br />
UN Development Programme China HSBC<br />
Thames Water<br />
UN Framework Convention on Climate <strong>Change</strong><br />
World Resources <strong>Institute</strong>
2005<br />
Angela Brungs, Australian<br />
BSc Business Information Technology<br />
Sir Walter Raleigh Scholarship<br />
Examination of Governance Structure and Issues<br />
in <strong>Environmental</strong> NGO’s<br />
Thomas Carbonell, American<br />
BS/BS/BA Chemical Engineering, Economics,<br />
Political Economics and the Environment<br />
Marshall Scholar<br />
Banking on sustainability? The origins, implementation,<br />
and future of the Equator Principles<br />
Alexandra Conliffe, Canadian<br />
Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering<br />
Rhodes Scholarship<br />
Watershed management and rural livelihoods in<br />
Iran: an investigation using the sustainable livelihoods<br />
framework<br />
Karen Cousins, South African<br />
BSc Biochemistry and Chemistry<br />
An analysis of the UK energy markets in an age<br />
of climate change: will adherence to the national<br />
emission reduction targets force an increasing<br />
reliance on nuclear power?<br />
Bethany Ehlmann, American<br />
BA Earth & Planetary Science<br />
Rhodes Scholar<br />
Enhanced stage and stage variability in the<br />
Lower Missouri River system: tracking change<br />
from the 1804-5 Lewis and Clark expedition to<br />
2005<br />
Angela Falconer, British<br />
MA Geography<br />
RPS Scholarship and Pirie-Reid Scholarship<br />
Evaluating the potential of community-led<br />
sustainable energy in Scotland<br />
Natalia Gorina, Russian<br />
Management and Economics of public administrations<br />
and international institutions<br />
Birkett Scholarship<br />
Bridging Kyoto with the European Emissions<br />
Trading Scheme: Analysis of the ‘Linking Directive’<br />
and its Implications.<br />
Svetlana Ignatieva, Russian<br />
Bachelor of Business Administration<br />
Shell Scholarship<br />
Carbon management in the Oil and Gas sector<br />
– are strategies converging?<br />
Res Isler, Swiss<br />
International Refugee Law/Ethics and health<br />
Policy and International Politics<br />
Herbivory in the Arctic: How do goose grazing<br />
and elevated temperatures impact above and<br />
below ground biomass production of the graminoid<br />
Alopecuruc borealis?<br />
Masters classes<br />
Edward Mishambi, Ugandan<br />
BSc Hons Quantiative Economics<br />
Rhodes Scholar<br />
Linking socio-economics to community sustainable<br />
use and management of wetland resources<br />
in Uganda.<br />
Andrew Jakubowski, Canadian<br />
BSc Physics and Visual Arts<br />
Multilateral Development Banks and the Environment:<br />
International Solutions to Non-<br />
Compliance.<br />
Lydia Jones, British<br />
BSc Maths<br />
Joan Doll Scholarship<br />
Global Warming: Read All About It! An analysis<br />
of the development of the climate change issue<br />
in the British Press<br />
Shashi Kad, Indian<br />
BSc Hons Geology<br />
Energy use in Lahaul and Spiti, H.P. India: Assessing<br />
sustainability, barriers and solar potential<br />
for sustainable development<br />
Takeharu Kikuchi, Japanese<br />
Bachelor of International Relations<br />
Development Bank of Japan Scholarship<br />
Does green management pay? An empirical<br />
examination of the relationship between the environmental<br />
and financial performance of listed<br />
Japanese companies.<br />
Anthony Knox, South African<br />
BSc Civil Engineering<br />
Rhodes Scholar<br />
An economic valuation of the Loreto Bay National<br />
Park.<br />
Alexandra Kornilova, Russian<br />
State Diploma in Management<br />
Applied Materials Scholarship<br />
Russian opportunities under the Kyoto protocol:<br />
The Sakhalin power plants - a case study on the<br />
use of Kyoto joint implementation in the Russian<br />
power sector.<br />
Eleanor La Trobe-Bateman, British<br />
BA Biological Sciences<br />
RPS Scholarship<br />
Conflict at Sea: Marine Spatial Planning as a<br />
Mediator?<br />
Janice Lao, Filipino<br />
BSc <strong>Environmental</strong> Science and Economics<br />
Shell Scholarship<br />
The CDM in the Philippines: How can we overcome<br />
these barriers and what are its effects on<br />
the Renewable Energy Framework?<br />
Katrina Marsden, British<br />
MA Earth Sciences<br />
A study of Perceptions towards CAP Reform in<br />
Scotland: An early assessment of Farmer opinions<br />
and possible environmental outcomes.<br />
Katherine Meehan, American<br />
BA Political Science and <strong>Environmental</strong> Studies<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> Director’s Fellowship<br />
Streamlining the state? Power, decentralisation,<br />
and water at work in Guatemala.<br />
Colleen Murphy, Canadian<br />
B Comm Entrepreneurial Management<br />
Rotary Scholarship<br />
A financial and sustainability assessment of<br />
bundling small scale CDM projects: A case study<br />
in Bhutan.<br />
Hiromi Nagai, Japanese<br />
Bachelor of Law<br />
IDEAS Scholarship<br />
How cost-effective are carbon emission reductions<br />
under the Prototype carbon fund?<br />
Anjali Nayar, Canadian<br />
BSc Hons Biology, Geology<br />
Commonwealth Scholarship<br />
Urbanization studies for malaria research in<br />
Africa: can the GLCF Landsat database tell us<br />
something new?<br />
Brianna Peterson, Canadian<br />
BScE Chemical Engineering<br />
Birkett Scholarship<br />
Driving change? A critical analysis of the<br />
voluntary agreement between the Canadian<br />
government and the Canadian automobile<br />
manufacturers to reduce emissions from the<br />
light-duty vehicle fleet.<br />
Stephanie Pfeifer, German<br />
BA Hons Philosophy, Politics and Economics<br />
The transfer of basic genetic resources and<br />
additional biotechnologies in the context of<br />
international environmental law.<br />
Alexander Pollen, American<br />
BA Neurobiology<br />
Rhodes Scholar<br />
Institutional Investors and Climate <strong>Change</strong>: An<br />
analysis of the integration of climate change<br />
risks and opportunities into investment decision-making.<br />
Josselin Rouillard, British/French<br />
BSc <strong>Environmental</strong> Science<br />
Rooftop wind turbines: Potentials and barriers.<br />
Fatima Shah, Japanese<br />
BA Biology, Economics & Environment<br />
Analysis of Tourism Impacts at Fairy Meadows,<br />
Pakistan and Assessment of Tourism’s Sustainability.<br />
Marina Shilo, Belarusian<br />
Bachelors Degree in Law<br />
British Chevening Scholarship<br />
Could international mandatory regulation<br />
deliver transformation of ship recycling into a<br />
sustainable industry?<br />
Matthew Somerville, American<br />
BA Biology<br />
An analysis of deforestation trends across Madagascar’s<br />
protected area system (1980-2000) and<br />
implications for future management.<br />
Nick Stantzos, Greek<br />
BSc <strong>Environmental</strong> Sciences<br />
Bodossaki Foundation Scholarship<br />
Financing climate change entrepreneurship: Assessing<br />
the potential of solar energy start-ups to<br />
attract investments in the UK.
of 2005 & <strong>2006</strong><br />
Sarah Stephen, Indian<br />
BSc Zoology<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> Treaties relating to fresh water<br />
pollution and Endocrine-disrupting chemicals-<br />
Where is the loophole?<br />
Veliko Vorkapic, Croatian<br />
BSc Biology<br />
OSI/FCO Scholarship<br />
Gravel extraction and the regulation of the Drava<br />
river, Croatia<br />
Wei Wu, Chinese<br />
BSc Built Equipment and Engineering<br />
Hitachi Chemical Europe Scholarship<br />
Green Olympics of Beijing 2008: Can ASGBBO<br />
ensure realization of Green Olympics and how<br />
can it influence the green building industry in<br />
China?<br />
Siddharth Yadav, Indian<br />
Role of CDM in the emergence of methane<br />
utilisation and destruction projects in Indian<br />
coal mines<br />
Avse Yesilay, Indian<br />
MSc Mineral Processing<br />
British Chevening Scholarship<br />
Groundwater depletion in Tuz Lake Basin:<br />
Stakeholders and Sustainable Solutions<br />
<strong>2006</strong><br />
Safja Agius, Canadian/Maltese<br />
BDes Industrial Design<br />
Is green marketing an effective way to close the<br />
‘4/40 gap’?<br />
Marianne Bach, Canadian/UK<br />
BSc Biology<br />
Strategies for reducing the environmental impact<br />
of aviation through hydrogen fuel<br />
Nana Bonsu-Amoako, Ghanaian<br />
BSc Natural Resources Management<br />
Solar water heating in Ghana: barriers and<br />
potential - a case study of the hotel industry<br />
Alex Boston, Canadian<br />
BA International Development<br />
British Chevening Scholarship<br />
Best Process Before Best Practice: Lessons from<br />
Canadian Cities Leading <strong>Change</strong> on Climate<br />
Protection<br />
Maria-Christina Brosch, German<br />
BA Business Management<br />
Can the Human Rights Framework Contribute<br />
to <strong>Environmental</strong> Protection?<br />
Yara Chakhtoura, French<br />
Engineering<br />
Business & adaptation to climate change<br />
Delavane Diaz, American<br />
BS Astronautical Engineering<br />
Rhodes Scholar<br />
Catch-and-release Awareness Among Recreational<br />
Sea Anglers in Britain: Does the State<br />
of Common Understanding Reflect Scientific<br />
Knowledge of the Practice?<br />
Mairi Dorward, British<br />
BSc <strong>Environmental</strong> Science<br />
RPS Scholarship<br />
Evaluating the impacts of an improved cookstove<br />
project in Tanzania<br />
Johannes Ebeling, German<br />
MA Political Science, Biology & Geography<br />
Applied Materials Scholarship<br />
Tropical deforestation and climate change: Ways<br />
towards an international mitigation strategy<br />
Praveen Gopalan, Malaysian<br />
BSc <strong>Environmental</strong> Science<br />
A Helping Hand?: People with Learning Disabilities<br />
as Volunteers in <strong>Environmental</strong> Conservation<br />
Activities<br />
Christina Loizidou, Cypriot<br />
BA Physics and Economics<br />
Utilizing the Renewable Energy Potential of<br />
Cyprus<br />
Danae Maniatis, Belgian/Greek<br />
MSc <strong>Environmental</strong> Sciences and technology<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> Fellowship<br />
Developing Principles, Criteria and Indicators to<br />
Define and Verify the Legality of Wood Products<br />
in Cameroon<br />
Alex McNamara, South African<br />
BA Political Studies<br />
Wits University, Skye Foundation &<br />
Oppenheimer Fund bursaries<br />
Developing sustainable energy futures: the City<br />
of Cape Town<br />
Alexandra Morel, American<br />
BA <strong>Environmental</strong> Studies<br />
Can biofuels be certified as sustainable and is<br />
India ready to implement a certification scheme?<br />
Fidelia Ngwodo, Nigerian<br />
BSc Botany<br />
Felix Scholarship<br />
Consumers’ responses to car energy labels.<br />
Rassul Rakhimov, Kazakhstan<br />
MSc Environment & Resource Management<br />
Analysis of existing policy frameworks on wind<br />
energy generation with regards to their implementation<br />
in Kazakhstan<br />
Arryati Ramadhani, Indonesian<br />
BEng <strong>Environmental</strong> Engineering<br />
British Chevening Scolarship<br />
Climate change and electricity security supply:<br />
the role of renewable energy and energy efficiency<br />
- a case of Indonesia<br />
Blanca Raymundo Garcia, Mexican<br />
BS Chemical <strong>Environmental</strong> Engineering<br />
Brookman Foundation Scholarship<br />
The potential for Clean Development Mechanism<br />
projects in the Mexican industrial sector: a<br />
case study of the cement industry<br />
Beatrice Riche, Canadian<br />
BSc Agronomy<br />
Linking climate change, soil carbon sequestration,<br />
and food security in the Southern highlands<br />
of Tanzania<br />
Andrew Robinson, Canadian<br />
BA Mass Media Communications<br />
Birkett Scholarship<br />
Preparing for take-off: Assessing the potential<br />
for waste hydrogen in launching a clean transportation<br />
economy in Western Canada<br />
Hannah Rowlands, British<br />
MA Physics<br />
Birkett Scholarship<br />
How Might Computer Games be Used to Communicate<br />
the Issues of Climate <strong>Change</strong>?<br />
Giulia Sartori, Italian<br />
BSc Development Economics<br />
Waste management in Italy: a case study of the<br />
Legoli disposal centre<br />
Sharad Saxena, Indian<br />
BEng Mechanical Engineering<br />
Coca Cola Scholarship<br />
Delivering Low or Zero Carbon New Homes:<br />
The Role of Energy Services Companies<br />
Asli Sezer Ozcelik, Turkish<br />
BSc Geological Engineering<br />
Jean Monnet Scholarship<br />
An Overview of Climate <strong>Change</strong> Impacts and<br />
Adaptation for the Turkish Electricity Production<br />
Sector<br />
Safia Shafiq, Pakistani<br />
BE Structural Engineering<br />
Joint Japan/World Bank Scholarship<br />
The Institutional and Legislative Framework for<br />
Vehicular Air Pollution Management in Karachi<br />
Matias Steinacker Velez, Chilean<br />
BEng Engineering<br />
Hitachi Chemical Europe Scholarship<br />
Is it possible to meet the Chilean target for<br />
renewable energy under the current market and<br />
policy framework?<br />
Sasha Sud, Indian<br />
BSc Environment & Economics<br />
Joan Doll Scholarship<br />
Barriers and Solutions: Applying the Small-Scale<br />
Clean Development Mechanism to Decentralized<br />
Renewable Electricity projects for Remote<br />
Rural Electrification in India<br />
Anita Takura, Ghanaian<br />
BSc Zoology<br />
Norman and Ivy Lloyd/DFID Scholarship<br />
Are Voluntary Initiatives an Appropriate Way to<br />
Reduce the <strong>Environmental</strong> Impacts of Mining<br />
Activities on Local Communities in Ghana?<br />
Sapna Thottathil, American<br />
BA <strong>Environmental</strong> Studies<br />
Fairtrade’s Carbon Emissions: What’s its Share,<br />
and do People Care?<br />
Lei Wang, Chinese<br />
BA English<br />
British Chevening Scholarship<br />
The Sun Shines on Beijing – Can grid-connected<br />
solar photovoltaic (PV) systems effectively offset<br />
electricity peak demand in Urban China and if<br />
required, is it viable in both economic and political<br />
terms in China today?<br />
Przemyslaw Zelazowski, Polish<br />
MSc <strong>Environmental</strong> Protection<br />
Sir Walter Raleigh Scholarship<br />
Looking for footprints in Paradise: the challenges<br />
of land cover change assessment using remote<br />
sensing in the region of the Manu Biosphere<br />
Reserve (Peru).<br />
Su Zhang, Chinese<br />
MA English Language<br />
Tourism impacts on conservation of Laojun<br />
Mountain, China.<br />
Kornelia Zukowska, American/Polish<br />
BA German and Marketing<br />
Clarendon Scholarship<br />
Investigating the use of Science in drafting the<br />
European Commission’s Biomass Action Plan.<br />
Nationality ~ First Degree Subject ~ Schoarship ~ Dissertation TitlE
<strong>2006</strong> Publications<br />
Allen, M., Andronova, N., Booth, B., Dessai, D.,<br />
Frame, D. J., Forest, C., Gregory, J., Hegerl, G., Knutti,<br />
R., Piani, C., Sexton, D. & Stainforth, D. A., <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
Observational Constraints on Climate Sensitivity,<br />
Avoiding Dangerous Climate <strong>Change</strong>. Cambridge<br />
University Press.<br />
Allen, M.R., Frame, D.J., Kettleborough, J.A. and<br />
Stainforth, D.A., <strong>2006</strong>. Model error in weather and<br />
climate forecasting. In: T.P.R. Hagedorn (Editor),<br />
Predictability in Weather and Climate. Cambridge<br />
University Press.<br />
Anderson, L.O. Shimabukuro, Y.E. Spectral-temporal<br />
classification of land cover formations. Book Chapter.<br />
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Keay-Bright, J. and Boardman, J., <strong>2006</strong>. <strong>Change</strong>s in<br />
the distribution of degraded land over time in the<br />
central Karoo, South Africa. Catena, 67: 1-14.<br />
Keay-Bright, J. and Boardman, J., In Press. Evidence<br />
from field based studies of rates of erosion on<br />
degraded land in the central Karoo, South Africa.<br />
Geomorphology.<br />
Keay-Bright, J. and Boardman, J., In Press. The<br />
influence of land management on soil erosion in the<br />
Sneeuberg mountains, central Karoo, South Africa.<br />
Land Degradation and Development.<br />
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Response to Ofgem consultation on domestic metering<br />
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D.A., <strong>2006</strong>. Constraining climate sensitivity from<br />
the seasonal cycle in surface temperature. Journal of<br />
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Biodiversity, and the False Dichotomies of Participation.<br />
Ethics, Place and Environment, 9(3): 279-298.<br />
Lawrence, A. and Hawthorne, W., <strong>2006</strong>. Plant identification,<br />
conservation and management: methods<br />
for producing user-friendly field guides. London:<br />
Earthscan., 268 pp.<br />
Lawrence, A., Paudel, K., Barnes, R. and Malla, R.,<br />
<strong>2006</strong>. Adaptive value of participatory biodiversity<br />
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Conservation 33(4):325-334.<br />
Lawrence, A., and K. J. Temphel. in press. Community<br />
forestry and participatory research: three generations<br />
of challenges. Journal of Renewable Natural<br />
Resources Bhutan.<br />
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Burning Ice: Art and Climate <strong>Change</strong>.<br />
London: Cape Farewell.<br />
Liverman, D. M. (<strong>2006</strong>). Survival into the Future in<br />
the Face of Climate <strong>Change</strong>. Survival: the <strong>2006</strong> Darwin<br />
Lectures. E. Shuckberg. Cambridge, Cambridge University<br />
Press: 187-285.<br />
Liverman D.M. and Vilas S. <strong>2006</strong>. Neoliberalism and<br />
the Environment in Latin America. <strong>Annual</strong> <strong>Review</strong> of<br />
Environment and Resources Vol. 31: 327-363.<br />
Lopez, A., Tebaldi, C., New, M., Stainforth, D. A.,<br />
Allen, M. & Kettleborough, J. <strong>2006</strong>. Two approaches to<br />
quantifying uncertainty in global temperature changes<br />
under different forcing scenarios. Journal of Climate<br />
19(19): 4785-4796.<br />
Malhi, Y., Wood, D., Baker, T. R., Wright, J., Phillips,<br />
O. L., Cochrane, T., Meir, P., Chave, J., Almeida, S., Arroyo,<br />
L., Higuchi, N., Killeen, T.J., Laurance, S.G., Laurance,<br />
W.F., Lewis, S.L., Monteagudo, A., Neill, D.A.,<br />
Vargas, P.N., Pitman, N.C.A., Quesada, C.A., Salomao,<br />
R., Silva, J.N.M., Lezama, A.T., Terborgh, J., Martinez,<br />
R.V., Vinceti, B. (<strong>2006</strong>) The regional variation of aboveground<br />
live biomass in old-growth Amazonian forests.<br />
Global <strong>Change</strong> Biology, 12, 1107-1138.<br />
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New views on an old forest: assessing the longevity,<br />
resilience and future of the Amazon rainforest.<br />
Transactions of the <strong>Institute</strong> of British Geographers,<br />
30, 477-499.<br />
Massey, N., Aina, T., Allen, M., Christensen, C.,<br />
Frame, D. J., Goodman, D., Kettleborough, J., Martin,<br />
A., Pascoe, S. & Stainforth, D. A. <strong>2006</strong>. Data access<br />
and analysis with distributed federated data servers<br />
in climateprediction.net. Advances in Geosciences 8:<br />
49-56.<br />
Metcalfe D. B., M. Williams, L. E. O. C. Aragão, A.<br />
C. L. da Costa, A. P. Braga, P. H. L. Gonçalves, J. de<br />
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A method which corrects for underestimates when<br />
removing plant roots from soil.<br />
Morton, D.C., Defries, R. S., Shimabukuro, Y. E., Anderson,<br />
L. O., Arai, E., del Bon Espirito-Santo, F., Freitas,<br />
R. & Morisette, J., On-line published September<br />
14, <strong>2006</strong>. Cropland expansion changes deforestation<br />
dynamics in the southern Brazilian Amazon. Proceedings<br />
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Müller, B. and Hepburn, C., <strong>2006</strong>. IATAL — an outline<br />
proposal for an International Air Travel Adaptation<br />
Levy. Oxford <strong>Institute</strong> for Energy Studies.<br />
Palmer, J., Boardman, B., Bottrill, C., Darby, S.,<br />
Hinnells, M., Killip, G., Layberry, R., Lovell, H.,<br />
<strong>2006</strong>. Reducing the environmental impact of housing.<br />
Final report to the Royal Commission on <strong>Environmental</strong><br />
Pollution.<br />
Parks, B.C. and Roberts, J.T., <strong>2006</strong>. Globalization,<br />
Vulnerability to Climate <strong>Change</strong>, and Perceived<br />
Injustice in the South. Society and Natural Resources.,<br />
19(4): 337-355.<br />
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temperature and precipitation changes on plant communities.<br />
In: Plant growth and climate change (J. I. L.<br />
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6<br />
The Road to San Gimignano<br />
The recent Stern <strong>Review</strong> on the economics of climate change has made an asteroidal impact on the global<br />
warming debate and keeps sending shockwaves across civil society – in the UK and abroad. Many researchers<br />
from the Tyndall Centre, the <strong>ECI</strong> and the Potsdam <strong>Institute</strong> have provided crucial scientific<br />
evidence underpinning that review, which marks – at last – the beginning of a new era: now is the time<br />
for solving – rather than denying, ignoring, ridiculing, or just endlessly discussing - the climate problem.<br />
German Government<br />
seems to have grasped<br />
“The<br />
this challenge and will<br />
make the climate-energy nexus<br />
a top priority of its G8-EU twin<br />
presidency in <strong>2007</strong>. This means<br />
that the fragile Gleneagles baton<br />
is properly passed on and that the<br />
haphazard “entente cordiale” on<br />
sustainability between the UK and<br />
Germany is about to grow stronger<br />
- and more systematically.<br />
The German Chancellor Ms Merkel has<br />
asked me to advise her on the pertinent<br />
scientific aspects for the forthcoming<br />
G8-EU agendas and on the mediumterm<br />
Kyoto-plus negotiations. Is there<br />
anything I can recommend to her, apart<br />
from carefully studying the Stern <strong>Review</strong><br />
and to watch out for the 4th IPCC Assessment<br />
Report (InterGovernmental<br />
Panel on Climate <strong>Change</strong>) which is due<br />
in early <strong>2007</strong>? Let me touch upon two<br />
issues of overriding importance.<br />
First, the current state-of-the-art estimates<br />
of the multiple potential damages<br />
associated with anthropogenic global<br />
warming (as reflected in the Stern <strong>Review</strong>)<br />
are highly unsatisfactory. They<br />
may grossly overrate those damages<br />
since the analysis does not genuinely<br />
account for the adaptive elasticity of<br />
societies. Even worse, however, is the<br />
fact that they may fatally underrate the<br />
negative consequences of unbridled<br />
climate change. This has to do with the<br />
still unfalsified hypothesis that human<br />
interference with the atmosphere might<br />
activate a number of switches in the<br />
Earth System (“tipping elements”) that<br />
could interact through teleconnections<br />
and positive feedbacks to bring about a<br />
“domino dynamics” that transforms the<br />
planetary environment in a radical - but<br />
not entirely unprecedented - way. Let us<br />
not forget that our old globe has been<br />
turned into a snowball as well as into a<br />
hothouse in the past, by natural forces<br />
alone.<br />
Finding out whether something<br />
comparable could happen under human<br />
pressure in the future may well be the<br />
“Number 1” scientific challenge of the<br />
decade. My gut feeling is that a thorough<br />
Earth System analysis employing fully<br />
integrated simulation models will safely<br />
rule out the possibility of anthropogenic<br />
“runaway greenhouse” phenomena. Yet<br />
that analysis needs to be done, and fairly<br />
soon, and it will demand commitments<br />
and resources on the Manhattan Project<br />
scale. As the latter term is widely<br />
stigmatized for understandable reasons,<br />
I have suggested a San Gimignano (SG)<br />
Project – bearing in mind that this<br />
beautiful medieval town is often dubbed<br />
“the Manhattan of Tuscany”. After all,<br />
we can do with a bit of humour in our<br />
serious world-saving business.<br />
Second, the recent Conference of Parties<br />
to the United Nations Framework Convention<br />
on Climate <strong>Change</strong> (COP 12)<br />
in Nairobi has shed a harsh light on the<br />
intensifying crisis of multilateral climate<br />
diplomacy. Thus, even if an analytic<br />
SG I Project confirms that confining<br />
global warming to 2ºC above the<br />
pre-industrial value ensures planetary<br />
climate stability, there is no guarantee<br />
whatsoever that the world community<br />
is actually able to hold that temperature<br />
line. Progress towards an effective<br />
post-Kyoto regime seems excruciatingly<br />
slow, while the winds of climate change<br />
appear to blow stronger every month.<br />
Here is where a strategic SG II Project,<br />
an Apollo Program-calibre innovation<br />
effort to decarbonize the global energy<br />
systems, needs to kick in.<br />
The economic aspects of such a crash<br />
program are sketched in a special issue<br />
of the Energy Journal (Edenhofer et<br />
al. <strong>2006</strong>, see below), which also served<br />
as a crucial source of information for<br />
the Stern <strong>Review</strong>. But what about the<br />
political implementation? There is no<br />
world government that could stipulate,<br />
top-down, some 50-year plan towards a<br />
zero-emissions civilization.<br />
There is, however, a promising bottom-up<br />
way forward, namely the “Road<br />
Atlas” approach. This approach complements<br />
the conventional demand logic<br />
– set global greenhouse gas emissions<br />
caps, allocate politically correct country<br />
quota, and trade away regional barriers<br />
and inefficiencies – by a supply-side<br />
strategy based on individual commitments<br />
within a “club of the willing”.<br />
The members of this club (nation states,<br />
cities, corporations, etc.) develop and<br />
submit their specific roadmap towards<br />
decarbonisation, indicating criteria,<br />
milestones, and measures in the period<br />
till, say, 2030. In other words, they all<br />
make a public and verifiable statement<br />
about how far they are willing to “leap<br />
for sustainability” in the mid-term<br />
future. Once the figures are on the accounting<br />
table, one can add them up<br />
to see whether the sum of emissions’<br />
reduction pledges is anywhere near a<br />
significant contribution to a climate<br />
solution. This approach could generate<br />
multiple benefits, not least a powerful<br />
realpolitik check inducing interactive<br />
amendment of the individual roadmaps<br />
and the aggressive recruitment of additional<br />
club members.<br />
I can well imagine that Germany suggests<br />
producing a core atlas in <strong>2007</strong> of<br />
pertinent “decarb” strategies for the G8<br />
+ 5 countries, i.e., including the US,<br />
China and India. This would still be a<br />
fairly thin – yet most instructive – compendium<br />
with the potential of rapid<br />
growth through additional contributions<br />
in due course.<br />
The club could hold its annual assembly<br />
(for reviewing, revising and rejoicing) in<br />
San Gimignano. I visited the place just<br />
two months ago and found it as ravishing<br />
as ever!”<br />
Edenhofer, O., Carraro, C., Köhler, J.,<br />
Grubb, M. (Eds.) (<strong>2006</strong>) Endogenous<br />
Technological <strong>Change</strong> and the Economics<br />
of Atmospheric Stabilisation. A Special<br />
Issue of the Energy Journal.<br />
Professor John Schellnhuber CBE has recently<br />
been appointed ‘Chief Sustainability Scientist’ for<br />
the German Government. He is Founding Director<br />
of the Potsdam <strong>Institute</strong> for Climate Impact<br />
Research and a Distinguished Science Adviser<br />
and former Research Director of the UK’s Tyndall<br />
Centre for Climate <strong>Change</strong> Research. He is<br />
also a James Martin 21st Century School Fellow<br />
at the <strong>ECI</strong>.
Tipping Point <strong>2006</strong>: Climate and Art<br />
Over the last year <strong>ECI</strong> has<br />
contributed to several events that<br />
bring together climate researchers<br />
and the arts community to exchange<br />
ideas about climate change. The first<br />
event was held at Christ Church in<br />
September 2005 when 60 scientists<br />
and artists came together for a<br />
two-day meeting to discuss the<br />
science, art and communication of<br />
climate change. Many of the artists,<br />
including authors Ian McEwan and<br />
Gretel Ehrlich and dancer Siobhan<br />
Davies, were associated with Cape<br />
Farewell, a project created by David<br />
Buckland that has taken groups of<br />
scientists and artists to the Arctic<br />
resulting in some powerful artwork<br />
as well as teaching materials and<br />
new scientific data.<br />
In December 2005 the Bodleian<br />
quadrangle was the location for<br />
Cape Farewell’s Ice Garden, with<br />
more than 14,000 people viewing art<br />
associated with climate change.<br />
In summer <strong>2006</strong> the Natural History<br />
Museum hosted ‘The Ship: The Art<br />
of Climate <strong>Change</strong>’ accompanied by<br />
a book Burning Ice - Art & Climate<br />
<strong>Change</strong> including essays by <strong>ECI</strong><br />
Professor John Schellnhuber CBE,<br />
James Martin 21st Century School<br />
Fellow and an enthusiastic supporter<br />
of the climate and art initiative.<br />
Director Diana Liverman and senior<br />
fellow John Schellnhuber. John also<br />
participated in a debate at the Royal<br />
Court Theatre.<br />
These successful collaborations<br />
led to a second Oxford encounter,<br />
now called Tipping Point, at Trinity<br />
College and the Sheldonian Theatre<br />
in September <strong>2006</strong>. Attended by a<br />
wide range of artists and scientists,<br />
including sculptor Antony Gormley.<br />
this event was focused on finding<br />
solutions to the climate change<br />
problem.<br />
<strong>ECI</strong> staff Chris West, Diana<br />
Liverman, and Ian Curtis are now<br />
contributing, with Tipping Point<br />
organiser Peter Gingold, to ongoing<br />
discussions with the arts community<br />
including plans for a major event<br />
at London’s South Bank complex, a<br />
Tipping Point meeting in Germany,<br />
and a set of spin off events with<br />
Cape Farewell in North America.
Cover Image: Su Zang was a student on the <strong>ECI</strong>’s<br />
MSc <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> and Management in<br />
2005/<strong>2006</strong>. After graduating she returned to<br />
China and now works in Beijing for the Sustainable<br />
Agriculture Development Project, which is sponsored<br />
by the Canadian government to help small farmers and<br />
protect the environment in rural China.<br />
Photo: MSc <strong>Environmental</strong> <strong>Change</strong> and Management Alumni <strong>2006</strong>, Su Zang<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong><br />
<strong>Change</strong> <strong>Institute</strong><br />
Oxford University Centre<br />
for the Environment<br />
South Parks Road<br />
Oxford<br />
OX13QY<br />
t: +44(0)1865 275848<br />
f: +44(0)1865 275850<br />
e: enquiries@eci.ox.ac.uk<br />
www.eci.ox.ac.uk