PAUL BEHRENS

Professor Paul Behrens

Paul Behrens is British Academy Global Professor at the University of Oxford. A physicist by training, he researchers food systems, dietary transition, and food resilience: how changes in diets and farming affect emissions, land, farm incomes and assets, and how exposed food supply is to climate and trade shocks. His research and writing have appeared in journals such as Nature Food, PNAS, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, Nature Climate Change, and The BMJ, and in outlets including the BBC, The Guardian, the Financial Times, and New Scientist. He is active in public communication and broadcasting, including on BBC One's Sunday Morning Live. In 2025 he gave the food briefing at the UK's National Emergency Briefing on climate and nature.

He is an editor and author of the interdisciplinary textbook Food and Sustainability (Oxford University Press, 2020). His popular science book, The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science (Indigo Press, 2021) describes humanity's current trajectory and possible futures in paired chapters of pessimism and hope. Paul won International Champion in the Frontiers Planet Prize in 2023.