Priestley Centre academics partner with MPs on essay collection

Academics from the Priestley International Centre for Climate are partnering with MPs to put together an essay collection addressing climate change and meeting the UK’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Organised through Policy Connect’s sustainability team, the collection will focus on how to deliver climate policy within energy, construction, industry, transport, consumption, and land use, with a consideration of local, national and international contexts.

Each essay will take a sectoral or cross-cutting issue and examine the challenges and opportunities for delivering solutions in that area.

The academics and their parliamentarian partners are: Dr Cat Scott (ICAS, LEAF) and Daisy Cooper MP (Lib Dem), who will be looking at the contribution of tree-planting;  Professor John Barrett (CREDS) and Bill Esterston MP (Labour) will be writing about consumption emissions; Professor Andy Gouldson (PCAN) and Theo Clarke MP (Conservative) on place-based approaches and Dr Mark Sumner (School of Design) and Lisa Cameron (SNP) on sustainable fashion.

The essays will be jointly authored by the MPs and the academic experts and are informed by a series of roundtable events, organised through the All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group. The roundtables, which are closed sessions, bring together civil servants and parliamentarians with industry, academia and third sector representatives to discuss a range of perspectives on each issue.

Due to the impact of coronavirus, all the sessions apart from Cat Scott’s have had to be held virtually. Professor Andy Gouldson is the latest to give evidence; his session with Theo Clarke is being held on Monday 8 June 2020.

The essay collection will be launched in autumn 2020 and seeks to bring attention to the policy challenges that lie ahead if the UK is to adhere to achieving net-zero emissions.

Main image: Dr Cat Scott, Kerry McCarthy, Anna Krzywoszynska, and Daisy Cooper