Cambridge at COP

While negotiators scrambled for a last-minute deal on a new fund for loss and damage to support countries most vulnerable to the devastating impacts of climate change, Cambridge researchers continued to push for action on cutting emissions.

Cambridge Zero Director Professor Emily Shuckburgh told Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy as the conference opened that “We’ve left it to the last minute of the last minute” and urged all countries to speed up implementation of the kinds of solutions that are available and being created at Cambridge and other global research universities across the planet. 

 “We know what we need to be doing as a global community. We have many of the technologies in place. We just need to implement them," Shuckburgh told Guru-Murthy and interviewers on the BBC’s Today programme, Ros Atkins, the Sunday Times and others.

Throughout the conference, Cambridge Zero, the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and a host of researchers from across the University of Cambridge played their part in trying to move the agenda with high profile appearances in the UK and global media.

The University presence in Sharm el-Sheikh included more than 20 delegates from across Cambridge, there to showcase research and attend conferences, as well as get the message out across media to major UK newspapers and across the world's biggest news agencies like Bloomberg, AP and Reuters.

Professor Shuckburgh's media comments were bolstered by appearances from Professor Diane Coyle and Dr Matthew Agarwala from the Bennett Institute for Public Policy as well as Dr Alison Ming Researcher in Atmospheric Dynamics. CISL gave interviews and provided messaging on topics across the two weeks of COP27 to Reuters, Newsnight, Financial Times and local news teams at ITV Anglia and the Cambridge Independent.

CISL spokespeople included Clare Shine, Dr Nina Seega, Eliot Whitington, Ursula Woodburn, James Cole, Dr Martin Porter, Zoe Arden and Beverley Cornaby.

“The small gains made to address climate change in Sharm el-Sheikh are inadequate in the face of a growing climate threat that is likely to worsen the multiple crises facing the world,” CISL Policy Director Eliot Whitington said in their final press release.

“Governments, businesses, investors and civil society now need to reflect on how we can urgently raise ambition and accelerate action further because every time we fall short, we open the door to increased unnecessary economic costs, human suffering and environmental destruction.”

The University's social media team created a series of videos from leading lights such as Professor Shuckburgh, Dr Agarwala, Dr Ming, Professor Sander van der Linden and well-known ornithologist and Cambridge undergraduate student Mya-Rose Craig discussing their hopes and expectations for COP27.

And as COP27 closed well after its scheduled finish, Cambridge produced a video of reaction from our experts, now including Cambridge Zero's new Deputy Director Dr Simon Buckle and the co-Director of the Centre for Climate Engagement Emily Farnworth, which had more than 48,000 views.

There, Doctor Agarwala offered the maxim that "today's big headlines often end up as tomorrow's broken promises."

Dr Buckle, whose previous climate change roles at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) provide him with a wide perspective on what is needed now, said a loss and damage fund was a good outcome. But cutting emissions should remain a top priority.

"This is all great, but what we haven't seen is the scaling up of ambition on mitigation which is needed from the big emitters to get us to that 1.5 target."

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