William Lamb is a senior researcher in the Evidence for Climate Solutions group. His work focuses on emissions trends, climate policy analysis and carbon dioxide removal.
You can find recent work, figures, data and analysis on William's website: https://lambwf.github.io/.
Department
Working Group
Contact
14412 Potsdam
ORCID
William is a global expert on anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, their sources, drivers and dynamics. He is a Lead Author author in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Seventh Assessment (AR7) Working Group III report. In the IPCC AR6 Working Group III report he was a contributing author in seven chapters, a lead author of the Technical Summary, and a drafting author of the Summary for Policymakers. William leads the annual Emissions Trends chapter of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report, and the emissions section of the Indicators of Climate Change collaboration (Forster et al.).
William is interested in climate policy analysis, particularly from an evaluation perspective using systematic evidence synthesis methodologies. He has been involved in the development of the Evidence for Climate Solutions group's agenda for assessing what policies work, under what conditions, and why. William is also involved in an international collaboration to evaluate the "State of Carbon Dioxide Removal", where he tracks national targets and policies for scaling carbon dioxide removal and their implications for reaching global climate objectives.
In 2020, William led the team that published "Discourses of Climate Delay". This article pointed out that new types of arguments are emerging in the public discourse that do not deny the existence of climate change, but rather aim to justify inaction or inadequate efforts. Climate delay rhetoric attempts to portray climate policies and action as unfair, unnecessary and ineffective. This article is heavily cited, is regularly featured in news pieces and analysis of climate policy, and has led to the generation of resources that include comics, infographics, games, and a book. [My favourite summary of the concept is the German tagline: "Nicht ich. Nicht jetzt. Nicht so. Zu spät."]
William is currently studying climate policy dismantling and reversals, to understand where, why and how these occur, and what effects they have on greenhouse gas emissions.
William is a highly cited researcher and has published in Nature, Nature Climate Change, Nature Sustainability, Global Environmental Change, Environmental Research Letters, Earth System Science Data Discussions and others. He is on the editorial board of Environmental Research Letters.
