Tag Archives: Grantham Research Institute Climate Change

What the new green watchdog can learn from the Committee on Climate Change

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This post is by Dr Ajay Gambhir, senior research fellow at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment.

path in park squareThis year marks the tenth anniversary of the UK Climate Change Act, the first of a kind legislation to hold a country to a long term greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal. One of its central components, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), is actually a year older than the act itself, having been established in a non-legislated ‘shadow’ form in 2007, to prepare advice on what the act’s long term emissions goal should be and how it could be achieved. Read more

Ten years on: reflections from the Grantham Institute on a decade of climate change research

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180228-Prince_Albert-Grantham_Lecture-028.jpgThis post is by Martin Siegert, co-director of the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London. He reflects on a decade of research and education in climate change and the environment as the institute celebrates its tenth anniversary.

 With a climate sceptic in the White House, record sea ice loss and atmospheric carbon dioxide at levels not seen for 3.5 million years, it is easy to feel that attempts to curtail climate change and safeguard the environment have failed. However, reflecting on the past decade, it’s clear that we have come a long way in that time.

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How to get prosperity with growth (green growth that is)

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graph upThis is a guest post by Dr Cameron Hepburn and Dr Alex Bowen of the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change. It is based on a longer paper.  

The financial crisis and the Great Recession have put economic growth back at the top of the political agenda in most countries. That is not surprising. The surprise is that there has also been a backlash against economic growth, from three completely different camps.

First, those whom we call ’inevitable no-growthers‘, such as US economist Robert Gordon, who argue that low or zero growth in developed economies may be inevitable.  Second, ’environmental no-growthers‘, such as Prosperity without Growth author Tim Jackson, who argue that the planet cannot sustain continued increases in economic activity. Third, ’lifestyle no-growthers‘, such as Lord Robert and Edward Skidelsky, authors of How Much is Enough, who conclude that we would be better off without growth, because we should all stop working so hard, slow down and enjoy life a little more.

The delusions of ‘business as usual’ growth
There is something plausible in each of these arguments, and indeed some of these ideas are at least partially right. Certainly, they do not suffer from the delusions of those who would argue for return to ‘business-as-usual’ growth at all costs. Read more