The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment is a research centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science founded in May 2008. The centre is a partner of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College and acts as an umbrella body for LSE's overall research contributions to the field of climate change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

 and its impact on the environment. Furthermore, the institute oversees the activities of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy

Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy

The Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy is a climate change research centre in England. It is hosted jointly by the University of Leeds and the London School of Economics and Political Science ....

 (CCCEP), a partnership between LSE and the University of Leeds

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

.

Both Grantham research centres are sponsored through the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, established by Hannelore and Jeremy Grantham

Jeremy Grantham

Jeremy Grantham is a British investor and Co-founder and Chief Investment Strategist of Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo , a Boston-based asset management firm. GMO is one of the largest managers of such funds in the world, having more than US $107 billion in assets under management as of December 2010...

 in 1997. The combined investments totalling approximately £24 million is recognised as one of the largest private contributions to climate change research. CCCEP is funded independently by the ESRC.

The institute is currently chaired by Lord Nicholas Stern

Nicholas Stern

Nicholas Herbert Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford, Kt, FBA is a British economist and academic. He is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics , and 2010 Professor of Collège de...

 of Brentford, former Chief Economist

Chief economist

The Chief Economist is a single position job class having primary responsibility for the development, coordination, and production of economic and financial analysis...

 of the World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

 and author of the widely-known Stern Review

Stern Review

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is a 700-page report released for the British government on 30 October 2006 by economist Nicholas Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and also chair of the Centre...

.

The mission of the Grantham Research Institute is to generate leading, policy-relevant research on climate change and its effects on the environment for academics, policymakers, businesses, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the media and the public.

The institute's main research activities can be subdivided into five different areas:

1. Climate science and decision making

2. Mitigation of climate change - carbon markets and technology

3. Adaptation to climate change, and development

4. Management of forests and ecosystems

5. Governance of climate change

The research of the institute is characterised by its interdisciplinary nature and brings together international expertise on economics

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

, finance

Finance

"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...

, geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

, the environment

Natural environment

The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....

, international development

International development

International development or global development is a concept that lacks a universally accepted definition, but it is most used in a holistic and multi-disciplinary context of human development — the development of greater quality of life for humans...

 and political economy

Political economy

Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...

, as the centre's academic staff comprise a broad range of disciplines, including physicists, climatologists, economists, statisticians, political scientists and various other social scientists.

External links

• http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/climatechange
• http://www.cccep.ac.uk/AboutUs/about.aspx (CCCEP)
• http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/climatechange/aboutus/partnerships (GRICC)