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How effective is the promotion of low-meat diets at reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to carbon pricing when the effectiveness of mitigation policies is measured against methane’s long-term behavior? An international team of researchers explored how focusing either on the short- or long-term warming effects of methane can affect climate mitigation policies and dietary transitions in agriculture.

Access to electricity and modern cooking fuels, especially for women in the Global South, leads to time savings in the home, improved health, and better access to information, which in turn increase the wellbeing of women and allow them to make informed reproductive choices, according to a new study just published in Nature Sustainability.

A project by researchers from Princeton University and IIASA investigated how different climate scenarios and policy interventions could affect smallholder farmers in Nepal who stand to lose up to a quarter of their income by 2050 due to the effects of climate change.

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.

Allowing global temperatures to rise beyond maximum thresholds and then trying to bring them back down again through mitigation strategies is risky. A new study by an international team of researchers explored the physical and macroeconomic impacts associated with mitigation pathways with different levels of temperature overshoot.

A new international study coordinated by IIASA shows how near-term mitigation can help to prevent an overshoot in global temperatures, thereby reducing climate risks and bringing long-term economic gains.

IIASA demographer Wolfgang Lutz is invited to present the latest advances in demography on the interactions between human populations and the environment organised in a webinar organized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Webinar on a sustainable development pathway for climate action within the UN 2030 Agenda

IIASA demographer Guillaume Marois presents in a webinar organized by Shanghai University a new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences  that suggests declining birth rates and an aging population might not hinder future prosperity when associated with better education of the young.

Monitoring progress on our way to successfully achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is key to their achievement, but there are significant data gaps that make this crucial exercise difficult. A new IIASA-led study explored the use of a citizen science tool known as Picture Pile to see how it could contribute to SDG monitoring.

Crop and livestock production are among the main drivers of biodiversity loss globally. Due to the ever-increasing demand of land for food production, reverting global biodiversity decline and feeding the world is one of the greatest challenges of our time. A new study finds that integrating food production and biodiversity conservation within a single spatial planning framework can minimize these trade-offs to the benefit of both nature and people.

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.

Tackling pollution from the emission of nitrogen compounds, particularly ammonia, could reduce many of the 23.3 million years of life that were lost prematurely across the world in 2013 due to nitrogen-related air pollution, an international study led by Chinese scientists has discovered using a modeling framework, including the IIASA GAINS model.

Climate change may affect the production of maize (corn) and wheat by 2030 if current trends continue, according to a new international study that included researchers from IIASA, NASA, and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Maize crop yields are projected to decline by 24%, while wheat could potentially see growth of about 17%.

Replacing polluting cooking fuels with clean-burning ones can save lives and reduce our impact on the environment. A group of IIASA researchers shows how recovery from the pandemic and climate mitigation policies might affect access to clean fuels.

Sub-Saharan Africa is developing rapidly. With growing economies and increased trade, major road infrastructure plans have been developed for the region, which also hosts some of the world’s most unique and diverse ecosystems. New research looked into how roads might impact ecosystems in the region.

Ensuring China’s future food security will have huge environmental impacts, both domestically and globally. A study by IIASA researchers and Chinese colleagues shows that carefully designed policies across the whole of China’s food system, including international trade, are crucial to ensuring that future demand can be satisfied without destroying the environment.

The pandemic-related drop in greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 was likely the largest on record in a single year, but how our recovery might affect future emissions is less clear. New modeling examines alternative scenarios and how they could impact climate mitigation targets.

New research on China suggests that declining birth rates and an aging population might not hinder future prosperity when associated with better education of the young.

Children are to face disproportionate increases in lifetime extreme event exposure – especially in low-income countries, according to new research by an international group of scientists.