Will Steffen

Who is Will Steffen?

Will Steffen is the executive director of the Australian National University Climate Change Institute. He was a member of the Australian Climate Commission until it was abolished in September 2013. From 1998 to 2004, he was the executive director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, a coordinating body of national environmental change organizations based in Stockholm.

Steffen completed a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Missouri in 1970. The University of Florida awarded him an MSc in 1972 and a PhD in 1975. He is widely published on climate science. His research interests range over climate change and Earth system science issues, with a focus on sustainability. He has written on adapting land use to climate change, bringing human processes into the modelling and analysis of the Earth system, and the history of and future prospects for the relationship between the natural world and humans. Steffen has also been prominent advocating along with Paul Crutzen the concept of the Anthropocene, and initiating along with Johan Rockström an international debate on planetary boundaries and the "safe operating space" for humanity.