BBC Radio 4 discussion on UK farming resilience

Large swathes of UK farmland is underwater – again. Rural flooding is increasing as a result of more periods of intense rainfall. In this section I explained how warming leads to more climate change impacts which we need to adapt to. But there are hard and soft limits to such …

New research article: Consequences of climate policy failure

Earlier this year I worked with the Earth League on a research programme investigating climate overshoot. One of the results of this collaboration is an article recently published in the journal One Earth: Living beyond limits: Consequences of missing the decisive decade for preserving our planet’s life-supporting systems. I discussed …

Taking the pulse on European climate leadership

Last month I was asked to contribute to Carnegie’s ‘Taking the pulse’ series. The question was Has Europe Given Up its Leadership on Climate Change? December 12, 2025 will mark the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement adopted at COP21. Rather than celebrating the birth of this landmark climate treaty, …

I will be joining the Global Day of Action on the 17th November, a worldwide initiative that works to connect legal clinics together in order to raise awareness for the climate emergency. This year’s event theme is “Decarbonization: A just transition. What does decarbonization actually entail? How quickly or easily …

As dreams of 1.5°C melt away, net zero’s reckoning is overdue

People’s inability to see past net zero shows it is no longer fit for purpose “Be flexible, find common ground, come forward with solutions and achieve consensus and never lose sight of our north star of 1.5°C, that’s what I’m going to stay laser-focused on.”President of COP28, Dr. Sultan Ahmed …

Finding hope, meaning, and purpose in the midst of a climate and ecological crisis

On the 11th March I gave a talk to a group of students from across the University of Exeter as part of a careers in sustainability & environment week. In many ways, this was a long time coming. I’ve been giving public lectures, seminars, talks about climate change for over …

First article on a new Substack: Why carbon capture means we will be paying off fossil fuel companies for centuries

I’ve started a Substack for a number of reasons, one of them being a place to publish articles that for one reason or another never seem to quite fit anywhere else. Yes I could put them up as posts here, but having a Substack just for articles means that, perhaps, …

Talk: Overshoot (and other lazy plot devices in climate policy)

In 2021, Robert Watson, Wolfgang Knorr and I wrote the article “Concept of net zero is a dangerous trap“. Three years later we concluded that the jaws of this trap are starting to close with climate policy increasingly being framed in terms of what we call “The overshoot myth“. In …

President Trump 2.0 accelerates US decline

You could say it’s 2016 again. But this time it’s worse. It’s worse because back then we could only really guess what a Trump presidency would do. Now we know. And beyond the presidency, the Republican Party now controls the Senate, Congress and has a conservative majority in the Supreme …

The overshoot myth: you can’t keep burning fossil fuels and expect scientists of the future to get us back to 1.5°C

James Dyke, University of Exeter; Robert Watson, University of East Anglia, and Wolfgang Knorr, Lund University Record breaking fossil fuel production, all time high greenhouse gas emissions and extreme temperatures. Like the proverbial frog in the heating pan of water, we refuse to respond to the climate and ecological crisis …

Parasites in our taps are the terrible legacy of water privatisation

Billions have been funnelled out of the country while pipes leak, and faeces pollutes our water The i paper, 17th May 2024. Around 16,000 households and businesses in the Brixham area of Devon have been told not to use their tap water for drinking without boiling and cooling it first. …

The ECHR ruling that could shame our Government into climate action

inews 11th April 2024 For more than 30 years governments have been wrestling with the climate problem. While we may or may not get the politicians we deserve, what seems abundantly clear is that no mainstream political party has demonstrated the sufficient gumption to keep humanity safe from dangerous climate …

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