• CERAWEEK 2025 | March 10-14, 2025
  • CERAWEEK
  • March 10 - 14, 2025

David G. Victor

University of California, San Diego (UCSD)

Professor of Innovation and Public Policy, School of Global Policy and Strategy

David Victor is a professor of innovation and public policy at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego. He co-directs the campus-wide Deep Decarbonization Initiative, an effort to understand how quickly the world can eliminate emissions of warming gases. He is adjunct professor in Climate, Atmospheric Science & Physical Oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a professor (by courtesy) in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.   Prior to joining the faculty at UC San Diego, Victor was a professor at Stanford Law School where he taught energy and environmental law.  He has been heavily involved in many different climate- and energy-policy initiatives, including as convening lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations-sanctioned international body with 195 country members that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. His Ph.D. is from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and A.B. from Harvard University.

Sessions With David G. Victor

Monday, 9 March

  • 07:30pm - 09:00pm (CST) / -

    Scope 3 Emissions and Getting to Net-Zero
    Clean Tech

    Thousands of companies, universities, and cities have announced “Paris-compliant” emissions targets. Oil and gas companies used to concentrate on operational emissions (Scope 1) and resist setting goals for emissions relating to the use of their products (Scope 3). But this is changing. How do you define net-zero? Can Scope 3 emissions be meaningfully measured and managed? Whose responsibility are these emissions anyway?

Tuesday, 10 March

  • 07:30am - 08:40am (CST) / -

    Decarbonizing Transportation: What's doable?
    Mobility/Transportation Climate & Sustainability
    As populations and economies grow, the need to move people and goods will drive a significant increase in the demand for transportation. At the same time, regulatory and consumer pressure is forcing the passenger car, trucking, shipping, and aviation sectors to seriously consider how to decarbonize. How can these industries meet this sustainable growth challenge? Are there viable pathways to in-sector decarbonization? Will transportation sectors compete against each other for low carbon fuels, clean technologies, and capital?
  • 11:30am - 12:20pm (CST) / -

    Consumer Behavior & EVs
    Mobility/Transportation

    As consumer attitudes shift toward more electrified transportation, there are still some challenges facing adoption—perception, infrastructure, range degradation, and total cost of ownership. What are recent consumer insights regarding EVs? When will the winds of change blow the hardest? What is the rationale for and against buying/leasing EVs? What are some regional variations for these trends and why? How will consumer inputs change over the short and long term?

  • 03:30pm - 04:20pm (CST) / -

    Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies
    Climate & Sustainability Clean Tech

    There is growing consensus that renewables alone cannot address every emissions challenge. Technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere could potentially reverse the trend of growing GHG concentrations. What are these technologies? How scalable are they? How close are they to commercial deployment? What is the cost and energy balance?