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The 29th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) provided a global stage for advancing carbon farming initiatives in Kazakhstan, a country uniquely positioned to drive nature-based climate solutions in the Asian Drylands Belt (ADB). The side event, titled “Carbon Farming in Kazakhstan: Unlocking the Opportunity,” was held at the QAZAQSTAN Pavilion in Baku, co-organized by IIASA, the BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre, the Center for Applied Research TALAP, and the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Earlier this month, the institute welcomed a delegation from the China Population and Development Research Center (CPDRC), a leading population research institution in China. Researchers from the IIASA Population and Just Societies Program (POPJUS) and CPDRC discussed declining fertility rates in China and future cooperation.

With 2024 on track to be declared the hottest on record, scientists from IIASA and Columbia University have noticed that specific regions are consistently more affected by extreme temperatures. A new study provides the first worldwide map of these regional climate danger zones.

COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, came to an end after a bitter fight. Wealthy nations pledged to triple support to reach 300 billion Dollars per year by 2035. Developing countries said they needed 1.3 trillion Dollars. IIASA researchers also estimate the needs to reach trillions, not billions. Hence, a disappointing outcome, overshadowed by geopolitical tensions, according to IIASA’s experts. 

IIASA Director General, Hans Joachim (John) Schellnhuber, was among the distinguished guests at an event hosted by King Charles III to celebrate the launch of the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance (CBA). Amid the serious discussions around the the initiative's mission to champion a nature-first economy, the two old friends shared a lighter moment, promising to stay in touch.

Digital sector incumbents have established themselves in the artificial intelligence (AI) space through new forms of commercial partnerships. Now, antitrust authorities are raising concerns about such arrangements and the impact this will have on the future direction of AI. To discuss the latest developments, Elena Rovenskaya delivered a presentation on the adoption of systems analysis approaches to identify complex interactions between players in the digital economy.

IIASA researcher Kai Kornhuber will be honored with the Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award in the Climate: Past, Present & Future Division for his achievements in advancing climate science.

The 2024 Highly Cited Researchers™ list by Clarivate celebrates individuals whose research has had a profound and wide-reaching impact. IIASA is proud to have its Director General, Hans Joachim (John) Schellnhuber, as well as 10 additional exceptional researchers associated with the Institute recognized for their contributions in various fields.

On October 22, the SHAW group within the POPJUS program at IIASA hosted a one-day workshop, bringing together 30-40 researchers from various programs to collaborate and advance research in the field of health and wellbeing.

The Citizens4Copernicus (C4C) project consortium held its first annual meeting in Vienna, where partners reviewed key achievements, including the development of methods for tree attribute extraction and the creation of a prototype app for citizen science data collection. The project is now entering the data collection phase, focusing on forest and tree mapping through citizen science campaigns, while planning additional measurement campaigns and further app enhancements.

New work by IIASA and the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) leverages developments in climate science, economics and climate policy to bolster evidence for the rationale and funding needs associated with Loss and Damage and to inform international negotiations, including on the operationalization of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), the launch of the High Level Dialogue on complementarity and coherence, and discussions around Loss and Damage in the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQF).

IIASA researchers provide over one hundred central banks all over the world with scenarios that help them make the financial sector more resilient to climate change. The scenarios have recently been updated to reflect advances in climate policies and assess risks more comprehensively. This work was conducted by a scientific consortium to support the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS).

During the Seventeenth IAMC Annual Meeting, held online 4-6 November, the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium was proud to honor Marina Andrijevic (IIASA) with the Early Career Researcher Award for her contributions to the socioeconomic dimension of integrated assessment modeling, including her recent work on adaptive capacity.

IIASA scientists show that preserving ecosystems and fostering socioeconomic development is not a trade-off. On the contrary, an integrated approach is beneficial to national policies. We share examples from India, Brazil, and Indonesia.

The SPARCCLE consortium gathered at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) from 8th to 10th October for an in-person meeting and workshops, celebrating a year of progress and planning for the next phases. The three-day event brought together consortium members from across nine countries, as well as the project’s esteemed Stakeholder Advisory Board members.

IIASA made contributions to the Computational Social Science Conference, held on October 28-29, 2024 at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona. Co-organized by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, CODATA, and “la Caixa” Foundation, the conference brought together over 160 participants, including top researchers, data specialists, and infrastructure experts, to explore cutting-edge methods, novel insights, data workflows, and data stewardship in computational social science.

New research reveals a strong link between higher female education and lower fertility rates in sub-Saharan Africa. Educated women are driving a shift toward smaller families and even influencing less educated peers. This new forecasting model offers policymakers valuable insights into how women's education shapes population trends, aiding sustainable development efforts.

The Amazon forest stores large quantities of the climate-damaging greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂). But deforestation, agriculture and rising temperatures bring this nature based solution to a limit. AmazonFACE brings together an international team of researchers aiming to address the question how the Amazon forest will respond to projected future CO₂ concentrations. By using Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) technology we will generate process based understanding on the functioning of the world’s largest tropical rainforest, and therefore will be able to inform regional policies on climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Sustainable lifestyles, green-tech innovation, and government-led transformation each offer promising routes to make significant progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), to which IIASA scientists contributed. Contrary to the belief that the path to sustainable development is increasingly out of reach, the results show that humankind has a variety of pathways to depart from its current unsustainable trajectory.

The MEDiate project is designed to help policymakers in decisions on natural disaster risk reduction. This year’s general assembly was held on 24 and 25 October. During this event, IIASA’s CAT team in the project held a serious-game workshop for finding sustainable solutions to natural hazard risk reduction. The workshop guided the participants trough silent negotiation to find a risk reduction solution for city-wide disaster scenarios.