Pete Barbrook-Johnson

Applications Now Open

The Oxford Climate Society is delighted to announce that applications for the School of Climate Change (SoCC) are open until Saturday 11 October, midnight (11:59pm UK time)

oxfordclimatesociety.com/school-of-cl...

Less than Greggs? Public have no idea of value of top universities, study finds Belief that snack chain’s revenues exceed those of Oxford’s one of many misconceptions about UK’s HE sector

www.theguardian.com/education/20...

‘I have to do it’: Why one of the world’s most brilliant AI scientists left the US for China In 2020, after spending half his life in the US, Song-Chun Zhu took a one-way ticket to China. Now he might hold the key to who wins the global AI race

Really excellent article on approaches to AI and the connections between geopolitics and academia...

www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

4) solar costs are most sensitive to sovereign bond yields and exchange-rate pass-through, whereas wind costs decrease with GDP per capita and foreign direct investment.

3) global learning accounts for 60–75% of country solar cost declines but virtually none of wind’s (local price pressures negating most wind power learning).

...

4 main findings:

1) country price dispersion is widening, roughly twice as fast for wind as for solar.

2) country cost rankings are highly persistent.

...

No. 2025-17 - Who rides the renewable cost curve? Country evidence on… How fast can every country benefit from renewable cost declines? Using the largest cross-country panel dataset assembled to date, this paper analyzes 34…

New @inetoxford.bsky.social working paper from the fantastic Brendon Tankwa.

“Who rides the renewable cost curve? Country evidence on prices, learning, and policy.”

In it, we kick around country-level cost data on solar and wind every which way we could think of!

www.inet.ox.ac.uk/publications...

I want to give a huge thanks to all the people (staff and especially students) who made my nearly 5 years at Oxford such a joy, and all the people from CECAN, Surrey, Westminster, and beyond, before then who helped and inspired me. Thank you!

I will also be an associate at @inetoxford.bsky.social and hope to keep very much involved in The Agile Initiative (but we haven’t quite finalised plans there yet!).

I will be teaching my master's elective course on complexity and systems thinking for environment there once a year, and continuing to supervise a group of amazing PhD students.

I am sad to be leaving Oxford of course, but could not bring myself to break ties fully, so will remain at the @ecioxford.bsky.social, as a teaching associate.

Of course, the pull of a permanent post, close to home, in such an amazing institution, was a big factor too. I feel very privileged and lucky to have got such a position, given the crazy economics, precarity, and career options in academia.

I will be researching and teaching much the same stuff as I do already (phew!), and believe this new-ish department, with a radical commitment to interdisciplinarity, will be a great fit for my work.

🚨 Warning 🚨: cheesy career news post incoming 🧀 . Apologies in advance!

From mid-September, I am very excited to be joining UCL Arts and Sciences (UASc) as a lecturer in social economics!

@artshumsucl.bsky.social

A method to identify positive tipping points to accelerate low-carbon transitions and actions to trigger them - Sustainability Science Meeting the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to “well below 2 °C” requires a radical acceleration of action, as the global economy is decarbonising at least five times too slowly. Tipping point...

New open access paper on how to identify and assess positive tipping points to catalyse the low-carbon transition.

This work synthesises a lot of ideas in this space and makes them practical and usable in research and policy work.

Check it out: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

@doynefarmer.bsky.social @cameronhepburn.bsky.social @inetoxford.bsky.social @ecioxford.bsky.social @oxfordgeography.bsky.social

Economic models and frameworks to guide climate policy Abstract. Reaching net-zero emissions will involve a structural transformation of the global economy. The transition is complicated by deep uncertainty abo

Fed up with economists using inappropriate methods to study climate change and net zero?

Here is a paper for you, "Economic models and frameworks to guide climate policy"!

We speak to governments about what they need, and show which economic methods can deliver.

academic.oup.com/oxrep/advanc...

Shiny new report on 10 System Archetypes of the energy transition.

Addresses the questions, how can governments manage the transition, given its countless moving parts and complexity? Which actions will be self-amplifying, and which will be self-defeating?

www.scurveeconomics.org/publications...

How ‘feedback loops’ and ‘non-linear thinking’ can inform climate policy Climate policy: The global shift towards a clean-energy system goes beyond technology to a transformation of markets, industries and societal behaviour.

Why the energy transition is non-linear: Excited to share that an article I co-authored on how feedback loops & non-linear thinking can inform climate policy is now published by the @weforum.org. We dive into why systems thinking is crucial for real climate progress.

www.weforum.org/stories/2025...

Decision-makers who understand how to work with these dynamics will have the advantage in navigating the transition...

Shiny new report on 10 System Archetypes of the energy transition.

Addresses the questions, how can governments manage the transition, given its countless moving parts and complexity? Which actions will be self-amplifying, and which will be self-defeating?

www.scurveeconomics.org/publications...

🚨 NEW RESEARCH: The energy transition is more disruptive—and could move much faster—than most people think.
It’s not just about swapping old tech for new.

Shift to clean energy is a complex web of feedback loops, tipping points & surprises.

Our new 📖 👇

www.scurveeconomics.org/publications...

🧵

The climate movement keeps saying 'stop talking about system change' and inaccessible jargon. Well, if this makes you sad then see 'system' and 'feedback loops' and 'levers' jargon put to excellent use in our new report.

Summary in @carbonbrief.org too

www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-h...

Solar hit 700GW in 2020—10x what was forecast in 2006.

Why? Feedback loops & non-linear change, not just tech swaps, drive clean energy.

Our new @carbonbrief.org piece: Early policy support + smart market design + cross-sector links = faster decarbonisation.

www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-h...

CECAN Fellowships - CECAN CECAN has established a Fellowship Scheme for those who wish to participate and contribute to its work. The scheme provides opportunities for those from Government and business to forge useful and las...

New revamped @cecan.bsky.social fellowship scheme!

www.cecan.ac.uk/cecan-fellow...

1) Interact with our team of experts on policy evaluation and analysis, systems thinking and complexity.

2) Work on mini-project related to challenges in your work.

Open to anyone working in these areas!

A new working paper from @bapeterj.bsky.social's team develops an approach for using natural language processing in policy analysis.

Yuan Fu & Pete show that NLP workflow is full of subjective judgements and choices

🔗 www.inet.ox.ac.uk/publications...

@inet-complexity.bsky.social
#complexity

LLMs-for-systems-mapping-CECAN-INET-Guidance-FINAL-24.03.25.pdf | Pete Barbrook-Johnson Recently, I have become interested in how we can make more use of existing evidence and data in systems mapping exercises. Most exercises are expert opinion-led, which works well, but there is often u...

More context here: www.linkedin.com/posts/pete-b...

LLMs-for-systems-mapping-CECAN-INET-Guidance-FINAL-24.03.25.pdf | Pete Barbrook-Johnson Recently, I have become interested in how we can make more use of existing evidence and data in systems mapping exercises. Most exercises are expert opinion-led, which works well, but there is often u...

More context here: www.linkedin.com/posts/pete-b...

2025-09 - Using NLP to create preliminary causal system maps for use… The use of causal systems mapping in interdisciplinary and policy research has increased in recent years. Causal system maps typically rely on stakeholder…

🚨 New working paper - geeking out on systems mapping 🤓

*Using natural language processing to create prelim system maps*

www.inet.ox.ac.uk/publications...