Modorator: professor Kornelis Blok

Abstract
International climate policy requires long-term planning to deal with inertia in both human and environmental systems. Model-based scenarios can be used to explore possible developments in the absence of climate policy – but also what is needed to meet climate targets, such as the Paris Climate Agreement. In the presentation, Detlef van Vuuren, presents some of the scenarios used by the climate research community in support of international climate policy and IPCC.

Biography
Detlef van Vuuren is an internationally prominent researcher in the field of global sustainability. He is one of the initiators of research into how the world can meet the objective of the Paris agreement. He coordinated the development of the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) which are now used in the IPCC’s assessments. Detlef is ranked the 11th in the Sustainable 100 in Trouw.

Detlef van Vuuren has been Lead Author in various assessments such the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, UNEP’s Global Environmental Outlook, the International Assessment on Agricultural Science and Technology Development, and the OECD Environmental Outlook. He is member of the board of the Integrated Assessment Modelling Consortium (IAMC), the Working Group on Coupled Models of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), the Global Carbon Project and member of the steering board of ISIMIP.

His research group supports the European negotiating delegation with climate knowledge and also collaborates with teams from India and China who face a huge challenge to reduce their CO2 emissions.  Detlef has published more than 240 articles in refereed journals including Nature, Science, Nature Climate Change, Nature Energy, Nature Geosciences, PNAS, and Environmental Research Letters. He is listed among the most highly cited researchers worldwide.