Thomas Wilbanks
Thomas Wilbanks is a corporate research fellow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and associate director for research of the Community and Regional Resilience Institute (CARRI). He conducts research on sustainable development, energy and environmental technology and policy, responses to global climate change, and the role of geographical scale in all of these regards.
Wilbanks participated in the first U.S. National Assessment of Possible Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II Third Assessment Report, and the United Nations Environment Programme’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. He was the chair of the National Research Council’s (NRC) Committee on Human Dimensions of Global Climate Change and was appointed to the committee leading the National Academy of Science/NRC historic two-year study of “America’s Climate Choices." He served as chair of the panel on adapting to impacts of climate change for that report.
Wilbanks was coordinating lead author of a chapter of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment report, was active in producing four of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program’s Synthesis and Assessment Products, and lead author of the U.S. Global Change Research Program report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States.
Wilbanks is the lead author for a current IPCC special report, Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, and has been selected as a coordinating lead author for Climate-Resilient Pathways: Adaptation, Mitigation, and Sustainable Development, of the IPCC Working Group II’s Fifth Assessment Report.
