According to The New York Times 2022 article, I'm 1 of 9 climate scientists (and there are 100s more out there) who are not "faceless, aloof, terrible communicators and absent from social media": https://www.nytimes.com/explain/2022/04/22/climate/climate-change-causes-effects#climate-scientists-social-media
Talks
Presentation - German Emissions Trading Working Group (AGE/UAG) session on "Defining 'abated' fossil fuel and industrial process emissions" - stakeholder dialogue initiative of the German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy (September, 2025)
Keynote - Workshop – “Machine learning in climate change mitigation scenarios: From model development to ensemble analysis”, Politecnico di Milano: https://www.meta.polimi.it/workshop-machine-learning-in-climate-change-mitigation-scenarios-from-model-development-to-ensemble-analysis/ (March, 2025)
Panellist on "The role of artificial intelligence tools in climate change scientific assessments", USGCRP Advisory Committee’s Fall 2024 meeting, focused on the topic Use of AI in the development of USGCRP scientific assessments. https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/43281_09-2024_usgcrp-advisory-committee-meeting-fall-2024 (September, 2024)
Keynote "Artificial Intelligence in the IPCC Process", with David Huard - Ouranos. Information Retrieval for Climate Impact - 2024 Workshop for the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Information Retrieva (SIGIR) - Information Retrieval for Climate Impact (MANILA24): https://sigir-2024.github.io/attend_workshops.html#MANILA24 (July, 2024)
Keynote "From assessment to action: How the IPCC shapes our understanding of climate change.", Numbers and Stories 2: Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change Research, Politecnico di Milano: https://www.eventi.polimi.it/events/numbers-and-stories-2-ethical-dimensions-of-climate-change-research/ (May, 2024)
Keynote: "The role of artificial intelligence tools in climate change scientific assessments", EUMETNET's workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Products and Services, at KNMI, The Netherlands. https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/4f849888-e7d4-4767-ac3a-852747c66feb@f470f80b-2772-4c15-86d6-5cefa42cf38c (June, 2024)
"Insights into Climate Mitigation Scenarios: their dynamics, “ecosystem”, and use-case in IPCC assessments", CDP internal Seminar, June 2023.
"IPCC Scenario Database and Scenario Explorer Webinars" hosted by Ministry for the Environment, New Zealand. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QQEiZ2Zvus&ab_channel=MinistryfortheEnvironment
"IPCC Scenario Database and Scenario Explorer Webinars" hosted by Melbourne Climate Futures, Melbourne University. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXPbDx0CNF8&ab_channel=TheUniversityofMelbourne
“Regional trends in historical emissions 1850-2019” presented at the Structured Expert Dialogue (SED) of the Second Periodic Review (PR2) during the 56th session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), in Bonn, Germany (Bonn Climate Change Conference, June 2022). https://unfccc.int/event/third-meeting-of-the-structured-expert-dialogue-of-the-second-periodic-review-0
“SLCFs in the IPCC WGIII AR6: Input to the TFI 3rd Expert meeting” (April, 2022), presented at the Third IPCC Expert Meeting on Short-lived Climate Forcers Report
“Climate Finance” during Towards the era of F.I.N; Finance, Industry, Nature conference, organised by Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), Seoul (Oct, 2021)
"Enabling Climate Finance: Insights from the IPCC's Special Report on 1.5°C Global Warming”, delivered during The Future of Finance conference, organised by Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) and Ewha Womans University in Seoul (Sept, 2020)
TEDx Durbarmarg, Nepal, part of TED Countdown initiative (Oct, 2020), IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC. https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/40517
Involvement in legal cases
Selected to join the IPCC team, which met Members of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to provide scientific insights in preparation for the case on ‘obligations of States in respect of climate change’, following the United Nations General Assembly resolution 77/276. https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/187/187-20241126-pre-01-00-en.pdf
Panel discussions
Panellist: "CCUS Myth-Busting Live", COP30, UK Pavilion, Blue Zone (November, 2025) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjaW3ObV8Ng
Panellist: Workshop on "Designing Next-Generation Science-Policy Interfaces: Models, challenges, and opportunities", convened by the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research (UNU-CPR) in collaboration with the British Academy. New York, NY (October, 2025): https://unu.edu/cpr/news/designing-next-generation-science-policy-interfaces
Panellist: side-event and panel discussion on "EU’s path to net zero", COP28, Dubai, Greek Pavilion. https://app.mailerlite.com/k7b4d0p7s7
Moderator of: side-event and panel discussion on “Making sense of the IPCC Mitigation Scenario” IPCC Pavilion, and panel discussion on “Future Climate Scenario” Korean Pavilion, COP27, Egypt. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I8_o8H4vHQ&ab_channel=IntergovernmentalPanelonClimateChange%28IPCC%29), and (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q6AyEnhPEg&ab_channel=IntergovernmentalPanelonClimateChange%28IPCC%29)
Navigating Energy Transitions: Mapping the road to 1.5°C (Oct, 2022), organised by IISD: https://www.iisd.org/events/navigating-energy-pathways-for-climate-ambition
The Scenarios Forum (June, 2022). Closing plenary. “An overview of the IPCC’s Scenarios Workshop in 2023” organised by IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria
Global Youth Engineering Climate conference (September, 2021), organised by the National Grid: https://www.nationalgrid.com/cop26/global-youth-engineering-climate-conference
The G3 Energy Summit (March, 2021). Session on: “Decoupling Energy Demand from Emissions: Is Net-Zero Possible?” organised by LSE, UCL and Imperial College London
Roundtable discussions
Expert Workshop: SBTi workshop on the role of CDR in 1.5°C-aligned corporate net-zero transitions. London (October, 2024), https://sciencebasedtargets.org/events/workshop-on-the-role-of-carbon-dioxide-removal-in-corporate-net-zero-transitions-london
Resource Expert: to the Global Stock Take Co-facilitators, Technical Dialogue, Roundtable on mitigation, including response measures during the 58th session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), in Bonn, Germany (Bonn Climate Change Conference, June 2023), https://unfccc.int/event/gst-technical-dialogue-roundtable-on-mitigation-including-response-measures
Participant at the “Climate Science and litigation roundtable discussion” (Sept, 2022), Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London
Participant at the “AGAD modelling and scenario subgroup roundtable” (Sept, 2022), UNEP Ad hoc Global Assessment Dialogue.
Participant at the “GFANZ-Pathway Developer Roundtable” (July, 2022), an initiative by COP26 Private Finance Hub (PFH) and Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ)
Participant at the “Technical Session on climate scenarios and pathways” during ‘Climate Scenarios Roundtable with Mark Carney’ event (October, 2021), organised by COP26 Private Finance Hub (PFH) and Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ)
Media - contributions
News.AZ International, Azerbaijan (June, 2024), "INTERVIEW. What to expect from COP29 in Azerbaijan?" https://news.az/news/--interview.--what-to-expect-from-cop29-in-azerbaijan-
Report News Agency, Azerbaijan (March, 2024), "'Mission 1.5°C’ to reduce global GDP growth, but provide significant economic benefits COP29" https://report.az/en/cop29/alaa-al-khourdajie-mission-1-5-c-to-reduce-global-gdp-growth-by-about-tenth-of-percent/
Report News Agency, Azerbaijan (Feb, 2024), "COP29 to focus on climate finance" https://report.az/en/cop29/alaa-al-khourdajie-cop29-to-focus-on-climate-finance/
The National News (Dec, 2023), "'Unabated' explained: Why one word in the Cop28 text is so important" https://www.thenationalnews.com/weekend/2023/12/15/unabated-explained-why-one-word-in-the-cop28-text-is-so-important/
The Hindu (Dec, 2023), "The limitations of CCS and CDR and their grip on our future climate" https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/carbon-capture-sequestration-science-limitations-ipcc-explained/article67627040.ece
The Conversation (Dec, 2023), "The COP28 climate agreement is a step backwards on fossil fuels" https://theconversation.com/the-cop28-climate-agreement-is-a-step-backwards-on-fossil-fuels-219753
Carbon Brief (Dec, 2023), "Q&A: Why defining the ‘phaseout’ of ‘unabated’ fossil fuels is so important at COP28". https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-why-defining-the-phaseout-of-unabated-fossil-fuels-is-so-important-at-cop28/
Imperial College London, Grantham Institute (November, 2023), "Phasing out 'unbated fossil fuels': the importance of defining 'abatement'" https://www.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/publications/background-briefings/phasing-out-unbated-fossil-fuels-the-importance-of-defining-abatement-/
Podcast, Greensider (Oct, 2023): https://greensider.org/stories/alaa-on-working-with-the-ipcc-and-life-as-a-researcher-on-climate-change-topics
Imperial College London, Grantham Institute (March, 2023), "A deep dive into the latest IPCC report with Imperial climate scientists." https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/243878/deep-dive-into-latest-ipcc-report/
NPR Morning Edition (August, 2020), “Everyone Loves The Chat Box: How Climate Science Moved Online”. https://www.npr.org/2020/08/03/893039258/everyone-loves-the-chat-box-how-climate-science-moved-online
World Economic Forum - Agenda Blog (August, 2020), “Hybrid physical and virtual meetings are the future for the IPCC.” https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/08/hybrid-physical-and-virtual-meetings-way-forward-ipcc/
Media - quotes
Drilled (August, 2025) "Landmark Ruling Gives Paris Climate Agreement Teeth": https://drilled.media/news/ijc-1
Science Media Centre (August, 2024) "expert reaction to study on storing CO2 underground": https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-study-on-storing-co2-underground/
New Scientist (April, 2024) "Our plans to tackle climate change with carbon and storage don't add up": https://www.newscientist.com/article/2427088-our-plans-to-tackle-climate-change-with-carbon-storage-dont-add-up/
Carbon Brief (April, 2022), "Scientists react: What are the key new insights from the IPCC’s WG3 report?". https://www.carbonbrief.org/scientists-react-what-are-the-key-new-insights-from-the-ipccs-wg3-report
DW - Deutsche Welle (Feb, 2022), “How to find hope in the face of the climate crisis”. https://www.dw.com/en/how-to-find-hope-in-the-face-of-the-climate-crisis/a-60716665
DW - Deutsche Welle (December, 2020), “UN report: 'Woefully inadequate' climate pledges spell 3.2°C temperature rise”. https://www.dw.com/en/un-report-woefully-inadequate-climate-pledges-spell-32c-temperature-rise/a-55878680
Membership
AGAD (UNEP Ad hoc Global Assessment Dialogue), modelling and scenario subgroup.