Will Steffen

Will Steffen 1947 - 2023 

Will Steffen (William Lee Steffen) was born in the USA, but it was in Australia that he made a name for himself as a scientist and citizen of the world. A chemist by training, he has become one of the world's leading experts on climate change and global change. WS has made a decisive contribution to consolidating the constellation of Earth System Sciences, which today is the most rigorous and enlightened source of knowledge that is important for understanding and tackling the global environmental and climate crisis. Until 2004, he was executive director of the ambitious International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, which covered the entire globe between 1987 and 2015. Between 2000 and 2018 he co-authored and reviewed five of the IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) special reports and studies.

“Will was the true father behind Earth System science. Early, he brought together leading scholars from diverse disciplines and backgrounds for new scientific syntheses and created Earth System science. His book from 2005 'Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet under Pressure' (Steffen et al. 2005) is a milestone and classic in this context, a systemic view of planet Earth and the human imprint altering its dynamics. Will's contribution to the scientific understanding of the complex fascinating dynamics of planet Earth and the role of us humans as part of it is clearly exceptional and simply outstanding."[1]

Emeritus Professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University (Canberra), Will Steffen was also a member of the Climate Commission (until it was abolished by the conservative Australian government in 2013), creator and member of the Climate Council of Australia, researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Center (Sweden) and co-chair of the Scientific Committee of the Common House of Humanity, a Portuguese NGO with members all over the planet and headquarters at the University of Porto.

Prof. Steffen contributed with classes for Module 1 of the MOOC “The Earth System as a Global Common”.

[1] Folk,C., Rockstrom, J., Richardson,K. (2023) Will Steffen – the father of Earth System science – Global Sustainabikity, 6:13 - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374207966_Will_Steffen_-_the_father_of_Earth_System_science