Alex is a PhD researcher at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford, where his research focuses on the identification and transmission of fossil-fuel related economic risks in the public sector, and how governments and their agents should respond to these risks, with a focus on China. 

Alex supports Oxford's engagement with China through the Economics of Energy Innovation and Systems Transition (EEIST) project. He is a Global China Initiative Fellow at Boston University, a Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a Europaeum Scholar, and a 2021 Summer Programme fellow at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). 

Alex also works as a consultant to the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, and Climate Policy Initiative (CPI). He 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.

Alex joins us to discuss the recent report published by the Smith School: Zero-Emissions Shipping:  Contracts-for-difference as incentives for the decarbonisation of international shipping

This report looks at the feasibility of applying a policy instrument known as a ‘contract-for-difference’(CfD), which has seen previous success in driving down the costs of renewable energy generation technologies in the electricity sector.

In our podcast, Alex explains the origins of the report, its implications for the energy transition and how it could work to encourage ship operators and fuel suppliers to switch investment to low-emissions alternatives.