Xuemei Bai

Xuemei Bai (白雪梅) is a Distinguished Professor of Urban Environment and Human Ecology at the Australian National University. She was the winner of the 2018 Volvo Environmental Prize, and is the winner of the KIEL Global Economy Prize 2021. She is an elected fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and an ARC Laureate Fellow (2023-). Bai is a commissioner of the Earth Commission, leading a group on methods of cross-scale translation from planetary limits to local actors. She has been named as one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People in Climate Change Policy in 2019 and 2021.

Education and career Bai was born and raised in China. She resided in Japan for many years, and is now a citizen in Australia. She earned her bachelor's degree from Peking University (1988), her master's in engineering from The University of Tokyo (1990), and her Ph.D. from The University of Tokyo (1993).

From 1993 until 1998, Bai was a researcher at the Japanese Center for International Studies in Ecology, and then she worked at the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Japan until 2006. From 2001 until 2003, she was a visiting professor at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

In 2006, she joined CSIRO in Australia, and in 2011 she became a distinguished professor in the Fenner School of Environment and Society at Australian National University. and sustainability experiments in Asia. She has also examined the linkages between urbanization and economic growth, human well-being, and the environment. More recently, she has characterized China's urbanization plan, and defined future research plans for sustainable cities.

Selected publications As of 2024, Bai has over 35,900 citations to her work at Google Scholar and an h-index of 64.

Bai, X. (2024). Build networked resilience across cities. Science, 383(6687), eado5304. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ado5304 Bai, X. (2024). Post-2030 global goals need explicit targets for cities and businesses. Science, 385(6714), eadq4993. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adq4993 Bai, X., Hasan, S., Andersen, L. S., Bjørn, A., Kilkiş, Ş., Ospina, D., Liu, J., Cornell, S. E., Sabag Muñoz, O., De Bremond, A., Crona, B., DeClerck, F., Gupta, J., Hoff, H., Nakicenovic, N., Obura, D., Whiteman, G., Broadgate, W., Lade, S. J., Rocha, J., Rockström, J., Stewart-Koster, B., Van Vuuren, D., & Zimm, C. (2024). Translating Earth system boundaries for cities and businesses. Nature Sustainability, 7(2), 108–119. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01255-w Gupta, J., Bai, X., Liverman, D. M., Rockström, J., Qin, D., Stewart-Koster, B., Rocha, J. C., Jacobson, L., Abrams, J. F., Andersen, L. S., Armstrong McKay, D. I., Bala, G., Bunn, S. E., Ciobanu, D., DeClerck, F., Ebi, K. L., Gifford, L., Gordon, C., Hasan, S., Kanie, N., Lenton, T. M., Loriani, S., Mohamed, A., Nakicenovic, N., Obura, D., Ospina, D., Prodani, K., Rammelt, C., Sakschewski, B., Scholtens, J., Tharammal, T., Van Vuuren, D., Verburg, P. H., Winkelmann, R., Zimm, C., Bennett, E., Bjørn, A., Bringezu, S., Broadgate, W. J., Bulkeley, H., Crona, B., Green, P. A., Hoff, H., Huang, L., Hurlbert, M., Inoue, C. Y. A., Kılkış, Ş., Lade, S. J., Liu, J., Nadeem, I., Ndehedehe, C., Okereke, C., Otto, I. M., Pedde, S., Pereira, L., Schulte-Uebbing, L., Tàbara, J. D., De Vries, W., Whiteman, G., Xiao, C., Xu, X., Zafra-Calvo, N., Zhang, X., Fezzigna, P., & Gentile, G. (2024). A just world on a safe planet: A Lancet Planetary Health–Earth Commission report on Earth-system boundaries, translations, and transformations. The Lancet Planetary Health, 8(10), e813–e873. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(24)00042-1 Bai, X. (2023). Make the upcoming IPCC Cities Special Report count. Science, 382(6670), eadl1522. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adl1522 Stewart-Koster, B., Bunn, S. E., Green, P., Ndehedehe, C., Andersen, L. S., Armstrong McKay, D. I., Bai, X., DeClerck, F., Ebi, K. L., Gordon, C., Gupta, J., Hasan, S., Jacobson, L., Lade, S. J., Liverman, D., Loriani, S., Mohamed, A., Nakicenovic, N., Obura, D., Qin, D., Rammelt, C., Rocha, J. C., Rockström, J., Verburg, P. H., & Zimm, C. (2023). Living within the safe and just Earth system boundaries for blue water. Nature Sustainability, 7(1), 53–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01247-w Rockström, J., Gupta, J., Qin, D., Lade, S. J., Abrams, J. F., Andersen, L. S., Armstrong McKay, D. I., Bai, X., Bala, G., Bunn, S. E., Ciobanu, D., DeClerck, F., Ebi, K., Gifford, L., Gordon, C., Hasan, S., Kanie, N., Lenton, T. M., Loriani, S., Liverman, D. M., Mohamed, A., Nakicenovic, N., Obura, D., Ospina, D., Prodani, K., Rammelt, C., Sakschewski, B., Scholtens, J., Stewart-Koster, B., Tharammal, T., Van Vuuren, D., Verburg, P. H., Winkelmann, R., Zimm, C., Bennett, E. M., Bringezu, S., Broadgate, W., Green, P. A., Huang, L., Jacobson, L., Ndehedehe, C., Pedde, S., Rocha, J., Scheffer, M., Schulte-Uebbing, L., De Vries, W., Xiao, C., Xu, C., Xu, X., Zafra-Calvo, N., & Zhang, X. (2023). Safe and just Earth system boundaries. Nature, 619(7968), 102–111. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06083-8

Awards and honors Bai was elected a fellow of Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2017. She was the 2018 Laureate of the Volvo Environment Prize, and was named one of the World's 100 Most Influential People in Climate Change Policy by Apolitical in 2019. In 2021, Bai received the Global Economy Prize from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.