ECE’s overarching vision is to provide evidence-based, scientific roadmaps for feasible systems transformations that simultaneously meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and ambitious climate change mitigation targets.

Emphasis is placed specifically on local policy decisions and actions required in the short term to put the world on track to achieve long-term targets while assuring human health, wellbeing, and the reduction of social inequalities in a socially and economically sustainable manner. The program’s systems analytical tools enable it to act as an objective scientific broker in support of sustainable transformational processes. ECE combines the research portfolios of the former Air Quality and Greenhouse Gases, Energy, and Transitions to New Technologies programs.

The ECE program is organized in four Research Groups which encompass different thematic areas of research:

ECE Research Groups

 ID 14056366 © Mikhail Dudarev | Dreamstime.com

Integrated Assessment and Climate Change (IACC)

The IACC Group leads the development of tools for a new generation of “coupled” global transformation pathways that are able to represent bottom-up local constraints and opportunities at the national and sub-national scale, which is a major focus of the ECE Program.

Photo 202479727 / Climate © Yana Bardichevska | Dreamstime.com

Pollution Management (PM)

The PM Group focusses on solving immediate and near-term environmental (health and ecosystems impacts from pollution), climate (non-CO2 greenhouse gases), and social (widening inequality gaps) problems in a cost-effective way, providing support to policymaking at local and regional scales.

© Jon Anders Wiken | Dreamstime.com

Sustainable Service Systems (S3)

The S3 Group focuses on demand-side systems as entry points for sustainable transformations. The group analyses demand for energy and materials through the lens of service provision of mobility, shelter, and consumer goods, as well as how lifestyle changes can contribute to consumption reduction.

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Transformative Institutional and Social Solutions (TISS)

The TISS Group explores innovative solutions to environmental issues that integrate social, institutional, and governance drivers with technological and economic considerations, with an emphasis on improving conditions for the most deprived and marginalized in society.

Current ECE Research Themes

ECE Nexus

Just and Feasible Transitions

Scenario Services and Scientific Software

Access to Energy Services

Heterogeneities and Inequalities

Finance

Modeling for National Transformations

Materials

Young Scientists Summer Program

Models, tools, datasets

gas pipeline

Model for Energy Supply Strategy Alternatives and their General Environmental Impact (MESSAGEix)

India Forest

The NExus Solutions Tool (NEST)

IPCC

AR6 Scenario Explorer and Database

Air Pollution in India

Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS)

Projects

urban greenery

Energy Demand changes Induced by Technological and Social innovations (EDITS)

RESCUE

Response of the Earth System to overshoot, Climate neUtrality and negative Emissions (RESCUE)

Staff

Benigna Boza-Kiss profile picture

Benigna Boza-Kiss

Research Scholar (S3, TISS)

Paul Kishimoto profile picture

Paul Kishimoto

Research Scholar (IACC, S3)

Gamze Ünlü profile picture

Gamze Ünlü

Researcher (IACC, TISS)

Fridolin Glatter profile picture

Fridolin Glatter

Research Software Programmer and MESSAGEix Community Officer (IACC)

News

COP28 UAE

22 November 2023

Mind the gap: caution needed when assessing land emissions in the COP28 Global Stocktake

The land use, land use change, and forestry sector plays a strong role in achieving global climate targets, but a gap exists between how scientists and countries account for its emissions. A new study highlights how mitigation benchmarks change when assessing IPCC scenarios from a national inventory perspective, with net-zero timings arriving up to five years earlier and cumulative emissions to net-zero being 15-18% smaller.
UNEP Emissions Report 2023

21 November 2023

IIASA scientists contribute to a new UNEP report, emphasizing the need for urgent climate action

As global temperatures break records, the latest UNEP Emissions Gap Report finds that current pledges under the Paris Agreement put the world on track for a 2.5-2.9°C temperature rise above pre-industrial levels this century, pointing to the urgent need for increased climate action.

Events

Focus

11 November 2023

Pursuing the urban utopia

Options Magazine, Winter 2023: As cities draw in more and more people, the challenges and opportunities posed by urbanization are ever-increasing. How can we make sure that the cities of tomorrow will serve both people and the planet?
Options

11 November 2023

Empowerment through science

Options Magazine, Winter 2023: IIASA Transformative Institutional and Social Solutions Research Group Leader, Shonali Pachauri, explores policy pathways for achieving universal access to basic services and technologies. She was a lead author of the Working Group III contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), and a member of the Extended Writing Team for the Synthesis Report.
Options 2023

Publications