Staff profile

My research examines the affective politics of low-carbon and just energy transitions. I draw on concepts of 'emotion' and 'affect' to make sense of how people form, sustain, and dissolve attachments to (post-)carbon futures at a time when greenhouse gas emissions need to be rapidly reduced.

I examine these dynamics across multiple fieldwork sites – including spaces where attachments to high-carbon lives are prevalent (including industrial contexts); places where social groups experiment with low-carbon ways of living (such as eco-communities); and participatory spaces where citizens collectively imagine the delivery of just socio-ecological futures (such as citizens' assemblies).

My PhD thesis (2021-25) analysed climate politics in West Cumbria, north-west England – a place that became a site of political controversy because of plans to build a new coal mine in the area. Using ethnographic and creative methods, I showed how attachments to high-carbon lives (re)form in material cultures where fossil fuel industries have shaped people's affective lives. I also examined people's capacity to push against carbon-intensive ways of life by imagining hopeful post-carbon futures, even when fossil fuel industries have the upper hand.

My research closely informs my political work, including in policy spaces. I have worked as an advisor to public and third sector organisations, such as local authorities and climate charities, helping them to devise effective energy transition and citizen engagement strategies (see for example my work with the Westminster Energy & Green Transition Commission). I have also served as an advisor for several green transition commissions (such as the University of Nottingham’s Just Transition Commission) and used my research findings to shape responses from governmental and transnational organisations to the climate crisis (such as the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development).

• 2025 - 2026: Economic and Social Research Council, Post-Doctoral Fellowship Scheme: Fellowship award
• 2023 - 2024: RGS Energy Geographies’ PGR paper competition: Winner, Conceptual Contribution
• 2021 - 2025: Economic and Social Research Council, North-West Social Science Consortium: Doctoral funding award
• 2012 - 2013: Cambridge University Home and European Scholarship Scheme: Funding award (tuition & maintenance)

Doctoral Thesis

• The politics of promise in a climate emergency: The case of West Cumbria
  
  Lewis, P. (2025). The politics of promise in a climate emergency: The case of West Cumbria [Thesis]. Lancaster University.

Journal Article

• Fluid hope in a climate emergency: Lessons from an English citizens’ jury
  
  Lewis, P. (2025). Fluid hope in a climate emergency: Lessons from an English citizens’ jury. Environmental Politics. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2025.2522516
• Citizen deliberation in Net Zero governance: learning lessons and looking forward
  
  Ainscough, J., Killeen, L., Lewis, P., Shepherd, A., & Willis, R. (2025). Citizen deliberation in Net Zero governance: learning lessons and looking forward. Journal of the British Academy, 13(1), Article a13. https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/013.a13
• Distrust and reflexive impotence in the net zero transition: findings from a longitudinal deliberative mini-public
  
  Ainscough, J., Lewis, P., & Farrow, L. (2024). Distrust and reflexive impotence in the net zero transition: findings from a longitudinal deliberative mini-public. Climatic Change, 177(11). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-024-03806-2
• Re-attaching to coal in a Climate Emergency: The case of the Whitehaven mine
  
  Lewis, P. (2024). Re-attaching to coal in a Climate Emergency: The case of the Whitehaven mine. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 7(4), 1821-1843. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486241238663
• The messy politics of local climate assemblies
  
  Lewis, P., Ainscough, J., Coxcoon, R., & Willis, R. (2023). The messy politics of local climate assemblies. Climatic Change, 176(6). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03555-8
• Human Rights Education in Osler and Starkey: From Analytic Framework to Object of Analysis
  
  Lewis, P. (2014). Human Rights Education in Osler and Starkey: From Analytic Framework to Object of Analysis. CORERJ: Cambridge Open-Review Educational Research E-Journal.
• State-effects as state power: Expectation, anxiety and fear in the Inambari valley
  
  Lewis, P. (2012). State-effects as state power: Expectation, anxiety and fear in the Inambari valley. Anthropologica.