About Us

The Oxford Geoengineering Programme was founded in 2010 as an initiative of the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford.

Geoengineering - the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth's natural systems to counteract climate change - is a contentious subject and rightly so.

The Oxford Geoengineering Programme seeks to engage with society about the issues associated with geoengineering and conduct research into some of the proposed techniques. The programme does not advocate implementing geoengineering, but it does advocate conducting research into the social, ethical and technical aspects of geoengineering. This research must be conducted in a transparent and socially informed manner.

The University of Oxford is currently involved in four projects on geoengineering - two projects funded by the UK Research Councils and two projects funded by philanthropic foundations.

They are: the Greenhouse Gas Removal by Enhanced Weathering (GGREW) project in partnership with the University of Southampton, Cardiff University and the University of Cambridge; the Comparative Assessment and Region-Specific Optimisation of GGR project with Imperial College London, University College London, the University of East Anglia and the University of Cambridge; the Geoengineering Research Governance Project (GRGP) in partnership with the University of Calgary and the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies – Potsdam; and the Greenhouse Gas Removals Instruments and Policies (GRIP) project with the University of Manchester.

The University of Oxford has previously been involved in three major projects on geoengineering funded by the UK Research Councils.

They are: the Integrated Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals (IAGP) in partnership with the University of Leeds, Cardiff University, Lancaster University, University of Bristol, University of East Anglia, the Tyndall Centre and the UK Met Office; the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) in partnership with the University of Bristol and the University of Cambridge; and the Climate Geoengineering Governance (CGG), an Oxford-led project in partnership with the University of Sussex and University College London examined the governance and ethics of geoengineering.

 


 

About the banner image: This image depicts an area of temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island, Canada. Ecosystems like this rely on delicate balances in climate variables which are increasingly threatened by greenhouse gas-driven climate change. The deployment of geoengineering technologies may present the only chance for some especially vulnerable ecosystems to maintain their integrity in the face of irreversible damage. It may also present significant risks to these natural systems due to unintentional or unforeseeable side-effects. Image credit: Tim Moore (2006).

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