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Existing national mitigation pledges and commitments place the world on a path well above the climate goal of the landmark Paris Agreement.  Should the world exceed this limit, it is possible to draw down temperature through sustained use of so-called net-negative emissions (i.e., emitting less CO₂ than is taken up by technical and natural processes). RESCUE will expand our current knowledge by exploring the sensitivity of the Earth system to deep mitigation futures which achieve the Paris Agreement goal under different regimes of dependence on net-negative emissions and carbon-dioxide removal.

ESM2025 is an ambitious European project on Earth System Modelling that aims to develop the next generation of Earth System Models (ESMs)

A multidisciplinary consortium of leading European universities, research institutes, companies, NGOs, and practitioners in the field of disaster risk reduction has started a major EU-funded project called MYRIAD-EU to improve our understanding, assessment, and management of disasters caused by combinations of different kinds of natural hazards (e.g. climate, hydrological, geological, and biological hazards).

This research project funded through the Systems Analysis Forum (SAF) aims to better understand the interaction between labour flows and capital flows in an economy. This work will help to improve the assessment of welfare dynamics and evaluate policies that can lead to higher levels of economic welfare.

Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs) are invaluable for understanding the biosphere. However, as currently implemented by the international research community, these models suffer from a challenging accumulation of uncertainty. This project aims to address this problem by developing the foundations of a new generation of models centered on a “missing law” – adaptation and optimization principles rooted in natural selection.

IIASA is quantifying the responses of ecosystems and society in a world increasingly rich in N and C but limited in P. The ongoing shifts in C:N:P balances in ecosystems will necessarily affect the structure, function and diversity of the Earth system.

The Austrian transport sector is crucially governed by “systemic delays”, caused by long-lasting infrastructure and vehicle stocks in operation for multiple years. In PETRA, these characteristics are linked with policies that had a succinct impact on the transport sector in the past to improve evaluating the delay and effectiveness of future policies.

The ambition of ERM is to push stylized Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to a higher level of applicability so as to inform the real-world policy process related to climate change.

The EU-funded Plant-FATE project intends to determine the plant traits that confer drought-resistance. The aim is to accurately predict and identify species and geographical areas vulnerable to climate change.

CONSTRAIN is developing a better understanding of how both natural and human factors will affect the climate in coming decades, and using this knowledge to improve climate projections for the next 20-50 years.

The Global LandScapes project is funded by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in the US and has the overall objective of developing a joint methodology and database to compute a map of global foodscapes and their development potential in view of planning for large-scale deployment of Nature based solutions (NBS).

Macromode addresses the recent shift in disaster risk management perspectives and how indirect losses due to natural hazard risks can be decreased within highly interlinked and complex systems such as the economy of a country.

The Austrian government launched its climate and energy strategy in 2018 aimed at decarbonizing  production and consumption and creating opportunities for green growth. Recent research shows that Austria is facing the challenge of aligning its greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions to the EU2030 targets and a green investment gap has to be filled. There is an urgent need to understand the conditions for an effective scaling-up of green finance in the Austrian economy and financial market, while avoiding trade-offs for economic competitiveness and financial stability.

The transport sector has accounted for 28% of the CO₂ emissions in Austria in 2015, more than half of which are due to passenger cars. Unlike most other sectors, emissions from the transport sector are still increasing. In order to fulfil the ambitious goals set by the Paris Agreement and to act in line with the sustainable development goals (SDGs), these emissions will have to be reduced substantially.

For over thirty years, environmental justice has been a thriving research field in the United States. However, until recently, similar research has neither been conducted for most European countries nor for the European Union as a whole.

Unanticipated migration inflows can have positive and negative economic and social consequences depending on policies implemented by the recipient country to cope with the manifold challenges. Model-based scientific assessments of in-migration on a country's national economy are hence needed, as is meaningful stakeholder deliberation of alternative policies to support the integration of refugees in ways that contribute to resilient and sustainable societies.

The EU is in the process of developing and implementing bioeconomy strategies to foster the transition from a fossil fuel-based to a renewable, biobased economy. Filling in a major knowledge gap, BIOCLIMAPATHS project develops the first interdisciplinary methodological framework that contains the whole logic flow of the knowledge development process. 

Austria has committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 with a view on meeting the 1.5°C and 2°C target set out in the Paris Agreement of 2015. This however requires a significant transformation of societies at all levels and in all sectors. 

Towards sustainable food and land-use systems: The Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land, and Energy (FABLE) Consortium.