Alaa Al Khourdajie
Guest Research Scholar
Sustainable Service Systems Research Group
Energy, Climate, and Environment Program
Guest Research Scholar
Integrated Assessment and Climate Change Research Group
Energy, Climate, and Environment Program
Biography
Alaa Al Khourdajie has been a guest research scholar jointly associated with the Integrated Assessment and Climate Change, and Sustainable Service Systems research groups of the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program since June 2022.In August 2023, he was a guest researcher at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University, and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL, Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving). In addition, he was recently appointed as a Lead Author for the 7th Assessment of the Global Environment Outlook by UNEP, as well as a Lead Author for the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) assessment report on tipping points in climate change.
Al Khourdajie joined Imperial College London as a research fellow in 2019. During the first three years of his fellowship, he served as a full-time Senior Scientist at the Technical Support Unit of Working Group III (WGIII - Climate Mitigation) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He supported the production of the IPCC 6th Assessment Report (AR6), where he also acted as a Contributing Author. His contributions to the assessment were focused on topics related to integrated assessment modeling and mitigation scenarios assessment. He served as the Ex-Officio Member of the IPCC Task Group on Data Support for Climate Change Assessments (TG-Data). He also contributed to the AR6 Scenarios Database international outreach activities and supported international processes at UNFCCC and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) (such as the Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement) in communicating the results of the WGIII assessment report. Given his involvement in AR6, Al Khourdajie was recently selected to join the IPCC team, which met Members of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague to provide scientific insights in preparation for the case on “obligations of States in respect of climate change”, following the United Nations General Assembly resolution 77/276.
Currently based in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College, he is mainly involved in the EU project IAM COMPACT. His research focuses on Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), their multidisciplinary applications in long-term climate change mitigation scenarios, and data analytics to explore mitigation strategies. His research interests encompass various mitigation approaches, including carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) measures.
Most recently, he has been exploring the impacts of disruptive socioeconomic, technological, or environmental events on long-term mitigation scenarios using IAMs. His interest in scenarios data analytics covers decomposition methods, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), clustering techniques, and vetting of scenarios data. He is also exploring the role of finance sector dynamics in IAMs. Drawing from his past experience with the IPCC, Al Khourdajie is also increasingly involved with enhancing climate change assessments by promoting FAIR data principles and carefully leveraging artificial intelligence techniques to augment scientific assessment processes.
He earned his PhD in climate change economics from the University of Bath in the UK in 2017.
Find out more about his research: https://sites.google.com/site/akhourdajie/
Last update: 17 JAN 2025
Publications
Nikas, A., Sampedro, J., Al Khourdajie, A. , Arto, I., Balderrama, S., Boasson, E.L., Cartwright, A., Feijoo, F., Fragkos, P., Frilingou, N., García-Muros, X., Herbig, V., Karamaneas, A., Koasidis, K., Ma, L., Mittal, S., Moleskis, M., Nikolakakis, T., Pathak, M., Peters, G.P., Platias, C., Pietzcker, R.C., Raihan, S., Rodés-Bachs, C., Rogelj, J. , Śniegocki, A., Sognnæs, I., Solomou, P., Spatharidou, D., Taliotis, C., Tigka, C., Tomás, M., Trachanas, G.P., Tsipouridis, I., van de Ven, D.-J., Vienni-Baptista, B., Zachariadis, T., Arnokourou, A., Makri, E., Gambhir, A., Kratena, K., & Xexakis, G. (2026). The challenge with climate-energy-economy models in constructing fair and equitable climate futures. Futures 181 e103850. 10.1016/j.futures.2026.103850.
Ou, Y., Rodriguez-Pardo, C., Al Khourdajie, A. , Rogelj, J. , Zhou, P., Mukkavilli, S.K., Tavoni, M., Clarke, L., Liu, Y., Wang, T., Oh, A., & McJeon, H. (2026). Artificial intelligence to support cross-disciplinary climate change research. Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02624-x. (In Press)
Buck, H.J., Al Khourdajie, A. , Asayama, S., & Geden, O. (2026). Potential futures for the IPCC’s approach to artificial intelligence. Communications Earth & Environment 7 e372. 10.1038/s43247-026-03514-y.
Keppo, I., Al Khourdajie, A. , Gardumi, F., Holtz, G., Nikas, A., Xexakis, G., Ferreras-Alonso, N., Fragkos, P., Frilingou, N., Ghadaksaz, H., Hawkes, A., Mateo, A., Mittal, S., Parrado-Hernando, G., Peters, G.P., Rinaldi, L., Rocco, M.V., Sognnæs, I., van de Ven, D.-J., & Zamanipour, B. (2026). Model linking for low-carbon transitions: Technical and conceptual challenges and best practices. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 226 e116384. 10.1016/j.rser.2025.116384.
Bataille, C., Al Khourdajie, A. , de Coninck, H., de Kleijne, K., Nilsson, L.J., Bashmakov, I., Davis, S.J., & Fennell, P.S. (2025). Defining ‘abated’ fossil fuel and industrial process emissions. Energy and Climate Change 6 e100203. 10.1016/j.egycc.2025.100203.