Damon Matthews is a professor in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment at Concordia University, holds a PhD in climate science from the University of Victoria from 2004, and is a member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada. He has published more than 130 research papers on topics ranging from quantifying the remaining carbon budget to assessing equitable approaches to allocate emission allowances to individual countries and the effectiveness of nature-based climate solutions. He is internationally recognized for his work in policy-relevant climate science, as well as for initiatives such as the Climate Clock that use digital visualization and web-based technologies to motivate and accelerate climate action. Damon is the scientific co-director of Sustainability in the Digital Age, interim director of the Future Earth Canada Hub, and directs the NSERC CREATE in Leadership in Environmental and Digital Innovation for Sustainability (LEADS) program, which aims to train graduate student researchers at the intersection of sustainability science and digital innovation.
What Damon likes to study
Interesting science-based research questions that have the potential to shift scientific understanding or inform policy action.
What Damon recommends
The following are some interesting items you might want to check out:
Climate Action Tracker – An independent scientific analysis that tracks government climate action and measures it against the globally agreed Paris Agreement aim of “holding warming well below 2°C, and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.”
Global Carbon Budget – An annual update of the global carbon budget and trends.
Climate Clock – Tracking global warming in real time.
“Ministry for the Future” by Kim Stanley Robinson