Posts | Jonathan Gilligan

New paper on the sustianability of the Bengal delta

27 April 2023 Bangladesh, GBM Delta, sediment, sea-level, climate change

I have a new paper, led by Jess Raff, that analyzes sediment transport and sediment budgets in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta, and assesses the implications of sediment flow for sustainability in the face of sea-level rise and the diversion and damming of major rivers.

Fulbright Scholar Award

17 April 2023 awards

I am very excited to announce that I have been selected for a Fulbright Scholar Award, which will allow me to spend a large part of the next academic year at the University of Calgary’s Werklund School of Education as the Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Digital Technologies and Sustainability.

Webinar on Incorporating Behavior Change into Socio-Environmental Systems Models

15 July 2022 behavior, modeling, socioenvironmental systems, socioenvironmental systems modeling, agent-based modeling

In June, I gave the keynote talk for a webinar and panel discussion at the National Socioenvironmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) about incorporating behavior change into socio-environmental systems models. The video of the event has now been posted to SESYNC’s YouTube channel

Improving Climate Change Mitigation Analysis

18 September 2020 Beyond Politics, Private governance

A major new paper in the journal One Earth from a collaboration between U.S. and European authors on the importance of incorporating behavioral, cultural, social, and political considerations into integrated assessment models of greenhouse gas emissions pathways, especially in the context of the IPCC process. Abstract: Limiting global warming to 2°C or less compared with pre-industrial temperatures will require unprecedented rates of decarbonization globally. The scale and scope of transformational change required across sectors and actors in society raises critical questions of feasibility.

A Framework for Assessing Private Climate Governance

23 December 2019 Beyond Politics, Private governance

Mike Vandenbergh and I have a new paper out, in the journal Energy Research & Social Science, on our three-part framework for assessing the impacts of private climate governance. We discussed our three-part framework in previous writing, such as “Accounting for Political Feasibility”, “Beyond Gridlock”, and Beyond Politics. Here, we discuss some practical steps toward applying the framework to assessing the prospects and potential impacts of private climate governance and some of the research needs and priorities for using our framework more broadly.

Short film on my Bangladesh research

10 December 2019 Bangladesh, river navigability, inland shipping, Coastal SEES

A short film about my collaborative interdisciplinary research project in Bangladesh is featured at the AGU Cinema at the 2019 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, and is also available on YouTube. The film, by Andre Leroux, focuses on interdisciplinary research on the changing river systems of Bangladesh and the prospect of sustainably managing the delta in the face of climate change and sea-level rise.

New paper on employers who offer energy efficiency benefits to their employees

7 August 2018 private governance, climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency, beyond gridlock, beyond politics, Alexander Maki, Michael Vandenbergh, Mark Cohen, Emmett McKinney

I have a new paper in the journal Energy Efficiency, co-authored with Alex Maki, Emmett McKinney, Mike Vandenbergh, and Mark Cohen, about employers who offer employee benefits to promote energy efficiency.

Workshop on River Navigability and Inland Shipping in Bangladesh

27 July 2018 Bangladesh, river navigability, inland shipping, Coastal SEES

Workshop on River Navigability and Inland Shipping in Bangladesh: Economic Importance and Impacts of Environmental Change On a recent trip to Bangladesh I collaborated with Dr. Bishawjit Mallick (Chair of Environmental Development and Risk Management at Technische Universität Dresden), the environmental activist collective Riverine People, and Professor Md. Monirul Islam at Dhaka University, and representatives of the School of Environmental Science and Management at the Independent University of Bangladesh and the International Centre for Climate Change and Development to organize a workshop on River Navigability and Inland Shipping in Bangladesh with a focus on the economic impact of formal and informal use of inland waterways for passenger and cargo traffic.

Urban Water Conservation Policies in the United States

12 June 2018 water conservation, environmental policy, Bayesian statistics

Cities face challenges on many fronts as they work to assure their residents of safe and reliable access to water. Changes in both supply and demand are driven by complex interactions among many human and natural factors, such as drought, infrastructure, population growth, and land-use. Climate change adds new complexities and uncertainties as cities plan for the future. In the past, challenges to water security were addressed by Promethean energy- and technology-intensive infrastructure projects, such as long-distance transfers, desalination, and artificial aquifer recharge; but in recent years, attention to soft approaches has grown.

Dangerous Assumptions Revisited

13 February 2018 decarbonization, RCPs

Comparisons of observed trends of energy and carbon intensity in the global economy to trends implied by emissions scenarios used in policy analysis suggested that those scenarios were severely over-optimistic about the rate at which the world would spontaneously decarbonize its economy. I update these analysis, using global emissions since 2005, and find that observed rates of decarbonization are not far behind those implied by the RCP 4.5 policy scenario.

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