22 - Audio Interview - September 2008

Nebojsa Nakicenovic

Energy versus Climate Change

Listen [MP3 12:09]

Summary

At the Global Economic Symposium in Schleswig-Holstein in September 2008, IIASA Acting Deputy Director Nebojsa Nakicenovic spoke at a session on energy versus climate change. Afterwards, he talked to Romesh Vaitilingam about the options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions: improved energy efficiency; renewables; nuclear energy; and carbon capture and storage.

The interview, originally posted on the Global Economic Symposium (GES) and VoxEU.org Web sites, is reproduced here with permission from VoxEU.org.

Speaker Biography

Nebojsa Nakicenovic is Acting Deputy Director of IIASA and Leader of its Energy and Transitions to New Technologies Programs, Professor of Energy Economics at the Vienna University of Technology, and Director of the Global Energy Assessment (GEA). He is also an Associate Editor of the International Journal on Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Editor of International Journal on Energy and Climate Policy, Member of Editorial Board of the International Journal of Energy Sector Management, a Coordinating Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, and Coordinating Lead Author of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

Prof. Nakicenovic was Director, Global Energy Perspectives, WEC (1993 to 1998), Convening Lead Author of the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (1993 to 1995), Convening Lead Author of the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (1997 to 2000), Lead Author of Third Assessment Report of the IPCC (1999 to 2001), Convening Lead Author of the World Energy Assessment: Energy and the Challenge of Sustainability (1999 to 2000), and Guest Professor at the Technical University of Graz (1993 to 2003).

He first joined IIASA in 1973 to work in the Energy Systems Program on long-term, global energy prospects; from 1984 he worked in the Science and Technology Program on the restructuring of the global automotive industry; from 1986 on the dynamics of technological and social change in the Technology, Economy and Society Program as Acting Program Leader and as Leader of the Environmentally Compatible Energy Strategies Project from 1991 to 2000.

Prof. Nakicenovic holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics and computer science from Princeton University, New Jersey, USA and the University of Vienna, where he also completed his Ph.D. He also holds a Ph.D. (honoris causa) in engineering from the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Among Prof. Nakicenovic’s research interests are the long-term patterns of technological change, economic development and response to climate change and, in particular, the evolution of energy, mobility, information and communication technologies. Currently, his research focuses on the diffusion of new technologies and their interactions with the society and the environment. He is author and coauthor of many scientific papers and books on the dynamics of technological and social change, economic restructuring and development, mitigation of anthropogenic impacts on the environment and on response strategies to global change.

Additional information can be found in Marquis Who’s Who in Science and Engineering and Who’s Who in the World.

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Last updated: 03 Apr 2009