Taking action to combat climate change and its impacts is urgent and vital to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Although per capita emissions are still highest in high-income countries, several emerging low and middle-income countries have seen a rise in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions in recent years. While much of that rise was due to increased (export-oriented) industrial activities, changing lifestyle, consumption, and mobility patterns also played a significant role. How people can be encouraged to behave in an environmentally friendly way is a fundamental question for climate change mitigation. Despite a call for a stronger emphasis on demand-side solutions in mitigation strategies, little is known about the determinants of pro-environmental behaviors of people from the developing world.
Christiane Pohn-Hufnagl will join the executive team of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) as Chief Operations Officer (COO) on 1 July 2020.
IIASA has recognized four outstanding young scientists from the 2019 Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) as YSSP awardees. Two candidates will receive funding to continue their research projects at IIASA and two have been given an Honorable Mention for exceptional effort.
Together with the Energy Foundation China and University of Maryland, IIASA is hosting an Expert Dialogue on Development, Energy, and Environment with participants from China, the United States of America and Europe.
IIASA provided scientific input to the World Public Sector Report 2019, prepared by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations (UNDESA). The report focuses on the Sustainable Development Goal 16 on public institutions.
A model to reproduce historical wildfire events and to project future burned areas, as well as to assess climate change impacts and adaptation options.
Florian Hofhansl shares his experience on presenting the wildfire climate impacts and adaptation model (FLAM) at the Google Exhibition Booth at the 2019 American Geosciences Union meeting held in San Francisco 9-13 December.
IIASA researcher Sergei Scherbov will contribute to this year's Gaidar Forum in Moscow. The Forum is the major annual international scientific conference in the field of economics in Russia.
Policy Brief #25, December 2019. There is growing recognition that using the properties of nature can help provide viable and cost-effective solutions to a broad range of societal challenges, including disaster risk reduction.
IIASA Deputy Director General for Science Leena Srivastava is invited to be a speaker at the International Petroleum Week 2020, an international conference organized by the Energy Institute, on defining the industry’s role in delivering a low carbon future.
Policy Brief #24, July 2019. Investment in low-carbon energy is making a difference. IIASA research now provides decision makers with valuable data on the capital required to ramp up renewables, boost energy efficiency, redirect energy portfolios, and fill investment gaps.
Policy Brief #23, June 2019. IIASA research has found explanations for variations in estimates of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. According to the researchers, actions set out in countries’ nationally determined contributions are described ambiguously, introducing uncertainty into the stocktaking process. This poses a danger that action plans will not be strengthened sufficiently to avoid dangerous levels of climate change.
Policy Brief #22, June 2019. A study of seventeen climate and energy policies offers design guidelines for more effective policymaking and implementation.
IIASA researchers contributed to a new plan for climate-smart agriculture investment in Zambia, released by the World Bank and the Government of Zambia.
The Working Group on Fisheries-Induced Evolution (WGEVO) of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) has developed a general framework for investigating eco-evolutionary changes in fish stocks and their utilities in terms of ecosystem services and for assessing the management implications of fisheries-induced evolution through Evolutionary Impact Assessments (EvoIAs).
Ensuring that common goods and open-access resources—everything from clean air and the global climate to the internet and civil security—are equitably and fairly available to everyone requires incentive mechanisms.
The complexity and dynamical nature of community interactions make modelling a useful tool for understanding how biodiversity patterns in communities develop over time and how they respond to external perturbations.