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.
IACC’s central goal is the development of response strategies and alternative pathways towards a low-carbon economy, taking into account the many linkages to all aspects of society and the environment. For this purpose, the IACC group develops and maintains methods, including the MESSAGEix model which is at the heart of IIASA's Integrated Assessment Modeling framework.
First, the integration of climate change impacts into the IAM framework to account for the main benefits of mitigation, that is, avoided climate change impacts which, in turn, has implications for a wide set of sustainable development objectives. Better understanding how climate impacts will affect different parts of the population, taking into account the aspects of vulnerability and equity and the degree to which affected population segments are able to adapt, will therefore be a key research focus leading to a quantification of the benefits of mitigation beyond simple economic considerations based on monetized impacts.
Second, material cycles are integrated into the IAM framework to broaden the strategy space beyond classic energy- and land-based climate mitigation strategies by including important elements of circular economy approaches. Initially, the focus is on bulk materials such as steel, cement, non-ferrous metals, or plastics, with the aim to also include important critical materials for key low-carbon technologies, such as batteries and fuel cells.
Third, with decision-making support requiring input at different levels - global, regional, national, and subnational - the integration of analysis across different spatial scales is a research focus relevant to all the previously listed topics of the IACC group, requiring further methodological and tool development. Key aspects of this challenge will be, on the one hand, increasing the spatial and temporal granularity of relevant parts of the IAM framework, and on the other, explicitly representing a wider set of policy options, for example, to develop climate action plans at the national or subnational scale.
Finally, IIASA operates a community data hub for global climate change mitigation and transformation pathways, for example, by hosting multiple key datasets for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC). These globally-focused efforts are complemented by activities that support the development of national mitigation strategies as well as sector-specific activities such as supporting the finance community in using mitigation scenarios to assess the transition and physical climate change risks of, for instance, investment portfolios.
Models, tools, datasets
Projects
Staff
News
29 September 2023
Ron Milo from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel visits IIASA

23 August 2023
Solar powered irrigation: a game-changer for small-scale farms in sub-Saharan Africa

16 August 2023
IIASA recognizes researchers as Distinguished Emeritus Research Scholars
Events
11 July 2023 Archimedes Center, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Workshop on MESSAGEix and GAINS models at the new Archimedes Center
Focus
28 September 2023
Feasible futures


08 September 2023
Climate change will affect hydropower – African countries must be prepared
Africa has great potential for the implementation of hydropower, but there are political and environmental concerns that planners must consider if they want to ensure a more reliable power supply for their citizens. IIASA researcher Giacomo Falchetta delved into this issue in an article recently published on The Conversation.

31 July 2023
Extreme heat is particularly hard on older adults – an aging population and climate change put ever more people at risk
Scorching temperatures have put millions of Americans in danger this summer, with heat extremes stretching from coast to coast in the Southern US. IIASA researcher Giacomo Falcetta and colleagues from Boston University looked into this issue in an article recently published on The Conversation.
Publications
Hunt, J. , Lagore, B., Brandão, R., Diuana, F.A., Quaranta, E., de Miranda, M., Lacorte, A., Barbosa, P.S., de Freitas, M.A.V., Zakeri, B. , Castro, N.J., & Wada, Y. (2023). Mapping the potential for pumped storage using existing lower reservoirs. Journal of Energy Storage 73 e109047. 10.1016/j.est.2023.109047. Mazzone, A., De Cian, E., Falchetta, G. , Jani, A., Mistry, M., & Khosla, R. (2023). Understanding systemic cooling poverty. Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-023-01221-6. (In Press) Lutz, W. & Pachauri, S. (2023). Systems Analysis for Sustainable Wellbeing. 50 years of IIASA research, 40 years after the Brundtland Commission, contributing to the post-2030 Global Agenda. IIASA Report. Laxenburg, Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) 10.5281/zenodo.8214208. Li, M., Keyßer, L., Kikstra, J. , Hickel, J., Brockway, P.E., Dai, N., Malik, A., & Lenzen, M. (2023). Integrated assessment modelling of degrowth scenarios for Australia. Economic Systems Research 1-31. 10.1080/09535314.2023.2245544. Gambhir, A., Mittal, S., Lamboll, R.D., Grant, N., Bernie, D., Gohar, L., Hawkes, A., Köberle, A., Rogelj, J. , & Lowe, J.A. (2023). Adjusting 1.5 degree C climate change mitigation pathways in light of adverse new information. Nature Communications 14 (1) e5117. 10.1038/s41467-023-40673-4.