Academic profile
I am a research fellow at Utrecht University, with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and a Fulbright Schuman scholarships working on climate justice challenges to achieve the Paris Agreement. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne titled “Climate justice: can we agree to disagree? Operationalising competing equity principles to mitigate global warming“, on quantifying fair and ambitious emissions targets for countries.
Specifically, I develop frameworks to advance the conceptual understanding of the role of various climate actors and assess the fairness and ambition of their pledges. This work is directly informing country-delegations at COPs, judges in climate litigation cases, and governmental objectives.
My articles published in high-impact journals (full list in the publication page) were used:
to set governmental targets: the UK’s 2030 and 2050 net-zero targets through the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendations (also existing for the 2035 here), and to inform the subnational targets including the State of Victoria for 2030. More in the legislation impact page.
to inform international negotiations with the interactive website Paris-Equity-Check.org and FairShareNow.org to review the ambition of countries’ emissions targets. More on the negotiations impact page.
to inform court-cases, including Urgenda and cases before the European Court of Human Rights, on what climate objectives align with the Paris Agreement and national laws. More on the litigation impact page.
to inform civil society and the public on the ambition of various actors in the transition. More on the public impact page.
Ongoing research - Marie-Curie project
At Utrecht University, I developed a novel approach to model equity-based emissions allocations (fair shares) to better reflect equity principles and address a grandfathering bias present in the literature and incompatible with international law (under review). Another article, recently published in Science clarified that corporate emissions targets are not sufficient to assess their ambition and Paris-alignment, calling for more research to identify indicators for corporate Paris-misalignment. Looking at local actors, I worked with the city of Valencia, Spain, on the implementation of its 2030 net-zero objective. An article (under review), explains the limits to applying to local governments the equity-based metrics developed for countries to assess their climate ambition.
Network and board memberships
Science Based Targets: Initiative that suggests corporate climate objectives. Member of the Scientific Advisory Group (since 2024). Profile.
Integrity Matters for Cities States and Regions: Expert group that informs subnational actors on climate objectives. Member of the Technical Group (since 2024).
BIICL British Institute of International and Comparative Law: Member of the International Expert Group (since 2024). Profile.
ProClimex: French research network on the use of expertise in climate litigation cases around the world (since 2022). Profile.
FILE Foundation Foundation for International Law for the Environment: Philanthropy accelerating legal action on climate change.
International Climate Politics Hub: Hosted by the European Climate Foundation, the ICP-H is a climate network where inside-game political influencers, diplomatic partners and advisers develop and align intervention strategies.
Outside academia
After my PhD and prior to joining Utrecht University, I worked as consultant and for the IDDRI, Climate Analytics, adelphi, the CVF secretariat, and OpenEarth Foundation:
with country-group diplomatic delegations representing over 80 countries from both the Global North (heads of EU delegations) and Global South (with the Climate Vulnerable Forum). More details on the Negotiations page.
informing courts of law, including the European Court of Human Rights, on the ambition of countries' or companies' climate pledges towards global climate goals. More details on the Litigation page.
for subnational governments of Australia and C40 on commissioned reports to inform their climate targets, and advising with city-representatives local climate strategies. More details on the Cities page.
with other research projects on land-use change and sectoral 1.5°C-pathways.
Other lives
Prior to working on climate justice, I have worked on physical oceanography for a year in Benin, West Africa. This mission included several months of research at sea, in the equatorial Atlantic, where I could cross the equator for the first time at 00°00'00 in 2011.
In 2014 while doing my PhD in Australia, I boarded a research expedition to Antarctica for 2 months on the Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis to collect marine bacteria and algae. The expedition took us to resupply the Australian station of Casey 66°16′57″S 110°31′36″E.
Back in 2012, while studying Arctic sea-ice at McGill University, Montreal, I could join a expedition sailing across the legendary Arctic North-West Passage, from Quebec to Alaska. While on 29 sailing boats had crossed that route in history until that year, 2012 turned to be record-low for Arctic sea-ice making navigation easy, but ice-sampling impossible.
More information on this journey of 4 months on the ship Balthazar and its brave crew can be found here.
In May 2022, I sailed from Tromsø to Longyearbyen in the archipelago of Svalbard, at 78°N and -11°C.
