COP26: successes, lessons and what’s next explored in new event series

21 January 2022

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Many people believed that the 26th meeting of the UN’s global climate summit (COP26) hosted in Glasgow in November 2021 was the world’s last best chance to get runaway climate change under control.

After two weeks of intense negotiations an agreement was reached and the world signed the Glasgow Climate Pact, building on the 2015 Paris Agreement. The agreement included plans to strengthen efforts to build resilience to climate change, help curb greenhouse gas emissions, and provide the necessary finance for both. The essential question now is; how do we take those commitments from paper into reality?

From Thursday 27th January, the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford will host a series of online and hybrid events bringing together senior academics and practitioners to discuss the aftermath of COP26 and what we need to do to achieve the goals set down in the Glasgow Climate Pact.

The conversations will explore what the decisions made at COP26 mean for sustainable finance, tropical forests and for modelling the climate. The series will also include a panel discussion featuring significant voices who contributed to the outcomes of COP26 looking towards future COP summits, including COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh later this year.

Confirmed speakers in the series Post COP26: successes, lessons learnt & what do we need to do now? include:

  • Professor Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford
  • Professor Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science and Director of Oxford Net Zero
  • Professor Oliver Phillips, Chair in Tropical Ecology, University of Leeds
  • Professor Tim Palmer, Royal Society Research Professor in Climate Physics, University of Oxford
  • Professor Nicola Ranger, Head of Climate and Environmental Analytics, Oxford Sustainable Finance Group
  • Professor Benito Müller, Managing Director, Oxford Climate Policy
  • Professor Steve Smith, Executive Director of Oxford Net Zero

The first two events in this series, "Towards COP27: moving forwards after COP26" and “What would a sustainable economy look like?” with Prof Sir Dieter Helm will be held as interactive online events. Subsequent events, starting in March, will be available both online and in-person at the Oxford Martin School. Anyone is welcome to attend however seating is limited and (free) registration is required.