Volker Krey
Research Group Leader and Principal Research Scholar
Sustainable Service Systems Research Group
Energy, Climate, and Environment Program
Research Group Leader and Principal Research Scholar
Integrated Assessment and Climate Change Research Group
Energy, Climate, and Environment Program
Biography
Volker Krey leads the Integrated Assessment and Climate Change Research Group of the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program.
His main fields of scientific interest include the integrated assessment of climate change and the link to a broader suite of sustainable development objectives such as improved air quality, sustainable water use, and energy access, as well as the interaction with material cycles via circular economy strategies. His work focuses on the development and application of integrated assessment models (IAMs) with different regional focuses (subnational to global scale) and time horizons. Over the past decade, he has been overseeing the development of the MESSAGEix model at IIASA and its recent release as an open source tool. As a co-chair of the scientific working group on data protocols and management of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), he has significantly contributed to improving transparency and data sharing in the IAM community.
Krey has served as a Lead Author of multiple IPCC Reports, including the 5th and 6th Assessment Reports of Working Group III, and the Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation. He has coauthored more than 120 publications that have been cited well over 20,000 times in total. From 2018 to 2024 he has been acknowledged as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate in their annual rankings.
Last update: 19 NOV 2025
Publications
Wang, H., Chen, W., Bertram, C., Malik, A., Kriegler, E., Luderer, G., Després, J., Jiang, K., & Krey, V. (2020). Early transformation of the Chinese power sector to avoid additional coal lock-in. Environmental Research Letters 15 (2) e024007. 10.1088/1748-9326/ab5d99.
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.
Energy Foundation China, (2020). Synthesis Report 2020 on China’s Carbon Neutrality: China’s New Growth Pathway: from the 14th Five Year Plan to Carbon Neutrality. Energy Foundation China , Beijing, China.
Riahi, K. , Krey, V. , Bertram, C., Kriegler, E., Luderer, G., van Vuuren, D., Roelfsema, M., van Soest, M., Schaeffer, R., Pachauri, S. , Pahle, M., Mathur, R., Bosetti, V., Drouet, L., Vrontisi, Z., & CD-LINKS Consortium, (2019). Linking Climate and Sustainable Development: Policy insights from national and global pathways. IIASA , Laxenburg, Austria.
van Soest, H.L., van Vuuren, D.P., Hilaire, J., Minx, J.C., Harmsen, M.J.H.M., Krey, V. , Popp, A., Riahi, K. , & Luderer, G. (2019). Analysing interactions among Sustainable Development Goals with Integrated Assessment Models. Global Transitions 1 210-225. 10.1016/j.glt.2019.10.004.