Catriona Flesher

Profile

I joined the University of Leeds in 2023 as a PhD researcher, funded by the Extinction Studies Doctoral Training Programme (DTP) convened by the Leverhulme Trust and the University of Leeds. My research explores the framing and governance of Loss and Damage from climate change, examining its emergent legal arrangements from international climate negotiations, placed in dialogue with the experiences of climatic losses and damages in a rural community in Malawi. The negotiation, contestation, and experiences of climate justice, vulnerability, and human rights are central to this project. I sit within both the School of Law and School of Earth and Environment, and am a member of the Centre for Law and Social Justice and the Sustainability Research Institute in each School respectively.

I am also a Priestley Climate Scholar, contributing to collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to researching the climate crisis at the University of Leeds.

Prior to commencing my PhD, I studied MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance at the University of Oxford, wherein I researched community-based adaptation to glacial lake outburst flooding with WWF Pakistan. Previously, I worked at WaterAid in parliamentary and international advocacy on climate change adaptation.

Research interests

• Loss and damage
• Climate change adaptation
• Climate justice
• Human rights
• Political ecology

Qualifications

• MSc Nature, Society and Environmental Governance (Distinction), University of Oxford
• BA History (Double First), University of Cambridge

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Law and Social Justice