Owen

Gaffney

Director, International media and strategy

Director of international media and strategy

owen.gaffney@su.se

+46 734 604 833

@owengaffney

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Owen Gaffney is a global sustainability analyst and writer and head of media at the Stockholm Resilience Centre

For almost two decades Gaffney has been involved in Earth system science research and communications. His work focuses on synthesising and assimilating knowledge on the state of the planet. He is interested the the Anthropocene, Earth system and social tipping points, governance, equality, technology and the changing flow of information in the world.

Gaffney is a qualified journalist, filmmaker and writer and trained as an astronautic and aeronautic engineer.

His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the BBC and the world’s leading academic journals Science and Nature. His work with Felix Pharand Deschenes has been shown at the UN Rio+20 Summit and the World Economic Forum, Davos.

In addition to his position at Stockholm Resilience Centre, Gaffney has a position as an analyst and policy advisor at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Berlin. He is a fellow at Future Earth and the Edmund Hillary Foundation, New Zealand. He is a member of faculty at Singularity University. He is former director of communications at Future Earth and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme.

Publications

Nature: Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against

Exponential Roadmap: https://exponentialroadmap.org/

Sustainability: Rules to goals: emergence of new governance strategies for sustainable development

Nature Sustainability: Sustainability and resilience for transformation in the urban century

New Scientist: Quit carbon and quick

WWF, Living Planet Report: https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/all_publications/living_planet_report_2018/

Sleeping Financial Giants: https://sleepinggiants.earth/publication/read-the-background-report/

Anthropocene Review: The Anthropocene equation

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Publications by Gaffney, Owen

A safe operating space for New Zealand/Aotearoa: Translating the planetary boundaries framework

Policy brief or report | 2020

A safe operating space for New Zealand/Aotearoa: Translating the planetary boundaries framework. 2020. Report by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Stockholm Resilience Centre and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change. Commissioned by New Zealand Ministry for the Environment.

The purpose of the report is to translate the planetary boundaries framework for New Zealand to inform government approaches to environmental stewardship, well-being and economic development. • The planetary boundaries framework provides an international and long-term context for national policy setting. It can be used as a benchmark for measuring progress towards environmental goals. • The framework provides a systems view ...

Commentary: Leveraging Digital Disruptions for a Climate-Safe and Equitable World: The Dˆ2S Agenda

Other publication | 2020

Luers, A., Garard, J., Clair, A.L.S., Gaffney, O., Hassenboehler, T., Langlois, L., Mougeot, M. and Luccioni, S., 2020. Leveraging Digital Disruptions for a Climate-Safe and Equitable World: The Dˆ2S Agenda:[Commentary]. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 39(2), pp.18-31.

A new report, Digital Disruptions for Sustainability Agenda (the DA2S Agenda), developed by Future Earth's Sustainability in the Digital Age initiative is discussed in this paper. The DA2S Agenda was developed over the course of a year, engaging over 250 experts from around the world through workshops, online consultations, and desktop research. This article provides an overview of the analysis and findings outlined in the DA2...

Powers of 10: seeking 'sweet spots' for rapid climate and sustainability actions between individual and global scales

Journal / article | 2020

Bhowmik, A.K., McCaffrey, M.S., Ruskey, A.M., Frischmann, C. and Gaffney, O., 2020. Powers of 10: seeking ‘sweet spots’ for rapid climate and sustainability actions between individual and global scales. Environmental Research Letters, 15(9), p.094011.

Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and related sustainability initiatives will require halving of global greenhouse gas emissions each decade from now on through to 2050, when net zero emissions should be achieved. To reach such significant reductions requires a rapid and strategic scaling of existing and emerging technologies and practices, coupled with economic and social transformations and novel governance solution...

Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against

Journal / article | 2019

Lenton, T.M., Rockström, J., Gaffney, O., Rahmstorf, S. et.al. 2019. Climate tipping points - too risky to bet against. Nature Comment, Vol. 575

Politicians, economists and even some natural scientists have tended to assume that tipping points1 in the Earth system — such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the West Antarctic ice sheet — are of low probability and little understood. Yet evidence is mounting that these events could be more likely than was thought, have high impacts and are interconnected across different biophysical systems, potentially committing th...