Jarmo Kikstra
Research Scholar
Integrated Assessment and Climate Change Research Group
Energy, Climate, and Environment Program
Research Scholar
Transformative Institutional and Social Solutions Research Group
Energy, Climate, and Environment Program
Research Scholar
Sustainable Service Systems Research Group
Energy, Climate, and Environment Program
Biography
Jarmo Kikstra is a research scholar in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program (ECE). He holds a PhD in Environmental Policy from Imperial College London, UK, with a thesis titled "On Decent Living Standards and Climate Mitigation Scenarios".His current scientific research interest lies with two different topics:
1) simultaneously modeling future achievement of climate mitigation and the eradication of all forms of poverty, with a focus on minimum energy requirements, 2) the interface between integrated assessment models and climate models.
In 2022, he received the Award for Early Career Researcher from the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium, and the best student paper prize of the European Society for Ecological Economics. He was awarded an MSc degree (2019) in Climate Change from University College London, UK, and holds a BSc degree (2018) in Technology, Liberal Arts, and Sciences from the University of Twente, The Netherlands.
Kikstra's research is interdisciplinary — it is focused on a just global transition and grounded in integrated assessment of scenarios of climate change and the linkages to a broader suite of sustainable development and human wellbeing objectives. In his research, he brings together human wellbeing and climate change through energy. This work aims to gain insight into the present state of multidimensional poverty from a basic needs perspective, its relation to energy requirements, and the implications for climate mitigation pathways. Kikstra has also worked on the economic impacts of climate change and has a keen interest in the modeling of postgrowth pathways.
In addition to the above, he has contributed to several international reports. Most notably, as a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, he coordinated the climate runs for the mitigation scenarios for Working Group III. As part of this work, he helped to develop a community tool (“climate-assessment”), which was subsequently used for the 2022 United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report and multiple other reports and papers.
Last update: 13 MAY 2026
Publications
Zhang, H., Shan, Y., Li, R., Xue, R., Ma, J., Kikstra, J. , Shi, Z., Wang, Z., Zhang, B., Wang, B., Fang, S., Yang, F., & Hubacek, K. (2026). Rising Air-Conditioning Use Intensifies Global Warming. Nature Communications 17 (1) e1961. 10.1038/s41467-026-69393-1.
Beath, H., Smith, C. , Kikstra, J. , Dekker, M.M., Gidden, M. , & Rogelj, J. (2026). A weighting framework to improve the use of emissions scenario ensembles of opportunity. Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02565-5. (In Press)
Pachauri, S. , Brutschin, E. , Gidden, M.J. , Hasegawa, T., Hejazi, M., Jiang, K., Kikstra, J.S. , Krey, V. , Lamb, W.F., Mintz-Woo, K. , Nauels, A. , Pelz, S. , Rogelj, J. , Roy, J., Schaeffer, R., Scheifinger, K. , Sokona, Y., Tavoni, M., van Ruijven, B. , Vinca, A. , Vishwanathan, S.S., Zimm, C. , & Riahi, K. (2026). Advancing representations of equity and justice in climate mitigation futures. PLOS Climate 5 (2) e0000763. 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000763.
Vélez-Henao, J.A., Streeck, J., Kikstra, J. , & Pauliuk, S. (2026). Water, land, materials, and emissions for providing decent living standards around the world. Ecological Economics 240 e108819. 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108819.
Brutschin, E. , Bertram, C., Baptista, L.B., Bosetti, V., Daioglou, V., de Boer, H.S., Drouet, L., Fosse, F., Fragkiadakis, D., Fragkiadakis, K., Fricko, O. , Fujimori, S. , Kejun, J., Krey, V. , Kikstra, J. , Pianta, S., Pelz, S. , Riahi, K. , Richters, O., Rodrigues, R., Schaeffer, R., Scheifinger, K. , Silva, D., Tagomori, I., van Ruijven, B. , van Vuuren, D., & Vrontisi, Z. (2025). Aligning differentiated mitigation capacity with the Paris agreement goals. Environmental Research: Climate 4 (4) e045012. 10.1088/2752-5295/ae0ea5.