Austria's Climate Future and Transformation Pathways towards Sustainability

This presentation is licensed under CC BY 4.0. The AAR2 was funded by the Climate and Energy Fund under the 14th Austrian Climate Research Program (ACRP). Dr. Daniel Huppmann 290605 VO Climate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) University of Vienna Austria’s Climate Future and Transformation Pathways towards Sustainability Findings from the Second Austrian Assessment Report on Climate Change Setting the scene –The global context 2Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Historical temperature development Global heating is unprecedented since the dawn of human civilization and it is entirely caused by anthropogenic emissions Climate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna 3 Change in global surface temperature relative to the pre-industrial period | IPCC AR6 WG1 SPM 1 (2021) Daniel Huppmann Projections of temperature change We have left the natural variability of the earth system Climate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna 4 Change in global surface temperature | IPCC AR6 SPM 1 (2021) Stylized representation based on UNEP Emissions Gap Report, 2023 1.0 2.0 3.0 °C Ambition of the Paris Climate Agreement Expected heating based on conditional Nationally Determined Contributions and current “net-zero pledges” Expected heating based on current policies 1.5 2.5 Daniel Huppmann Gap between current policies & pledges to reduce emissions Figure ES.4: Global GHG emissions under different scenarios and the emissions gap in 2030 and 2035 UNEP Emissions Gap Report, 2023 Where do we stand in terms of (promised) emissions reductions? Climate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna 5Daniel Huppmann “Summary for Policymakers” of the Synthesis Report of the Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC AR6) Humans and Ecosystems Physical Climate System The big picture of IPCC assessments Based on lecture slides by Matthew Robbins, https://bit.ly/2Z3XJrt, presented at EGU 2019 The interaction between the human and earth systems Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna 6 Emissions Climate forcing & processes Mitigation Hazards Risks Impacts Adaptation The role and structure of the IPCC The scientific assessment by the IPCC is structured in three working groups •Working Group I – The Physical Science Basis WG I assesses the physical science of climate change. •Working Group II – Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability WG II assesses the vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change, negative / positive consequences of climate change and adaptation options. •Working Group III – Mitigation of Climate Change WG III focuses on climate change mitigation, assessing methods for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. •Each contribution and the synthesis report has a “negotiated” Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) The IPCC provides policymakers with assessments of climate change, its implications and risks, and to put forward adaptation & mitigation options Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna 7 The calibrated confidence language of the IPCC By considering both evidence (quantity of scientific literature) and agreement , an assessment report determines the overall confidence in its findings. This helps readers understand both well-established conclusions and areas needing further research. Each key message in the reports are evaluated in terms of evidence and agreement 8 Table from “Understanding confidence statements“ in the AAR2 Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna The Second Austrian Assessment Report on Climate Change (2025) 9Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Social dimensions of climate change policy Low-income households are more strongly affected by the impacts of climate change , even though they have much lower emissions footprints. These groups also have lower capacity for adaptation to adverse impacts. Lack of mechanisms to achieve equity and fairness lead to resistance against climate policy measures. Climate change and inequality are closely linked 16 Figure SPM.10 | Distribution of greenhouse gas footprints per capita across Austrian income deciles and the highest percentile Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Austrian emissions in the global context Accounting for emissions along the value chain (“consumption-based”), Austria has much higher CO2emissions than the global or EU average Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna 17 We usually focus on emissions from a given region (e.g., country), called ”production-based accounting” or national emissions. Considering the emissions embedded in imported goods and services leads to the “consumptionbased” emissions accounting. Allocating a “carbon budget” from the Paris Agreement goals, we have already exceeded our fair share. Consumption-based CO2 emissions | Our World in Data (2025) Mitigation potentials in different sectors (I) Key features of all mitigation pathways: Electrification of industry, mobility and heating Expansion of electricity networks Threefold increase of power generation from wind & solar PV Electrification has the highest potential to reduce emissions 18 Figure SPM.7 (partial) Lower and upper bound of the potentials and related costs of individual mitigation options. Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Mitigation potentials in different sectors (II) Substantial mitigation potential in industry, but costs are difficult to estimate 19 Figure SPM.7 (partial) Lower and upper bound of the potentials and related costs of individual mitigation options. Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Historical emissions and policy scenarios Austrian policy scenarios show the gap between current policy and the climate targets 20 “Effort-Sharing” Emissions i.e., greenhouse gas emissions not covered by the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS Figures SPM.1a und SPM 1.e The Scenario “With Existing Measures” (WEM, UBA 2024) shows a reduction gap of 10.4 MtCO2e in 2030 compared to the EU Effort-Sharing target. UPDATE: WEM (UBA 2025) shows a gap of ~9 MtCO2e. Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Investment towards climate neutrality Climate targets for 2030 and 2040 can only be reached with additional measures to reduce emissions and phase out fossil fuels. Additional annual investments of 6.4 and 11.2 billion Euro per year are necessary to reach net-zero CO2emissions from energy use in industry, mobility and buildings. Reaching climate targets requires rapid and effective policy measures 21 Figure SPM9.a Scenarios towards net-zero emissions from energy use in industry, mobility and buildings Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Energy transition towards net-zero emissions Scenarios indicate that reducing fossil energy carriers requires additional climate-neutral fuels in industry, heavy-duty freight traffic and aviation, but global supply chains do not yet exist. A rapid phase-out of fossil fuels and electrification yields higher efficiency 22 Figure SPM9.b-c | Development of the Austrian energy system in climate policy scenarios Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Electrification Wind and PV are driving the growth of electrification 23 Figure SPM9.d-e | Development of the Austrian power generation mix in climate policy scenarios Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Investment towards climate neutrality Additional annual investments of 6-11 billion Euro are necessary for the transition 24 Sector Cumulative investments Additional annual investments (low estimate) Additional annual investments (high estimate) Industry 21.4 0.5 1.0 Energy 160.5 2.3 5.1 Mobility 323.0 2.7 4.0 Buildings 360.6 0.7 0.9 Total 865.6 6.2 10.9 Context for investment estimates •Annual costs for fossil fuel imports are 8-12 billion € [2022: 18 billion €] •Current climate-harmful subsidies are in the range of 4.1-5.7 billion € •Costs for emission certificates if EU 2030 targets are missed are estimated at 4.5-9.2 billion € Table 8.1 | Total and additional investments in the Austrian economy based on the UBA Transition scenario, 2024–2040/2050 -EUR2023 (Weyerstraß et al., 2024) Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Synergies and trade offs Positive synergies effects are strongest for measures on the demand side (e.g., energy efficiency) and in the land-use sector. The realization of synergies and management of trade-offs in mitigation measures depend on their design and implementation. There is a risk of “exporting” trade-offs to other world regions that are already more at risk of negative impacts. High synergy potential between the SDGs & climate policy, particularly on the demand side 25 Figure SPM.8 | Indicative linkages between aggregated mitigation options and the SDGs Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Ongoing work by the IIASA Scenario Services team A suite of tools and apps are already built on the “Scenario Explorer 2.0” infrastructure, for example, https://ssp-extensions.apps.ece.iiasa.ac.at and https://shape.apps.ece.iiasa.ac.at We are implementing new interfaces for better user experience 32Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Flexible building blocks for project data portals The State of CDR Data Portal makes the data behind the analysis accessible and re-usable. Visit https://portal.stateofcdr.org/ for a tour! We developed a “data portal” for the State of CDR Report (2024) 33 The State of CDR report informs researchers, policymakers and practitioners on the progress of carbon dioxide removal. Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Teaser: Ongoing work at IIASA –The Scenario Compass Scenario ensembles compiled for IPCC reports are useful, but… •Ad-hoc “ensembles of opportunity” •Limited vetting & validation •Risk of being outdated quickly The Scenario Compass project will compile recent relevant scenarios and publish a yearly validated ensemble of mitigation pathways Planned launch: October 2025 IIASA and a global consortium of Integrated-Assessment modelling teams are compiling a new scenario ensemble of transformation pathways 34 Global primary energy supply (in exajoules, EJ) from coal, oil and gas as modelled by the AR6-assessed mitigation scenarios, Achakulwisut et al. (2023) -Nature Communications Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna Wrap-up 35Daniel HuppmannClimate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna We have to talk about how we talk about climate policy Illustration by Léonard Chemineau based on the scientific manuscript “Discourses of Climate Delay“ Lamb, W., et all (2020). Global Sustainability, 3:17 doi:10.1017/sus.2020.13 https://www.leolinne.com/- discourses-of-climate-delay Discourses of climate delay Climate Change and Climate Crisis (2025W) | University of Vienna 36Daniel Huppmann This presentation is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Coordinating Institutions The AAR2 is a report by the Austrian Panel on Climate Change (APCC). In Collaboration With Read the full report at https://aar2.ccca.ac.at/en. The AAR2 was funded by the Climate and Energy Fund under the 14th Austrian Climate Research Program (ACRP). Dr. Daniel Huppmann Senior Research Scholar Energy, Climate, and Environment Program International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) [email protected] @danielhuppmann.bsky.social @[email protected] www.iiasa.ac.at/staff/daniel-huppmann