Haze and Biomass Burning in Asia

In collaboration with the Academy of Sciences Malaysia, IIASA organised a workshop on haze and biomass burning in Asia on 4-5 October 2018, held at the Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia. The workshop focused on biomass burning from a systems perspective, with the aim of developing a plan for follow-up research activities on systems solutions to reduce the adverse impacts of biomass burning.

The workshop was attended by participants from a number of southeast Asian countries - Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam - with expertise in a diverse range of disciplines, together with several international experts. IIASA was represented by Markus Amann and Zbigniew Klimont from the Air Quality and Greenhouse Gases (AIR) program, Shonali Pachauri from Energy (ENE), and Johannes Pirker from Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM).

The workshop presentations explored many of the interlinked aspects of biomass burning, covering the use of biomass as a household cooking fuel, the burning of agricultural residuals such as oil palm and rice, as well as uncontrolled peat and forest fires. Participants discussed the multiple benefits to different sections of society of potential measures aimed at the reduction of biomass burning, in order to explore solutions that could gain widespread support.

A planned report on the outcome of the workshop will describe the available measures and their benefits in order to support proposals for further collaborative, inter-disciplinary research into systems solutions to the problem of the adverse impacts of biomass burning, while at the same time contributing to sustainable development targets.

Last edited: 30 October 2018