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Policy Brief #40, October 2023. Quantifying the cost of inaction can help promote action on air pollution in the ASEAN region with benefits for health, climate change, and sustainable development.

IIASA recently welcomed Ron Milo, an Associate Professor from the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, to discuss ongoing research projects and explore future collaborations between the two institutes.

Managing land for agriculture has shaped civilization, but it has also led to biodiversity decline and other problems that today threaten the future of humanity. The EU Horizon 2020 FRAMEwork project is supporting a transition to biodiversity sensitive farming by uniting farmer clusters and citizen observatories to protect sensitive ecosystems while ensuring food security.

Introducing a Game-Changing Social Media Intelligence Mining Tool! The ASA/CAT Groups proudly unveil a groundbreaking tool that promises to redefine our understanding of public sentiment and discourse across digital landscapes. With support from contributors Hossein Hassani, Nadya Komendantova, Elena Rovenskaya, and Mohammad Reza Yeganegi, this cutting-edge innovation is set to transform the way we harness insights from platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Google, and news outlets.

Africa UniNet visited IIASA on 15 September 2023 to learn more about the institute and systems analysis as part of its Third General Assembly.

IIASA scientists contributed to a new UN report focusing on the importance and potential benefit from synergistic action with regard to climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report highlights potential knowledge barriers and major political and economic challenges and provides recommendations to address them. 

We bring together speakers from IIASA, the Science Advice for Policy by European Academies - SAPEA, and the North Africa Applied Systems Analysis Center - NAASAC to share their experiences on engaging in this space from a researcher, organizational, and policy perspective.

From October 18^th- 20^th 2023, NODES’ researchers Inian Moorthy and Gerid Hager will showcase the IIASA-led Urban ReLeaf project at the European Urban Resilience Forum in Cascais, Portugal. They will launch a Community of Practice to bring together public authorities, urban planners and other key stakeholders to design citizen-centric urban greening actions and address wider policy making processes in pursuit of urban climate resilience.  

The fifth IIASA National and Regional Member Organizations (NMOs/RMO) engagement workshop will take place on 17 and 18 October 2023 and is part of the activities of the Strategic Initiatives Program. The workshop will identify global and regional challenges with significant strategic impact for IIASA member organizations. The event provides an opportunity to shape the program's research agenda for the next round of proposals.

Accurate estimates and forecasts of crop area and yield play an important role in guiding policy decisions related to food security, especially in light of the growing impacts of climate change. IIASA researchers and colleagues highlight the value of integrating remote sensing and data sharing for timely agricultural information critical for food security and sustainability planning in a new paper.    

Climate impacts in one location that propagate to other locations through trade and value chains, development and security policies, and financial systems, may have disrupting effects similar to the COVID-19 pandemic and the war on Ukraine. These effects are not easily represented in traditional analysis frameworks and need to be embedded in the wider context of social vulnerability and climate change. The conference aims to bring together scientists across disciplines that work on approaches to better understand and respond/adapt to cross-border climate impacts and risks. The conference also seeks to identify knowledge gaps and directions for future research. Research presented in the conference will highlight what needs arise from a consideration of cross-border climate impacts, how to design research that is actionable for decision-making or how to improve the monitoring of risks.

IIASA researchers Teresa Deubelli-Hwang and Jung Hee Hyun share insights from a decade of collaborating on fostering flood resilience in communities around the world following a recent Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance learning event.  

Working with IIASA researchers, Ghana has adopted a citizen science approach to addressing the problem of plastic pollution in marine environments, becoming the first country to integrate this type of data on marine plastic litter into its official monitoring and reporting processes. A new study presents this innovative approach on Ghana’s citizen science journey and offers a pathway that can potentially be adopted in other countries.

Due to limited availability and strong interest in the Tipping Points Modelling Intercomparison Project (TIPMIP) “Towards TIPMIP” WE Heraeus Foundation seminar in November, we are pleased to announce an additional community-wide, online-only event: TIPMIP for All, to be held on 9 October 2023 from 16:00-18:00 CET.

Join us for this webinar series that aims to advance the knowledge about tipping elements, irreversibility, and abrupt changes in the Earth system. This installment will focus on ecological tipping points and resilience.

On 18 September 2023, IIASA will host a meeting of its National Member Organizations (NMOs) and Regional Member Organization (RMO) Secretaries. This gathering will unite representatives from diverse countries to discuss and strengthen their partnerships with IIASA.

The International Data Week, which will take place on 23–26 October 2023, will bring together a global community of data scientists and data stewards; researchers from all domains; data, interoperability and informatics experts from all fields; industry leaders, entrepreneurs and policymakers. Dilek Fraisl and Ian McCallum from the Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability will be participating.

IIASA is proud to announce the launch of its Flagship Report, "Systems Analysis for Sustainable Wellbeing. 50 Years of IIASA Research, 40 Years After the Brundtland Commission, Contributing to the Post-2030 Global Agenda” on Wednesday, 13 September 2023 at an official UN event in the framework of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly and the Sustainable Development Goals mid-term review.

Boreal forests often bring to mind a winter wonderland: spruce and pine forests as far as the eye can see, fluffy snow dotted with reindeer beneath a nighttime sky brightened by the aurora borealis. Climate change threatens this fragile, pristine habitat that spans 8 countries in the far north. Now boreal forests are associated not just with snowy landscapes, they are becoming synonymous with raging wildfires and massive plumes of smoke, such as those found currently in Canada. Mitigating the threats posed by climate change in this unique ecosystem and discussing the most recent boreal-related research is the focus of the International Boreal Forest Association conference. Organized in large part by IIASA’s own Florian Kraxner, IBFRA 2023 was held in Helsinki, Finland, where researchers from around the globe gathered to discuss recent findings, foster new connections, and contribute to a plan of attack to save boreal forests as we know them.