Edward Byers

Biography

Edward Byers is a Senior Research Scholar in the Integrated Assessment and Climate Change Research Group of the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program. He leads the ECE Nexus theme. His research focuses on the intersection of infrastructure systems, water and climate change risks, the water-energy nexus, and socioeconomic vulnerability.

Byers manages a broad portfolio of climate risk and resilience research. He is the lead coordinator of the Horizon Europe SPARCCLE project (2023 to 2027), assessing the socioeconomic risks of climate change in Europe. He also leads IIASA's contributions to several initiatives, including the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) long-term scenarios, Adapt4EU, and CASCADEX (EUCRA 2). Additionally, he collaborates with the OSCE to assess climate impacts and energy security for critical energy infrastructure across 14 countries.

Byers co-developed the original RIME/RIME-X climate impacts emulator frameworks to improve the representation of climate risks in integrated assessment models. Previously, he led the global climate and vulnerability hotspots assessment, featured in Nature and The New York Times, and developed the Hotspots Explorer platform. This foundational work continues to inform technical assistance via the Green Climate Fund. It has yielded extensive publications on global climate hotspots, seasonal pumped storage, electricity access, hydro-climate risks, cooling demands, and t he water-energy-land nexus, among others (Google Scholar).

Byers served as a contributing author and chapter scientist for multiple IPCC reports, including the Special Reports on 1.5°C and Climate Change and Land, and the 6th Assessment Report (AR6). He coordinated the data collection for the AR6 Scenarios Database, contributed to the WG I-III climate assessment in the IPCC AR6 report, and conducted similar scenario assessments for the European Advisory Board on Climate Change to inform the European Commission's 2040 GHG targets.

Byers currently serves on the Editorial Board of Environmental Research: Water. His past editorial roles include serving as an associate and deputy editor for Climatic Change, Frontiers in Environmental Science, and Sustainable Horizons. He joined IIASA in 2016 from the University of Oxford's Environmental Change Institute, where he researched the economic impacts of drought on the UK energy sector. He holds a PhD from Newcastle University, where he trained as a civil and environmental engineer.

Last update: 15 SEP 2026