Björn-Ola Linnér

Björn-Ola Linnér is the Co-Director of the Mistra Geopolitics research programme and an SEI Affiliated Researcher with SEI Headquarters.

He is a professor in Environmental Change at the Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research at Linköping University, Sweden, where he was the previous director (2006-2010). He is also an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society at Oxford University.

His research focuses on international policy-making on climate change, food security and sustainable development. His recent publications analyse integration of policies on climate change, sustainable development and low-carbon energy technologies as well as climate visualisation, transnational governance and utopian/dystopian thought in climate science and policy. Published books include among others The Return of Malthus: Environmentalism and Postwar Population–Resource Crises and the co-authored The Political Economy of Climate Change Adaptation on Palgrave Macmillan (2016).

Among his awards, he is particularly glad for the Junior Faculty Prize for a Sustainable Research Environment in 2009 for promoting young researchers’ careers. He has been part of several Swedish and international committees. As a researcher he has been actively involved in the international climate negotiations for several years. He was member of the Swedish delegation at the Adaptation and Approval of the fourth Assessment Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Valencia, Spain 2007.

He has been visiting research fellow at CIRES, Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado. the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS) at Oxford University, University of California at Santa Cruz and Hall Centre for the Humanities, University of Kansas. He is also one of the co-leaders of the Centre for Excellence Nordic Strategic Adaptation Research (NORD-STAR).

Publications authored externally to SEI

• Amars, L., Fridahl, M., Hagemann, M., Röser, F. & Linnér, B.-O. (2016) The transformational potential of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions in Tanzania: assessing the concept’s cultural legitimacy among stakeholders in the solar energy sector. Local Environment, Doi: 10.1080/13549839.2016.1161607.
• Johansson, J., Opach, T., Glaas, E., Neset, T.-S., Navarra, C., Linnér, B.-O., Rød, J. K. (in press) VisAdapt: A visualization tool to support climate change adaptation. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications. In Press.
• Nasiritousi, N., Hjerpe, M., & Linnér, B-O. (2016). The roles of non-state actors in climate change governance: understanding agency through governance profiles. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 16(1), 109-126.
• Nasiritousi, N. & Linnér, B-O. (2016). Open or closed meetings? Explaining nonstate actor involvement in the international climate change negotiations. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law & Economics. 16(1), 127-144.
• Juhola S, Glaas E, Linnér B-O, Neset T-S. (2016). Redefining maladaptation. Environmental Science & Policy. (55), Part 1:135-40.
• Sovacool, B.K., B.-O. Linner, and M.E. Goodsite, The political economy of climate adaptation. Nature Climate Change, 2015. 5(7): p. 616-618.
• Glaas, E., Gammelgaard Ballantyne, A. Neset, T-S, Linnér, B-O, Navarra, C., Johansson, J., Opach, T., Rød J.K. and Goodsite, M. E. Facilitating climate change adaptation through communication: Insights from the development of a visualization tool. Energy Research and Social Science, 2015, 10, 57-61.
• Fridahl, M. & B.-O. Linnér (2015). Perspectives on the Green Climate Fund: Possible Compromises on Capitalization and Balanced Allocation. Climate and Development. DOI: 10.1080/17565529.2015.1040368).
• Linnér, B-O and Wibeck, V. (2015). Dual high-stake emerging technologies: a review of the climate engineering research literature. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change. DOI: 10.1002/wcc.333.
• Uhrqvist, O and Linnér, B-O. (2015). Narratives of the past for Future Earth: The historiography of global environmental change research. The Anthropocene Review doi:10.1177/2053019614567543.
• Fridahl, M., Upadhayay, P. & Linnér, B.-O. (2014). Supporting Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions through the Green Climate Fund: Governance Capacities and Challenges. Carbon Climate and Law Review, 4: 257–269.