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.
The PM Group addresses sustainability challenges in the near and long term through an improved understanding of the multiple benefits of policies and their distribution across society. The group has a strong focus on the development of new approaches for multi-sectoral policy interventions to manage pollution across different media (air, water, and soil) at various scales to address near-term concerns and enable long-term transformations and their public support towards a sustainable future. In particular, the group endeavors to enhance the systems perspective approach to address and explore issues such as the interactions and environmental impacts of pollution; assessment of sources of non-CO2 greenhouse gases; mitigation opportunities; approaches to address nutrient and material cycling; options for more equitable solutions; and improved methods for estimating the health and economic benefits of policy interventions.
Projects
Staff
News

16 November 2022
The need for rapid methane mitigation

15 November 2022
IIASA researchers once again among the world’s most highly cited

16 August 2022
Propane — a solution for more sustainable air conditioning
Focus
28 November 2022
Improving energy efficiency in Latin America’s dairy sector

24 November 2022
Charting fair pathways to climate neutrality

12 October 2022
Targeting methane

Publications
Jiang, H.-D., Purohit, P. , Liang, Q.-M., Liu, L.-J., & Zhang, Y.-F. (2023). Improving the regional deployment of carbon mitigation efforts by incorporating air-quality co-benefits: A multi-provincial analysis of China. Ecological Economics 204 e107675. 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107675.
Monteith, D.T., Henrys, P.A., Hruska, J., de Wit, H.A., Kram, P., Moldan, F., Posch, M. , Raike, A., Stoddard, J.L., Shilland, E.M., Pereira, M., & Evans, C.D. (2023). Long-term rise in riverine dissolved organic carbon concentration is predicted by electrolyte solubility theory. Science Advances 9 (3) eade3491. 10.1126/sciadv.ade3491.
Gu, B., Zhang, X., Lam, S.K., Yu, Y., van Grinsven, H.J.M., Zhang, S. , Wang, X., Bodirsky, B.L., Wang, S., Duan, J., Ren, C., Bouwman, L., de Vries, W., Xu, J., Sutton, M.A., & Chen, D. (2023). Cost-effective mitigation of nitrogen pollution from global croplands. Nature 613 (7942) 77-84. 10.1038/s41586-022-05481-8.
Chong, H., Lee, S., Cho, Y., Kim, J., Koo, J.-H., Pyo Kim, Y., Kim, Y. , Woo, J.-H., & Hyun Ahn, D. (2023). Assessment of air quality in North Korea from satellite observations. Environment International 171 e107708. 10.1016/j.envint.2022.107708.
Cai, W., Zhang, C., Zhang, S., Bai, Y., Callaghan, M., Chang, N., Chen, B., Chen, H., Cheng, L., Cui, X., Dai, H., Danna, B., Dong, W., Fan, W., Fang, X., Gao, T., Geng, Y., Guan, D., Hu, Y., Hua, J., Huang, C., Huang, H., Huang, J., Jiang, L., Jiang, Q., Jiang, X., Jin, H., Kiesewetter, G. , Liang, L., Lin, B., Lin, H., Liu, H., Liu, Q., Liu, T., Liu, X., Liu, X., Liu, Z., Liu, Z., Lou, S., Lu, C., Luo, Z., Meng, W., Miao, H., Ren, C., Romanello, M., Schöpp, W. , Su, J., Tang, X., Wang, C., Wang, Q., Warnecke, L. , Wen, S., Winiwarter, W. , Xie, Y., Xu, B., Yan, Y., Yang, X., Yao, F., Yu, L., Yuan, J., Zeng, Y., Zhang, J., Zhang, L., Zhang, R., Zhang, S., Zhang, S. , Zhao, Q., Zheng, D., Zhou, H., Zhou, J., Fung, M., Luo, Y., & Gong, P. (2022). The 2022 China report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: leveraging climate actions for healthy ageing. The Lancet Public Health 7 (12) e1073-e1090. 10.1016/S2468-2667(22)00224-9.