„Es genügt nicht die laufenden Emissionen zu drosseln – wir müssen den Bestand an Treibhausgasen reduzieren.“

Michael Obersteiner is Director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. His research experience stretches from biophysical modelling in the areas of ecosystems, forestry and agriculture to economics, finance and integrated assessment.

Prof. Obersteiner leads the provision of science based policy advice using quantitative modelling techniques to national and international organisations, including inter alia the European Commission, WWF, OECD, the Climate Overshoot Commission and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)’s International Resource Panel. His current research stretches from modelling robust Earth
system management and supporting the FABLE consortium, to economic stress-testing of supply chain networks. In addition, he is a lead convening author of two chapters of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a steering member of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)’s Global Assessment Report and author of over 300 scientific papers covering a very wide range of science fields.

He was previously Programme Director of the former Ecosystems Services and management (ESM) Programme at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), where he led and developed the ESM Programme from its inception to an interdisciplinary research cluster of over 100 staff. He completed graduate studies in his native Austria (BOKU University and the Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna) and at Columbia University (New York), the University of Washington and the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk).