Professor Cameron Hepburn
About
Cameron Hepburn is Battcock Professor of Environmental Economics at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. He also directs the Economics of Sustainability Programme, based at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School.
He has published widely on energy, resources and environmental challenges across a range of disciplines, including engineering, biology, philosophy, economics, public policy and law, drawing on his degrees in law, engineering and doctorate in economics.
Professor Hepburn provides advice on energy and climate policy to government ministers (e.g. China, India, UK and Australia) and international institutions (e.g. OECD, UN organisations) around the world. Cameron began his professional life with McKinsey, and has since had an entrepreneurial career, co-founding three successful businesses – Aurora Energy Research, Climate Bridge and Vivid Economics – and investing in several other social enterprises, such as Apolitical, Purpose and Zeelo. He serves as a trustee for Schola Cantorum of Oxford.
Expertise
- Energy
- Climate
- Resources
- Environment
- Economics
Selected publications
- Turning a groundswell of climate action into ground rules for net zero (2024)
- Economic modelling fit for the demands of energy decision makers (2024)
- Designing a circular carbon and plastics economy for a sustainable future (2024)
- Rethinking the economics of water: an assessment (2020)
- "Carbon pricing" special issue in the European economic review (2020)
- Will COVID-19 fiscal recovery packages accelerate or retard progress on climate change? (2020)
- Bringing rigour to energy innovation policy evaluation (2020)
- Cooperative conservation: Seven ways to save the world (2019)
- Is Natural Capital Really Substitutable? (2019)
- Sensitive intervention points in the post-carbon transition (2019)
- The technological and economic prospects for CO2 utilization and removal (2019)
Media experience
Professor Hepburn’s research is often referred to in the printed press, and he has been interviewed on television and radio in many countries.
Watch online
How solving the climate crisis will make us richer | Cameron Hepburn | TEDx Talk: Small Wins: Business Resource Center (youtube.com)
Recent media work
- Plastics Are Vital. Here Are 4 Steps To Stop Them From Trashing The Planet (Forbes, 2024)
- Keir Starmer will have to break a few eggs if he’s to achieve a green economy (The Guardian, 2023)
- Solar and wind farms can easily power the UK by 2050, scientists say (The Times, 2023)
- Trials to suck carbon dioxide from the air to start across the UK (The Guardian, 2021)
- 9 countries missing the chance of a green recovery (Climate Home News, 2021)
- Enormity of climate crisis misunderstood (Top 1000 Funds, 2020)
- Green stimulus can repair global economy and climate, study says (The Guardian, 2020)
Languages
English, French