Ronald Oxburgh, Baron Oxburgh

Ernest Ronald Oxburgh, Baron Oxburgh, (born 2 November 1934) is an English geologist, geophysicist and politician.

Lord Oxburgh is well known for his work as a public advocate in both academia and the business world in addressing the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and develop alternative energy sources as well as his negative views on the consequences of current oil consumption.

Oxburgh was born in Liverpool on 2 November 1934.

He remained there with his family throughout World War II, despite Luftwaffe air raids.

He attended Liverpool Institute High School for Boys from 1942 to 1950.

He is a graduate of the University College, Oxford and Princeton University (PhD) (1960) where he worked on the emerging theory of plate tectonics with the famous geologist Harry Hammond Hess.

Oxburgh has taught geology and geophysics at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

At Cambridge he was Professor of Mineralogy and Petrology, head of the Department of Earth Sciences and President of Queens' College.

He has been a visiting professor at Stanford, Caltech, and Cornell.

From 1988 to 1993, Lord Oxburgh was chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence, and Rector of Imperial College London from 1993 to 2000.

He was a member of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education that published an influential report in 1997.

Lord Oxburgh was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Science and Engineering Research Council (Singapore), as of 1 January 2002, and is a member of the International Academic Advisory Panel of Singapore and the University Grants Committee (Hong Kong).

He is honorary president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, chairman of Falck Renewables, a wind energy firm, an advisor to Climate Change Capital.

During 2004–05 Oxburgh was a non-executive chairman of Shell, the UK arm of Royal Dutch Shell.

His tenure was remarkable in that while chairing a fossil fuels giant he expressed his "fears for the planet" because of climate change, sought new energy sources, and urged the global community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

He was chairman of D1 Oils, plc, a biodiesel producer, in 2007, and a director of GLOBE, the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment.

In March 2010, he was appointed as the chairman of an inquiry into the research conducted by the Climatic Research Unit following the Climatic Research Unit hacking incident.

The report, released 14 April 2010, found that "...work has been carried out with integrity, and that allegations of deliberate misrepresentation and unjustified selection of data are not valid."

Critics asserted Oxburgh's ties with businesses that stood to profit from the decision created a conflict of interest.

The University of East Anglia did not see any conflict of interest, stating,

"'The choice of scientists is sure to be the subject of discussion, and experience would suggest that it is impossible to find a group of eminent scientists to look at this issue who are acceptable to every interest group which has expressed a view in the last few months. Similarly it is unlikely that a group of people who have the necessary experience to assess the science, but have formed no view of their own on global warming, could be found.'"

While at Princeton University, Oxburgh was joined by his fiancée, Ursula, whom he married in the university chapel.

They have three children.

An outdoorsman, Oxburgh enjoyed orienteering and running marathons until knee surgery limited him to mountain hikes with his wife.