Dr Ros Taplin

Ros is a Reader in Environmental Management in the Centre for Development, Environment and Policy. 

She was formerly Research Director, ACSMP, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Head of the Department of Sustainability Science, Bond University, Queensland, Director of the Environmental Management Program, Graduate School of the Environment, Macquarie University, and Director, Climatic Impacts Centre, Macquarie University, Sydney. Her qualifications include two doctorates in environmental policymaking and environmental art. 

Ros has contributed to the environmental policy, climate change policy, energy sustainability, environmental art, and education for sustainability literature. She is an enthusiastic and committed interdisciplinary educator and researcher.

Ros has carried out environmental research in areas including: climate change adaptation and mitigation; climate change art; energy access and renewables; mining and resource extraction impacts; forest and biodiversity impacts; and education for sustainability.

She is currently investigating: ‘Enabling carbon removal: Expert alliances, creative arts visualisations and public involvement to realise Paris Agreement transitions’.

Her climate change research contribution focuses on the challenges of implementation of effective governance approaches both at the international and domestic levels. Joint papers in 2016-2017 focussed on Cambodia and climate change adaptation work in the water resources and agriculture sectors. Ros’s previous climate change research includes studies on Clean Development Mechanism projects; the role of the Asia-Pacific Partnership; and Australian climate change policy.

Projects on sustainable energy supply, and renewable energy policy and energy access have included studies of the Pacific Islands developing countries’ situations, south and south-east Asian case studies including the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Thailand and Vietnam and biofuels exploitative developments in the African countries of Zambia and Zimbabwe. Her joint 2015 Global Environmental Change paper looks at regional cooperation on sustainable energy in energy deprived developing country regions globally, and the link of access to energy with poverty alleviation and overall human development and quality of life goals.

Research on mining and resource extraction impacts includes a Journal of Cleaner Production paper with hydro-geologist and accounting colleagues that looked at voluntary and mandatory sustainability reporting disclosures on water usage in regional Australia and the questionable usefulness of the information for the disempowered local communities that are most impacted by lack of the resource. Also, with co-authors in a Journal of Environmental Management paper, she reflected on mining company use of biodiversity offsets in Australia, Madagascar, Ghana and South Africa and the need for more transparency in evaluation of ‘no net loss’ of biodiversity.

Ros has been involved in environmental education research using action research methods for more than a decade. In 2015, she was joint investigator of a project, led by University of Newcastle that resulted in the development of Australian national standards for undergraduate and postgraduate environmental education, and was given an Australasian Green Gown Award.