Institute for Environmental Futures
The climate emergency and global species extinction crisis call for urgent action to ensure the future habitability of our planet. The world must achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to stay below the threshold for dangerous climate change of +1.5°C. The Institute for Environmental Futures carries out transformative and transdisciplinary research into human-environment systems together with our stakeholders and partners. We co-develop policy solutions and innovations towards an environmentally sustainable future.
Institute for Environmental Futures events
Environmental Futures Seminar Series
Title: GreenPaths Project
Date and time: 6 November 2025, 2:00pm - 3:00pm
Speaker: Professor Judith Clifton Walker and Professor Danial Diaz
Abstract: Since re-branding itself as the world’s first climate bank, the European Investment Bank (EIB) was nominated by the European Commission to help implement its bold European Green Deal by mobilising €1 trillion over a decade for sustainable investment towards transition from 2021. As a policy-taker, the EIB supports European Green Deal objectives, including, ensuring the transition is “just” —to avoid leaving people and places behind. However, cities and urban areas, associated with their greater contributions to climate change, may be better placed to obtain demand-based climate finance than their less urbanised counterparts—posing a potential challenge to a just transition. We conduct a regional analysis of EIB climate finance, confirming a trend whereby early-adopter larger cities are more likely to obtain climate finance per inhabitant than their counterparts, posing a challenge to policy efforts to ensure the transition is just.
Email ief@leicester.ac.uk to attend.
Environmental Futures Café
Everyone is welcome to join our Environmental Futures Café. Our next café takes place on the 5 November 2025, 10:30am - 11:30am, there will be 3-minute pitches, guided group discussion, and networking on the topic of AI and Climate, this session will be convened by Dr Cristina Ruiz Villena and Khunsa Fatima.
Refreshments will be provided, to join please contact us below.