Scholars
Thomas Tanner
SOAS University of London
Based in
United Kingdom
Europe
Tom is Director of the SOAS Centre for Development, Environment and Policy (CeDEP) within the Department of Development Studies, coordinating research and online distance learning postgraduate programmes on climate change and sustainable development. He is a development geographer with a background in environmental change, development studies, environmental economics and political science. He specialises in building resilience and adaptation to climate change through research, policy and practice.
Tom’s research interests include climate change policy and planning, anticipatory decision-making, urban resilience, policy processes and political economy, and child-led approaches to resilience. He has extensive research experience in South Asia leading research partnership funded by ESRC, DFID, World Bank and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others.
Tom is an Associate Editor of the academic journal Climate and Development and serves on the expert advisory body for the UN’s Race to Resilience initiative. He has authored numerous research articles as well as the leading textbook on Climate Change and Development (Routledge) and an edited book on incentivising Disaster Risk Management (Springer). His book ”Resilience Reset” (Routledge) provides a critical analysis and future roadmap for tackling climate change and other shocks in urban areas.
Country Where You’re Based
Country(ies) of Specialty
Publications
Articles
Bahadur, A.V. and Tanner, T.M. (2022) Resilience Reset: Creating Resilient Cities in the Global South. Routledge, Abingdon.
Tanner, T., Mazingi, L., &
Muyambwa, D. F. (2022). Youth, Gender and Climate Resilience:
Voices of Adolescent and Young Women in Southern Africa. Sustainability, 14(14), 8797.
Schipper, E. L. F., Ensor, J., Mukherji, A., Mirzabaev, A., Fraser, A., Harvey, B., … & Shawoo, Z. (2021). Equity in climate scholarship: a manifesto for action. Climate and Development, 13(10), 853-856.
Nightingale, A.J. et al. (2020) Beyond Technical Fixes: climate solutions and the great derangement. Climate and Development 12(4): 343-352.
Tanner, T., Zaman, R.U., Acharya, S. Gogoi, E. and Bahadur, A.V. (2019) Influencing resilience: The role of policy entrepreneurs in mainstreaming climate adaptation. Disasters 43(S3): 388-411.
Tanner, T.M., Bahadur, A. and Moench, M. (2017) Challenges for resilience policy and practice. Working Paper 519. London: Overseas Development Institute.
Jones, L. and Tanner, T.M. (2017) ‘Subjective resilience’: using perceptions to quantify household resilience to climate extremes and disasters. Regional Environmental
Change 17: 229-243 (open access).
Surminski, S. and Tanner, T.M. (eds.) (2017) Realising the Triple Resilience Dividend: A
New Business Case for Disaster Risk Management. Springer International Publishing, Dordrecht.
Béné C., Cannon, T.C., Gupte, J., McGranahan, G., Mehta, L. and Tanner, T.M. (2017) Resilience as a policy narrative:
potentials and limits in the context of urban planning. Climate and Development 10(2): 116-133.
Tanner, T.M. et al. (2015) Livelihood resilience in the face of climate change, Nature Climate Change
5: 23–26.
Naess, L.O., Newell, P., Newsham, A., Quan, J. and Tanner, T.M. (2015) Climate policy meets national development contexts:
Insights from Kenya and Mozambique, Global Environmental Change 35: 534-544.
Jones, L., Dougill, A., Jones, R., Steynor, A., Watkiss, P., Kane, C., Koelle, B., Moufouma-Okia, W., Padgham, J. ,Ranger, N., Roux, J., Suarez, P., Tanner, T.M., Vincent, K. (2015) Ensuring climate information guides long-term development. Nature Climate Change 5: 812-814.
Haynes, K. and Tanner, T.M. (2015) Empowering youth and strengthening resilience:
Child-centred participatory video as a tool for climate change adaptation and
disaster risk reduction, Children’s Geographies 13(3): 357-371.
Bahadur, A.V., Peters, K.,
Wilkinson, E., Pichon, F., Gray, K. and Tanner, T.M. (2015) The 3As: tracking resilience across BRACED BRACED Working Paper, Overseas Development Institute, London.
Bahadur, A.V. and Tanner, T.M. (2014) Transformational resilience thinking: Putting people, power and politics at the heart of urban climate resilience, Environment and Urbanization 26(1): 1-15.
Tanner, T.M. and Horn-Phathanothai, D.L. (2014) Climate Change and Development. Perspectives in Development Series. Routledge, London. [second edition forthcoming November 2023]
Bahadur, A.V. and Tanner, T.M. (2014) Policy Climates and Climate Policies: Analysing the Politics of Building Urban Climate Change Resilience, Urban Climate 7 (2014) 20-32.
Bahadur, A., Ibrahim, M. and Tanner, T.M. (2013) Characterising Resilience: Unpacking the concept for tackling climate change and development, Climate and Development 5(1): 55-65.
Tanner, T.M. and Allouche, J. (2011) Towards a new political economy of climate change, IDS Bulletin 43(3): 1-14.
Tanner, T.M. (2010) Shifting the Narrative: Child-led Responses to Climate Change and Disasters in El Salvador and the Philippines, Children and Society, 24: 339–351.
Tanner, T.M., Mitchell, T., Polack, E., and Guenther, B. (2009) Urban Governance for Adaptation: Assessing Climate Change Resilience in Ten Asian
Cities. IDS Working Paper 315, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK.
Tanner, T.M. and Mitchell, T. (2008) Entrenchment or Enhancement: Could Climate Change Adaptation Help Reduce Chronic Poverty, IDS
Bulletin 39(4) pp6-15.
O’Brien, K., Sygna, L., Leichenko, R., Adger, W. N., Barnett, J., Mitchell, T., Mortreux, C., Schipper E.L.F., Tanner, T.M. and Vogel, C. (2008) Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change Adaptation and Human Security. GECHS Report 2008:3. GECHS, Oslo.
Davies, M., Guenther, B., Leavy, J., Mitchell T., and Tanner, T.M. (2008) Climate