Professor Paul Behrens
About
Professor Paul Behrens is a professor in environmental change and works on a broad range of sustainability challenges – particularly in climate change, food, and energy.
He is the author of the popular science book, The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science (Indigo Press, 2021), which describes humanity’s current trajectory and possible futures in paired chapters of pessimism and hope. Professor Behrens is an editor and author of the interdisciplinary textbook Food and Sustainability (Oxford University Press, 2020).
Professor Behrens won International Champion in the Frontiers Planet Prize in 2023.
Expertise
- Climate change
- Food systems
- Energy systems
- Environmental change
Selected publications
- A comprehensive Beyond-GDP database to accelerate wellbeing, inclusion, and sustainability research (2024)
- The environmental and social opportunities of reducing sugar intake (2024)
- Over 80% of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy supports emissions-intensive animal products (2024)
- Dietary change in high-income nations alone can lead to substantial double climate dividend (2022)
- The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science (2020/2022)
- Global greenhouse gas emissions from residential and commercial building materials and mitigation strategies to 2060 (2021)
- Food and Sustainability (2020)
- Climate change and the vulnerability of electricity generation to water stress in the European Union (2017)
Media experience
Professor Paul Behrens regularly gives interviews in the media on a wide range of sustainability issues. His research and writing on climate, energy, and food has appeared in scientific journals and media outlets such as the BBC, The Guardian, Thomson Reuters, Politico, Nature Sustainability, Nature Energy, PNAS, Nature Food, and Nature Communications.
Recent media work
- Plant Based Diets, Live on BBC (BBC News, 2025)
- Paul Behrens: The Climate And Nature Bill Needs You! (2025)
- Scientists criticise UN agency’s failure to withdraw livestock emissions report (The Guardian, 2024)
- Should we be worried about vegan ultra-processed foods? (BBC Future, 2024)
- EU pumps four times more money into farming animals than growing plants (The Guardian, 2024)
- Transforming Food Systems with Professor Paul Behrens (2024)
- Paul Behrens: Dual climate benefits from a great food transition (Frontiers Forum Live 2023)
- Veg diet plus re-wilding gives 'double climate dividend' (BBC News, 2022)
