Assessing the Impact of Energy Transition Initiatives on the Policy Cost of Saudi Arabia’s Net- Zero Ambition

Lead- Climate and Sustainability

Lead- Climate & Sustainability Puneet is an lead in the Climate and Sustainability program. Currently, he is working on scenario analysis and deep decarbonization…

Puneet is an lead in the Climate and Sustainability program. Currently, he is working on scenario analysis and deep decarbonization pathways under the Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Partnership (CAMP) project at KAPSARC.

Before joining KAPSARC, he worked with Council on Energy, Environment and Water in India where he co-developed the tailored version of Global Change Analysis Model for India (GCAM-India). Prior to CEEW, he has worked with Brookings Institution (India Center) where he co-edited an anthology on the coal sector in India. Across the 18 chapters, drawing from leading experts in the field, the book examines all aspects of coal’s future in India. He has a rich portfolio of published papers, policy briefs and reports. As an independent scholar, he has been writing for the G20, and leading national newspapers. Puneet holds a Master of Technology in renewable energy from TERI University, New Delhi.

Expertise

• Integrated Assessment Modelling
• Climate Change Mitigation
• Coal Transitions and Transport Economics

Executive Director- Climate & Sustainability Mohamad Hejazi is the executive director for the Climate and Sustainability Program at KAPSARC. He also leads the Climate Change…

Mohamad Hejazi is the executive director for the Climate and Sustainability Program at KAPSARC. He also leads the Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Partnership (CAMP) project, and his work focuses on climate change research, climate impacts and adaptation, climate mitigation, integrated assessment modeling, and energy-water-land nexus. Prior to joining KAPSARC, Mohamad worked as a senior research scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he served as the principal investigator for the Global Change Intersectoral Modeling System project, a multi-million-dollar project that includes over 40 interdisciplinary researchers across many institutions. He has also led and contributed to projects with the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, US-AID, US-EPA, USGS, NASA, and NSF-INFEWS. Mohamad has authored over 100 journal publications, and he has also served as a contributing author to the Fourth U.S. National Climate Assessment, and the AR6 IPCC WG III report on the mitigation of climate change. Mohamad holds a B.S. and M.S. from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Expertise

• Climate change research
• Climate impacts and adaptation
• Climate mitigation
• Integrated assessment modeling
• Energy-water-land nexus

Yang is a postdoctoral researcher at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Yang has a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and…

Yang is a postdoctoral researcher at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Yang has a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Management from the University of California, Santa Barbara, two M.S. degrees – first in Applied Statistics from the Syracuse University, second in Environment Science from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry – and a B.S. in Forestry from the Beijing Forestry University.

Page Kyle is an Earth Scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute, where he has been a developer for…

Page Kyle is an Earth Scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute, where he has been a developer for the Global Change Analysis Model since 2006. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles on a variety of topics including energy supply and demand, agriculture, land use, water, the atmosphere, climate change, and the interactions therein. He received a B.A. from Dartmouth College, and a M.S. from Utah State University.

Gokul Iyer is an Earth scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI), a partnership between Pacific Northwest National…

Gokul Iyer is an Earth scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI), a partnership between Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the University of Maryland. Iyer is a team leader for the Human-Earth Systems Science: Analysis team within JGCRI. Iyer has over a decade of experience in integrated modeling of energy, economy, climate, water, agriculture, and land systems at global to national to subnational scales. Iyer has a vast publishing record of over 70 peer-reviewed publications with more than a dozen in top journals, such as Science and the Nature family of journals. Iyer was also a contributing author to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Iyer has a Ph.D. in Environmental Policy from the University of Maryland, a Master’s degree in Energy Systems Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology- Bombay, and a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology – Nagpur.