On 17 June, Sigrid Stagl, Scientist of the Year 2024, will speak on the topic of the sustainable economy. Ulrike Diebold, Vice President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW), IIASA Director General Hans Joachim (John) Schellnhuber, and Christian Köberl, IIASA Council member for Austria, will deliver opening remarks before the lecture. This event is part of the ongoing IIASA-OeAW public lecture series and will be in German.
Stagl's presentation will address how Europe can successfully continue its ecological transformation despite new political priorities - such as competitiveness, security, innovation, and deregulation.
Against the backdrop of planetary boundaries that have been repeatedly exceeded and increasingly serious climate-related risks, the presentation will analyze how ambitious environmental and climate policies can be reconciled with economic and financial framework conditions. Key levers are credible climate investment strategies, synergetic policy portfolios, and financial instruments that take account of the double materiality of climate risks. The macroeconomic benefits of early and comprehensive investment in climate mitigation and adaptation - including improved fiscal resilience, lower financing costs and more sustainable economic growth will be highlighted along with the risks of inaction and the opportunities of a transition to a low-emission, nature-positive economy. Finally, the lecture will outline which stakeholder groups are particularly challenged and which systemic changes are necessary to anchor the economy permanently within ecological and social limits.
About the speaker
Sigrid Stagl is an economist whose research focuses on sustainable work, ecological macroeconomics, integrated assessment methods and the socioeconomic theory of action; empirical focus on energy and food.
She has been a professor at the Department of Socioeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) since 2008. Prior to that, she researched and taught at the University of Leeds and the University of Sussex in the UK (2001-2009). After her diploma studies at WU Vienna, she completed her PhD studies at the Department of Economics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, where she was awarded the world's first doctorate in Ecological Economics.
For more than a decade she was active in the governance of the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE). At WU, she founded the Institute for Ecological Economics. She is currently Head of the Institute for Ecological Economics, Head of the Competence Center for Sustainability Transformation and Responsibility at WU Vienna, and Research Group Leader at the Institute for Ecological Economics.
Stagl was named Scientist of the Year 2024 by the Club of Education and Science Journalists.
Upcoming Events
Hybrid: online and at the Austrian Academy of Sciences
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