Al Khourdajie, A., Andrijevic, M., Byers, E., Pathak, M., Pirani, A., Schleussner, C.-F. & Stuart-Smith, R. (2026). Overshoot pathways: reversible biophysical change, irreversible socioeconomic impacts. Environmental Research Letters, 21(16), 164002.
Alaa Al Khourdajie
Climate change mitigation: pathways, overshoot impacts, tipping elements, and carbon capture and storage
I am an interdisciplinary scientist working on climate change mitigation. My work asks how mitigation scenarios change under disruption, what a temperature overshoot and the decline that follows leave behind in socioeconomic terms, how Earth system tipping elements bear on that, what carbon capture and storage can deliver under real geological limits, and how scenario evidence is assessed for policy. I explore machine learning methods for scenario research and for scientific assessment.
Four questions I work on
Disruption and resilience
Mitigation scenarios are usually drawn on smooth assumptions about growth, trade and technology. I test what happens when heatwaves, trade shocks and technology failures arrive during the transition, and which design choices keep a pathway on course.
Irreversibility under temperature overshoot and return
Temperature may return to a level it passed. Ecosystems, coastlines, institutions and capital stock do not always follow. I work on the socioeconomic impacts of overshoot and of the decline that follows, on how Earth system tipping elements bear on them, and on separating what reverses as warming declines from the losses that lock in.
AI for scenarios and assessment
I explore machine learning methods that generate, classify and emulate scenarios, and work on the terms under which assessment bodies such as the IPCC can use them while keeping the transparency their mandate requires.
Scenario evidence for policy
I work on what "abated" fossil fuel use should mean, how carbon capture is represented in pathways under constrained geological storage and injection rates, and how the expectations of financial actors enter the models.
Selected work
Bataille, C., Al Khourdajie, A., de Coninck, H., de Kleijne, K., Nilsson, L. J., Bashmakov, I., Davis, S. J. & Fennell, P. S. (2025). Defining "abated" fossil fuel and industrial process emissions. Energy and Climate Change, 6, 100203.
Al Khourdajie, A. (2025). The role of artificial intelligence in climate change scientific assessments. PLOS Climate, 4(9), e0000706.