Professor Shobhakar Dhakal from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) will visit IIASA and the Agriculture, Forestry, and Ecosystem Services Research Group, and present a seminar titled, Cities and Climate Change Nexus Towards a 1.5°C World. The seminar will take place on July 16th at 11:00 AM. For more details, please see IIASA Hub Events or contact Jelena Zrno at zrno@iiasa.ac.at.

Cities and urbanization are central to the global climate change agenda. They are responsible for a large part of global GHG emissions and are key in the quest for achieving a 1.5°C world. Cities are also complex open systems with cross-boundary linkages in spatial and temporal domains. This talk will present key aspects of the current state of knowledge on global urban carbon emissions and mitigation opportunities, efficacies of prevailing climate actions, and the implications of boundary issues for mitigation solutions. It presents key aspects of cities typologies and the urban transformation agenda including the knowledge-gaps.  

About Prof. Shobhakar Dhakal:

Shobhakar Dhakal is a Professor of Energy and Climate Change and former Vice President for Academic Affairs of the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Thailand.

His areas of expertise are net-zero emissions and energy transition pathways, carbon pricing and climate finance, cross-border electricity cooperation, and low-carbon and climate-resilient cities. He is also passionate about synergies and tradeoffs analysis of SDG 7 (energy) and 13 (climate action).   He is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Carbon Project.

Prof. Dhakal is active globally in science-policy interfacing. He was a Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of IPCC’s Sixth and Fifth Assessment Reports on Mitigation. Recently, Prof. Dhakal was part of a selected group of scientists who prepared the Outline for the IPCC’s Special Report on Climate Change in Cities (for the 7th Assessment Cycle).

Prof. Dhakal also co-led the Second Assessment Report on Climate Change in Cities of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) of Columbia University and ICIMOD’s HIMAP Assessment on Energy for the Hindu Kush Himalaya.

In the past, Prof. Dhakal was a Dean of the School of Environment Resources and Development of AIT, Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project in Japan, Visiting Research Scholar of IIASA in Austria, and Senior Policy Researcher of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) in Japan.

Prof. Dhakal holds a Ph. D. from The University of Tokyo.