A recent Financial Times special report on climate-related research funding features IIASA Director-General Hans Joachim (John) Schellnhuber in his role as a past Blue Planet Prize laureate. The article highlights the urgent need to better connect scientific evidence, policy action, and public communication to drive meaningful climate solutions.
Several IIASA researchers were among the nearly 60,000 participants at COP30 in Belém, a diverse gathering of global leaders, industry, youth, and non-state actors. This year also saw record participation from Indigenous people, with more than 3,000 representatives highlighting their crucial role as guardians of biodiversity.
Fast and decisive mitigation of methane emissions remains one of the few options the world still has to limit global warming in the next few decades. Today, mid-way through COP30, high-level representatives at the Global Methane Pledge (GMP) Ministerial released the Global Methane Status Report 2025, a comprehensive assessment of global progress and remaining gaps in efforts to cut methane. The report’s findings are underpinned by analyses conducted by IIASA researchers.
In a recent Tagesspiegel feature exploring the meaning of “I don’t have another land,” IIASA Director-General Hans Joachim (John) Schellnhuber offers a powerful reminder that humanity also has no “second planet.” His contribution links historical memory with the urgent global challenge of protecting Earth’s life-support systems.
Against the backdrop of negotiations at COP30 in Belém, a group of leading climate scientists has released the Búzios Scientific Statement, offering a clear assessment of the world’s remaining options to return to 1.5°C of warming by the end of the century. The statement reflects growing recognition that a temporary overshoot of 1.5°C is now unavoidable, while also showing that pathways back to safer temperature levels remain open if action accelerates quickly.
The final stakeholder workshop of the Austria Fire Futures (AFF) project gathered leading experts, policymakers, foresters, firefighters, and tourism representatives on October 28, 2025, at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg to discuss Austria’s growing wildfire risks and the way forward toward climate resilience.
IIASA is proud to announce that 13 researchers associated with the Institute, including its Director General, Hans Joachim (John) Schellnhuber, have again been recognized in the latest Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers™ list released this week.
The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) have officially launched a "Feasibility Study on Carbon Farming Solutions in Greater Central Asia", marking a new milestone in the region’s efforts toward sustainable land management and climate-resilient development.
IIASA recently hosted an exploratory workshop titled, Together for water: Fostering collaboration in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The two-day event brought together around 50 representatives from international organizations, civil society organizations, research institutions, and diplomatic missions to explore new pathways for transboundary collaboration on water challenges across the region.
A new EU-funded report reveals that while global emissions could peak before 2030, current efforts remain insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal. The study, produced through collaboration between IIASA, the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, and the NewClimate Institute, provides a detailed, evidence-based assessment of progress among the world’s largest emitters.
IIASA has released its report from the European Forum Alpbach 2025, where it served as reporting partner for the Climate Track. Drawing from five insightful blogs, the report distills key ideas and reflections that emerged under the Forum’s overarching theme, “Recharge Europe.”
IIASA researchers contributed to the latest issue of the Emissions Gap Report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The assessment of available new climate pledges under the Paris Agreement finds that the predicted global temperature rise over the course of this century has only slightly fallen, leaving the world heading for a serious escalation of climate risks and damages.
IIASA at the International Conference on Resilience of Nuclear Installations against External Events
Dmitry Erokhin, Research Scholar at the IIASA Cooperation and Transformative Governance (CAT) Research Group, presented the study “Using Google Trends to Analyze Public Sensitivity to Climate-Related Natural Hazards and its Correlation with Nuclear Topics: A Proxy Approach for Societal Impact and Risk Communication”, coauthored with Nadejda Komendantova, Leader of the IIASA CAT Research Group, at the International Conference on Resilience of Nuclear Installations against External Events – Focus on Climate Change, organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Engaging the local stakeholders in policy crafting and co-development of decision support systems can result in policies tailored for local socioeconomic, and environmental characteristics. The effective stakeholder’s engagement hinges on understanding their vision and expectation from the decision-making process, among others. SEVA is an open access tool developed by IIASA researchers for exploratory analysis of stakeholders’ roles and their visions.
The SPARCCLE consortium convened at the CMCC Foundation in Milan on 7-8 October 2025 for its annual General Assembly, marking two years since the project’s launch. The meeting brought together partners from across Europe, along with representatives from sister projects, members of the Stakeholder Advisory Board, and colleagues from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC).
As the world marks UN World Cities Day on 31 October – a call to make cities more sustainable – a new international study warns that the global construction sector’s carbon footprint is on track to double by 2050, threatening to derail efforts to meet the Paris Agreement climate targets.
In October, IIASA welcomed a high-level delegation from the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences (CRAES) for an in-depth exchange on advancing systems analysis and environmental solutions. The visit marked an important step toward strengthening collaboration between IIASA and CRAES on global and regional sustainability challenges.
Rising seas are irreversible on human time scales and among the most severe consequences of climate change. Emissions released in the coming decades will determine how much coastlines are reshaped for centuries to come. New research shows that near-term mitigation could spare future generations around 0.6 meters of sea-level rise that would be caused by emissions between 2020 and 2090 following current policies, making today’s decisions critical not only for limiting warming but also for coastal impacts.