ECI Annual Review 2006/2007 - Environmental Change Institute ...

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ECI in 2006 January The highly successful 40% House launch www.40percent.org.uk. Dr Pam Berry presents to EU policy makers in Brussels: ‘assessing the vulnerability of European biodiversity to climate change’. Dr Chris West gives evidence on climate change to the French Parliamentary Commission, and Swedish Minister of Environment Commission. February Dr Yadvinder Malhi is awarded a £160K Natural Environment Research Council grant to study marginal tropical forests in Africa, South America and Australia. Drs Paula Harrison and Pam Berry win funding from the European Commission to coordinate 23 partner organizations for the £1.3million project: ‘Rationalising Biodiversity Conservation in Dynamic Ecosystems’ (RUBICODE). March Professor Diana Liverman delivers a prestigious 21st Annual Darwin College Lecture at Cambridge University to over 600 people. ‘Survival into the Future’, focused on the risks and solutions to climate change. ECI host the Royal Geographical Society’s Climate Change Research Group Open Meeting for over 50 geographers. April Lower Carbon Futures promote 40% House with 4 presentations at the 2006 International Solar Cities Congress. MSc Environmental Change and Management secures scholarships from EcoSecurities and Climate Care - Oxford based companies that employ several MSc alumni. Oxford becomes a core partner in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, focusing on post-2012 climate policy, climate and development, and climate uncertainty. May ECI win £200K from the UK Government’s ‘Climate Challenge Fund’ for the new Climate-X-Change - creating a ‘climate buzz’ in Oxfordshire www.climatex.org.uk ECI brief new Environment Minister, David Miliband MP, on climate change and biodiversity during a visit to Oxford University’s Wytham Woods. June Dr Brenda Boardman appears as the BBC’s Money Programme energy expert investgating how much energy we are wasting in the home. Professor Diana Liverman talks on BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme, on the impact of climate change on food security. July Dr Yadvinder Malhi secures £300K from Natural Environment Research Council to assess ecosystem carbon dynamics in tropical montane forests. ECI’s Meeting Place host the UK Energy Research Centre annual assembly in Edinburgh. August Pan-Amazonia Network (coordinated by ECI) host the 2006 workshop in Bolivia to consolidate research and scientific findings from across the region. September ECI host TippingPoint 2006, the hugely successful event for artists and scientists to explore climate change. Energy team launch the new Quick- Hits series, to contribute to reducing carbon emissions by 2010 and designed to be easy for Government and local authorities to implement. October Predict and decide report is launched by the All Party Parliamentary Sustainable Aviation Group at the House of Lords and receives sustained media attention across the airways. James Martin 21st Century School Fellow Cameron Hepburn contributes to the widely publicised Stern Review on the economics of climate change. Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) move into ECI in a new partnership. Dr Anna Lawrence delivers the annual distinguished ethnobotanist lecture at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: ‘Taking stock of nature? Ethnobotany and action in participatory ecological governance.’ November Dr John Boardman consolidates over 3 decades of work as a leading land degradation expert through his newly published book Soil Erosion in Europe. James Martin 21st Century School Sabbatical Fellow Professor Timmons Roberts publishes his book Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy. Several ECI researchers join a dozen ECI alumni at the latest round of UN climate negotiations in Nairobi. December Professor Diana Liverman delivers a lecture on Global Change and Food Security at the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) summit in Beijing. ECI end 2006 having written over 80 publications; making over 35 national newspaper, radio and TV appearances and securing a total of £1.8million in new research grants. and so to 2007... Dr Kate Parr, the new Trapnell Fellow in African Terrestrial Ecology, arrives in January, with Professor Arthur Mol (Wageningen University) and Dr Roger Pielke (National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder) both James Martin 21st Century School Sabbatical Fellows arriving later in the year. ECI will be hosting a major international Conference on Climate Change and the Fate of the Amazon in March. For ECI’s UKERC Meeting Place, topics range from European marine renewable energy to the Japan-UK Low Carbon Society and US-UK carbon capture and storage.
News from the Director Diana Liverman, Professor of Environmental Science The Environmental Change Institute celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2006, fulfilling visions of its founders by growing to more than 60 staff, hosting several national and international research centres, and contributing to several high profile reports. This 2006 Annual Report focuses mostly on our new initiatives but needs to recognise the long years of hard work that brought us to this point. It emerges at a time of unprecedented interest in the environment, especially climate change, with UK political parties competing over green credentials and growing corporate attention to environmental issues. Graduates from our MSc in Environmental Change and Management are taking their places in the academic, business, NGO and government sectors around the world. For example, at the latest climate negotiations in Nairobi, our alumni were negotiating for their countries, reporting for the media, and lobbying for environmental organizations and businesses. The Institute has always been guided by an Advisory Board, chaired for many years by Professor Andrew Goudie who stepped down at the end of 2005 (we have established the Andrew Goudie Scholarship for an MSc student in recognition of his service). I am delighted that the new Chair, Professor Tim O’Riordan, has taken on his advisory board role with enormous enthusiasm and together with other new board members Francis Sullivan, Angela Wilkinson, and Jacqueline McGlade, is joining us in some forward looking planning. Tim’s achievements include many years of leadership in environmental science and policy at the University of East Anglia, in advising UK and international governments, and membership of the Sustainable Development Commission. Our last report acknowledged several new benefactions and the initiation of major new projects that are now delivering on their promise. The UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) is continuing to play a pioneering role in working with stakeholders, now with a focus on adapting the UK to climate change. A complementary activity is the UK Government funded Climate-X-Change that works on climate outreach to the local Oxfordshire citizenry. The ECI node of the UK Energy Research Centre has hosted a series of key discussions in the Meeting Place and is one of the ways in which our Lower Carbon Futures group is addressing the challenge of reducing demand for fossil fuels. Together with colleagues in Geography and Atmospheric Physics we are now a core member of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change consortium trying to respond to the challenges of uncertainty in climate change science, the design of the international climate regime, and of climate and development in Africa. Climate policy expertise is enhanced through the group of James Martin 21st Century School Fellows. The Ecosystems group is gaining international recognition for its work on climate change impacts on landscapes, especially in Europe, and in terms of the role of tropical forests in the earth system. Recently we welcomed the international project office for the Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) programme, coordinating the activities of researchers around the world to understand how the changing environment affects food security. After the excitement of moving everyone to the new location and administrative structures of the Oxford University Centre for the Environment (OUCE) in 2005, we have settled in to our new home during 2006. The OUCE brings together ECI, the Transport Studies Unit, and the School of Geography under one roof and is starting to foster greater collaboration across the three groups as well as bringing our MSc and DPhil students together with the more than 100 postgraduates with environmental interests in areas such as biodiversity and water. 2006 saw one final administrative restructuring as the OUCE moved from the now extinct Life and Environmental Sciences division of the University to the Social Sciences division. This move is opening up new opportunities for ECI to bridge to other departments such as the Said Business School and International Development (Queen Elizabeth House, QEH). We are very grateful for new postgraduate scholarships funded by Climate Care and by EcoSecurities, two local Oxford companies who are world leaders in carbon offsetting. We are always looking for new partnerships that can help bring outstanding students to work with us in Oxford. Finally, let me recognise the renewed commitment of the ECI staff to academic scholarship, innovative teaching and policy impact. This includes significant growth in our publication output, the continued popularity of our MSc programme and DPhil supervision, and the prominent contributions of ECI staff to debates about policy including that on the economics of climate change (the Stern Review), aviation and climate, and the fate of the Amazon. All of this is underpinned by the hard work of our support staff to whom I am very grateful.
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Page 7 and 8: p 14 p 24 ECI coordinates 23 global
Page 9 and 10: Climate Mitigation Research The att
Page 11 and 12: Informing international climate pol
Page 13 and 14: impacts throughout all the business
Page 15 and 16: BRANCH: Biodiversity Requires Adapt
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Page 21 and 22: Prof Maria carmen-lemos Maria Carme
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Page 25 and 26: Supergen: Highly Distributed Power
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Page 31 and 32: Alexandra Morel To what extent is p
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Page 35 and 36: of 2005 & 2006 Sarah Stephen, India
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Page 39 and 40: Tipping Point 2006: Climate and Art

ECI Annual Review 2006/2007 - Environmental Change Institute ...

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