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Unprecedented heat waves are becoming the new normal, and researchers can now trace much of this change back to the world’s biggest fossil fuel and cement producers. IIASA researchers contributed to a new study showing that emissions from just 180 companies are responsible for about half of today’s warming. These findings have significant implications for questions of climate policy and corporate accountability.

For studying optimal policies and interventions to inform regional decision makers facing technological, economic and social transitions, we have developed the Dynamic Framework for Regional Socio-Economic Transitions (D-RESET).

Convened by the African Union and the Ethiopian Government, the Second Africa Climate Summit will provide a platform for policymakers, practitioners, businesses and civil society to advance Africa’s climate agenda and sustainable development priorities. IIASA Strategic Initiatives Program Director Steffen Fritz, will contribute his expertise to discussions at the event as part of a session titled, Leveraging AI to Build Climate Resilience and Adaptive Capacity.

IIASA will host a class from the International Business College Hetzendorf next week. Around 25 students from the bilingual school will attend a half-day workshop to explore systems thinking through the life cycle analysis of a chocolate bar.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) methods are becoming increasingly important in both science and society. In climate science - where complex biophysical and societal processes interact across diverse temporal and spatial scales, and datasets are often large, heterogenous and incomplete - AI and ML methods offer new powerful solutions.

IIASA Director General Hans Joachim (John) Schellnhuber will take part in the next Ö1 Publikumsgespräch in Vienna. On Thursday, 18 September 2025, he will join architect Markus Zilker for a public conversation on the theme, Sustainable building: using wood as a building material, moderated by Ö1 science editor Juliane Nagiller.

This session of the popular Tipping points webinar series will explore dampening effects on positive social tipping points and strategies to reduce them as part of a series that aims to advance the knowledge about tipping points, irreversibility, and abrupt changes in the Earth system. 

A new IIASA-led study for the first time maps safe areas that can practically be used for underground carbon storage, and estimates that using them all would only cut warming by 0.7°C. The result is almost ten times lower than previous estimates of around 6°C, which considered the total global potential for geological storage, including in risky zones, where storing carbon could trigger earthquakes and contaminate drinking water supplies. The study shows geological storage is a scarce, finite resource and warn countries must use it in a highly targeted way.

A new cohort of students successfully completed IIASA’s second Summer School for Systems Modeling. Held on 7-18 July 2025, the program brought together 28 participants from 15 countries. The two-week course convened bachelor, master’s, and PhD students, as well as post-doctoral researchers and experienced systems scientists, all seeking to deepen their understanding of IIASA models – their application, development, and optimization.

As global temperatures approach the 1.5°C threshold, understanding the risks of climate overshoot has become an urgent scientific and policy challenge. From 30 September to 2 October 2025, IIASA will host the first-ever Overshoot Conference at the conference center in Laxenburg, Austria, offering a space for interdisciplinary dialogue among researchers, communicators, and policymakers.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) methods are becoming increasingly important in both science and society. In climate science - where complex biophysical and societal processes interact across diverse temporal and spatial scales, and datasets are often large, heterogenous and incomplete - AI and ML methods offer new powerful solutions.