Alex Clark

DPhil Candidate in Energy and Economics, University of Oxford
Alex is a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, where his research focuses on the identification and transmission of fossil-fuel related stranded asset risks in the public sector, and how governments and their agents (particularly state-owned enterprises) should respond to these risks, with a particular focus on China. Alex is also the outgoing director of the GeoAsset Project, (formerly Asset-level Data Initiative) an Oxford-led research programme within the Spatial Finance Initiative aiming to develop public asset-level datasets for use by the research community and financial sector.

Alex is participating in Smith School work supporting a green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, submitting recommendations to the Spanish parliament and presenting to parliamentarians and parliamentary staff from 14 American countries with fellow Smith School researcher Brian O'Callaghan. More recently he presented to the Chopsticks Club on the sustainability challenges facing China's Belt and Road Initiative.

Other research interests include: (i) understanding the linkages between sustainable financial instruments and their effects on the real economy; (ii) the design of policy instruments to support the scale-up of green hydrogen and ammonia in the UK, with a focus on industrial processes and green shipping.

Alex works as a consultant to the Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP) at Columbia University, working with Philippe Benoit on issues relating to economic analysis of high-carbon power generation investments, and the role of state-owned enterprises in accelerating the low-carbon transition.

Alex is also a consultant to the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), a non-profit organisation focused accelerating investment in low-carbon and resilient solutions in the developing world. At CPI, Alex focuses on supporting CPI's climate finance tracking work. Prior to returning to Oxford, Alex spent two years in San Francisco as a climate finance analyst with CPI. He co-led a study on implementing alignment with the Paris Agreement for members of the International Development Finance Club; led data development and processing for the 2019 Global Landscape of Climate Finance; and supported the development of PAYS for Clean Transport, a financial mechanism for accelerating electric bus deployment with the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance. He has worked with clients including the Green Climate Fund, ClimateWorks Foundation and European Climate Foundation.

Alex holds an MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy from Oxford, and is a former holder of the Henry Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where he focused on energy geopolitics and policy, electric mobility and international law. He holds a BA from Warwick University in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and has also studied at Sciences Po in Paris.

With Dr Thomas Hale, Alex co-ordinates Galvanizing the Groundswell of Climate Actions (GGCA) a network of researchers and advocacy organisations supporting non-state contributions to the formal climate negotiation process. He is also Senior Advisor to the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network - Youth (SDSN Youth). He represented SDSN Youth at the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals Summit, and Young European Leadership at the COP21 and COP22 climate change negotiations.

Alex has worked with several organisations including the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Birmingham Food Council (covering food crime, food poverty and the economic costs of poor diet), Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Digimind, Adam Smith International (on governance programmes in Syria and West Africa); and the UK Parliament's Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI).