Antxon Olabe

Environmental economist and essay writer. In July 2018, he joined the Office of the Minister for the Ecological Transition as an adviser on climate change and energy transition. Since September 2017 he has formed part of the Advisory Board for the Ecological Transition of the Economy, promoted by the PSOE and chaired by the current minister, Teresa Ribera, with an extensive team of independent professionals and experts. As a member of the aforementioned advisory board’s energy and climate group, he co-authored as the first signatory the document «Bases para una Estrategia de Transición Energética. Hacia una Economía Descarbonizada 2030-2050,» a roadmap to the systemic, accelerated, and profound decarbonisation of the Spanish economy. In March 2018, he appeared as an expert before the Spanish Parliament’s Climate Change Commission. His professional career has centred on critical reflection and strategic planning in the fields of climate change, energy transition, and sustainable development, as well as on his work writing editorials in the El País newspaper and as an essay writer. In February 2016, he published Crisis climática-ambiental. La hora de la responsabilidad responsabilidad, and, in 2022 Necesidad de una política de la Tierra (both published by Galaxia Gutenberg). He has also published twenty-five essays on climate change in leading publications such as the Real Instituto Elcano, Política Exterior, Claves de razón práctica, La Maleta de Portbou, Grand Place, among others. He has advised four of the Basque Country Government’s five Environment departments from 2002 to 2018. In the field of teaching, he has collaborated in the master’s degree in Environmental Law imparted by Universidad del País Vasco, UPV/EHU. He was a visiting professor in the universities of Green Bay and St. Norbert College in Wisconsin, U.S.A. in 2015.