The Climate Policy Observatory
The Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg – more precisely the Government in Council – appointed in October 2021 the members of the Climate Policy Observatory (CPO), created in accordance with Article 7 of the Luxembourg national law on climate law. The Observatory can issue opinions on its own initiative.
The mission of the OPC is to give opinions on projects, actions or measures that may have an impact on climate policy, to scientifically evaluate the measures carried out or envisaged in the field of climate policy and to analyse their effectiveness, as well as to propose new measures, to draw up an annual report for the government on the implementation of climate policy, and to propose research and studies in the relevant fields.
The OPC is a scientific council currently composed of seven members chosen among people with expertise in a field directly related to the Observatory’s mandate. Other selection criteria include complementary expertise in relevant knowledge areas and gender diversity. Current members’ areas of expertise range from climate modelling to climate economics and finance, economic geography and political science, multi-criteria analysis and life cycle assessment, biochemistry and systems science. Four members are based in Luxembourg and three members are based abroad. For more details on the experts, see Annex I. Members are appointed for a 5-year term in addition to their main job elsewhere and have an annual budget from the state budget7.
A Secretariat supports the mission of the TPO with two other highly qualified experts in greenhouse gas (GHG) projections, climate policy and environmental regulation. The Ministry of Environment hosts the Secretariat. The OPC Board consists of the Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretariat.
Mission Statement – OPC Members’ Understanding of their Role
The TPO strives to make a significant contribution to informing climate change policy and practice in a science-based and impactful way. Identifying the leverage points for achieving the broadest and fastest possible change is a priority shared by all its members, given the urgency of the situation. Based on the open legal mandate and the diversity of expertise and experience of its members, the OPC believes it has several unique strengths that will enable it to add value in areas that are particularly difficult to address from the position of a single department or organization. The OPC is particularly well positioned to respond to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment that “climate governance is most effective when it interacts with multiple policy areas, helps to build synergies and minimize trade-offs,” and connects different actors across sectors and levels of governance (national, municipal, individual actor level). In addition, the IPCC emphasizes that effective governance will rely on the empowerment of diverse actors to engage in profound changes in dominant ways of thinking and acting.
Our 3 principles
Discover our members
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Chair
The solution to global climate change must be a global effort, but in practice, every action counts. These must include incremental efforts, based on fossil-free technologies, as well as behavioural changes. At the same time, other fundamental societal and lifestyle changes need to take place in order to achieve full decarbonisation of society, in conjunction with all the Sustainable Development Goals.
Andrew Ferrone is a physical climatologist by training and works primarily at the interface between climate science and policy. He is currently the head of the meteorological service of the Administration of technical agricultural services (ASTA) in Luxembourg. He is also the permanent representative to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the head of the Luxembourg delegation to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and coordinates the European Union’s team of negotiators for scientific issues under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Andrew obtained his PhD at the Catholic University of Leuven, on the topic of Aviation and Climate Change in Europe: from regional climate modelling to policy options.
The societal changes that are needed can only happen if we make collective decisions based on the best available science. To do this, it is important to bridge the gap between the scientific community and policy makers, as well as the general public. The OPC should play a key role in this endeavour in Luxembourg, and I am honoured to have the opportunity to participate in this work.
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Let’s work for healthy ecosystems, social systems, and lifestyles!
Ariane König is a Research Scientist at the University of Luxembourg, where she and her team are engaged in research projects to facilitate and learn from social processes with experts and stakeholders to address complex sustainability challenges. The research focus is on food and water and land-use systems as well as the tight interplay between the two. We seek to understand how developments and transformations within the spheres of society, technology, ecology, and the personal sphere are interdependent, and which might be prominent leverage points for deliberate transformations for a more sustainable society. König also built and coordinates an innovative study programme in ‘Sustainability and Social Innovation’ that is open to students and professionals. In addition to be a member of the Observatoire, König is also a member of the European Statistical Advisory Committee and has completed two terms as a member of the national Conseil Supérieur pour un Développement Durable. König obtained her Bachelor and Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, Emmanuel College, and first worked on risk regulation for a leading multinational life science corporation. Thereafter she joined the universities of Harvard and Oxford, where she conducted research and taught post-graduate and executive training courses on governance of new technologies and risk, with a focus on sustainable agricultural food production. She has also worked as an independent scientific consultant for the OECD, the European Commission, and EU research consortia. She has over 50 publications, her most recent book ‘Sustainability Science: Key Issues’ was published by Routledge in 2018.
Sustainability requires transforming how we think of and relate to ourselves, other people, and the environment we live and work in. That’s not easy given our social system and infrastructures produce patterns of thought and behaviour that are hard to escape. The courses, study programme, and research projects I have built since 2010 serve to equip agents of change, such that we can better recognise leverage points for local and systemic change and evaluate and learn from these changes in a networked manner. This can involve citizen science, scenario work and other means. With my research team, and personally, I work to improve how we engage with and regenerate healthy water, soil, and biodiversity, in Luxembourg and beyond. In my organic garden I am proud to host countless lizards, diverse mice, a slowworm, and a rare smooth snake, who seem to seem to enjoy the many insects and packaging- and logistics-free vegetables and fruit there as much as my family and I do.
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Responding effectively and fairly to climate change is a daunting task: Nothing less than the transformation of our underlying societal, cultural, and technological systems along with fair individual efforts will do. Everyone has a role to play.
Claire Dupont is political scientist, whose research focuses on EU and international climate and energy politics, policy, and governance. She currently works as associate professor of European and international governance at Ghent University, Belgium. She also serves as the Vice-Chair of the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency. Originally from Ireland, Claire moved to Brussels, Belgium, in 2008, to pursue her PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, in which she assessed the integration of EU climate and energy policy frameworks.
Clearly, our knowledge systems also need to change to contribute to the necessary transformation, including by becoming more engaged and embedded in policy and societal processes. I am honoured to have the opportunity to play a role in these efforts through the work of the OPC.
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In joining the OPC, I am motivated to share my experience in quantitative assessment of the environmental impacts generated by human activities and technologies, to contribute to the evaluation of climate policies and the definition of improvement recommendations. In particular I intend to focus on the quantitative assessment of the positive and negative effects of carbon emissions, of policies on socio-technical systems, on industry and vice versa, so to consider the causal relationships between policy actions and expected benefits in relation to climate targets in the analysis. Considering the possible side-effects of climate policies, e.g., on environmental impact categories other than climate change (e.g., biodiversity) as well as on social aspects is also very central in my contribution to the OPC.
My core research interest is in developing science-based methods and indicators to orient sustainable decarbonisation pathways towards climate targets. I am leveraging 25 years of leadership experience in RDI institutions in the field of environmental life cycle sustainability and risk assessment of products, technologies and policies and broad range of experiences in providing assistance with decision-making for industry and public policy. On the academic side, I have contributed to the scientific literature, co-authoring 120+ peer reviewed scientific papers, 150+ scientific conference proceedings, 18 chapters in volumes with ISBN and editing one open access book which has been accessed 1M+ times. On the impact side, I have contributed in generating and disseminating new knowledge in 30+ European research projects and 25+ collaborative research partnerships with SMEs, policy makers and large industries. I am keen to broadly contribute to enhance the consideration of sustainability in society. I have developed research and strategic partnerships with national Ministries and international institutions (e.g., World Alliance for Efficient Solutions of Bertrand Piccard). Further, I served as advisor for the TEG on Sustainable Finance of the EU Commission. I am currently serving as advisor in different Boards (e.g., Spuerkees, Greenworlder, IRT M2P).
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I turned 65 years old in 2022, and I want to pass on what I have learned throughout my career as a climate scientist, without embellishing reality or making it sound all doom and gloom. In the institutions and groups where I have the chance to be active, including the OPC, I will continue to advocate for respect for the environment and all forms of life, human rights, equality of women and men, truth, justice, science, listening, empathy, diversity, and inclusiveness. I would like to put my energy and time at the service of having the IPCC’s conclusions seriously taken into account by political decision-makers, economic actors, the education sector, and citizens. In doing so, I wish to remind people that there are many solutions to the various challenges facing humanity, and to support young people who want to build a better world.
Jean-Pascal van Ypersele is full professor of climatology and sustainable development sciences at UCLouvain (Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium) and member of the Académie royale de Belgique. A physicist and climate modeller who worked at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research, USA), he has jointly published many papers with natural and social scientists on climate change and sustainable development at global and regional scales, and this for forty years. He has been extensively involved in the IPCC since 1995 and was IPCC Vice-Chair from 2008 to 2015. He co-authored the first quadrennial UN Global Sustainable Development Report (2019) and was a member of the EU Mission Board on Adaptation to Climate Change, including Societal Transformation (2019-2021). He has participated in most UN conferences on climate issues since 1979, including almost all COPs. He regularly briefs Heads of States and Governments and is occasionally consulted by Greta Thunberg.
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Vice president
In 2050, I will be 65 years old and looking forward to my retirement. In the same year, at the latest, we must achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global warming. It is my professional goal to be able to say at my retirement: The world has managed to stop global warming – and I have contributed to it!
Mirjam Kosch is an enthusiastic environmental scientist and completed her doctorate in economics at ETH Zurich on climate policy in the electricity sector. As part of her doctoral thesis, she empirically analysed the impact of renewable energy subsidies and carbon pricing. Currently, she is working at the Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research on the impact of fuel and carbon prices on electricity prices as well as on the expansion of the European emissions trading system and its interplay with different policy instruments. As a modern climate economist, she is convinced that carbon pricing should be a central instrument of climate policies but needs to be complemented by a broad policy mix.
Ever since my Bachelor studies I have been fascinated by the science-policy interface. Only when both sides actively engage in the dialogue between scientists and policy makers, can we really make a difference. Small countries where people know each other, like Luxembourg or my native country Switzerland, can lead the way as pioneers in this field. I am thus very happy to be part of the OPC and hope to make a contribution to mutual understanding between the two worlds.
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Climate change is affecting and will continue to affect living conditions in Luxembourg. My motivation and ambition for the OPC is to provide information on the complexities, especially in relation to climate and sustainable finance, and make scientific knowledge accessible. By actively addressing the roots and causes of climate change, I also see many opportunities for Luxembourg’s sustainable future, its society, its environment, and its economy.
Sabine Dörry is an economic and financial geographer. She is a senior researcher working at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) and a founding and board member of the FINGEO Network, the Global Network on Financial Geography. Building on previous research positions at and academic visits to the universities of Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Amsterdam, and Singapore, her current work focuses on the financial industry, and its organisation in and influence on leading financial centres. Sabine is interested in developing alternative ways to analyse the global financial system. This includes how shifts towards ‘sustainable’ finance and increasing technologisation affect financial activities, (redesigning) financial institutions, and (rebuilding) regional economies.