Laurel Murray

Department of Geography
King's College London
4th Floor
King's Building
Strand
London
WC2R 2LS
 
Email: laurel.murray@kcl.ac.uk
 
Office Tel: +44 (0) 20 7848 1621

This PhD explores the international climate change negotiations, specifically the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The goal is to understand how states form their interests in such large-scale negotiations -- the rationale behind state interest and behaviour. To achieve this, three specific countries will guide the analysis: Canada, India, and the United Kingdom. The participation of these three countries will be investigated and compared in order to explore wider issues such as the political-economic factors, domestic-international linkages, national identity, and the role of social learning.
 
Supervisors: Prof Michael Redclift and Dr. Mark Pelling

Laurel’s research interests broadly centre on environment and development. Laurel began her education studying the science of global environmental change, yet over the years, her work has evolved towards the politics of the environment and the interlinkages between environmental policy and development.
 
More specific research interests include water resource management, agriculture and livelihoods, trade, security and conflict, and climate change. As the subject of her dissertation, climate change and international politics concentrates the majority of her current research. Laurel has actively participated in the climate change negotiations since 2003. Through the IIED, she has assisted in organising various workshops at the annual UN climate change negotiations including Development and Adaptation Days (2003-4), a capacity-building workshop for least developed countries (2003), and a workshop for the European Capacity Building Initiative (Oxford, 2005).
 
Laurel is also secretary of the RGS-IBG Climate Change Research Group http://www.rgs-ccrg.org.uk