How methane policy will make or break the climate crisis
There’s no sign that methane emissions are declining globally.
The Oxford Martin Programme on
Climate Policy
The Challenge
To avoid the worst impacts of climate change almost all the world’s governments have committed to limiting global temperature rise to well below 2°C based on pre-industrial levels under the Paris Agreement. To do that we collectively need to reach net zero emissions globally by 2050. Countries with net zero targets now represent 88% of global emissions, 92% of global Gross Domestic Product and 89% of the global population.
However, the Paris Agreement is not prescriptive, signatories can define their own routes, pathways and nationally determined contribution to global net zero. As a result, governments and other regulators are taking very different approaches to creating rules around net zero. These are as varied as mandatory financial disclosures, risk management requirements, rules around companies’ net zero plans, procurement, competition law, and what claims companies can make in marketing materials. In addition, this patchwork of governance is overlaid with a number of voluntary governance measures led by NGOs and other organisations.
Rigorous and cohesive net zero rules are needed to create economic certainty around net zero, shield the moral and ethical imperative of combatting climate change from shifting political sands, and level the playing field between countries.
Creating a world where alignment to net zero is woven through all rules governing the economy represents an unprecedented challenge for society. To get there, the piecemeal governance system around net zero needs to be strengthened at speed and scale.
The Oxford Martin Programme on Climate Policy will bring together insights from law and political economy to understand best practice approaches to net zero regulation and support its implementation around the world. It will do so in a way that is supported by climate science, finance, ethics, and economics.
The team will create a real-time, open-access mapping of net zero regulations around the world with tools to understand how each piece of regulation compares to other countries and to best practice for achieving net zero. This Climate Policy Monitor will not only give a picture of the current net zero regulation space but will also be an essential tool in understanding the impact of these cumulative regulations and where inconsistencies and oversights are undermining the global effort to reach net zero.
Once the team understands the shortcomings of current net zero regulation and the interactions between different rules, they can begin to evaluate and develop the academic underpinnings of a global regulatory system fit to deliver the ambition of the Paris Agreement.
Climate Policy Monitor websiteNews
Climate policy strengthens globally, despite unprecedented contestation in the US and Europe
Global review of 37 countries shows climate policy strengthening, with 200+ new policies since 2024, yet they still fall short. Report from the Oxford Climate Policy Monitor, part of the Oxford Martin Programme on Climate Policy
Climate Policy Monitor suggests growth of worldwide climate laws offers resilience to US rollbacks
The explosion of worldwide climate-related policies gives resilience to the climate fight even in the face of the USA’s dramatic change in policies under the Trump administration, findings from Oxford's Climate Policy Monitor show.
Climate Policy Monitor highlights implementation gap in net zero regulations
The Oxford Martin Programme on Net Zero Regulation and Policy has launched its Climate Policy Monitor, a regularly updated public resource evaluating the ambition, comprehensiveness, and stringency of climate-related regulations against over 250 data points.
Climate Policy directors join UN taskforce
The Taskforce on Net Zero Policy, an initiative with the aim of furthering the work of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Expert Group (HLEG) on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities, has today announced the constituents of its Board of Trustees and its Taskforce Expert Group (TEG).
Pro-bono legal expert sought to drive Net Zero Policy Monitor’s global impact
The Oxford Martin Programme on Climate Policy is continuing its efforts to build legal and regulatory ground rules for a net zero-aligned global economy by sourcing expert pro-bono support.
Enforce net zero with global ‘ground rules,’ say Oxford academics
Academics at the Oxford Martin Programme on Net Zero Regulation and Policy have called for rigorous net zero ‘ground rules’ – encompassing laws, regulation and policy – to be implemented and enforced across the world, in an article published in Nature Climate Change.
Oxford researchers launch updated carbon offsetting principles
An interdisciplinary team of Oxford University researchers - including those affiliated to the Oxford Martin School - have today released an update to flagship guidance on credible and net zero aligned carbon offsetting used by hundreds of organisations since its publication in 2020.
Work starts on the Net Zero Regulation and Policy Hub
Researchers across Oxford and partners around the world are coming together to build a centre of expertise dedicated to studying and supporting the urgent task of aligning policy and regulation to climate objectives.
Investors “flying blind” to risk of climate lawsuits
Polluting companies could be liable for trillions in damages from climate lawsuits. But few investors and regulators are taking these risks into account when evaluating companies’ climate-related financial risks, according to new Oxford research published today in Science with the involvement of Oxford Martin fellows.
Turning COP’s promises into progress and the rise of climate regulation
COP28’s outcome is meaningful. For the first time in three decades (since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was founded, and the year I was born) oil and gas has been included in an agreed text. The final text includes a pile of compromises that may cause issues down the road, but this moment still represents an historic signal about ‘the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era’.
Excessive state reliance on carbon dioxide removal is ‘likely inconsistent with international law,’ says Oxford research
In the run-up to COP28, new research from a team at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London warns that states which over-rely on future Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) to meet Paris Agreement targets could fall foul of international law.
New programmes to focus on challenges of Net Zero, AI and critical metals
The Oxford Martin School has launched three new research programmes focussed on solving a diverse set of critical challenges: sourcing the critical metals needed for the energy transition, achieving global Net Zero, and managing the risks of Artificial Intelligence.
People
Rupert Stuart-Smith
Oxford Martin Fellow
Thomas Hale
Director
Thom Wetzer
Director
Sam Fankhauser
Myles Allen
Oxford Martin Senior Fellow
Lavanya Rajamani
John Armour
Cameron Hepburn
Oxford Martin Senior Fellow
Amir Amel-Zadeh
Kaya Axelsson
Emma Lecavalier
Oxford Martin Fellow
Steve Smith
Selam Abebe
Benjamin Franta
Ben Caldecott
Oxford Martin Senior Fellow
Aoife Brophy
Bhavya Gupta
Oxford Martin Fellow
Publications
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