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.

The Net Zero Regulation and Policy Hub - a key output of the Oxford Martin Programme on Net Zero Regulation and Policy, aims to meet the enormous ‘implementation gap’ between the net zero targets that governments and companies have set, and the policies and actions needed to deliver them.

The Hub will actively track, analyse, and advance best practices in policies and regulatory frameworks geared towards achieving net-zero emissions. It will provide an open-access data bank of regulations that can support countries achieve net zero, equipped with tools to understand how each regulation compares to international standards and best practices for achieving net-zero targets.

The Hub will not only give a picture of the current net zero regulation space but will also be an essential tool in understanding what good practice means in different contexts and where inconsistencies and oversights are undermining the global effort to reach net zero.

The Hub is co-led by Professor Tom Hale of the Blavatnik School of Government and Dr Thom Wetzer of the Faculty of Law and the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme. It forms part of the Oxford Net Zero strategic cluster. The Hub brings together expertise from across Oxford, including political scientists, legal scholars, economists, climate scientists, governance specialists, and others.

In early January, policymakers and civil society organisations, academics, law firms and networks involved in climate change discussions, standard setting and the implementation of policies met to launch the Hub. All have contributed to initial discussions about the work of the Hub and will continue to support the Hub as work progresses. In the coming months, the Hub will release its first publications and plans to launch the open-access data bank of regulations this autumn.