As SEI Policy Director he is overseeing the enhancement of SEI’s ability to successfully engage with policy and decision making to promote informed decision-making and help achieve SEI’s goals of inducing change towards sustainable development.
At the University of York he gives occasional lectures on issues related, for example, to climate policy and sustainable energy, co-supervises PhD students and BSc projects.
In recent years he has been supporting the development of the CCAC, partly through the activities of the Scientific Advisory Panel and partly by leading CCAC initiatives, especially the SNAP initiative, supporting National Action and Planning on SLCPs and the Regional Assessment Initiative. He coordinated a UNEP/WMO assessment on Black Carbon and Tropospheric Ozone, which helped to spark interest leading to the formation of the CCAC. Supporting other UNEP assessments, he was Coordinating Lead Author of the atmosphere chapters in GEO4 and GEO5, UNEP’s flagship Global Environment Outlook assessment, exploring the relationships between air quality, climate change and ozone depletion.
Johan has advised governments and policy processes on atmospheric issues – currently through capacity building through the SNAP initiative and in the CCAC Working Groups. He initially participated in the Task Forces of the Convention on LRTAP in the 1990s, and then assisted the development of the Malé Declaration in South Asia, and the development of APINA, the Air Pollution Information Network for Africa between 1997 and 2012. He was joint convenor of the Global Atmospheric Pollution Forum (GAP Forum), a network of regional air pollution agreements and networks around the world.
He helped the Editors to coordinate the development of Tiempo, a bulletin and website on climate change and developing countries produced by SEI and IIED from 2000 to 2011. He coordinated SEI’s input to the UK CIP Scoping study into the impacts of climate change in Yorkshire. He was also one the key researchers developing a ‘Centre for Low Carbon Futures’, a collaboration across universities in Yorkshire, UK.
Johan is the author of 36 refereed papers and 34 articles, reports and book contributions.
- Integrated assessment of short-lived climate pollutants in Latin America and the Caribbean
- Short-lived climate pollutant mitigation and the Sustainable Development Goals
- The Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning Integrated Benefits Calculator (LEAP-IBC)
- Environmental impact assessment of wheat straw based alkyl polyglucosides produced using novel chemical approaches
- Updated global estimates of respiratory mortality in adults ≥30 years of age attributable to long-term ozone exposure
- Asian Assessment - Atmospheric Pollution in the Asia Pacific: Science-based Solutions
- SEI initiative on low emission development pathways
- Integrating Short-run and Long-run Perspectives in Low Emissions Development Planning
- Global Commission on the Economy and Climate
- Promoting a co-benefits approach to reduce the threat posed by climate change and air pollution.