INQUIMUS Workshop

IIASA has longstanding research expertise on the topics of climate risk assessment and management, with a focus on those risks that lead to the breaching of adaptation limits. The workshop will convene leading international experts from research and practice at IIASA to discuss novel options for assessing and tackling those residual risks.

Scope of the Workshop

Climate change is accelerating and in combination with other drivers (exposure, vulnerability) is increasingly turning risks more dynamic (i.e. harder to assess with standard approaches). There is first evidence of related impacts breaching physical and social adaptation limits, highlighting the need for tackling ‘residual climate-related risks’. Residual risks being defined as potential negative impacts after all feasible mitigation and adaptation measures have been implemented. Identifying policy solutions for dealing with risks “beyond adaptation” - referred to as Loss and Damage - has recently become the third pillar in the international climate policy process next to climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Of particular importance for improving the science-policy interface is the development of comprehensive risk assessment methodologies as well as indicators that inform policy and decision makers about climate-related risks beyond adaptation limits. Moreover, the IPCC’s special report on 1.5C global warming has strongly emphasized the role of, and need for, transformational risk management once adaptation limits are being exceeded. The IPCC defines transformation as “deep, systemic change that requires reconfiguration of socio-ecological systems”.

However, concrete research and evidence remains scarce and existing scientific approaches are reaching their limits when it comes to assessing risks beyond adaptation and designing transformational risk management practice and policy. At the INQUIMUS 2021 workshop scientists and practitioners working in different fields will advance in cross-fertilization scientific concepts, methods and tools and to share best practices in different application contexts.

Key questions driving the discussion during the workshop will be:

> What are the needs of decision advisors and makers and from a science perspective for comprehensively assessing and managing climate-related risks that may lead beyond adaptation limits? 

> What are the gaps in existing risk assessment methodologies in the context of climate-related risks beyond adaptation limits? 

> What are experiences in/case studies that showcase the spectrum of risk management options from incremental to transformational risk management? 

> (How) can existing risk assessment methods and tools be further developed (or need to be dropped) to address these gaps? And/or does risk science has to transform itself?

Workshop Format

The workshop will be moderated to foster a highly interactive and generative event. Conventional presentations will play a minor role. Invited keynotes will present the state-of-the-art of particular methods followed by a focused discussion on current achievements and challenges. Case studies will be presented as posters and will accompany the workshop to provide further insights into the application of methodologies. The workshop will take place in Laxenburg, Austria.

Call for Abstracts

Participation is mainly by invitation. However, we would like to provide room for additional participants to present their findings. Interested participants should send an abstract (max 400 words), discussing the following issues:

>> Motivation for application and relevance to guiding questions listed above

>> Methods applied in transformational risk management

>> Achievements and challenges

>> Scientific merit and insights

Please submit your abstract by May 15, 2021 to: inquimus2020@iiasa.ac.at

Should you have submitted an abstract for INQUIMUS 2021, which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, your abstract will be evaluated for this year's event, unless you decided to withdraw your submission or to submit an updated/new abstract. Please send us an email to indicate your preference.

Successful applications will be informed by June 2021.

Further information: www.inquimus.org

Download Call for Abstracts