The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an interdisciplinary organization founded in 1972 with the aim of promoting East-West cooperation during the Cold War. It now devotes its efforts to complex systems problems of international or global scope. Through its various programs, IIASA conducts research into major economic, demographic, social, and environmental issues, including global climate change. The scope of IIASA research projects is huge, beyond the capabilities of any one country or national research institution to manage. IIASA research projects collect massive amounts of data on a variety of factors, such as the connection between climate change and air pollution, and then build computer simulations and statistical models based on various "what if" future scenarios. Since the days of its founding in the midst of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, IIASA has maintained a position of strict political neutrality in its research projects. At the same time, IIASA tries to build scientific consensus in order to present credible research findings to technical advisors for political policy makers.

IIASA is financially supported by contributions from fifteen member countries in both the developed and the developing world. In the past, IIASA conducted research projects of topics requested by member countries. Increasingly, however, IIASA is shifting its expertise in quantitative modeling and computational technologies to focus on problems of more urgency for the developing world. This allows IIASA to assist in the construction and implementation of policies relevant to global change.

Most research projects focus on one or more problems and interconnections between climate policy, energy production and consumption, water management, agricultural policy, sustainable development, pollution studies, and the interplay between environmental and economic policies. IIASA devises models to reduce future uncertainties about the consequences of current policy options. IIASA divides its core research projects into three very broad categories: energy and technology, population and society, and environment and natural resources.

Since the 1990's, IIASA has helped develop models of global energy production, consumption, and pollutant emissions. As developing economies become increasingly industrialized, IIASA provides information on the economic and environmental consequences of these changes, particularly how rising air pollution will affect the ability of boreal forests to function as carbon sinks to mitigate negative impacts of climate change. IIASA projects also provide models to forecast the environmental impact of changes in the global economy, particularly as previously centrally planned economies move in the direction of free-market economies.

IIASA projects under this heading study and analyze the very complex interdependence among population groups, economic development, and environmental impact (Battarbee, 2008). Computer simulations indicate the probable social, political, economic, and environmental consequences of probable population projections. Water management, long-term food security, biodiversity, and other environmental impacts related to population change are forecasted and analyzed. Research projects in this category also study age disparity among various national populations and what economic scenarios will be necessary to fund the social security, pension obligations, and health care costs of those populations (Schrattenholzer, 2004).

IIASA research projects in this category study all aspects of the human impact on the natural environment, including climate change. Since its foundation, IIASA has been involved in forestry research and the impact of land use and land cover change research. IIASA continues its long-range studies on the global management of boreal forest areas and its impact on global carbon emissions. Recently IIASA projects have focused on cost-effective methods to reduce air pollution, particularly in the developing world. One of the larger projects is the Transboundary Air Pollution Project with India and China. Increasingly, IIASA addresses regional environmental problems in order to provide a scientific basis upon which countries can negotiate specific reductions in carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and other greenhouse gas emissions that have a negative impact on the global climate.

All IIASA projects study global change, whether that change is demographic, political, economic, or environmental. Through increasingly sophisticated and comprehensive computer simulations, IIASA provides scientifically credible information on global greenhouse gas emissions, energy supply and demand, population increases and migration patterns, land use change, and transboundary air and water pollution. It then forecasts probable consequences of both current policies and various policy options to mitigate the harmful effects of anthropogenic impacts on all aspects of the natural environment.

References

1. Battarbee, Richard. Natural Climate Variability and Global Warming: A Holocene Perspective. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.

2. Schrattenholzer, Leo, et al. Achieving a Sustainable Global Energy System: Identifying Possibilities Using Long-Term Energy Scenarios. Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar, 2004.

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