Joseph Alcamo is Professor and Director of Sussex Sustainability Research Programme, and former Chief Scientist of the United Nations Environment Programme. In 1998, Alcamo was awarded the Max Planck Research Prize for physics and geoscience, in honor of his contributions to global modeling, and the use of global models in international policy. He was named as a Special Advisor to the UNFCCC Executive Secretary in 2014. Alcamo published numerous articles and books about environmental subjects, many of them focussing on the modeling of environmental changes and the effects of global warming.