publications

Scientists are clear that urgent action is needed on climate change, and world leaders agree. Yet climate issues barely trouble domestic politics. This book explores a central dilemma of the climate crisis: science demands urgency; politics turns the other cheek. Is it possible to hope for a democratic solution to climate change?

Based on interviews with leading politicians and activists, and the author’s twenty years on the frontline of climate politics, this book explores why climate is such a challenge for political systems, even when policy solutions exist. It argues that more democracy, not less, is needed to tackle the » Continue Reading.

This article, for IPPR’s journal Progressive Review, examines the relationship between citizen and state, comparing Covid-19 and climate action.

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This co-authored commentary, for the journal Environment & Resource Economics, draws lessons from the COVID-19 crisis for climate change.

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What role do national politicians think they can and should play in climate governance? This paper, published in the journal Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, tests these questions empirically, using data from interviews with 23 Members of the UK Parliament, and a focus group of civil society advocates, conducted between 2016 and 2018.

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This report for Green Alliance, co-authored with Mike Berners-Lee, Rosie Watson and Mike Elm, looks at the proposed development of a new mine at Woodhouse Colliery in Cumbria. It explores evidence around the use of coal in steel manufacture, sets out the ways to bring down the CO2 emissions from the industry to meet government ambitions, and assesses the impact the new mine could have.

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This paper, published in the journal Frontiers In Climate, and co-authored with Duncan McLaren, David Tyfield, Bronislaw Szerszynski, Nils Markusson, examines the policy framework required for successful governance of negative emissions technologies.

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This briefing, published by Green Alliance, summarises a four-year research project for Lancaster University.

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This paper, published in the journal Qualitative Research, details the method used to analyse and present interview findings with politicians.

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This paper, published in the journal Political Studies, investigates how politicians develop a democratic case for action on climate change.

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