Joseph Alcamo is an Environmental Systems Scientist with long experience in international climate and environmental research and policy. He has served as Chief Scientist of the UNEP, contributed to the science behind the Paris Climate Agreement, and been a main developer of the fields of integrated environmental modelling and assessment.
Joseph Alcamo is Professor of Environmental Systems Science (School of Global Studies, Geography Dept.) and the Director of the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme (SSRP) at the University of Sussex, UK. The SSRP has been a crucible for innovative ideas related to the SDGs and sustainability, and has supported numerous cooperative projects with researchers and stakeholders in Ecuador, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, South India, and many other Global South locations.
During 2009-13 Joseph served as the first Chief Scientist of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and was the first to hold a chief scientist post within the UN system. While at UNEP he brought together large groups of scientists to produce high profile reports for policymakers on climate change, air pollution, ozone layer depletion, and food security issues.
At UNEP he also played a strategic role in the international climate negotiations leading up to the Paris Agreement as initiator of UNEP's flagship “Emissions Gap” report which each year presents a highly publicized “scorecard” of whether country commitments are adequate to reach climate goals. After UNEP, Joseph contributed to negotiations of the Paris Climate Agreement via his UN post as Special Science Advisor to Christiana Figueres, the head of negotiations. As a climate researcher, he has been active in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1993, and was cited as a contributor to the Nobel Peace Prize won by the IPCC in 2007.
As an environmental systems scientist he has published extensively in the areas of climate impact research, global modelling of the environment, integrated assessment modelling, and environmental scenario analysis. He has published six books on environmental themes, including a book on scenario analysis (“Environmental Futures”) and three books on climate change science and policy, the latest a Wiley book on “Life in Europe Under Climate Change”. He was co-founder of the two largest global change research alliances, the “Earth System Science Partnership” (2006) and “Future Earth” (2010-11). He was co-founder and co-chair of the first global water research programme of the international research community (Global Water System Project) (2004-2010).
He has played a major role in the development of some of the best known integrated environmental models covering global and regional scales including the RAINS acid rain model (International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, Vienna), the IMAGE 2 climate change model (National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, The Netherlands), and the WaterGAP water resources model (University of Kassel, Germany).
For his research he has received several awards including the international Max Planck Research Prize in physics and geoscience for contributions to the development of integrated modelling of the environment, and the “Grand Prix des Lumières de l’Eau de Cannes” for his contributions to global water research.
Appointments:
- Adjunct Professor, United Nations University, UNU Resource Nexus, Dresden
- Professor of Environmental Systems Science, University of Sussex, UK
- Professor of Environmental Systems Science, University of Kassel, Germany (1996-2017)
- Chief Scientist, UN Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya (2009-2013)
- Visiting Professor, Guest Lecturer or Guest Scholar: Tongji University, Shanghai; University of Stellenbosch, South Africa; National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India; Stanford University, USA; Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, Wash. D.C.
- Earlier research leadership appointments: International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, Vienna, Austria; National Institute of Public Health and Environment, The Netherlands; and elsewhere.
Research Interests:
- Resource Nexus,
- Climate impacts,
- Climate policy,
- Mathematical modelling of the environment,
- Science-policy interface,
- Antimicrobial resistance,
- Sustainability science