DecarboN8 role: Theme lead – Carbon Pathways
Job title: Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester and Zennström Professor at Uppsala University
Profiles: University of Manchester
Kevin Anderson is Professor of Energy and Climate Change in the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester and is a former Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He is research active with recent publications in Climate Policy, Royal Society journals, Nature and Science. He engages widely across all tiers of government; from reporting on aviation-related emissions to the EU Parliament, advising the Prime Minister’s office on Carbon Trading and having contributed to the development of the UK’s Climate Change Act.
With his colleague Alice Larkin, Kevin’s work on carbon budgets has been pivotal in revealing the widening gulf between political rhetoric on climate change and the reality of rapidly escalating emissions. His work makes clear that there is now little chance of maintaining the rise in global temperature at below 2°C, despite repeated high-level statements to the contrary. Moreover, Kevin’s research demonstrates how avoiding even a 4°C rise demands a radical reframing of both the climate change agenda and the economic characterisation of contemporary society.
Kevin has a decade of industrial experience, principally in the petrochemical industry. He is a chartered engineer and fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and is a Director of Greenstone Carbon Management.
