IIASA focused on research to finalize scenarios for the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, clean energy access, energy security, and the role of short-lived climate forcers in the context of the 2°C climate target. New insights were gained on the sources of particulate matter pollution in urban areas and, with these, a wide range of policy options were developed with important co-benefits for other climate priorities.
The Energy (ENE) Program made important strides in advancing the state of knowledge on energy poverty, the policy costs of expanding universal access to modern energy worldwide, and the synergies and tradeoffs between achieving universal access and other sustainable development goals. more
Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) researchers in 2014 investigated the benefits of renewable energy investments, specifically large solar installations in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. more
The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Environmental Resources and Developments (ERD) research group upgraded the livestock module of the IIASA model GLOBIOM to make it the state-of-the-art global economic model in terms of livestock sector representation. more
Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) scientists showed how political risks to large-scale solar institutions planned for the Mediterranean and North African region depend on the specifics of the sector, size of project, and type of activity. They also discussed the water shortage challenges facing Iran. more
In 2014 the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program completed a new generation of projections of global future air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions that outline the impacts of future policy decisions. more
The Energy (ENE) Program made important strides in advancing the state of knowledge on energy poverty, the policy costs of expanding universal access to modern energy worldwide, and the synergies and tradeoffs between achieving universal access and other sustainable development goals. more
In cooperation with its National Member Organizations of Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia, the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Policy and Science Interface (PSI) research group co-hosted a session on applied systems analysis as part of the ninth ASEAN Science and Technology Week (ASTW) in Bogor, Indonesia. more
The original Energy Primer, released in conjunction with the Report of the Global Energy Assessment (GEA), has been expanded and updated and made available both online and as a downloadable textbook, along with with support material for educators. more
The work of the Energy (ENE) Program on energy security focuses on how energy security is framed as a policy issue in different political contexts and interacts with other energy policy objectives. more
In 2014 World Population Program (POP) scientists undertook an extensive analysis of natural disaster data for 167 countries over the past four decades as well as a number of studies carried out in individual countries and regions to test the hypothesis that education is a key factor in reducing disaster fatalities and enhancing adaptive capacity. more
Advanced System Analysis (ASA) Program researchers develop methods and case-studies analyzing ecological, economic, energy, financial and other networked empirical systems. These methods often originate in the natural science disciplines (e.g., physics, ecology) and then transfer to social sciences disciplines (e.g., economics). more
In 2014 the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program continued the analyses of the mitigation potentials and co-benefits of specific emission control options. more
The negative emissions research of the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Policy and Science Interface (PSI) group was further developed building on several past collaborations and previous biomass and carbon capture and storage (BECCS) workshops at IIASA, in Indonesia, Brazil, and Tokyo. more
In 2014 the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program completed a new generation of projections of global future air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions that outline the impacts of future policy decisions. more
Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) scientists showed how political risks to large-scale solar institutions planned for the Mediterranean and North African region depend on the specifics of the sector, size of project, and type of activity. They also discussed the water shortage challenges facing Iran. more
Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) research is critical in terms of overcoming the perception that insurance can contribute to risky behavior and thus disaster risk. It reveals how indexed systems, where payouts are triggered by an event parameter and not by loss claims, not only avoid moral hazard and encourage risk reduction, but can increase the access of the poor to much-needed safety nets. more
The Energy (ENE) Program coordinated a number of major research community activities, in particular the further development of quantitative scenarios for the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), which form part of the new framework adopted by the climate change research community to facilitate the integrated analysis of climate impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. more
The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Policy and Science Interface (PSI) research group organized the formal launch of the cross-sectoral “Tropical Futures Initiative” (TFI) at a workshop with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in Jakarta, Indonesia, in February 2014. more
The Energy (ENE) Program made important strides in advancing the state of knowledge on energy poverty, the policy costs of expanding universal access to modern energy worldwide, and the synergies and tradeoffs between achieving universal access and other sustainable development goals. more
Seven IIASA authors contributed to the final Report of the Austrian Panel on Climate Change (APCC), an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) regional offspring activity that was completed and published in 2014. more
During 2014 the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Policy and Science Interface (PSI) group further developed IIASA’s BeWhere model to optimize hydropower systems. more
The critical importance of technology and the resulting need for enhanced innovation efforts for climate protection was comprehensively assessed and illustrated through two major international modeling intercomparison exercises that were completed in 2014: the Energy Modeling Forum (EMF27) and the EU project AMPERE. more
The original Energy Primer, released in conjunction with the Report of the Global Energy Assessment (GEA), has been expanded and updated and made available both online and as a downloadable textbook, along with with support material for educators. more
Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) researchers and collaborators finalized the first fully verified carbon account for the Ukrainian forest for 1990-2010 and produced a forecast for the next 30 years. more
As at the end of January 2015 a study by the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Methods for Economic Decision-Making under Uncertainty (MEDU) research group was the most cited of all papers ever published in a top Springer journal. more
A series of improvements were introduced to the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program’s standalone fire model (SFM) which quantitatively estimates climate impacts on forest fires in Europe. more
Transitions to New Technologies (TNT) scientists are part of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), a scientific advisory panel established by the German government. Nebojsa Nakicenovic, one of the nine members of the WBGU since its inception, was reappointed in 2014 for a second term. more
In 2014 the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program continued the analyses of the mitigation potentials and co-benefits of specific emission control options. more
The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Policy and Science Interface (PSI) research group helped organize a series of IIASA presentations at the 2014 International Union of Forestry Research Organizations (IUFRO) World Congress in Salt Lake City, Utah, in October. more
Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program researchers work on conceptualizing the notion of sustainability and exploring different approaches to evaluating and quantifying it. more
In 2014 the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program completed a new generation of projections of global future air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions that outline the impacts of future policy decisions. more
The Water (WAT) Program worked on a project on Progress in Renewable Energy and Biofuels Sustainability (PREBS14) which provides the analytical basis for monitoring, assessing, and evaluating the evolution of 27 European Union member states in implementing the RES Directive, based on a detailed analysis of the progress reports submitted by each of the EU member states. more
Collaborative high-level research by Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) found that losses from extreme floods in Europe could more than double by 2050, mainly due to climate change and socioeconomic development. The research allowed the first comprehensive assessment of continental flood risk and a comparison of the different adaptation options available to Europe. more
Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) research is critical in terms of overcoming the perception that insurance can contribute to risky behavior and thus disaster risk. It reveals how indexed systems, where payouts are triggered by an event parameter and not by loss claims, not only avoid moral hazard and encourage risk reduction, but can increase the access of the poor to much-needed safety nets. more
The Energy (ENE) Program coordinated a number of major research community activities, in particular the further development of quantitative scenarios for the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), which form part of the new framework adopted by the climate change research community to facilitate the integrated analysis of climate impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. more
Energy Program (ENE) researchers, IIASA partners, and international collaborators contributed to new research on unconventional natural gas, the results of which were published in Nature. more
Scientists from the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program applied the GLOBIOM model to analyze a large number of climate change scenarios in order to investigate the extent to which producers facing climate change favored irreversible adaptation measures over low-cost field-scale adjustments. more
Important progress was achieved by scientists of the Transition to New Technologies (TNT) Program in a number of in-house collaborative research projects and externally funded research contracts, including a project within IIASA’s Advanced Systems Analysis Forum. more
In the ALPS project, Transitions to New Technologies (TNT) scientists in collaboration with the ENE Program and colleagues from Japan are researching ways to improve the representation of technological change in integrated assessment models (IAMs) to inform climate policy choices. more
The Energy (ENE) Program in collaboration with its main partners successfully completed the LIMITS project, a multi-year research effort on assessing the climate policy implications of the Durban Platform for enhanced action on climate change. more
Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) researchers contributed to the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. AR5 emphasizes risk management as a fundamental policy response for climate change adaptation. more
To operationalize the concept of social and ecological resilience, the Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) Program and partners in the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance are developing a comprehensive conceptual model for operationalizing disaster resilience thinking, which is being rolled out in several countries globally. more
Energy (ENE) Program researchers found that mitigating climate change will require substantial new investment in low-carbon energy and energy efficiency over the coming decades and that if policymakers are slow to respond to this challenge in the next few years, they risk “locking in” fossil-based energy infrastructure that will likely need to be shut down before the end of its useful life. more
The critical importance of technology and the resulting need for enhanced innovation efforts for climate protection was comprehensively assessed and illustrated through two major international modeling intercomparison exercises that were completed in 2014: the Energy Modeling Forum (EMF27) and the EU project AMPERE. more
The original Energy Primer, released in conjunction with the Report of the Global Energy Assessment (GEA), has been expanded and updated and made available both online and as a downloadable textbook, along with with support material for educators. more
The work of the Energy (ENE) Program on energy security focuses on how energy security is framed as a policy issue in different political contexts and interacts with other energy policy objectives. more
The Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) Program pioneered numerous studies on the fiscal resilience of national governments to extreme event losses, a concept that has become increasingly topical as climate negotiators deliberate on a global fund to support adaptation. more
In 2014 the Water (WAT) program collaborated with the Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) Program, and the Zurich Flood Resilience Program on a project to enhance community flood resilience. more
Through case studies, Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program researchers model interconnected food, water, and energy systems at the local and global levels with the aim of suggesting robust management strategies with respect to uncertainties and risks. more
In 2014 World Population Program (POP) scientists undertook an extensive analysis of natural disaster data for 167 countries over the past four decades as well as a number of studies carried out in individual countries and regions to test the hypothesis that education is a key factor in reducing disaster fatalities and enhancing adaptive capacity. more
The Energy (ENE) Program contributed to a cross-cutting collaborative research project by developing projections of future national income distributions. more
Advanced System Analysis (ASA) Program researchers develop methods and case-studies analyzing ecological, economic, energy, financial and other networked empirical systems. These methods often originate in the natural science disciplines (e.g., physics, ecology) and then transfer to social sciences disciplines (e.g., economics). more
In 2014 the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program continued the analyses of the mitigation potentials and co-benefits of specific emission control options. more
The Transitions to New Technologies (TNT) Program, in collaboration with the Energy (ENE) Program, developed a database containing the largest-ever ensemble (1,200) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions scenarios to support the writing teams of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The hosting of the databases was entrusted to IIASA. more
The Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) Program contributed to resolving the debate on formulating and shaping the Loss and Damage Mechanism, agreed at the Warsaw Climate Change Conference in 2013. more
Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program researchers work on conceptualizing the notion of sustainability and exploring different approaches to evaluating and quantifying it. more
The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Environmental Resources and Developments (ERD) research group upgraded the livestock module of the IIASA model GLOBIOM to make it the state-of-the-art global economic model in terms of livestock sector representation. more
Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program researchers develop dynamic network models of ecological, economic, and social systems. There is a particular focus on the issue of financial systemic risk and cascading failures in the inter-bank lending network. more
Scientists, alumni, and collaborators from the Transitions to New Technologies Program (TNT) contributed to 25 chapters of the book, Energy Technology Innovation: Learning from Historical Successes and Failures, published by Cambridge University Press in 2014. more
In 2014 the Transitions to New Technologies (TNT) Program in collaboration with IIASA’s Energy (ENE) and Mitigation of Air Pollution & Greenhouse Gas (MAG) Programs worked on scoping a new cross-cutting research project on unconventional gas resources—which are potentially vast—and also on identifying a potential unique niche for IIASA in this rapidly crowding research field. more
Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program researchers have developed a framework to produce policy instruments that are robust with respect to potential uncertainties to combat growing risks from natural hazards. more
In 2014 the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program completed a new generation of projections of global future air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions that outline the impacts of future policy decisions. more
Researchers from the Transition to New Technologies (TNT) Program have developed a new database of historical energy balances—Primary, Final, and Useful Energy Database (PFUDB)—to explore the impacts of input versus output measures of technological change that shed a new light on the possible speed of major technological transitions. more
The Energy (ENE) Program coordinated a number of major research community activities, in particular the further development of quantitative scenarios for the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), which form part of the new framework adopted by the climate change research community to facilitate the integrated analysis of climate impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. more
The Energy (ENE) Program’s Joeri Rogelj led a study that explored and quantified the interactions and uncertainties of reductions of emissions of short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) and carbon dioxide, that resulted in two publications. more
Having played a major role in the Global Energy Assessment (GEA), Transitions to New Technologies (TNT) scientists are making a major contribution to the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative, which is based on the GEA. The linkages between sustainable developed and climate protection that are at the core of SE4All have also been integrated into the IPCC AR5. more
The endogenous model formulation for technology diffusion constraints was further refined and parameterized to improve the representation of technological change in integrated assessment models (IAMs) and thereby inform climate policy choices. more
Within the context of the FP7 ADVANCE project David McCollum expanded and enriched the end-use detail of the MESSAGE-Transport model (MESSAGE extension) by incorporating utility-based consumer choice decisions in the light-duty vehicle sector. more
The Energy (ENE) Program made important strides in advancing the state of knowledge on energy poverty, the policy costs of expanding universal access to modern energy worldwide, and the synergies and tradeoffs between achieving universal access and other sustainable development goals. more
Energy Program (ENE) researchers, IIASA partners, and international collaborators contributed to new research on unconventional natural gas, the results of which were published in Nature. more
In 2014 the Transitions to New Technologies (TNT) Program in collaboration with IIASA’s Energy (ENE) and Mitigation of Air Pollution & Greenhouse Gas (MAG) Programs worked on scoping a new cross-cutting research project on unconventional gas resources—which are potentially vast—and also on identifying a potential unique niche for IIASA in this rapidly crowding research field. more
Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) research is critical in terms of overcoming the perception that insurance can contribute to risky behavior and thus disaster risk. It reveals how indexed systems, where payouts are triggered by an event parameter and not by loss claims, not only avoid moral hazard and encourage risk reduction, but can increase the access of the poor to much-needed safety nets. more
The Energy (ENE) Program made important strides in advancing the state of knowledge on energy poverty, the policy costs of expanding universal access to modern energy worldwide, and the synergies and tradeoffs between achieving universal access and other sustainable development goals. more
The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Policy and Science Interface (PSI) research group organized the formal launch of the cross-sectoral “Tropical Futures Initiative” (TFI) at a workshop with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in Jakarta, Indonesia, in February 2014. more
Gbenga Abiodun of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, studied the impacts of temperature and rainfall on malaria incidence in sub-Saharan Africa. more
Thomas Schinko of the University of Graz/Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, Austria, investigated the economic impacts of a financial derisking approach for concentrated solar power (CSP) in four North African countries. more
Olufiasayo Onawumi of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology, Ghana, researched how to establish landscape-scale mitigation projects that fully account for land use change. more
Kgothatso Brucely Shai, University of Limpopo, Turfloop campus, South Africa, found that it would be in the best interests of the USA for African nations to be developed and self-reliant, as this would enhance the capacity of African nations to buy products from the USA. more
Hongmei Zheng of the School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, China, analyzed how the three regions within the Jing-Jin-Ji agglomeration interact with each other and their roles in its development. more
Tao Wang of the Center for Industrial Ecology, Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, China, constructed an aggregate model of China’s economy for 1980-2010 to retrospectively analyze the sensitivity of resource productivity to variations in investment scenarios. more
Younha Kim of the Konkuk University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, investigated the effectiveness of the Seoul Metropolitan Area’s Air Quality Management Plan (SAQMP) using the GAINS-Korea framework under development at IIASA. more
Pietro Campana of Mälardalen University, Sweden, undertook a project to identify the suitability and optimal location of grassland areas for the implementation of photovoltaic (PV) water pumping systems across China. more
Qiuying Ding of the Shanghai Climate Center, China, looked at the coupling of crop models across different spatial scales and the multi-scale evaluation of adaptive technologies locally, for different cropping regions, and China as a whole. more
Farid Karimi of the Environmental Research Group (EPRG), University of Helsinki, Finland, scrutinized the implementation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology from the perspective of socio-cultural structures. more
Piera Patrizio of the University of Udine, Italy, developed a biogas supply chain model to identify the optimal location for installation of new biogas plants and their most ecological and profitable technology and capacity options. more
Hana Nielsen of the Department of Economic History, Lund University, Sweden, aimed to identify whether the regime change (from market to centrally planned economy) in Czechoslovakia had an impact on the domestic iron and steel industry. more
Fabian Schipfer of the Vienna University of Technology/Energy Economics Group, Austria, drew up scenarios aimed at developing strategies for the integration and extension of an industry based on renewable resources. more
Madeleine McPherson of the University of Toronto incorporated distinct time scales for the variability of renewable energy resources into the MESSAGE model. more
Stephen Eromobor of Central University of Technology, Free State, looked at how universities can become forces of good within a city by reengineering their infrastructure to become green buildings. more
Robert Barron of the University of Massachusetts, USA, examined the welfare impact of R&D investment on the supply side across a range of demand, transportation sector, and climate policy scenarios. more
Zepeng Sun of the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, assessed how populations in seasonal environments would need to adjust their life histories in order to cope with changing seasonal patterns in their environments. more
Lukas Figge of the Maastricht University, International Centre for Integrated Assessment and Sustainable Development, Netherlands, researched how culture and behavior (social values and norms) can be included in a quantitative climate change model. more
Kgothatso Brucely Shai, University of Limpopo, Turfloop campus, South Africa, found that it would be in the best interests of the USA for African nations to be developed and self-reliant, as this would enhance the capacity of African nations to buy products from the USA. more
Guilherme De Paula of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, USA, conducted a project to explain the significant cost reductions in sugarcane ethanol production in Brazil since 1975. more
