Moving from high-carbon fossil fuels to carbon neutral energy sources is central to achieving security and prosperity for an interdependent world.
Fossil fuels remain the dominant energy source for most countries in the world, despite the increasingly competitive economics and huge health benefits of renewable energy alternatives. Shifting away from coal, oil and gas to prevent runaway climate change and reduce pollution means challenging incumbencies and enabling a just transition for workers and communities.
We provide research, analysis, and convening to support policy makers, diplomatic actors, and civil society networks in their efforts to accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels.
Around the world, decision makers are grappling with the transition away from fossil fuels. We work with networks of progressive diplomatic actors, supporting them to share experiences and identify solutions that can catalyse change at the scale and speed required.
Track record
Our analysis and convening supported the creation of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), a groundbreaking coalition of countries, subnationals and private sector actors committed to ending unabated coal power generation.
We worked with policy makers in the UK and EU to develop packages of public finance and regulation that required ‘no new coal without CCS’, calling the bluff of coal sector actors who were hiding behind Carbon Capture and Storage.
Our award-winning wargaming project with the Sustainable Finance Programme at the University of Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment revealed new insights on the strategies and tactics that Oil Majors might follow when under pressure to align their business models with 2°C pathways.
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a category of applications that could provide a critical tool for tackling emissions from industrial sources where there are currently few alternatives.
We work across the politics and policies of CCS, highlighting how it can be a disruptor of business as usual approaches and an enabler of deep decarbonisation. We engage proactively to identify how CCS can contribute to reducing emissions while ensuring its development fits within the ultimate aim of delivering climate neutrality.
Countries and economic actors are increasingly joining forces to achieve a safe climate.
Effective climate diplomacy must turn support for the Paris Agreement into climate action. Our foundational thinking on climate diplomacy underpins all our work on global climate action.
Policymakers are devising climate strategies to reach climate neutrality. Their decisions are influenced by scientific advice, politics, public opinion and stakeholders.
Climate governance is about organising this advice, avoiding capture by incumbents and navigating the politics of the transition.
Current responses to climate change are failing to manage effectively the full range of climate risks.
There is a mismatch between the analysis of the severity of climate threats and the political, diplomatic, policy and financial investment countries expend to avoid the attendant risks.
The Paris Agreement has made us safer – but not safe.
Growing recognition of the security and financial risks from climate change has yet to translate into policy, operations and investments. We work to modify mandates, change incentive structures and with decision makers to fix this.
Coal is the highest emitting and polluting fossil fuel. Coal use must decline first and fastest to prevent runaway climate change. This requires a rapid phase out of coal use in power generation plus reductions in coal use in industrial processes.
We cooperate with civil society partners around the world to provide analysis, advice, and insight to decision makers and diplomats who are seeking to reduce coal use and accelerate clean alternatives.
Gas is the fastest growing fossil fuel. The transition to a net-zero emissions world is complex, with gas playing an important role in electricity, heating and industry.
We focus on untangling national and international political economy challenges around gas by exploring energy system change, security, financial risk and non-fossil development pathways.
The geopolitical landscape is in flux in the wake of COVID-19 and its cascading impacts; some major powers are pursuing greater isolation; and multilateralism is under attack.
The immediate task is to strengthen alliances and make the case for global cooperation – climate safety our work depends on it.
Limiting global heating to 1.5°C – 2°C degrees requires rapid and deep decarbonisation of the global economy.
The necessary transformation provides a large opportunity for a green economy, but also comes with significant social and economic challenges for affected communities. It is essential therefore to ensure that any transition is just and equitable.
Oil currently plays a central role in many parts of the global economy, from transport to plastics, yet its use must significantly be reduced over the coming decades if we are to reach decarbonisation goals.
Disentangling the economy from oil is pivotal to achieving a 1.5°C – 2°C world.
Place-Based Transitions encompass decarbonisation and adaptation to a warming world at local level, and are about securing people-centred benefits – just transition, affordable healthy homes, workplaces and cities, vibrant and circular local economies, inclusion and participation – that are possible with the building of the distributed, ‘small’ infrastructures, such as energy efficiency, smart clean heating and cooling, that the net zero transition requires.
We work with partners and in coalitions, through thought leadership, policy and political engagement, for institutional, financial, fiscal and regulatory reforms that accelerate place-based transitions consistent with meeting climate targets and social needs.
Understanding and shaping climate transition politics is key to overcoming the challenges of delivering a climate-safe future.
Our Political Economy Mapping Methodology (PEMM) assesses opportunities and threats to countries from the transition, supporting better development choices and building confidence and legitimacy to increase climate ambition.
Understanding the state of climate politics is crucial to drive change forward. Our work on political insights provides thought leadership and analysis to connect the politics with the policy.
From tracking major trends in different geographies, to understanding how climate relates to broader issues such as trade, security and health, our insights enable decision makers to be at the cutting edge.
Systematic governance reforms are necessary for delivering robust infrastructure resilience to future climate change, climate policy and associated technological changes.
Reforms need rapid implementation to avoid the next generation of infrastructure having vulnerability built-in, risking trillions of dollars of value as well as high levels of development and social impacts.
The global financial system is currently biased towards short-term goals at the expense of long-term opportunities and risks.
Policy change can accelerate the transition to a sustainable global economy and align the system to people’s values. Our work develops and encourages high impact reforms in Europe as well as in national and international jurisdictions.
We focus on the national and international governance of climate-related financial risk, and the integration of climate change into macroeconomic thinking. This includes looking at the role of finance ministries and central banks, and at the relationship between finance and climate policy.
