Several IIASA researchers were among the nearly 60,000 participants at COP30 in Belém, a diverse gathering of global leaders, industry, youth, and non-state actors. This year also saw record participation from Indigenous people, with more than 3,000 representatives highlighting their crucial role as guardians of biodiversity.
Their sessions at the conference covered a wide spectrum of critical climate issues - from locally led adaptation, loss and damage, and flood resilience, to overshoot management, fossil fuel phase-out strategies, and pathways for restoring Earth’s life-support systems. They also addressed urban transformation after extreme events, clean energy resilience, high-resolution climate scenarios for Latin America, justice in climate modeling, disinformation and digital integrity, ICT tools for citizen engagement, and the latest research on safe and just planetary boundaries, overshoot, and innovative climate-finance mechanisms.
As they actively engaged in discussions, their contributions underscored the need for holistic, evidence-based, and collaborative approaches to tackling the multifaceted challenges of climate change. Read their impressions below.
© IIASA
Keywan Riahi
“The Buzios statement by the scientific community was very powerful, but sole facts were unfortunately not enough to bridge the divide at COP30.”
© Elisa Calliari
"As part of the EU and Italian delegation negotiating loss and damage, I was happy that we completed the review of the Warsaw International Mechanism, which strengthens coherence and complementarity across the UNFCCC loss and damage institutions, and to witness the launch of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage’s start-up phase that will provide crucial support to the most vulnerable. COP30 also delivered meaningful advances on adaptation, but it was disappointing that Parties couldn’t agree on binding language on phasing out fossil fuels."
© Reinhard Mechler
"In geopolitically charged times, COP30 has again shown the widening cognitive dissonance between reality and politics: in a world of climate overshoot with proliferating existential risks, clearly communicating neutral scientific insights is as important as ever and can help forge effective partnerships."
© Carl Schleussner
“The fossil-fuel hold-backs blocked or watered down important decisions on many issues, including on how to get out of fossil energy.”
© IIASA
To implement climate change policy we should address the existing heterogeneity of opinions. We should create solutions that will achieve the greatest benefit for everyone, not only in terms of raising awareness but by creating co-benefits of climate change mitigation options such as more convenient mobility options. We need to understand not only factors of awareness, but also those of peoples’ choices in everyday life that facilitate changing awareness into action.
One example is more convenient night-train connections between various cities. Some might argue that going by train is still more expensive than flying, which might be true, but not if we also calculate the costs of the hotels that will be saved when traveling by night train. However, the convenience of options is being influenced by the lack of unification of electronic reservation systems across European countries.
For instance, I recently took the night train from Vienna to Paris, which would have been a very comfortable option for me for various reasons. The joy from this travel was somewhat spoiled by the fact that my ticket did not cover the entire trip and I was left stranded in the middle of Germany without a ticket to Paris amid the school holidays. In this case, I believe that technologies, and mainly digital technologies, could have made the mobility option and reservations across Europe more convenient.
So my major take away is that the statements on this topic that emerged from the discussions at COP are good and necessary, but we also need to think about details and technical issues. Digital technologies could help create co-benefits from climate change mitigation options.
© IIASA
"Debates focused on Indigenous rights, unequal local impacts, the persistent climate finance gap, mixed reactions to Brazil’s new forest fund, the urgent need to finally implement the Paris Agreement, and a growing blind spot - the rising emissions from big tech."
IIASA in the media: COP30 coverage
ORF: Disappointment and criticism remain high (article in German)
Science APA: Researchers: COP30 has done little to bring the world closer to the Paris Agreement targets (article is in German)
Der Standard: Climate researchers at COP30: “We must not give up on the 1.5-degree target” (article is in German)
Radio Ö1: COP30 climate summit: What's at stake - interview with Keywan Riahi (in German)
News
28 May 2026
Nexus of Sustainability: Springer monograph devoted to joint IIASA and Ukraine NMO project
Nexus of Sustainability: Understanding of FEWSE Systems II is a 2026 Springer monograph detailing the interdependencies between food, energy, water, society, and the environment (FEWSE). It focuses on risk management, robust modeling, and sustainable development, featuring recent research of the joint research project between IIASA and National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU, Ukraine NMO at IIASA) on “Integrated modeling for robust management of food-energy-water-land use nexus for sustainable development”.
28 May 2026
CAT contributes to Expert Round Table on Climate Misinformation under MIP4Adapt
Researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) contributed to the Expert Round Table on Climate Misinformation, organized within the framework of the MIP4Adapt initiative. MIP4Adapt (Mission Implementation Platform) is the central support mechanism for the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change, aiding regions and local authorities in planning and implementing climate resilience strategies. It provides technical assistance, community building, and funding guidance to Charter signatories.
05 May 2026
Amazon understory forests show short-term boost in CO₂ uptake – but this comes at a cost
Tropical forests are one of the planet's most important carbon sinks – often also called "the lungs of the Earth". But their future in a high-CO₂ world remains uncertain. IIASA researchers contributed to a new study, which suggests even small understory trees in the Amazon may initially buffer climate change more strongly. Their long-term capacity to store carbon could, however, be restricted by nutrient availability, highlighting the vulnerability of these ecosystems under future climate conditions.