In an era marked by accelerating climate crises and technological uncertainties, Dr Aarti Gupta stands as one of the most influential and forward-thinking scholars shaping the global climate conversation. As a Professor of Global Environmental Governance at Wageningen University in the Netherlands—and the 2025 Zennström Visiting Professor of Climate Change Leadership at Uppsala University—Gupta has built a global reputation rooted in courage, clarity, and an unwavering commitment to environmental integrity.
Her journey is not merely academic; it is a living testament to what happens when rigorous intellect meets moral purpose. Through her pioneering work on transparency, accountability, and anticipatory governance, Gupta has helped the world understand how future climate decisions are shaped long before they reach negotiation tables and public debates.
Dr Aarti Gupta: Championing the Power—and Limits—of Transparency
At the heart of Gupta’s research lies a profound question:
Can transparency truly transform global climate governance?
As principal investigator of the 5-year TRANSGOV project, funded by the Netherlands Research Council, she has led one of the most innovative investigations into how transparency reshapes power, policy, and action in climate decision-making. Her award-winning work—including the co-edited book Transparency in Global Environmental Governance: Critical Perspectives—offers a nuanced understanding often missing from political discussions.
In 2024–2025, Gupta received an Impact Explorer Award to extend TRANSGOV’s insights into the world’s Least Developed Countries, showing her commitment to ensuring that climate policy transformations do not leave vulnerable nations behind.
Her research is not confined to the pages of journals or books. She brings knowledge directly into global arenas, participating regularly in UN climate conferences—not as an observer, but as a bridge between research and policymaking.
Navigating the Ethical Frontiers of Emerging Technologies
As the world experiments with technologies that could reshape the planet, Gupta has become an essential voice of caution, ethics, and foresight.
Her work explores the governance challenges surrounding modern biotechnology, solar geoengineering, and novel climate interventions—fields where scientific ambition often outpaces public accountability. Through the REIMAGINE project, she examined how anticipatory tools such as modeling and scenarios guide, and sometimes distort, future climate trajectories.
She also co-leads an extraordinary global academic initiative advocating for an International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering, a call endorsed by thousands worldwide. Through this effort, Gupta engages directly with governments, the UN, civil society groups, and the media to highlight the political and ecological risks of normalizing solar geoengineering.
Her expertise has placed her on the world’s most prestigious scientific panels:
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Member of GESAMP Working Group 41 on marine geoengineering
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Selected expert for the European Union’s SRM Evidence Review Report (2023–2024)
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Contributor to IPBES
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Former Co-Chair of an EU COST Action on Global Environmental Governance
These roles highlight not just her authority but her steadfast commitment to ethical, transparent, and globally just environmental governance.
Dr Aarti Gupta: Leadership in Global Environmental Knowledge Networks
Since 2018, Gupta has served on the Scientific Steering Committee of the Earth System Governance Research Alliance—one of the world’s largest networks dedicated to sustainability governance. She co-chaired the committee from 2022–2023 and played a central role in developing its landmark 2018 Science and Implementation Plan.
Her editorial leadership is equally influential, serving as:
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Series co-editor for Cambridge Elements in Earth System Governance
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Associate Editor of Global Environmental Politics
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Editorial board member for multiple leading journals
Gupta’s work ensures that new generations of scholarship are rigorous, inclusive, and deeply engaged with the real world.
Transforming Education Through Excellence and Empathy
As an educator, Dr Aarti Gupta has touched countless lives. She holds seven Wageningen Excellent Education Awards—a rare recognition of her ability to combine academic depth with human-centered mentorship.
She has supervised more than 100 bachelor’s and master’s theses, along with numerous PhD scholars and postdoctoral researchers. Her leadership extends to university governance, where she has been part of committees shaping policies on topics such as ethical funding and fossil-fuel research practices.
Her students describe her as someone who teaches not just knowledge, but courage—the courage to question systems, confront power, and imagine transformative futures.
A Global Citizen with a Global Impact
Gupta’s path reflects a truly planetary life. She has lived and worked across India, the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, and spent extended periods in more than a dozen additional countries. Her professional experience spans leading global organizations including:
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United Nations Development Programme
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Oxfam Novib
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Transparency International
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Consulting for UN FAO, GIZ, and multiple international agencies
Her educational foundation is equally distinguished, with a PhD from Yale, a Master’s from the University of Chicago, and a summa cum laude bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University, where she received the Milton Sachs Prize for best thesis in political science.