Search

IIASA Cooperation and Transformative Governance Research Group Leader, Nadejda Komendantova, has been appointed as an international expert for the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)/Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)’s Constructing a Digital Environment Program.

The International Science Council (ISC) has appointed IIASA Director General Albert van Jaarsveld as a Foundation Fellow in recognition of his exceptional contribution to the role of science as a global public good.

The Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use signed at COP26 represents a commitment by leaders representing over 85% of the world’s forests to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by 2030. But could the declaration’s ambitions be too ambiguous? An international team of researchers looked into this question.

A working group consisting of Austrian, German, and Swiss meteorological services and various federal, regional, and climate research institutes has presented a recommendation on a standardized German-language description of the illustrative climate change scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program Director Keywan Riahi and Joeri Rogelj, a senior researcher at the institute, have been appointed to the new European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change. This new independent advisory body will provide scientific advice to underpin climate action and efforts by the European Union (EU) to reach climate neutrality by 2050.

IIASA Advancing Systems Analysis Program Director, Elena Rovenskaya, contributed to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) toolkit called “Mathematics for action: supporting science-based decision making” with a brief on allocating scarce resources modeling to support food-energy-water sustainability.

The systemic and uncertain risks facing the world today can have cascading impacts across systems and sectors. A new briefing note on systemic risk highlights that an integrated perspective that incorporates the inherently complex nature of climate-related hazards, vulnerability, exposure and impacts, is crucial to better understanding and responding to systemic risk.

Human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people around the world, despite efforts to reduce the risks. People and ecosystems least able to cope are being hardest hit, according to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released today.

The world is not on track to achieve all the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, and more insight into how we can get back on track is urgently needed. An article by an international team of scientists proposes a more limited set of more easily measurable targets that can be used in scenario analysis for achieving all of the SDGs by the target date.

Halting, then reversing the ongoing loss of Earth’s plant and animal diversity requires far more than an expanded global system of protected areas of land and seas, scientists warn. What is needed, is successful, coordinated action across a diverse, interconnected set of transformative changes, including massive reductions in harmful agricultural and fishing subsidies, deep reductions in overconsumption, and holding climate change to 1.5°C.

A study found that older Europeans are more likely to stick to pandemic rules if they think they are unhealthier than they actually are.

In collaboration with the Egyptian Academy of Scientific Research and Technology and the Institute of National Planning, IIASA is proud to announce the launch of the Northern African Applied Systems Analysis Center (NAASAC).

Climate change disproportionately affects the world’s most vulnerable populations. Not only are these effects compounding and magnifying existing inequalities, but the impacts will increase in severity over time, affecting both current and future generations. A new international study shows that the redistribution of revenues from a carbon tax can promote equity and protect marginalized populations.

A new IIASA-led policy brief highlights the need to consider climate change adaptation in global trade agendas to avoid jeopardizing the achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 on Zero Hunger.

As the impacts of climate change become more severe and limits to adaptation draw near, vulnerable communities will need different kinds of finance to build resilience and transform how they protect themselves. Work by IIASA researchers has culminated in a new policy brief, which lays out a finance framework for such climate risk and provides relevant model insight to inform international debates around adaptation and Loss and Damage.

A project to build a map of the world’s diverse food production systems and their dependencies is helping form a better understanding of the crucial elements and necessary transformative actions that govern agricultural systems, now and in the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made painfully clear that our global infectious disease monitoring system is not up to the task. Report after report points to missed opportunities for detecting and acting on the outbreak’s early signs and the devastating resulting loss of life.

A major qualitative and quantitative step-change is needed in science to support critical societal transformations towards a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient future. IIASA Director General Albert van Jaarsveld contributed to a new report published by the International Science Council (ISC), advocating for a concerted effort by the global science community to step up to the challenge.

The European Commission (EC) has prepared a set of proposals revising EU climate, energy, and transport-related legislation, the so-called 'Fit for 55 package', aiming to deliver the EU's 2030 climate target on its way to climate neutrality in 2050. IIASA research is part of the scientific backbone that underlies the strategies laid out in the package.

More than 820 million people in the world don’t have enough to eat, while climate change and increasing competition for land and water are further raising concerns about the future balance between food demand and supply. The results of a new IIASA-led study can be used to benchmark global food security projections and inform policy analysis and public debate on the future of food.