Stories

Freddie highlights the opening ceremony featuring the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and UN Secretary-General, António Guterres. Strong support is shown for Loss & Damage on the agenda, and businesses are recognising the urgent need for change.

Professor Emily Shuckburgh, Director of Cambridge Zero, explains what she believes COP27 needs to achieve in this article and video.

Cambridge PhD Candidate in Geography, Friederike (“Freddie”) Hartz, looks ahead to the coming two weeks of COP27 and her live reporting. We invite you to attend the Cambridge Zero event 'COP27 Preview: Where we are and where we need to go with international climate policy' on Monday, 7th November at 18:00 BST at the Selwyn College Auditorium, Cambridge, and online where Freddie will join in live from Egypt.

The Cambridge Green Week in Easter Term 2022 marked one of the first opportunities for students to meet in person and push forwards on climate engagement and action after the Covid-19 pandemic. The week was led, organised and hosted by the elected student Green Officers from across the Cambridge Colleges.

Engage for Change is a twelve-week programme for students at the University of Cambridge who want to learn to make change happen, sponsored by Cambridge Zero and the Sustainability Team at the University of Cambridge. Applications for the first cohort will close on 18th October 2022.

As a current student at the University of Cambridge you have lots of opportunities to learn about and get involved in climate change and sustainability work. Listed below are a range of programmes, opportunities and events available in Michaelmas Term 2022, run by Cambridge Zero and the Sustainability Team. Read on to find out how you can learn more about climate change, take action for positive change and lead sustainability initiatives at the University. This list is non-exhaustive and only summarises the programmes run by these two groups and by College Green Officers, who we collaborate with. There are plenty of other ways to get involved too!

Ten Principles for Policymaking in The Energy Transition, a pioneering new report co-authored by energy policy experts from the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance, sets out how a different approach to policy can empower governments to accelerate innovation, reduce costs and de-risk markets. The report finds that government investment and regulation is key to rapidly bringing down the cost of clean technologies. New principles for policymaking can unlock faster and cheaper technology growth, from green hydrogen to net zero steel, to cut emissions and boost economies.

The first major study of driving forces behind government funding of energy RD&D – and the public institutions generating it – over the 21st century shows that competition created by China’s rise as a technology superpower led to significant increases in clean energy investment. The study led by University of Cambridge and University of California, Berkeley, and published in the journal Nature Energy, also found that cooperation commitments at a UN climate conference were not just empty words, and did boost 'cleantech' innovation, albeit a long way off levels required to hit net zero or prevent two-degree warming.

Cambridge Zero is pleased to introduce the Student Societies Climate Fund: a funding call for all student societies and JCR/MCRs at the University of Cambridge to apply for a share of £1000, available termly, to fund climate-related events.

Learn more about the fund details and how to apply here.

From heatwave 'dismay' to the 'deadly' effects of climate change, here's what two Cambridge experts say about the UK's record-breaking temperatures. "It’s going to be one very hot day..."

We are pleased to announce that Dr Ramit Debnath has been awarded an inaugural Cambridge Zero Fellowship to improve public understanding of climate change. Learn more about his work to uncover the institutional structure of climate change misinformation and the role of social media platforms in this article.

On 11 July 2022, Cambridge Zero Director, Prof Emily Shuckburgh, joined the UK government’s chief scientific adviser in giving an emergency climate change briefing to MPs, warning of the dangers of the climate crisis and urging them to act.

Here's the full text of her briefing along with links to sources.

We are inviting young people to send in video clips of themselves in conversation with someone from a different generation talking about how climate change is affecting them. These videos will be compiled into ActNowFilm2 and showcased at COP27.

Cambridge Zero Director Prof Emily Shuckburgh joined the UK government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, Prof Stephen Belcher from the Met Office and Prof Gideon Henderson, the chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in giving an emergency briefing to parliamentarians, warning of the dangers of the climate crisis and urging them to act.

Once a month, we'll be sitting down with one of the experts in our community to talk about what they do, how they got there and what they believe are the greatest challenges and opportunities in solving the climate crisis.

This month, we're talking to Dr Shaun Fitzgerald OBE FREng, Director of the Centre for Climate Repair at the University of Cambridge (CCRC).

Cambridge Zero is pleased to be partnering with the University of Cambridge Careers Service on delivering the University’s second Green Careers Fair and first Green Careers Festival. The transition to a climate-resilient, net zero world will require skilled and talented individuals working in all sectors of society from finance and law to education and healthcare. The changes that will be needed both to mitigate the effects of climate change and adapt to life with climate change are wide-ranging and will need innovative thinkers from across disciplines.

Are you a problem solver who thrives on challenge? Do you want to take action on climate change? The Cambridge Carbon Challenge is an initiative for student and staff teams to develop ideas to decarbonise our everyday lives!

We are pleased to present our annual report for academic year 2020-21. This report outlines the huge amount of work done by our growing team both across the University of Cambridge and with local, national and international partners during our first full year of operation.

Across the November fortnight in Glasgow, a plethora of those from the Cambridge community contributed to a diverse array of COP26 events and initiatives, reflective of Cambridge’s strength in breadth and depth. Here we round up just some of the many events the University of Cambridge was involved in.

Over the course of a November fortnight, Cambridge students were among the strong Youth contingent which descended on Glasgow for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26. Of those in attendance, a sample have spoken to Cambridge Zero about their experiences, sharing their reflections on the conference and the final agreement.

Raheela Rehman summarises the first Symposium of this Michaelmas term, 'Climate Science'. Bringing together academics and early career researchers, the afternoon showcased the latest research taking place in this field across the University of Cambridge and British Antarctic Survey. The fundamental scientific models spanned the physical environment, from the atmosphere to the oceans and ice sheet loss.

This paper presents a complementary new approach for calculating ocean fronts using an unsupervised classification method called Gaussian mixture modelling (GMM) and a novel inter-class parameter called the I-metric. By researchers at the University of Cambridge, the British Antarctic Survey and Sorbonne University LOCEAN-IPSL Laboratory.

Dr Joanna Depledge, expert in international climate change negotiations, unpicks the intricate global politics which underlined COP26 in Glasgow.

The People’s summit for Climate Justice in Glasgow was attended by Cambridge Student Maryam Grassley who has fed back the poignant quotes which moved her from the range of talks and discussions.