Showing articles associated with Steve Smith
Steve Smith is Executive Director of both Oxford Net Zero and CO2RE at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. He focuses on climate policy and greenhouse gas removal.
Oxford Net Zero provides research on achieving global net zero emissions, delivering information and advice to policymakers and business - and tracking their progress. Meanwhile, CO2RE is a multi-disciplinary hub for research focused on removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, encouraging and evaluating demonstration projects around the UK.
Each initiative is multi-disciplinary and brings together leading researchers from around the university. CO2RE also involves colleagues from seven other universities in the UK.
Steve specialises in climate science and policy. He joined the university from the UK’s Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), where he co-headed the Climate Science Team and was involved in legislating the UK’s net zero target. His doctorate is in atmospheric physics.
Why is Oxford a good place to work in research related to environmental challenges?
Challenges such as climate change involve questions not just of science, but also of ethics, economics, law, behaviour, innovation and many others. Oxford has leading experts across all of these, and it’s thrilling to bring them together to work on the topic and learn from them.
What is the biggest environmental challenge facing the planet right now?
I would say climate change, and with some justification! But it’s not the only one, and it is intimately connected with other challenges such as land degradation and biodiversity loss. Addressing one problem without exacerbating – and ideally improving – others is part of the fascinating challenge of living on this interconnected planet.
Despite the challenges, are you optimistic about our future?
I’m sad that we will almost certainly lose some precious places, species and ways of life. But I’m hopeful that we will eventually stop warming the planet, and that our children will be better off than us in many ways. Faith without works is dead, though, so it is incumbent upon us to make the right choices!
Find out more about Steve: https://netzeroclimate.org/
