The talk presents first the rationale for an end-use and efficiency focus for Sustainable Development inspired by SDG12 (Responsible Production and Consumption). Emerging new trends in social and technological change also align well with this end-use and efficiency focus offering vast potentials for improved provision of energy services and for reconciling the multiple dimensions of Sustainable Development. Recent IIASA work on development of a Low Energy Demand (LED) scenario is presented that assures Decent Standards of Living for all while at the same time staying below 1.5 °C global mean temperature increase without requiring negative emission technologies and with significant synergies and co-benefits on multiple SDGs.
About the Speaker:
Arnulf Grubler (Grübler) is Acting Program Director of the Transitions to New Technologies Program at the International institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria. From 2002 to 2017 he also held a part-time appointment as Professor in the Field of Energy and Technology at the Schools of Management and of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, New Haven, USA. His teaching and research focuses on the long-term history and future of technology and the environment with emphasis on energy, transport, and communication systems.
Prof. Grubler received his master’s degree in engineering from the Technical University of Vienna, where he was also awarded his PhD. He completed his Habilitation (venia legendi in systems science of environment and technology) at the Mining University Leoben, Austria. He is also foreign member elect of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.
Prof. Grubler has been serving on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize) continuously since 1996, being appointed as Lead and Contributing Author and as Review Editor for the Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Assessment Reports and serving in all three IPCC Working Groups (Climate Science, Impacts and Adaptation, Mitigation). He also was Convening Lead and Coordinating Author for three knowledge modules (urban, innovation, and energy systems) of the Global Energy Assessment completed in 2012. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Carbon Management and Journal of Industrial Ecology.
He has published widely as author, coauthor, or editor of twelve books, three special journal issues, over 100 peer reviewed articles and book chapters, and over 30 additional professional papers in the domains of (modeling of) technological change and diffusion, long wave theory, historical transitions in energy and transport systems, long-term future scenarios, energy technology innovation systems and policy, climate change, and resource economics.
His latest books include: Energizing Sustainable Cities: Assessing Urban Energy, (edited together with David Fisk), Earthscan, 2013; and Energy Technology Innovation: Learning from Historical Successes and Failures (edited together with Charlie Wilson), Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Please RSVP to climate.initiative.cpr@gmail.com.
