Matthew Gidden profile picture

Matthew Gidden

Senior Research Scholar

Sustainable Service Systems Research Group

Energy, Climate, and Environment

Senior Research Scholar

Integrated Assessment and Climate Change Research Group

Energy, Climate, and Environment

Biography

Matthew Gidden is a senior research scholar in the Integrated Assessment and Climate Change Research Group of the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program, where he focuses on studying sustainable pathways for meeting societal energy demand while mitigating changes to the climate and environment. He engages across a variety of scientific communities, investigating interdisciplinary issues ranging from anthropogenic emissions effects on climate and human health, to equitable approaches to global and national mitigation. He is particularly interested in the intersection of energy systems analysis and climate policy, having published widely in the scientific literature, as well as serving as an author of the 6th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Gidden has strong experience in leading and managing scientific studies related to energy systems, anthropogenic emissions, and climate change. During his tenure as head of the Climate Policy Team at Climate Analytics, he co-led a team of over 30 scientific staff and policy analysts who conducted mitigation studies ranging from global analyses of aggregate national climate action to country-level, sectorally resolved, 1.5°C-consistent pathways. He previously worked as a research scholar at IIASA where he led Integrated Assessment Modeling (IAM) campaigns, and was one of the main developers of the MESSAGEix-GLOBIOM modeling framework.

Trained as a nuclear engineer, Gidden received his PhD and Master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, US, and an undergraduate degree in the same field from Texas A&M University, also in the US. His research interests include investigating deep mitigation energy system pathways, the effects and impacts of climate change on populations, as well as adaptation options available under different scenarios of the future.


Last update: 28 JAN 2022

Publications

Leblanc, F., Bibas, R., Mima, S., Muratori, M., Sakamoto, S., Sano, F., Bauer, N., Daioglou, V., Fujimori, S., Gidden, M. , Kato, E., Rose, S.K., Tsutsui, J., van Vuuren, D.P., Weyant, J., & Wise, M. (2022). The contribution of bioenergy to the decarbonization of transport: a multi-model assessment. Climatic Change 170 (3-4) e21. 10.1007/s10584-021-03245-3.

Ou, Y., Iyer, G., Clarke, L., Edmonds, J., Fawcett, A.A., Hultman, N., McFarland, J.R., Binsted, M., Cui, R., Fyson, C., Geiges, A., Gonzales-Zuñiga, S., Gidden, M. , Höhne, N., Jeffery, L., Kuramochi, T., Lewis, J., Meinshausen, M., Nicholls, Z., Patel, P., Ragnauth, S., Rogelj, J. , Waldhoff, S., Yu, S., & McJeon, H. (2021). Can updated climate pledges limit warming well below 2°C? Science 374 (6568) 693-695. 10.1126/science.abl8976.

Höhne, N., Gidden, M. , den Elzen, M., Hans, F., Fyson, C., Geiges, A., Jeffery, M.L., Gonzales-Zuñiga, S., Mooldijk, S., Hare, W., & Rogelj, J. (2021). Wave of net zero emission targets opens window to meeting the Paris Agreement. Nature Climate Change 11 820-822. 10.1038/s41558-021-01142-2.