Rebecca Byrnes

This report highlights six case studies of successful climate change adaptation and resilience, mostly in developing countries. It assesses the success of specific adaptation and resilience processes, the benefits gained and the lessons learned. Read more

Climate change litigation has been growing in importance over the past three decades as a way of either advancing or delaying effective action on climate change. This report reviews key developments around the world in climate litigation over the period May 2019 to May 2020. Read more

The Philippines is highly exposed to natural hazards including typhoons. This report, finding that financial aid tends to be heavily focused on response to hazards rather than preparedness and resilience, investigates why further disaster risk policy intervention may be required at the local level and provides guidance to policymakers. Read more

This global review of adaptation laws and policies has been undertaken to understand how adaptation to climate change is governed at the national level. It highlights the common areas of focus and also apparent gaps in these laws and policies, making recommendations for policymakers and further research. Read more

This submission was made to the Environment Agency's consultation on its draft strategy for flood and coastal risk management in England, and draws on the Grantham Research Institute's work and expertise over many years in this area. Read more

This paper is a submission to the second review of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) on Loss and Damage under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will take place at COP25 in December. The submission looks at the Loss and Damage policy debate, how it relates to other international frameworks and efforts in the areas of mitigation, adaptation, disaster risk reduction and sustainable development, and identifies how the WIM can be most effective. Read more

This paper summarises the Institute's submission to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ call for evidence on policy direction to prepare the UK for flooding and coastal erosion, drawing on a decade of work by the Grantham Research Institute with the insurance industry and policymakers addressing issues around climate change and adaptation. Read more

This policy brief analyses global trends in carbon taxation and differences in tax design around the world to draw out lessons for the design of a possible new carbon tax for the UK, as the country plans how to meet its ambitious new net-zero emissions target and how it prices carbon after Brexit. Read more

This policy report provides an overview of current issues in climate change litigation, focusing on selected cases and developments from May 2018 to May 2019.  Read more

This report explains the importance of pricing carbon as a key component of any strategy to reach net-zero emissions in the UK, setting out how the price may differ sector to sector and how to incentivise negative emissions. Read more

Rebecca Byrnes and Swenja Surminski discuss their new report on addressing the impacts of climate change. Read more

Rebecca Byrnes and Swenja Surminski outline progress of actions taken under the Warsaw International Mechanisms on Loss and Damage - which is designed to help countries deal with the harm caused by climate change - and how to enhance its effectiveness, as the COP25 climate conference gears up to reviewing the mechanism in December. Read more

Companies are increasingly in the firing line for climate litigation and they need to be thinking about liability risk when making the decisions that impact how they run their businesses and the information they provide to shareholders and the public, says Rebecca Byrnes. Read more

Josh Burke and Rebecca Byrnes discuss new research into global approaches to carbon pricing. Read more

Nature.com report on the analysis of climate litigation cases worldwide, noting that citizens and organizations have filed more than 1,300 lawsuits related to climate change in at least 28 countries around the world. Read more

he findings of the report also feature as one of the lead stories on the CNN homepage. Read more

The Times Law reported the findings that legal actions over failure to act on climate change have kicked off in at least 28 countries. Read more

Rebecca Byrnes sets out three ways to progress climate action in Australia following the re-election of the centre-right Coalition. Read more

Identifying progress within the annual round of international climate negotiations can be a challenging business. The sessions of the Conference... Read more

As the implementation guidelines to the Paris Agreement are negotiated at COP24, this commentary asks whether and to what extent they will include human rights language, and reviews examples from around the world of how human rights issues are gaining more prominence in relation to climate action. Read more