The Oxford Climate Society is an award-winning University of Oxford society dedicated to connecting and developing informed climate leaders.
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Our membership extends from students to professionals and the general public, welcoming all levels of interest and experience. We connect like-minded individuals, inspire and educate the next generation of climate leaders, take action towards ambitious emission reductions in Oxford, and provide platforms for academic, artistic, and social engagement with climate change.

We would like to emphasise that we are not using climate change in order to make a student society; we are using a student society as a method for exploring, designing, and implementing climate solutions. This emphasis on using OCS to create impact, rather than simply adding to the conversation, is central to our initiatives.
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Climate change is a defining issue of humanity's development, both now and into the coming centuries. It is an issue that touches every part of society, from politics to personal identity, affecting everything from one's health to restricting where people can live all around the world.

There is no business as usual scenario; regardless of an organisation’s stance on the climate crisis radical changes will be experienced, either as social and economic prosperity if innovative leadership is taken in transitioning to a net-zero world, or negatively due to the deterioration of the social and environmental landscape in the wake of unmitigated climate breakdown.

We have seen that it is not enough to know scientifically "what" climate change is, and "what" we need to do to solve it. For decades, escalating communication of "what" we need to do has seen frustratingly slow progress. Instead, rooted in the climate science, we need to know "how" to solve the climate crisis. For this, we need to better understand psychology (how rationally do people behave in response to risk and scale), social cultures (and their differing responses to climate damages), political theory (how might political systems handle such extreme changes), philosophy and art theory (to better understand how people relate to the environment, and to each other around the world), and so much more besides.

In fact, learning "how" to solve the climate crisis requires a radical and completely interdisciplinary approach. OCS seeks to de-silo research and thought patterns, educate across boundaries, and create networks of diverse people to come together and create novel opportunities to steer towards a prosperous post-crisis future.

Weekly Public Events

We host a programme of weekly events during term every Monday at 7.15pm, and sometimes during the vacations. These explore diverse interdisciplinary perspectives on climate change, ranging from feminism to international development, politics to psychology, science to social issues and much more. 

These events are always free to attend, open to the public, and you can receive the latest updates  by following us on facebook, and signing up for our newsletter.

These are currently all streamed in our YouTube channel and also summarised in our blog.

Oxford School of Climate Change

Over the course of nine weeks, the School brings together a diverse group of participants and provides them with a comprehensive education in the core issues underlying climate change, as well as the most promising solutions that have emerged across the world to address it. Participants will get the unique opportunity to learn from some of Oxford University’s most distinguished climate experts, engage in lively  and candid group discussions, and become part of our community of tomorrow’s climate leaders. 

Special Events

In addition to our weekly public panel discussions and lectures, we host a number of other events throughout the year designed to grow participants' skills, encourage further interdisciplinary engagement, and and widen and strengthen the climate network at Oxford. These include, for example:

Media and Publications

Blog

Our award winning blog is a platform providing reports and analysis of climate change in the news to promote global awareness of environmental issues, and providing explanations of key concepts in climate change  so that people who care about the environment have the confidence to use them to argue for climate action! 

Zines

RISE is our artistic zine celebrating creativity in the age of climate change, and includes environmental engagement in forms including art, poetry, short stories and drawings (we have even had a symphony submitted!). The next issue’s theme will be 'Protecting the planet: politics and protest'. We further host socials and launch events, bringing everyone together for the warmer side of environmentalism with RISE!

Anthroposphere

Anthroposphere is our climate review, published in both print and digital copies. It covers climate change through a wide range of perspectives including natural science, economics, policy, and literature. Our vision is to make discourse on climate change accessible to all, and to highlight climate change's complex intersections with diverse aspects of society, cultural change, and everyday life.

Campaigns

Climate Action Plan
Over the last two years OCS' Campaigns Team have been working on a number of ambitious projects. Most notably, we developed a comprehensive survey of college's environmental practices to both publicly rank the colleges, and more importantly to enable peer-to-peer sharing of best practices and to create a platform to facilitate more ambitious climate action at Oxford. Over summer 2019 we took another step up in ambition and worked very closely alongside the SU and Sustainability Guild to evolve our campaign into what has now become the Oxford Climate Action Plan. Importantly, this has enabled many more people to collectively work on unified goals, and allowed several dedicated groups (too many to mention here) to simultaneously take the lead on their area of expertise in a way that OCS simply can't by itself.

Over the course of this year we will be empowering individuals in colleges and departments with resources and timetables to enact the plan, for which we will provide further centralised support in the shape of developing policies for motions, and delivering workshops and ongoing support for key stakeholders and decision makers in colleges to enable them to most easily make the changes that their members (and society in general) are demanding of them.
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Our president, Tristram Walsh, addressing the Climate Assembly at the Sheldonian Theatre on 'using our intellectual resources for the climate', before the OCS Campaigns Team unveiled the climate action plan!
Climate Change in Curricula
Our second, related, campaign is widening and improving coverage of climate change on the curriculum. Oxford can't adequately prepare its students to provide leadership in the future until it comprehensively teaches on global and climate change. We work with students to augment reading lists, and also with subject committees to both integrate climate change into existing courses where opportunities naturally exist, and to develop new courses where necessary. In the past we have met with conveners of new courses, and co-hosted trial lecture series. We will also be collaborating closely with the SU on this over the coming year/s.
Decarbonise Oxford
  1. The OCS action team will provide you with all the materials you need to campaign for sustainable action at your college as well as advice on how to navigate the college system and get a sustainability plan in front of the relevant people at your college.
  2. Link up with other environmentally minded members at your college including the decarbonise oxford network and the environmental representatives.
  3. To get the ball rolling on the campaign you will need to present and pass a motion to your student common room showing that the student body support the college decarbonising!
  4. Once the motion has passed with you can start lobbying for ambitious carbon and biodiversity targets with the help of the common room president and the environmental representative. Start by sending this letter to the relevant authorities in your college.
  5. Start the development of a formal sustainable strategy and policy with the cooperation of your college. 
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OCS' president, Tristram Walsh, appearing on a podcast in conversation with Caroline Lucas MP and Dr Ryan Rafaty, hosted in Westminster
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Our Skills and Education Team Coordinator, Milan Klower, attending and singing in solidarity with the local school strikers, at the very first Friday-4-Future.
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OCS Committee members at a round-table with the Oxford Foundry contributing their knowledge on the opportunities for using AI for climate solutions

Outreach

In addition to acting and communicating on the climate crisis through our own work, we are often approached to contribute outside OCS. Over the last year we have appeared on live radio, live TV, and multiple podcast episodes.

We provide comment for national and local newspapers on the latest stories including the role of individual action, the scope of the youth movement, and environmental policies.

Through invitation, our current president also sits on the advisory boards for organisations such as the Oxford Foundry and the Oxford Climate Policy Forum, and provides advice and support for various other organisations around Oxford.

Our committee members are also often invited to participate in closed round-tables and local discussion groups on everything from artificial intelligence to social sciences; they fulfill public speaking roles both on panels and individually, speaking about climate topics such as art theory, individual action, the ethics of activism, utilising our intellectual resources for climate change and much more. We have even taught lessons about climate change to local school students.
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We also support the climate school strikes by organising Oxford University attendance, attending the strikes as 'ask-me-anything' experts, and being invited to advise the organisers of the strikes. Through the school strike network we will be working this year to encourage and empower local school students to apply to university so that they may progress their journey as climate leaders.

Partners/Friends

You are not alone in caring for the planet's future, and we are not alone. Climate change is a massively collective action problem and we frequently collaborate with and provide support for other groups. Collaborations can include co-hosting events, closely working together with multiple groups and individuals on the climate action plan, and collaborating on many of the special events and projects mentioned earlier on this page.

​​Our president and vice-president provide support and strategic advice for other organisations throughout the year, have co-founded or seeded groups that are now flourishing as independent entities, and sit on a number of advisory boards and network committees at Oxford.

We frequently provide help  by responding to requests for smaller pieces of advice. ​As a small side note, if we don't respond to all of your (many, many) emails and requests for support and/or collaborations, please keep trying, as we really do want to help, but it's easy for the odd email to slip through our attention net!

Here are some of those groups we work closely with on an ongoing basis, collaborate with and/or support most frequently:

Join Us!

We are always looking to support passionate individuals and like-minded groups at Oxford!

You can join one of our many teams all year round, run for election to our core committee once per year, or use OCS as an  accelerator or for strategic advice for your own new project!

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