Providing Leadership in Climate Research Community Activities and IPCC AR5

ENE remained at the forefront of efforts toward the Fifth Assessment Report, with ENE researchers playing a leading role in a number of model inter-comparison projects. This research has resulted in robust insights into strategies to address climate change and other energy challenges such as energy security and air pollution. Each of these projects involved numerous international partners (up to 20) from the integrated assessment and other expert research communities. Prime examples include the following:

• The goal of the Asian Modeling Exercise (AME) was to better articulate the role of Asia in mitigating climate change, given the growing economic relevance of Asia in the world and its consequent energy and environmental impacts. A special issue in Energy Economics was co-edited by ENE researcher Volker Krey. In addition, the AME scenario database (https://secure.iiasa.ac.at/web-apps/ene/AMEDB), which is hosted by the ENE Program, has been made public in order to document all model results in great detail.

• Exploring the role of technology for achieving ambitious climate targets is the focus of the Stanford-based Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) 27 model comparison project. ENE researchers David McCollum, Volker Krey, and Keywan Riahi, have been leading several activities within the EMF27 project, including an assessment of the value of technologies for mitigation and the role of fossil energy resources and CO2 storage in scenarios of transformational change. A special issue is in preparation and is expected to be finalized by mid-2013.

• The EU FP7 LIMITS project aims at advancing the understanding of the implementation of climate policies consistent with 2ºC target. The main objective of the project is to provide an assessment of the emission reduction strategies for the major 
  

  Air pollution maps showing concentrations of particulate matter (PM2.5) by 2030. Upper panel shows the global pollution map assuming the continuation of present policies. A combination of policies that focus on air pollution, energy access, and climate mitigation (lower panel) may reduce air pollution levels to below critical loads indicated by the World Health Organization (green areas). Short-term benefits of such policy packages are of the order of 2.7 million lives saved each year between now and 2030.

  world economies, with an initial focus on alternative burden-sharing regimes. A novelty of LIMITS is a detailed assessment of the investments required to implement these transformation scenarios and the financing mechanisms needed to mobilize them. Finally, an activity led by ENE researchers David McCollum, Jessica Jewell, and Shilpa Rao is the evaluation of linkages of climate policies with other energy challenges such as energy security, air pollution, and economic development. ENE is thus building upon previous pioneering work in this area (see Figure above), and through its close collaboration with IIASA’s MAG Program  (GAINS team), ENE continues to further solidify the integrative position it plays in the wider research community.

• The EU FP7 AMPERE project is co-coordinated by IIASA ENE and aims at a broad exploration of mitigation pathways and associated mitigation costs, while at the same time generating a better understanding about the differences across integrated assessment models and their relation to historical trends. As described previously, ENE plays a leading role within AMPERE, assessing the long-term consequences of near-term climate change policies.

In terms of impact, results of above modeling comparisons underpin the transformational pathways analysis in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, which is expected to be published in spring 2014. For this purpose several special issues with altogether some 90 articles by the integrated assessment community have been submitted to different scientific journals. Four ENE researchers, Volker Krey, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Keywan Riahi, and Hans-Holger Rogner are serving as Lead Authors of the Working Group III AR5 writing team, with several others being involved in the report as Contributing Authors. Building upon IIASA’s role as a hub for scenario databases within the integrated assessment modeling community, a formal “Agreement of Collaboration” was established in 2012 between IIASA, IPCC, and the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), giving responsibility to IIASA for hosting the IPCC and SSP scenario datasets.

Last edited: 02 May 2014