14 May 2014
Washington DC, USA

Nexus research and the Global Environment Facility

IIASA energy and water experts visit the Global Environment Facility to discuss future collaborations on energy, water, and integrated systems research.

©MarcelClemens, Shutterstock

©MarcelClemens, Shutterstock

IIASA Deputy Director Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Luis Gomez-Echeverri, and IIASA Water Futures and Solutions Initiative leaders David Grey, and David Wiberg are visiting the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in Washington DC to discuss collaborative possibilities on GEF 6, merging IIASA's integrated systems analysis knowledge and methods with GEF's recognition of the need for integrated approaches within GEF 6. The researchers will be meeting with key leaders of GEF's focal areas. They will also have a seminar, including participants from the World Bank and others working closely with GEF, where Nakicenovic will present IIASA and its integrated systems analysis experience, and David Grey will be presenting on major water policy challenges, WFaS, and opportunities within GEF 6.

Abstract 

IIASA’s research focuses on three major global areas: food and water; energy and climate change; poverty and equity. These are interlinked and key questions of synergies and tradeoffs at their intersection are where IIASA’s advanced systems analysis approach is best in providing important insights. Major drivers of global transformation such as urbanization, population growth and migration, technological change, and economic development, provide the basis for IIASA’s work in assessing and evaluating major trends in resource demands (food, energy, and water) and future scenarios that can help project possible transgressions of planetary boundaries which may be irreversible. Over the decades, IIASA has developed models, tools, methodologies, and data sets that have provided much of the scientific underpinning for important initiatives such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) in Europe.

IIASA has carried out this work in collaboration with a vast network of partners, institutions and constituencies built over decades. Given this tradition, the GEF decision to pilot new integrated approaches for generating global environmental benefits is of great interest. The visit of IIASA provides an opportunity for discussing and exploring possible collaboration in the areas of food, water, and energy demand and in the context GEF’s support to cooperation in transboundary waters, and the Sustainable Cities and Food Security integrated approach pilot area. The interest is to explore whether the IIASA methodologies, scenarios, tools and vast data sets are a good match for the needs and demands of GEF 6, for example defining opportunities and risks for the governance and management of transboundary waters given multiple demands on water across countries and sectors and possibly informing future priorities for GEF’s support in this area. And for developing conceptual models of sustainable cities and indicators that could be applied to a specific geography or geographies as case studies (e.g. specific basins, cities, deltas) but that can be scaled up for broader application. 


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Last edited: 12 May 2014

Global Environment Facility

The Global Environment Facility is a partnership for international cooperation on global environmental issues.

Water Futures and Solutions

This IIASA flagship initiative brings a new integrated view to water research.

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Phone: (+43 2236) 807 0 Fax:(+43 2236) 71 313