Spotlight on: Chris Saltmarsh
We’re delighted to introduce Chris Saltmarsh as part of our PhD/ECR Spotlight Series. Chris is a PhD candidate in political economy at University of Sheffield, where he researches the climate movement and energy transition.
Find about more about Chris and connect via his LinkedIn, X and researcher profile.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am currently doing a PhD at University of Sheffield, at which I appear to be institutionalised, given that I also did a Politics & Philosophy BA, International Political Economy MA and Social Research MA here too. I am currently the executive producer of the ‘SPERI Presents…’ podcast at the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI) and co-convenor of the SPERI Doctoral Researchers Network.
I joined the climate justice movement in my first week of the undergrad through the fossil fuel divestment campaign and have been active in the movement. I’ve worked for the student activist network People & Planet and Sunrise Project as well as taking direct-action against fracking and co-founding the campaign group Labour for a Green New Deal. Outside of academia and politics I enjoy cinema, reading, writing, hiking and playing football.
What are your research interests?
I would say that my research is broadly motivated by the search for political agency capable of driving socio-ecological transformation in the climate crisis. My PhD is therefore on the climate movement in Britain as a social formation that has taken it upon itself to attempt this world historic task. I am also working on related research projects on the progress of climate transition (such as the potentiality of the Chinese state in fossil energy phase-out) and mass politics in capitalist crisis. The latter is the subject of a co-edited collection, based on a limited series of the SPERI podcast: The Political Economy of Capitalist Crises (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming in 2026).
What are three sources you’d recommend to others related to environment and climate politics?
Wim Carton and Andreas Malm’s pair of recent books – Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown (Verso, 2024) and The Long Heat: Climate Politics When It’s Too Late (Verso, 2025) – offer vital correctives to those who have given up on climate mitigation in favour of ill-fated adaptation, carbon removal or geoengineering.
A recent ‘SPERI Presents…’ live podcast asking ‘Is revolution necessary to stop climate change?’ is a great example of dynamic debate led by early-career researchers taking political agency and strategy seriously in political economy of climate transition scholarship.
Frank Zelko’s book Make It a Green Peace!: The Rise of a Countercultural Environmentalism (Oxford University Press, 2017) is an exceptional example of scholarship taking the internal politics and external impact of environmental movement organisations seriously, with a fascinating case as its subject.
What’s next for you?
There’s still some time until I submit my thesis around Spring 2028 so lots more research, analysis and writing to do. In the meantime, though, I hope to begin to put my scholarly ideas into practice through continued collective efforts to revitalise some popular climate struggle in the UK!
The ECP WG’s Spotlight Series provides a platform for PhD and early career researchers to introduce themselves and their work. If you are interested in participating, please get in touch at: ecp.group@bisa.ac.uk.
Top image by Paul Hudson via Flickr. Text has been added to the photo.