Research
Dr. Avit Bhowmik is an internationally recognized environmental scientist and climate solutionist. For the last 8 years, Avit has advanced research on rapid climate action and positive social tipping points. He contributed to the conceptual development of positive social tipping points as well as to identifying the scales to maximise the benefit of those tipping interventions.
Avit has published several scientific articles in highly ranked international peer-reviewed jounrals including in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). He played a key role in several reports and policy docemnts released in the Conference of the Parties (COP), Global Climate Action Summits and United Nations High Level Political Forums outlining pathways to exponentially reduce greenhouse gas emissions and abruptly transform societies to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Avit advises municipalities, bioregions and national and international scale industries and NGOs about strategising climate action and sustainability transformation plan.
Avit is an author of "1.5°C Business Playbook".
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
- Alliance of regional innovation ecosystems based on smart sustainable specialization strategies (ARIES4). European Commission Erasmus+ Grant: 101056369. Collaborators: Glava Energy Centre, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Southern Denmark University and Gabrovo Municipality, Bulgaria
- Marketing technology (MARTECH) for customer behavioral transformation to rapidly reduce food loss and waste. MIRAI 2.0 seed funded project: DB 49_23. Collaborators: Linnaeus University, Sweden, Kyushu Universiy, Japan and Sophia University, Japan
Collaboration
Avit's current assignment and activities involve the following.
- Co-founder and Director, The Long Game, with United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), Spherical, Climate Interactive of University of Massachusetts Lowell and WorldPop group of University of Southampton
- Scientific Steering Committee Member, Analysis, Integration, and Modeling of the Earth System
- Scientific Adviser, Sustainability Agenda, A business network of Forshaga and Munkfors municipalities in Sweden
- Adviser and Collaborator, Bioregioning Tayside
- Scientific Adviser, African Circular Business Alliance
- Representative of Karlstad University, Sustainable Development Solutions Network Northern Europe
Bio
Avit comes from a strong interdisciplinary background interfacing Environmental Health, Planning and Geoinformatics. He has a B.Sc. in Urban and Regional Planning from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, a joint universities M.Sc. in Geospatial Technology from the European Union supported Erasmus Mundus program and a Ph.D. in Spatial Environmental Health from the University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany. After completing his Ph.D., Avit worked at Stockholm Resilience Centre, Earth-Doc network of the Earth League with Johan Rockström and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Future Earth, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and The World in 2050 project of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He was also involved with Project Drawdown as a Senior Researcher and Exponential Roadmap Initiative as a lead modeller.
Related info
How bad the climate crisis really is? A conversation with Magnus Lindh as a part of the Transit - Training Paths for Adults on Sustainable Mobility project.
The words about "The Long Game". Press conference of the International Association for the Advancement of Innovative Approaches to Global Challenges at the Subsidiary Bodies Meeting and UNFCCC Climate Conference 2023.
Climate scientist: That's the maximum amount of meat you should eat in a day. Värmlands Folkblad (in Swedish).
So can the forests help save the climate. SVT Nyheter (in Swedish).
More news on Avit...
Selected publications
Bhowmik, A., McCaffrey, M.S., Varga, J.R., 2022. From Climate Endgame to Climate Long Game. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 119, e2214975119.
Bhowmik, A.K., McCaffrey, M., Ruskey, A., Frischmann, C., Gaffney, O., 2020. Powers of 10: seeking “sweet spots” for rapid climate and sustainability actions between individual and global scales. Environmental Research Letters 15.
Otto, I.M., Donges, J.F., Cremades, R., Bhowmik, A., Hewitt, R.J., Lucht, W., Rockström, J., Allerberger, F., McCaffrey, M., Doe, S.S.P., Lenferna, A., Morán, N., van Vuuren, D.P., Schellnhuber, H.J., 2020. Social tipping dynamics for stabilizing Earth’s climate by 2050. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 201900577.