What has changed since the historic Paris Agreement in 2015? The theme of this year’s UN Climate Change Conference is “Changing together”: The conference will focus on the preparation for 2020, the year in which the Paris Agreement will come into force. Several IIASA researchers will attend and discuss how the ambitious targets can be achieved, and participate in side events.

MCK building, venue of COP24 © Fraanek | Dreamstime.com

One of the most important tasks of COP24 will be to work out and adopt a package of decisions ensuring the full implementation of the Paris Agreement. Three years after the historic agreement, it is time to take stock of the key achievements. Countries are now taking the next steps in order to keep global warming well below 2°C.

Several IIASA experts will join the conference and participate in several sessions and side events aimed at providing their expertise to policymakers. Please click here to visit the COP24 homepage.

IIASA side events at COP24

ICEF and New Scenario Explorer for IPCC SR1.5: Initiatives showing the way towards net-zero CO2 emissions

10 December 16:45-18:15, Warmia Side Event Room – Area G

This IIASA side event, in partnership with the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development (NEDO) and the Carbon Trust, highlights two activities:

The IAMC 1.5°C Scenario Explorer, an interactive tool for full access to the scenarios of the IPCC SR on Global Warming of 1.5°C.
ICEF features technological and business innovations (incl. direct air capture of carbon dioxide) for achieving net-zero CO2 emissions.

The IAMC 1.5°C Scenario Explorer hosted by International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) comprises the scenario ensemble of quantitative, model-based climate change mitigation pathways underpinning the assessment in the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C. The scenario ensemble contains more than 400 emissions pathways, which focus on limiting temperature rise to below 1.5°C or 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and provide information on the underlying socio-economic development, energy system transformations and land use change until the end of the century, developed by over a dozen research teams from around the world. The Scenario Explorer, which was developed by IIASA on behalf of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC) and IPCC Working Group III, is equipped with a new interactive interface that allows policymakers and researchers in related fields such as climate finance easy access and analysis of the pathways. To further improve transparency and reproducibility of information, together with the Scenario Explorer, a set of scripts is made available that enable researchers to recreate tables and figures in the IPCC report from the underlying pathway data. The Scenario Explorer can be accessed at https://data.ene.iiasa.ac.at/iamc-1.5c-explorer.

Since 2014 the Government of Japan has hosted the Innovation for Cool Earth Forum (ICEF), gathering international leading figures tackling climate change through technological innovation in Tokyo, Japan. Initiated by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, ICEF brings the world’s best minds together to solve the 21st century’s greatest environmental challenges. ICEF’s mission is to nurture discussion and collaboration among participants and to disseminate innovations in energy and environmental technology to participants and beyond. It is hosted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). In this side event, the activities and results of ICEF 2018 including a roadmap and “Top 10 Innovations.” will be presented. And panelists will discuss on what we should do to achieve Net-Zero CO2 Emissions.

Every year ICEF develops roadmap on how key innovative technologies can contribute to a transition toward net zero CO2 emissions. This year ICEF releases an unprecidented Roadmap on Direct Air Capture of Carbon Dioxide here in this side event. It explores the portfolio of Negative Emission Technologies (NETs), Direct Air Capture (DAC) technologies and their status, long-term goals for DAC (e.g. economic viability, ensuring net CO2 removal from the use of DAC and CO2 utilization, role of renewable electricity, RD&D targets) and policy support. Further information can be found here.

“Top 10 Innovations”, the most notable among recent innovative developments in energy and climate change mitigation were selected by the participants of ICEF 2018. “Top 10 Innovations” can be found here.

Speakers:

Kazushige Nobutani, Deputy Director-General for Technology and Environment, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)
David Sandalow, Inaugural Fellow, Columbia University
Julio Friedmann, Distinguished Associate, Energy Futures Initiative
Volker Krey, Deputy Program Director, Energy Program (ENE), IIASA
Tom Delay, Chief Executive, The Carbon Trust
Youba Sokona, Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Eija-Riitta Korhola, Advisor in the EU Affairs
Takashi Omote, Executive Director, NEDO

Initiatives to Strengthen National Modelling Capacities: Tools for Linking Climate Policies to Sustainable Development

12 December 14:00-15:00, PCCB Capacity-Building Hub / RYSY Meeting Room 24 – Area E

This session focuses on:

Integrated climate change and sustainable development analysis at the national and global scale – an overview of the CD-LINKS project
Tools for assessing the impact of climate policies and NDCs
The MESSAGEix modeling framework and other state-of-the-art tools for integrated scenario analysis

Speakers:

Volker Krey, Deputy Program Director (ENE), IIASA
Heleen van Soest (PBL, Netherlands)
Daniel Huppmann, Research Scholar (ENE), IIASA
Swapnil Shekhar (TERI, India)

What a low-carbon world really looks like in the next decades: Modelling tools used and required for long-term planning

13 December 14:30-16:00, EU Pavilion, Room Brussels – Area E, Space 9

This side event is co-hosted by CD-LINKS and is in collaboration with with the COMMIT project and the German Umweltbundesamt. It will showcase integrated global and national low-carbon transformation pathways, their link to sustainable development objectives as well as the experience of major economies in different areas of implementation and policy design.

Speakers:

Elmar Kriegler (PIK, Germany)
Detlef van Vuuren (PBL, Netherlands)
David McCollum, Senior Research Scholar (ENE), IIASA
Kimon Keramidas (European Commission, JRC)
Guido Knoche (UBA, Germany)
Markus Hagemann (NewClimate Institute)
Artur Runge-Metzger (European Commission)
Alexandre Koeberle (COPPE, Brazil)
Swapnil Shekhar (TERI, India)
Vaibhav Chaturvedi (CEEW, India)

IIASA participation in COP24 sessions

IPCC Special Report on 1.5° - Chapter 4

6 December 16:30-18:00

Lead author presentation by Reinhard Mechler, Deputy Program Director, Risk and Resilience Program (RISK), IIASA

Enabling transformation to achieve 1.5°C, sustainable development, and adaptation: metrics, standards, enabling environment

6 December 17:00-18:30, EU Pavilion

Reinhard Mechler, Deputy Program Director (RISK) will participate. In partnership with Climate KIC, Climate Change Centre Austria, gLAWcal

Side event on forest fires at the French Pavilion, organized by the French Ministry of Agriculture and Food

8 December 10:00-11:30

Panel member Andrey Krasovskii, Research Scholar, Ecosystems Services and Management Program (ESM), IIASA, will present the wildfire climate impacts and adaptation model (FLAM). Download flyer (pdf).

Can climate insurance address climate risks while adhering to fair and pro-poor principles?

8 December 11:30-13:00

Reinhard Mechler, Deputy Program Director (RISK) (Co-facilitator)

Five Years In: What has the Warsaw International Mechanism Achieved and Looking Ahead, Where Can We Go from Here?

8 December 16:00-17:20

Presentation by Reinhard Mechler, Deputy Program Director (RISK). Lead: Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre

Innovations in Citizen Participation to Support Forest Landscape Restoration

11 December

Moderator: Ping Yowargana, Research Scholar (ESM); Speaker: Florian Kraxner, Deputy Director (ESM)

Kraxner and Yowargana are also scheduled for a reporting meeting to the Indonesian Minister of National Development Planning (Bappenas) on the progress of the RESTORE+ project on 10 December.

Joeri Rogelj, Senior Research Scholar (ENE), will be participating in numerous side events held at the IPCC Pavilion (shared with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)), including:

4 December 14:00-15:00 | UNEP EGR side event (German Pavilion)

7 December 11:30-13:00 | Grantham Side Event on Energy Storage

8 December | IEA Global Climate Action Agenda

11 December 13:15-14:45 | UNEP EGR UNFCCC side event

12 December 10:00-11:30 | Understanding SR15 - Chapter 2: Pathways

2018 Talanoa Dialogue Platform

The Talanoa Dialogue, launched by the UN Climate Change secretariat, is an international conversation in which countries will check progress and seek to increase global ambition to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Through the portal, all countries and other stakeholders, are invited to make submissions around three central questions: Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there?

Researchers from the IIASA Energy Program have contributed the following reports: