About

Steven J. Davis is a Professor of Earth System Science in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and a Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy. He is a highly-cited researcher and expert in earth system science, emissions and energy scenarios, climate impacts and solutions, and corporate climate strategy. He leads the Sustainable Solutions Lab, a research group dedicated to quantifying how different human activities affect climate and air quality, and how these environmental changes impact human wellbeing and the prioritization of solutions. Davis has contributed to major international and national climate assessments, serving as a Contributing Author for two Working Group III chapters in the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and as the Lead Author of the Mitigation chapter in the U.S. Fifth National Climate Assessment. He also serves on the Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Carbon Project and is a member of the Technical Council of the Science Based Targets Initiative. Prior to his career in science, he worked as a lawyer for venture-backed companies in Silicon Valley. He holds degrees from Stanford University, the University of Virginia School of Law, and the University of Florida, where he double-majored in Political Science and Philosophy.

Research topics

• Geography
• Environmental science
• Ecology
• Economics
• Natural resource economics
• Biology
• Meteorology
• Environmental protection
• Business
• Economic growth
• Agroforestry
• Agronomy
• Demography
• Medicine
• Engineering
• Sociology
• Agricultural economics
• Development economics
• Socioeconomics
• Geology
• Environmental planning
• Environmental health
• Cartography
• Environmental resource management

Selected publications

• CORRIGENDUM: Scaling traffic variables from sensors sample to the entire city at high spatiotemporal resolution with machine learning: applications to the Paris megacity (2024 <i>Environ. Res.: Infrastruct. Sustain.</i>  4 035010)

  Environmental Research Infrastructure and Sustainability · 2026-01-14

  articleOpen access

  CORRIGENDUM: Scaling traffic variables from sensors sample to the entire city at high spatiotemporal resolution with machine learning: applications to the Paris megacity (2024 Environ. Res.: Infrastruct. Sustain. 4 035010), Bonnemaizon, Xavier, Ciais, Philippe, Zhou, Chuanlong, Arous, Simon Ben, Davis, Steven J, Megel, Nicolas

  PublisherDOI

• The effect of land costs on the economic and sustainability performance of solar photovoltaics in China

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2026-02-19

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Scaling up solar photovoltaics (PV) is essential for global decarbonization, particularly in China—the world’s largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter. Despite leading in PV installations, China has yet to widely adopt the more efficient tracking technologies for capturing solar radiation (12% adoption rate), in stark contrast to the United States (90%). To examine the rationale behind this divergence and its consequences, we develop a spatially explicit, integrated model to evaluate and compare tracking and fixed-tilt systems in China—comparing power generation, land use, cost, sustainability, and policy resilience. We find that although single-axis tracking provides electricity gains and appears technically more cost-effective, rising land prices in China could offset its benefits. Land costs increase the levelized cost of electricity by 20% for tracking systems, compared to 8% for fixed-tilt, making the latter cheaper in real-world conditions. Consequently, land-efficient fixed-tilt systems are favored, despite requiring 18 to 26% more panels for the same output—intensifying material demands. Under a 6 PWh target in 2060, current land policies would drive 59% of electricity toward fixed-tilt. Reducing soft land costs could increase the adoption of tracking systems to 63% and reduce installed capacity by up to 8% (219 GW) under the same electricity output, compared with an increasing costs scenario, but would expand land use by 35% or 12.9 thousand km 2 . Our findings underscore how land economics and policy shape renewable technology deployment. They highlight critical trade-offs between energy yield, land use, and material demand, offering insights for designing more balanced and resilient decarbonization strategies.

  PublisherDOI

• Supplying process heat using concentrated solar thermal energy with molten salt storage

  Environmental Research Energy · 2026-04-10

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Industrial process heat accounts for about a quarter of global energy use and one-fifth of carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon-free sources of heat are limited, particularly at medium-to-high temperatures (between about 200 °C and 550 °C). Concentrated solar thermal (CST) technologies offer a promising solution for heat demands at temperatures under about 500 °C in regions with strong solar resources. This study evaluates the potential of CST, combined with molten salt thermal storage, to supply industrial heat demand in that temperature range in competition with natural gas. Using a stylized model, we quantify the CST share in least-cost systems globally, providing steady, reliable heat under varying gas fuel costs. At a gas fuel cost of $50/MWh (for example, about $48/MWh has been observed during a seasonal peak of the industrial gas prices in California during February 2025), in most regions below 45° latitude with appropriate land availability, results show that there can be cost savings by using CST to supply more than 50% of industrial heat demand. If gas fuel costs were $50/MWh in solar-rich countries, such as Saudi Arabia, CST could supply up to 90% of this heat demand. Higher gas prices further increase CST deployment, associated system cost savings, and emission reductions. If sufficient land is available, our findings suggest that CST has the potential to provide opportunities to simultaneously reduce costs and greenhouse gas emissions, especially in locations with abundant solar resources.

  PublisherDOI

• Residual emissions may perpetuate community-scale inequalities of U.S. air pollution in net-zero scenarios

  Research Square · 2025-08-20

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Global hydroclimatic risks and strategic decommissioning pathways for thermal power units

  Nature Sustainability · 2025-12-09 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Tapping Business and Household Surveys to Sharpen Our View of Work from Home

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-06-01 · 1 citations

  reportOpen access

  Timely business-level measures of work from home (WFH) are scarce for the U.S. economy.We review prior survey-based efforts to quantify the incidence and character of WFH and describe new questions that we developed and fielded for the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS).Drawing on more than 150,000 firm-level responses to the BTOS, we obtain four main findings.First, nearly a third of businesses have employees who work from home, with tremendous variation across sectors.The share of businesses with WFH employees is nearly ten times larger in the Information sector than in Accommodation and Food Services.Second, employees work from home about 1 day per week, on average, and businesses expect similar WFH levels in five years.Third, feasibility aside, businesses' largest concern with WFH relates to productivity.Seven percent of businesses find that onsite work is more productive, while two percent find that WFH is more productive.Fourth, there is a low level of tracking and monitoring of WFH activities, with 70% of firms reporting they do not track employee days in the office and 75% reporting they do not monitor employees when they work from home.These lessons serve as a starting point for enhancing WFH-related content in the American Community Survey and other household surveys.

  PublisherDOI

• Increasing risk of heat stress at the Summer Olympics

  Research Square · 2025-08-18

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Harmonized Annual Averaged Traffic Data at Street Segment Level for European Cities

  Scientific Data · 2025-08-05 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Traffic flow data in Europe are collected locally by city authorities using different systems and standards, making it difficult to compare cities or evaluate large-scale maps, such as those used for emission inventories. To address this gap, we compiled and harmonized publicly available traffic data for 36 European cities, linking geolocalized information to road segments, spanning years from 2015 to 2024 depending on data availability. Annual Average Daily (or Weekday) Traffic is provided, and supplementary variables (e.g., truck flow percentages and speed metrics) are included where available. The data are georeferenced, with geometries corresponding to each measurement location. The dataset was enriched with additional attributes through map matching of traffic measurement locations to OpenStreetMap. Code and methodology for transforming raw data into a uniform structure are documented in Python Jupyter Notebooks, ensuring transparency and reproducibility. This dataset in a unified format facilitates cross-city comparisons and supports applications in environmental science, including the estimation of greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions, as well as urban planning and road transport management.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The climate implications of failing to manage carbon

  Research Square · 2025-09-08

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Global carbon emissions and decarbonization in 2024

  Nature Reviews Earth & Environment · 2025-04-11 · 177 citations

  review
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• INFEWS/T1: Monitoring and managing food, energy, and water systems under stress: California

  NSF · $1.9M · 2016–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Philippe Ciais

  Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement

  248 shared

• Zhu Liu

  126 shared

• Bo Zheng

  Tsinghua University

  119 shared

• Yilong Wang

  Chinese Academy of Sciences

  81 shared

• Frédéric Chevallier

  CEA Paris-Saclay

  72 shared

• Kebin He

  Tsinghua University

  71 shared

• Chaopeng Hong

  Tsinghua–Berkeley Shenzhen Institute

  70 shared

• Dabo Guan

  Tsinghua University

  70 shared

Labs

• Sustainable Solutions LabPI

  Current researchers, postdocs, and students — and the alumni now leading their own labs and groups.

Education

• PhD, Geological and Environmental Science

  Stanford University

  2008

• JD, School of Law

  University of Virginia

  2001

Awards & honors

• Contributing Author of two Working Group III chapters in the…
• Serves on the Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Ca…
• Lead Author of the Mitigation chapter in the U.S. Fifth Nati…
• Member of the Technical Council of the Science Based Targets…