Pier Vellinga

Career

He was among the first scientists to publish on climate change and its implications regarding water and energy in the eighties. His education and training includes a Fulbright scholarship in the US in 1967–68, an Msc (1976) and doctors degree at Delft University of Technology (1984).

His 1986 environmental science PhD on Beach Erosion and Dune Erosion During Storm provided the basis for the coastal safety evaluation (the Dutch Delta Plan).

In 1988, in a newly created position, he became advisor to the Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment on the issue of Climate Change and the development of international CO₂ policies. In this role he was key negotiator during the Netherlands EU-presidency of 1988. He was also one of the experts of the Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases. For this advisory body he also chaired with Peter Gleick the “Targets and Indicators of Climatic Change” working group.

In 1991, Vellinga published an article with Robert Swart that became a cornerstone in the definition of the 2 °C target, than adopted by UNFCCC COP 15 in Copenhagen in 2009. This article also proposed for the first time a traffic-light visualization - based on red, yellow, green colours - that since then has been largely employed in risk management and climate change communication. In 1991/1992 he was one of the architects of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and in 1989 was actively involved in setting up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as vice chairman in its first bureau. He was as an author of various IPCC chapters (the work of the IPCC, including the contributions of many scientists, was recognised by the joint award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize).

From 1995 to 1998 he combined his work as director of the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (a position which he held from 1991 to 2001) with a part-time position at the World Bank, United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as Chairman of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). From 1991 to 2006 he has been a professor of earth sciences at the Vrije Universiteit. Joyeeta Gupta, Richard Tol, Robert Swart and Hasse Goosen were among his first PhD students. He is Professor in Climate Change and Water Safety at Wageningen University.

In 2009 he initiated the international Delta Alliance, a collaboration among low-lying coastal areas in the world vulnerable to climate change. This initiative is still going on.

As of 2009, Vellinga is the chairman of the Knowledge for Climate research program and vice chairman of the Climate Changes Spatial Planning program. These programs support the Dutch government and companies with operational knowledge required for investment decisions related to climate change adaptation and mitigation. He has a chair in Climate and Water at Wageningen University (WUR), where he is director of the Wageningen University climate program, and has a part-time chair in Societal Impacts of Climate Change at the Institute of Environmental Studies of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.