Research focus: Assessing the fairness and ambition of climate pledges from state and non-state actors

Profile and publication summary at: yannrobioudupont.org

Current projects

Yann received a Marie Curie fellowship to develop frameworks to advance the conceptual understanding of 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

At Utrecht University, Yann has 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, Yann 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.

Published work and impact

Yann holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne that focused on quantifying equitable mitigation scenarios for all countries to meet the Paris Agreement goals. His results, published in Nature Climate Change and Nature Communications, are behind the interactive Paris-Equity-Check.org website that assesses the ambition of countries emissions pledges. These studies are used in IPCC and UNEP reports, court cases, by diplomats at UN climate negotiations and by national and subnational government to set their emissions targets (net-zero target and 2030 NDC of the UK, the Government of Victoria). A 3-minute video summary is available here.

Paris-Equity-Check.org

Other working experience in climate action

Prior to joining Utrecht University, Yann worked as consultant and with IDDRI, Climate Analytics, adelphi, the CVF secretariat, and OpenEarth Foundation. As part of his missions, Yann has worked:

- with country delegations from over 60 country delegations from both the Global North and Global South, and NGOs
- informing justice courts on the ambition of countries' or companies' climate pledges towards global climate goals (contribution to Klimaseniorinnen v. Switzerland, Urgenda v. the Netherlands, People's climate case v. the EU, Portuguese Children v. Council of European members before the European Courts of Human Rights, and a case against oil major TotalEnergie)
- for subnational governments of Australia and C40 on commissioned reports to inform their climate targets
- with other research projects on land-use change, subnational climate action, and climate policy

Early studies

Yann's background is in physics, with a Magistère in fundamental physics and a Master in Climate physics. Before specialising on climate justice, Yann had research experiences in physical oceanography (University of Harvard and Paris Sorbonne), hydrology (University of California, Berkeley), sea-ice modelling (McGill University) and cosmology (University of Oxford).

Profile picture credit: Celine Jacq