William F Lamb
Biographic Data
| ID | 3490611 |
|---|---|
| NAME | William F Lamb |
| GIVEN NAMES | William F |
| FAMILY NAME | Lamb |
| SIGNATURE | LAMB W F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3273-7878 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 406 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Ten new insights in climate science 2025
Non-Technical Summary This review highlights 10 recent advances in climate change research with high policy relevance, spanning diverse topics: (1) the global temperature jump of 2023–2024; (2) sea surface warming and marine heatwaves; (3) land carbon sinks; (4) interactions between climate change and biodiversity loss; (5) accelerated groundwater decline; (6) global dengue incidence; (7) income and labour productivity loss; (8) strategic conside…
Responsibility for emissions and mitigation capability should guide use of carbon removal offsets
Under what conditions and why is carbon pricing effective? A realist synthesis of ex-post evidence
To get on track for the rapid emissions reductions required to meet the Paris Agreement temperature goal, we need to understand what climate policies work, under what conditions, and why. In this review, we study how carbon pricing policies lead to emissions reductions and which context factors make each of these mechanisms more or less effective. We systematically review the evidence from 80 ex-post carbon pricing evaluations, covering 21 policy…
How are oil and gas firms integrating carbon dioxide removal into their climate strategies
We question whether the oil and gas sector can be relied upon to take the lead in upscaling carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Analyzing the annual reports and sustainability documents published in 2024 by the 12 oil and gas firms that are part of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), we find that all firms maintain nominal net zero targets, but are vague on how they plan to scale CDR. Instead, CDR reporting is project-focused, anecdotal and comb…
The carbon dioxide removal gap
Coal transitions—part 2: Phase-out dynamics in global long-term mitigation scenarios
A rapid phase-out of unabated coal use is essential to limit global warming to below 2 °C. This review presents a comprehensive assessment of coal transitions in mitigation scenarios consistent with the Paris Agreement, using data from more than 1500 publicly available scenarios generated by more than 30 integrated assessment models. Our ensemble analysis uses clustering techniques to categorize coal transition pathways in models and bridges evid…
Countries need to provide clarity on the role of carbon dioxide removal in their climate pledges
Countries need to provide clarity on the role of carbon dioxide removal in their climate pledges, Lamb, William F, Schleussner, Carl-Friedrich, Grassi, Giacomo, Smith, Stephen M, Gidden, Matthew J, Geden, Oliver, Runge-Metzger, Artur, Vaughan, Naomi E, Nemet, Gregory, Johnstone, Injy, Schulte, Ingrid, Minx, Jan C
The size and composition of residual emissions in integrated assessment scenarios at net-zero CO 2
Residual emissions are an important category of analysis in climate targets and scenarios, describing the emissions that would need to be compensated by carbon dioxide removal to reach net zero CO 2 . This article sheds light on the size and composition of residual emissions in integrated assessment modelling (IAM) scenarios at net-zero CO 2 , using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th assessment report (AR6) scenario database. I fin…
How global crises compete for our attention: Insights from 13.5 million tweets on climate change during Covid-19
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted peoples’ daily lives and dominated the public discourse. It thus displaced people’s attention to and concerns about climate change. We analyse 13.5 million tweets by 3.2 million distinct users on climate change posted before and after the onset of the pandemic (2018–2021) and show that attention to climate dropped substantially in 2020 with the onset of the pandemic. While research has helped to explain this drop i…
Attention, sentiments and emotions towards emerging climate technologies on Twitter
Public perception of emerging climate technologies, such as greenhouse gas removal (GGR) and solar radiation management (SRM), will strongly influence their future development and deployment. Studying perceptions of these technologies with traditional survey methods is challenging, because they are largely unknown to the public. Social media data provides a complementary line of evidence by allowing for retrospective analysis of how individuals s…
A review of trends and drivers of greenhouse gas emissions by sector from 1990 to 2018
Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be traced to five economic sectors: energy, industry, buildings, transport and AFOLU (agriculture, forestry and other land uses). In this topical review, we synthesise the literature to explain recent trends in global and regional emissions in each of these sectors. To contextualise our review, we present estimates of GHG emissions trends by sector from 1990 to 2018, describing the major sources of emissi…
Coal transitions—part 1: A systematic map and review of case study learnings from regional, national, and local coal phase-out experiences
A rapid coal phase-out is needed to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, but is hindered by serious challenges ranging from vested interests to the risks of social disruption. To understand how to organize a global coal phase-out, it is crucial to go beyond cost-effective climate mitigation scenarios and learn from the experience of previous coal transitions. Despite the relevance of the topic, evidence remains fragmented throughout different r…
Socio-economic conditions for satisfying human needs at low energy use: An international analysis of social provisioning
Meeting human needs at sustainable levels of energy use is fundamental for avoiding catastrophic climate change and securing the well-being of all people. In the current political-economic regime, no country does so. Here, we assess which socio-economic conditions might enable societies to satisfy human needs at low energy use, to reconcile human well-being with climate mitigation. Using a novel analytical framework alongside a novel multivariate…
Discourses of climate delay
Non-technical summary ‘Discourses of climate delay’ pervade current debates on climate action. These discourses accept the existence of climate change, but justify inaction or inadequate efforts. In contemporary discussions on what actions should be taken, by whom and how fast, proponents of climate delay would argue for minimal action or action taken by others. They focus attention on the negative social effects of climate policies and raise dou…
What are the social outcomes of climate policies? A systematic map and review of the ex-post literature
It is critical to ensure climate and energy policies are just, equitable and beneficial for communities, both to sustain public support for decarbonisation and address multifaceted societal challenges. Our objective in this article is to examine the diverse social outcomes that have resulted from climate policies, in varying contexts worldwide, over the past few decades. We review 203 ex-post climate policy assessments that analyse social outcome…
Is the Paris Agreement effective? A systematic map of the evidence
The Paris Agreement (PA) sets out to strengthen the global response to climate change, setting targets for mitigation, adaptation, and finance, and establishing mechanisms through which to achieve these targets. The effectiveness of the PA’s mechanisms in achieving its targets, however, has been questioned. This review systematically maps the peer-reviewed literature on the PA, categorizing the available evidence on whether or not the ‘Paris Regi…
Climate change mitigation in cities: A systematic scoping of case studies
A growing number of researchers and stakeholders have started to address climate change from the bottom up: by devising scientific models, climate plans, low-carbon strategies and development policies with climate co-benefits. Little is known about the comparative characteristics of these interventions, including their relative efficacy, potentials and emissions reductions. A more systematic understanding is required to delineate the urban mitiga…
Your money or your life? The carbon-development paradox
The relationship between human health and well-being, energy use and carbon emissions is a foremost concern in sustainable development. If past advances in well-being have been accomplished only through increases in energy use, there may be significant trade-offs between achieving universal human development and mitigating climate change. We test the explanatory power of economic, dietary and modern energy factors in accounting for past improveme…
The political economy of national climate policy: Architectures of constraint and a typology of countries
Understanding different perspectives on economic growth and climate policy
Should economic growth continue in a world threatened by the prospect of catastrophic climate change? The scientific and public debate has brought forth a broad spectrum of views and narratives on this question, ranging from neoclassical economics to degrowth. We argue that different positions can be attributed to underlying differences in views on (a) factors that determine human well‐being, (b) the feasibility and desirability of economic growt…
Negative emissions—Part 2: Costs, potentials and side effects
The most recent IPCC assessment has shown an important role for negative emissions technologies (NETs) in limiting global warming to 2 °C cost-effectively. However, a bottom-up, systematic, reproducible, and transparent literature assessment of the different options to remove CO2 from the atmosphere is currently missing. In part 1 of this three-part review on NETs, we assemble a comprehensive set of the relevant literature so far published, focus…
Negative emissions—Part 1: Research landscape and synthesis
With the Paris Agreement's ambition of limiting climate change to well below 2 C, negative emission technologies (NETs) have moved into the limelight of discussions in climate science and policy. Despite several assessments, the current knowledge on NETs is still diffuse and incomplete, but also growing fast. Here, we synthesize a comprehensive body of NETs literature, using scientometric tools and performing an in-depth assessment of the quantit…
Targeted policies can compensate most of the increased sustainability risks in 1.5 °C mitigation scenarios
Meeting the 1.5 C goal will require a rapid scale-up of zero-carbon energy supply, fuel switching to electricity, efficiency and demand-reduction in all sectors, and the replenishment of natural carbon sinks. These transformations will have immediate impacts on various of the sustainable development goals. As goals such as affordable and clean energy and zero hunger are more immediate to great parts of global population, these impacts are central…
Negative emissions—Part 3: Innovation and upscaling
We assess the literature on innovation and upscaling for negative emissions technologies (NETs) using a systematic and reproducible literature coding procedure. To structure our review, we employ the framework of sequential stages in the innovation process, with which we code each NETs article in innovation space. We find that while there is a growing body of innovation literature on NETs, 59% of the articles are focused on the earliest stages of…
The literature landscape on 1.5 °C climate change and cities
A good life for all within planetary boundaries
Socio-economic conditions for satisfying human needs at low energy use: An international analysis of social provisioning
Meeting human needs at sustainable levels of energy use is fundamental for avoiding catastrophic climate change and securing the well-being of all people. In the current political-economic regime, no country does so. Here, we assess which socio-economic conditions might enable societies to satisfy human needs at low energy use, to reconcile human well-being with climate mitigation. Using a novel analytical framework alongside a novel multivariate…
Human well‐being and climate change mitigation
Climate change mitigation research is fundamentally motivated by the preservation of human lives and the environmental conditions which enable them. However, the field has to date rather superficial in its appreciation of theoretical claims in well‐being thought, with deep implications for the framing of mitigation priorities, policies, and research. Major strands of well‐being thought are hedonic well‐being—typically referred to as happiness or …
The political economy of national climate policy: Architectures of constraint and a typology of countries
Learning about climate change solutions in the IPCC and beyond
Human development in a climate-constrained world: What the past says about the future
Attention, sentiments and emotions towards emerging climate technologies on Twitter
Public perception of emerging climate technologies, such as greenhouse gas removal (GGR) and solar radiation management (SRM), will strongly influence their future development and deployment. Studying perceptions of these technologies with traditional survey methods is challenging, because they are largely unknown to the public. Social media data provides a complementary line of evidence by allowing for retrospective analysis of how individuals s…
Understanding different perspectives on economic growth and climate policy
Should economic growth continue in a world threatened by the prospect of catastrophic climate change? The scientific and public debate has brought forth a broad spectrum of views and narratives on this question, ranging from neoclassical economics to degrowth. We argue that different positions can be attributed to underlying differences in views on (a) factors that determine human well‐being, (b) the feasibility and desirability of economic growt…
The literature landscape on 1.5 °C climate change and cities
Transitions in pathways of human development and carbon emissions
Countries are known to follow diverse pathways of life expectancy and carbon emissions, but little is known about factors driving these dynamics. In this letter we estimate the cross-sectional economic, demographic and geographic drivers of consumption-based carbon emissions. Using clustering techniques, countries are grouped according to their drivers, and analysed with respect to a criteria of one tonne of carbon emissions per capita and a life…
Human development in a climate-constrained world: What the past says about the future
Fast growing research on negative emissions
Generating negative emissions by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is a key requirement for limiting global warming to well below 2 °C, or even 1.5 °C, and therefore for achieving the long-term climate goals of the recent Paris Agreement. Despite being a relatively young topic, negative emission technologies (NETs) have attracted growing attention in climate change research over the last decade. A sizeable body of evidence on NETs has a…
Human well‐being and climate change mitigation
Climate change mitigation research is fundamentally motivated by the preservation of human lives and the environmental conditions which enable them. However, the field has to date rather superficial in its appreciation of theoretical claims in well‐being thought, with deep implications for the framing of mitigation priorities, policies, and research. Major strands of well‐being thought are hedonic well‐being—typically referred to as happiness or …
Learning about climate change solutions in the IPCC and beyond
Negative emissions—Part 2: Costs, potentials and side effects
The most recent IPCC assessment has shown an important role for negative emissions technologies (NETs) in limiting global warming to 2 °C cost-effectively. However, a bottom-up, systematic, reproducible, and transparent literature assessment of the different options to remove CO2 from the atmosphere is currently missing. In part 1 of this three-part review on NETs, we assemble a comprehensive set of the relevant literature so far published, focus…
Negative emissions—Part 1: Research landscape and synthesis
With the Paris Agreement's ambition of limiting climate change to well below 2 C, negative emission technologies (NETs) have moved into the limelight of discussions in climate science and policy. Despite several assessments, the current knowledge on NETs is still diffuse and incomplete, but also growing fast. Here, we synthesize a comprehensive body of NETs literature, using scientometric tools and performing an in-depth assessment of the quantit…
Targeted policies can compensate most of the increased sustainability risks in 1.5 °C mitigation scenarios
Meeting the 1.5 C goal will require a rapid scale-up of zero-carbon energy supply, fuel switching to electricity, efficiency and demand-reduction in all sectors, and the replenishment of natural carbon sinks. These transformations will have immediate impacts on various of the sustainable development goals. As goals such as affordable and clean energy and zero hunger are more immediate to great parts of global population, these impacts are central…
Negative emissions—Part 3: Innovation and upscaling
We assess the literature on innovation and upscaling for negative emissions technologies (NETs) using a systematic and reproducible literature coding procedure. To structure our review, we employ the framework of sequential stages in the innovation process, with which we code each NETs article in innovation space. We find that while there is a growing body of innovation literature on NETs, 59% of the articles are focused on the earliest stages of…
The literature landscape on 1.5 °C climate change and cities
A good life for all within planetary boundaries
Discourses of climate delay
Non-technical summary ‘Discourses of climate delay’ pervade current debates on climate action. These discourses accept the existence of climate change, but justify inaction or inadequate efforts. In contemporary discussions on what actions should be taken, by whom and how fast, proponents of climate delay would argue for minimal action or action taken by others. They focus attention on the negative social effects of climate policies and raise dou…
What are the social outcomes of climate policies? A systematic map and review of the ex-post literature
It is critical to ensure climate and energy policies are just, equitable and beneficial for communities, both to sustain public support for decarbonisation and address multifaceted societal challenges. Our objective in this article is to examine the diverse social outcomes that have resulted from climate policies, in varying contexts worldwide, over the past few decades. We review 203 ex-post climate policy assessments that analyse social outcome…
Is the Paris Agreement effective? A systematic map of the evidence
The Paris Agreement (PA) sets out to strengthen the global response to climate change, setting targets for mitigation, adaptation, and finance, and establishing mechanisms through which to achieve these targets. The effectiveness of the PA’s mechanisms in achieving its targets, however, has been questioned. This review systematically maps the peer-reviewed literature on the PA, categorizing the available evidence on whether or not the ‘Paris Regi…
Climate change mitigation in cities: A systematic scoping of case studies
A growing number of researchers and stakeholders have started to address climate change from the bottom up: by devising scientific models, climate plans, low-carbon strategies and development policies with climate co-benefits. Little is known about the comparative characteristics of these interventions, including their relative efficacy, potentials and emissions reductions. A more systematic understanding is required to delineate the urban mitiga…
Your money or your life? The carbon-development paradox
The relationship between human health and well-being, energy use and carbon emissions is a foremost concern in sustainable development. If past advances in well-being have been accomplished only through increases in energy use, there may be significant trade-offs between achieving universal human development and mitigating climate change. We test the explanatory power of economic, dietary and modern energy factors in accounting for past improveme…
The political economy of national climate policy: Architectures of constraint and a typology of countries
Understanding different perspectives on economic growth and climate policy
Should economic growth continue in a world threatened by the prospect of catastrophic climate change? The scientific and public debate has brought forth a broad spectrum of views and narratives on this question, ranging from neoclassical economics to degrowth. We argue that different positions can be attributed to underlying differences in views on (a) factors that determine human well‐being, (b) the feasibility and desirability of economic growt…
A review of trends and drivers of greenhouse gas emissions by sector from 1990 to 2018
Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be traced to five economic sectors: energy, industry, buildings, transport and AFOLU (agriculture, forestry and other land uses). In this topical review, we synthesise the literature to explain recent trends in global and regional emissions in each of these sectors. To contextualise our review, we present estimates of GHG emissions trends by sector from 1990 to 2018, describing the major sources of emissi…
Coal transitions—part 1: A systematic map and review of case study learnings from regional, national, and local coal phase-out experiences
A rapid coal phase-out is needed to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, but is hindered by serious challenges ranging from vested interests to the risks of social disruption. To understand how to organize a global coal phase-out, it is crucial to go beyond cost-effective climate mitigation scenarios and learn from the experience of previous coal transitions. Despite the relevance of the topic, evidence remains fragmented throughout different r…
Socio-economic conditions for satisfying human needs at low energy use: An international analysis of social provisioning
Meeting human needs at sustainable levels of energy use is fundamental for avoiding catastrophic climate change and securing the well-being of all people. In the current political-economic regime, no country does so. Here, we assess which socio-economic conditions might enable societies to satisfy human needs at low energy use, to reconcile human well-being with climate mitigation. Using a novel analytical framework alongside a novel multivariate…
Attention, sentiments and emotions towards emerging climate technologies on Twitter
Public perception of emerging climate technologies, such as greenhouse gas removal (GGR) and solar radiation management (SRM), will strongly influence their future development and deployment. Studying perceptions of these technologies with traditional survey methods is challenging, because they are largely unknown to the public. Social media data provides a complementary line of evidence by allowing for retrospective analysis of how individuals s…
The carbon dioxide removal gap
Coal transitions—part 2: Phase-out dynamics in global long-term mitigation scenarios
A rapid phase-out of unabated coal use is essential to limit global warming to below 2 °C. This review presents a comprehensive assessment of coal transitions in mitigation scenarios consistent with the Paris Agreement, using data from more than 1500 publicly available scenarios generated by more than 30 integrated assessment models. Our ensemble analysis uses clustering techniques to categorize coal transition pathways in models and bridges evid…
Countries need to provide clarity on the role of carbon dioxide removal in their climate pledges
Countries need to provide clarity on the role of carbon dioxide removal in their climate pledges, Lamb, William F, Schleussner, Carl-Friedrich, Grassi, Giacomo, Smith, Stephen M, Gidden, Matthew J, Geden, Oliver, Runge-Metzger, Artur, Vaughan, Naomi E, Nemet, Gregory, Johnstone, Injy, Schulte, Ingrid, Minx, Jan C
Economics (21 works) · Climate change (17 works) · Climate Change Policy and Economics (15 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Environmental Science (13 works) · Natural resource economics (11 works) · Ecology (10 works) · Greenhouse gas (10 works) · Political science (9 works) · Business (8 works)