Bryony Worthington, Baroness Worthington

Worthington was born and grew up in Wales.{{Cite web|title=Bryony Worthington|url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/?name=bryony_worthington&birth=1972|website=Ancestry.com UK|accessdate=29 July 2019}} She attended Queens' College, Cambridge,[http://www.ftconferences.com/sustainablebanking2009/speakerdetails/631/?PHPSESSID=2dc2551354dbc80af580cedd9433d211 Financial Times Sustainable Banking Conference, 2009: speaker details] where she read English literature. Upon graduation she joined Operation Raleigh as a fundraiser. In the mid 1990s, she worked for an environmental charity, and by 2000 had moved to work for Friends of the Earth as a climate change campaigner. She then worked for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, implementing public awareness campaigns and helping draft the Climate Change Bill, before becoming head of government relations for the energy company, Scottish and Southern Energy. She left to form Sandbag in 2008.{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/sep/12/carbonemissions.carbonoffsetprojects |author= Leo Hickman |title=Sandbagged: Dealing a blow to carbon trading interview with Bryony Worthington |work= The Guardian |date= 12 September 2008}}

She was created a life peer on 31 January 2011 with the title Baroness Worthington, of Cambridge in the County of Cambridgeshire,{{London Gazette |issue=59689 |date=3 February 2011 |page=1849}} and sat on the Labour benches, until redesignating as a non-affiliated member in April 2017.{{Cite web|url=http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/bryony-worthington/90433|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629212911/http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/bryony-worthington/90433|url-status=dead|title=www.parliament.uk: Baroness Worthington|archivedate=29 June 2011|accessdate=29 July 2019}}

Worthington was the lead author in the team which drafted the UK's 2008 Climate Change Act.{{Cite web|title=The Climate Change Act (2008)|url=http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/climate_change_act.pdf|access-date=2021-05-02|website=Institute for Government}} This landmark piece of legislation requires the UK to reduce its carbon emissions to a level 80% lower than its emissions in 1990. At the time Worthington was working with Friends of the Earth working on their Big Ask campaign, but was seconded to government to help design the legislation.

Worthington launched Sandbag in 2008{{Cite web|last=Worthington|first=Bryony|date=2008-02-15|title=We exist! sort of.|url=https://ember-climate.org/commentary/2008/02/15/we-exist-sort-of/|access-date=2021-05-02|website=Ember|language=en-GB}} to raise public awareness of and improve the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Initially Sandbag provided members of the public with a way of tackling climate change, enabling them to buy ETS permits and cancel them, meaning that European companies covered by the ETS would have to emit fewer greenhouse gasses. Since that time, Sandbag has changed and grown. With a general remit to "defend against climate risk",{{Cite web|title=Coal to clean energy policy|url=https://ember-climate.org/|access-date=2021-05-02|website=Ember|language=en-GB}} Sandbag now focuses on researching and suggesting improvements to the ETS, how to phase out coal-fired power stations in Europe, and how governments and the EU can work to support carbon capture and storage. Worthington has been Sandbag's director since its foundation.{{Cite web|title=About Ember|url=https://ember-climate.org/about/|access-date=2021-05-02|website=Ember|language=en-GB}}

In March 2020, Sandbag was renamed Ember, reflecting its expansion into a global organisation.{{cite web |url=https://ember-climate.org/about/history/ |title=Our History |website=Ember |access-date=30 July 2022}}

Worthington was once "passionately opposed to nuclear power",[https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00k2825/Business_Daily_The_nuclear_renaissance/ Business Daily – The nuclear renaissance?] (click "More Programme Information" for a text summary of the audio) but came to advocate the adoption of thorium as a nuclear fuel{{cite news |title=Why thorium nuclear power shouldn't be written off |author=Bryony Worthington |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jul/04/thorium-nuclear-power |newspaper=The Guardian |date=4 July 2011 |accessdate=4 May 2012}}{{cite news |title=Post-Fukushima world must embrace thorium, not ditch nuclear |author=Bryony Worthington |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/mar/09/fukushima-thorium-nuclear-power-uranium |newspaper=The Guardian |date=9 March 2012 |accessdate=4 May 2012}} following the 2009 Manchester Report, where she met Kirk Sorensen who presented arguments for using thorium.{{cite news |title=Manchester Report: Thorium nuclear power |author=Duncan Clark |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jul/13/manchester-report-nuclear |newspaper=The Guardian |date=13 July 2009 |accessdate=4 May 2012}} She has said: "The world desperately needs sustainable, low carbon energy to address climate change while lifting people out of poverty. Thorium based reactors, such as those designed by the late Alvin Weinberg, could radically change perceptions of nuclear power leading to widespread deployment."{{Cite web|url=http://www.thoriumenergyworld.com/|title=Everyone can have Cheap and Clean Power... Wherever, Whenever and Forever|website=Thorium Energy World|accessdate=29 July 2019}}

Worthington was patron and trustee of The Alvin Weinberg Foundation, a British non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to the promotion and development of molten salt reactor (MSR) technology.{{Cite web |url=http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/ |title=Weinberg Foundation |access-date=9 October 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151231203905/http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/ |archive-date=31 December 2015 |url-status=dead }}{{Cite web|url=https://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-09/16/a-nuclear-future|title=Thorium: the element that could power our future (Wired UK)|accessdate=29 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305010003/http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-09/16/a-nuclear-future|archive-date=5 March 2016|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web|title=New Life for Forgotten Fuel|url=https://www.ft.com/content/52d7bde6-e401-11e0-bc4e-00144feabdc0|website=Financial Times|accessdate=29 July 2019}}

In response to an open letter published in The Ecologist in 2015 acknowledging her position on nuclear power, Worthington wrote:

It is clear that as is the case with every technology, there are more appropriate and less appropriate ways of using it and I am no apologist for the mistakes that have been made in the nuclear industry. As a proven source of reliable low carbon energy it would, however, be reckless to rule it out in the fight against climate change just as it would be reckless to rule out large scale hydro, solar, biomass, wind and carbon capture and storage. [...] Nuclear power is the most concentrated source of power available today with the smallest footprint. It is not without its challenges but these are not insurmountable.{{cite magazine |title=Why we really do need nuclear power |author=Bryony Worthington |url=https://theecologist.org/2015/jun/09/why-we-really-do-need-nuclear-power |magazine=The Ecologist |date=9 June 2015}}

Since 2015 Worthington has been a Trustee at UNICEF.[http://www.unicef.org.uk/About-us/Our-board/Baroness-Bryony-Worthington/ Retrieved 29 July 2015]

Worthington was the executive director for Europe of the Environmental Defense Fund{{cite news|last1=Krukowska|first1=Ewa|title=EU Climate Laws Helped Lead to Brexit, Environment Lobbyist Says|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-10/eu-climate-laws-helped-lead-to-brexit-environment-lobbyist-says|work=Bloomberg|date=10 October 2016}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.edf.org/people/baroness-bryony-worthington|title=Baroness Bryony Worthington|website=Environmental Defense Fund|accessdate=29 July 2019}} between 2016 and early 2020.

{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{Twitter|name=Bryony Worthington}}
• [http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/the-thorium-lord/16717 The Thorium Lord]
• {{YouTube|id=RMs8P97z7fk|title=Driving Force Radio - Thorium / Flibe Energy |link=no}}. Worthington and Sorensen discuss "the progress and advantages of thorium technology". Interview with ICOSA Magazine. June 2012.
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnjYe1ve560 Political Challenges of Thorium Molten Salt Reactors] - Worthington's presentation at TEAC4 conference.
• {{YouTube|id=byvXtfhEjZQ|title=Thorium as an alternative to uranium for nuclear power|link=no}} - Worthington at the University of Huddersfield.
• [http://www.theecologist.org The Ecologist]

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Category:1971 births

Category:Living people

Category:Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge

Category:Labour Party (UK) life peers

Category:Life peeresses created by Elizabeth II

Category:Life peers created by Elizabeth II