Scientific achievements in 2013
The activities of the Energy (ENE) Program in 2013 addressed the salient challenges confronting the global energy system, including integrated assessment of climate change and climate policy analysis; energy policy analysis; and development and application of new technology-related methodologies.
The following are highlights of ENE research in 2013:
- Finalization of two special issues summarizing the efforts of 20 international research teams jointly assessing the role of technology and climate policy architecture for limiting climate change.
- Completion of a number of major studies on strategies to achieve universal access to clean and modern energy for the poor, improving regional and global energy security, and dealing with the impacts on human health and ecosystems of energy-related air pollution.
- Improving methodological representation of energy technology diffusion in integrated assessment models plus application of new probabilistic methods to assess climate mitigation costs, resulting in a paper being published in Nature.
- Contributions to the 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC and, related to this, finalization of a (third) special issue summarizing the conceptual framework of the so-called Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs).
In 2013 the Energy (ENE) Program conducted policy analyses in areas where the energy related challenges were greatest, for example, universal energy access. More
Integrated assessment of climate change and climate policy analysis was a core research activity in 2013, providing a focus for collaborative research with other research programs at IIASA, and with the larger international science community. More
Methodological developments in 2013 have focused on two interrelated areas: uncertainty and energy technology diffusion. More