Peter Rafaj
Guest Senior Research Scholar
Pollution Management Research Group
Energy, Climate, and Environment Program
Biography
Peter Rafaj joined the Air Quality and Greenhouse Gases (AIR) Program (formerly Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases Program) as a Research Scholar in October 2005. His research interests include the development and application of the Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS) model for co-benefits assessment involving linkages with various global and regional energy models. His expertise comprises decomposition analysis of emission trends, as well as the implementation of the GAINS methodology and databases for scenarios of air emissions and mercury. He contributed to numerous mitigation policy analyses in Europe, Asia and worldwide.Before joining IIASA, Dr. Rafaj worked as a research assistant at the energy economics group of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Villigen, Switzerland, with a focus on the modeling of long-term climate policy scenarios. He contributed to the research tasks of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research on Climate (NCCR Climate). Between 1995 and 2001, Dr. Rafaj worked at several agencies in Slovakia, focusing on the environmental impact evaluation of the energy sector. Dr. Rafaj graduated in applied and environmental geophysics from the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia in 1995, and also studied environmental management at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 2005 he was awarded his doctoral degree at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich.
Last update: 15 APR 2016
Publications
Purohit, P. , Höglund-Isaksson, L. , Dulac, J., Shah, N., Wei, M., Rafaj, P. , & Schöpp, W. (2020). Electricity savings and greenhouse gas emission reductions from global phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 20 (19) 11305-11327. 10.5194/acp-20-11305-2020.
Majumdar, D., Purohit, P. , Bhanarkar, A.D., Rao, P.S., Rafaj, P. , Amann, M. , Sander, R. , Pakrashi, A., & Srivastava, A. (2020). Managing future air quality in megacities: Emission inventory and scenario analysis for the Kolkata Metropolitan City, India. Atmospheric Environment 22 e117135. 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2019.117135.
Zhou, W., McCollum, D., Fricko, O. , Fujimori, S. , Gidden, M. , Guo, F. , Hasegawa, T., Huang, H., Huppmann, D. , Krey, V. , Liu, C., Parkinson, S. , Riahi, K. , Rafaj, P. , Schöpp, W. , Yang, F., & Zhou, Y. (2020). Decarbonization pathways and energy investment needs for developing Asia in line with 'well below' 2 °C. Climate Policy 20 (2) 234-245. 10.1080/14693062.2020.1722606.
Amann, M. , Kiesewetter, G. , Schöpp, W. , Klimont, Z. , Winiwarter, W. , Cofala, J., Rafaj, P. , Höglund-Isaksson, L. , Gomez-Sanabria, A. , Heyes, C. , Purohit, P. , Borken-Kleefeld, J. , Wagner, F. , Sander, R. , Fagerli, H., Nyiri, A., Cozzi, L., & Pavarini, C. (2020). Reducing global air pollution: the scope for further policy interventions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 378 (2183) e20190331. 10.1098/rsta.2019.0331.
Höglund-Isaksson, L. , Gomez-Sanabria, A. , Klimont, Z. , Rafaj, P. , & Schöpp, W. (2020). Technical potentials and costs for reducing global anthropogenic methane emissions in the 2050 timeframe –results from the GAINS model. Environmental Research Communications 2 (2) e025004. 10.1088/2515-7620/ab7457.