Joeri Rogelj (born 1980) is a Belgian
climate scientist working on
solutions to climate change. He explores how societies can transform towards sustainable futures.
He is a
Reader
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in Climate Science and Policy (Associate Professor) at the
Centre for Environmental Policy
The Centre for Environmental Policy (CEP) is a department at Imperial College London in the Faculty of Natural Sciences. Its aim is to influence a wide range of environmental issues through research on the environmental, energy and health aspects ...
(CEP) and Director of Research at the
Grantham Institute – Climate Change and Environment
The Grantham Institute – Climate Change and Environment (formerly Grantham Institute for Climate Change) is one of five global institutes at Imperial College London and one of three Grantham-sponsored centres in the UK. The institute was found ...
,
both at
Imperial College London
Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...
. He is also affiliated with the
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an independent international research institute located in Laxenburg, near Vienna, in Austria. Through its research programs and initiatives, the institute conducts policy-o ...
.
He is an author of several climate reports by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
and the
United Nations Environment Programme
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on th ...
(UNEP), and a member of the European Scientific Advisory Board for Climate Change.
Education
Rogelj completed an engineering degree at the
KU Leuven
KU Leuven (or Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) is a Catholic research university in the city of Leuven, Belgium. It conducts teaching, research, and services in computer science, engineering, natural sciences, theology, humanities, medicine, ...
(Belgium) in 2003, and also obtained a postgraduate degree in Cultures and Development Studies at the same institution in 2005.
He completed his PhD in climate physics at Swiss Federal Institute for Technology (
ETH Zurich) in 2013 under the supervision of Prof.
Reto Knutti on the topic of uncertainties in low greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.
Career
Rogelj started his climate science career in the PRIMAP Research Group at the
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in 2009.
After obtaining his PhD, he joined the
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an independent international research institute located in Laxenburg, near Vienna, in Austria. Through its research programs and initiatives, the institute conducts policy-o ...
. In 2018, he joined the
Grantham Institute – Climate Change and Environment
The Grantham Institute – Climate Change and Environment (formerly Grantham Institute for Climate Change) is one of five global institutes at Imperial College London and one of three Grantham-sponsored centres in the UK. The institute was found ...
at
Imperial College London
Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...
.
From 2006 to 2008, Rogelj worked as a project engineer on rural development projects in Rwanda.
Research and impact
Rogelj publishes on international climate agreements such as the Copenhagen Accord or the Paris Agreement, carbon budgets, emission pathways that limit global warming to 1.5°C
and 2°C, net zero emissions targets,
and linkages between climate, sustainable development, and justice.
According to the
International Science Council
The International Science Council (ISC) is an international non-governmental organization that unites scientific bodies at various levels across the social and natural sciences. The ISC was formed with its inaugural general assembly on 4 July 20 ...
, he has pioneered "work on climate change scenarios
hat
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changed the global conversation around the feasibility of keeping global warming to 1.5°C in advance of the UN Paris Agreement" in 2015.
He serves as a lead author on the annual Emissions Gap Reports from the United Nations Environment Programme (
UNEP
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on ...
) that provide annual updates on the gap between country pledges and emission reductions necessary to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
He was a contributing author to the 2013-2014
Fifth Assessment Report
The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the fifth in a series of such reports and was completed in 2014.IPCC (2014The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) leaflet/ref> As ha ...
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (
IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ...
), a coordinating author of the 2018 IPCC
Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C,
and a lead author on the 2021 IPCC
Sixth Assessment Report.
In 2019, he served as a member of the Climate Science Advisory Group to the United Nations Secretary-General's Climate Action Summit.
Since 2022, he serves on the "European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change" that provides independent scientific advice on EU measures, climate targets and indicative greenhouse gas budgets.
Rogelj also provides scientific evidence for climate change litigation, for example, in support of "Children vs Climate Crisis" in which 16 children from across the world petition the
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to hold five of the world's leading economic powers accountable for inaction on the climate crisis.
Awards and honours
Rogelj received the 2021 Early Career Scientist Award for Europe from the
International Science Council
The International Science Council (ISC) is an international non-governmental organization that unites scientific bodies at various levels across the social and natural sciences. The ISC was formed with its inaugural general assembly on 4 July 20 ...
(ISC) for the "exceptional impact" his research has had on international climate policy.
In 2016, he received the inaugural
Piers Sellers
Piers John Sellers (11 April 1955 – 23 December 2016) was a British-American meteorologist, NASA astronaut and Director of the Earth Science Division at NASA/GSFC. He was a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions.
Sellers attended Cran ...
Award for "world leading solution-focused climate research" by the Priestley International Centre for Climate. In 2014, he received the ETH Medal for his outstanding PhD thesis and in 2010 the Peccei Award for outstanding work by a young scientist.
Rogelj is a
Clarivate
Clarivate Plc is a British-American publicly traded analytics company that operates a collection of subscription-based services, in the areas of bibliometrics and scientometrics; business / market intelligence, and competitive profiling for ph ...
Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher in 2019 and 2020, recognizing the world's most influential researchers of the past decade, and was ranked 31st in The Reuters Hot List of the World's Top Climate Scientists.
Selected works
* Rogelj, J., Geden, O., Cowie, A., Reisinger, A., 2021. Three ways to improve net-zero emissions targets. Nature 591, 365–368. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00662-3
* Rogelj, J., ''et al'', 2018. Scenarios towards limiting global mean temperature increase below 1.5 °C. Nature Clim. Change 8, 325–332. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0091-3
* Rogelj, J., ''et al'', 2016. Paris Agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep warming well below 2 °C. Nature 534, 631–639. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18307
* Rogelj, J., ''et al'', 2015. Zero emission targets as long-term global goals for climate protection. Environmental Research Letters 10, 105007. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/10/105007
* Rogelj, J., ''et al'', 2015. Energy system transformations for limiting end-of-century warming to below 1.5°C. Nature Clim. Change 5, 519–527. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2572
* Rogelj, J., Meinshausen, M., Knutti, R., 2012. Global warming under old and new scenarios using IPCC climate sensitivity range estimates. Nature Clim. Change 2, 248–253. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1385
* Rogelj, J., ''et al'', 2010. Copenhagen Accord pledges are paltry. Nature 464, 1126–1128. https://doi.org/10.1038/4641126a
* Rogelj, J., Shindell, D., Jiang, K., Fifita, S., Forster, P., Ginzburg, V., Handa, C., Kheshgi, H., Kobayashi, S., Kriegler, E., Mundaca, L., Séférian, R., Vilariño, M.V., 2018. Mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5°C in the context of sustainable development, in: Flato, G., Fuglestvedt, J., Mrabet, R., Schaeffer, R. (Eds.), ''Global Warming of 1.5 °C: An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5 °C above Pre-Industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways, in the Context of Strengthening the Global Response to the Threat of Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty.'' IPCC/WMO, Geneva, Switzerland, pp. 93–174. https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rogelj, Joeri
1980 births
Living people
Belgian climatologists
KU Leuven alumni
Belgian expatriates in Austria
Belgian expatriates in Switzerland
Belgian expatriates in the United Kingdom
ETH Zurich alumni
Academics of Imperial College London
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead authors
Climate change mitigation researchers