By Thomas Schinko, IIASA Equity and Justice Research Group Leader in the Population and Just Societies Program IIASA researcher Thomas Schinko discusses the visionless outcomes of the recent UN Climate Conference (COP26) in Glasgow and an Austrian project he is involved in, which aims to co-create courageous and positive visions for a low-carbon and climate resilient future. © Kengmerry | Dreamstime.com In December 2015, the international community agreed to limit global average temperature increase to “well below 2°C” above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to hold them to 1.5°C u ..read more

By Fanni Daniella Szakal, 2021 IIASA Science Communication Fellow Can we lift people out of energy poverty while simultaneously reducing carbon dioxide emissions? 2021 Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) participant Camille Belmin tried to tackle this seemingly contradictory issue by including fertility in the equation and estimating the conditions where an increase in energy access would reduce demand through decreasing population sizes. © Photopassion77 | Dreamstime.com About every third person in the world today doesn’t have access to clean cooking fuels and 1 in 10 are without electri ..read more

By Stefan Frank, researcher in the Integrated Biosphere Futures Research Group of the IIASA Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program Stefan Frank discusses a recent study that looked into the impacts of ambitious EU agricultural mitigation policies on the livelihoods of farmers. © Milkos | Dreamstime.com Balancing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals in the land-use sector by 2035 is one of the key milestones presented in the European Green Deal, but achieving climate neutrality will require further emission cuts in the agricultural sector. However, when it comes to setting ambitiou ..read more

By Venla Niva, DSc researcher with the Water and Development Research Group, School of Engineering, Aalto University, Finland Venla Niva shares insights from a recent article exploring the interplay of environmental and social factors behind human migration. The project was carried out in collaboration with Raya Muttarak from the IIASA Population and Just Societies Program. © Irina Nazarova | Dreamstime.com Environmental migration has gained increasing attention in the past years, with recent climate reports and policy documents highlighting an increase in environmental refugees and migrants ..read more

By Fanni Daniella Szakal, 2021 IIASA Science Communication Fellow  In an attempt to foster economic development for Brazil, the government is planning to open up indigenous and protected areas for mining. But will this truly lead to economic development for the country? 2021 Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) participant, Sebastian Luckeneder is using spatial modeling to find out. © Prabhash Dutta | Dreamstime.com As the largest rainforest on the planet, the Amazon harbors the highest biodiversity of all ecosystems and is home to many indigenous tribes. It is also literally sitting ..read more

By Asjad Naqvi and Irene Monasterolo from the IIASA Advancing Systems Analysis Program Asjad Naqvi and Irene Monasterolo discuss a framework they developed to assess how natural disasters cascade across socioeconomic systems. © Bang Oland | Dreamstime.com The 2021 Nobel Prize for Physics, was awarded to the topic of “complex systems”, highlighting the need for a better understanding of non-linear interactions that take place within natural and socioeconomic systems. In our paper titled “Assessing the cascading impacts of natural disasters in a multi-layer behavioral network framework”, recen ..read more

By Marina Andrijevic, researcher in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program Marina Andrijevic tackles some inconvenient but fundamental issues around climate change adaptation. © Lio2012 | Dreamstime.com Anyone who followed climate-related headlines this summer would have noticed a more than usual amount of talk on climate change adaptation. As it goes with sudden epiphanies in aftermaths of humanitarian disasters in our Western realities, this time we’ve come to realize that we need to seriously think about doing some adaptation. To be fair, the realization that adaptation is ine ..read more

By Frank Sperling, Senior Project Manager in the Integrated Biosphere Futures Research Group of the IIASA Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program Frank Sperling shares his reflections on issues around sustainable and transformational food production in the context of the UN Food Systems Summit. © Solarseven | Dreamstime.com Bringing together stakeholders from around the globe, the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) calls attention to the opportunities, challenges, and promises that the transformation of our food systems can hold to advance sustainable development. This transformat ..read more

By Neema Tavakolian, 2021 IIASA Science Communication Fellow  Ever wonder why countries can never agree on issues related to climate change and the environment? Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) participant Felix Schenuit dives into the politics and challenges surrounding carbon dioxide removal in international climate negotiations. The Paris Agreement has been lauded as a landmark effort to address climate change and has been signed by nearly every country in the world. The agreement sets out ambitious goals such as reaching temperature targets, setting net-zero carbon targets, and ..read more

By Neema Tavakolian, 2021 IIASA Science Communication Fellow  Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) participant Lyndsie Wszola explores how human interactions with warming freshwater systems have affected the evolution of fish species through the lens of the North American walleye.  © Justinhoffmanoutdoors | Dreamstime.com The effects of climate change have intensified over the past few years, especially in our oceans, and human based activities contributing to it are now being taken more seriously. While the warming of our oceans is indeed troubling, many forget that freshwater s ..read more