Steve Davis (scientist)

Steven J. Davis is an earth system scientist in the Department of Earth System Science of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford University. He is a highly cited researcher ^[1] and leads the Stanford Sustainable Solutions Lab.^[2]

Davis received his undergraduate education at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, his Juris Doctor at the University of Virginia School of Law, and his doctorate from Stanford University.^[3] From 2001-2004, Davis worked as a corporate lawyer at Gray, Cary, Ware & Freidenrich, LLC in Palo Alto, California advising venture-backed start-ups in Silicon Valley (now part of DLA Piper). He received his PhD in Geological and Environmental Sciences in 2008 from Stanford University.^[4] He then worked as a post-doctoral researcher with Ken Caldeira at the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology from 2008 to 2012.^[5]

Davis researches embedded emissions of carbon dioxide and air pollution in international trade,^[6][7][8] energy systems,^[9] carbon lock-in,^[10][11] the quantities and causes of greenhouse gas emissions,^[12][13] and the interactions of agriculture and the global carbon cycle.^[14][15]

In 2015, Davis and his co-authors were awarded the Cozzarelli Prize by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for a paper they published on the role of China's international trade and air pollution in the United States.^[16] In 2018, Davis received the James B. Macelwane Medal of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) for his contributions in developing a science that links global climate change and society, and was simultaneously elected AGU Fellow.

• Hong, Chaopeng et al (2022). "Land-use emissions embodied in international trade", Science, 376. 597-603.
• Hong, Chaopeng et al (2021). "Global and regional drivers of land-use emissions in 1961–2017", Nature, 589. 554-561.
• Davis, Steven J. et al (2018). "Net-zero emissions energy systems", Science, 360. 1419.
• Feng, Kuishuang, Davis, Steven J., Sun, Laixiang and Hubacek, Klaus. (2015). "Drivers of the U.S. CO2 emissions 1997-2013", Nature Communications, 6. 7714.
• Shearer, Christine, Bistline, John, Inman, Mason, and Davis, Steven J. (2014). "The effect of natural gas supply on U.S. renewable energy and CO2 emissions", Environmental Research Letters, 9. 094008.
• Lin, Jintai, Pan, Da, Davis, Steven J. et al.. (2014). "China's international trade and air pollution in the United States", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111 (5). 1736-1741.
• Davis, Steven J. and Socolow, Robert. (2014). "Commitment accounting of CO2 emissions", Environmental Research Letters, 9. 084018.
• Davis, Steven J., Peters, Glen P. and Caldeira, Ken. (2011). "The supply chain of CO2 emissions", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108 (45). 18554-18559.
• Davis, Steven J., Matthews, D. and Caldeira, Ken. (2010). "Future CO2 emissions and climate change from existing energy infrastructure", Science, 329. 1330-1335.
• Burney, Jennifer, Davis, Steven J. and Lobell, David. (2010). "Greenhouse gas mitigation by agricultural intensification", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107 (26). 12052-12057.
• Davis, Steven J. and Caldeira, Ken. (2010). "Consumption-based accounting of CO2 emissions", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107 (12). 5687-5693.

Davis co-founded two non-profit organizations related to climate change, the Climate Conservancy, a group that pioneered product-level carbon accounting,^[17] and Near Zero, an organization that "...provides credible, impartial, and actionable assessment with the goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to near zero".^[18]

Davis was a Contributing Author to Working Group III (Mitigation) of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, and the Mitigation Chapter Lead of the 5th National Climate Assessment published in 2023. He also works with the Carbon accounting startup Watershed^[19] and currently serves on the Technical Council of the Science Based Targets initiative.^[20]