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research news 5winter 2014/2015 + optionswww.iiasa.ac.at iiasa research Citizen science on the farm A new mobile phone app designed at IIASA makes agricultural data available to gardeners and smallholder farmers around the world. The  app allows users to access publicly available data on temperature, precipitation, and soil conditions, and also to share information with other gardeners and farmers. The researchers hope that it could help reduce food insecurity in  developing countries by helping farmers increase their crop yields. The data collected by  the app could also be a boon for research in  land use and food security. www.iiasa.ac.at/news/growers-14 Rising tides IIASA researchers have co-authored a new real-world, near-term solution action plan commissioned by the Republic of Nauru, which is the current Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), and written by international climate and energy experts. Small island nations are poised to suffer earlier and greater impacts from climate change, although they have contributed far  less to the problem than other nations. The  report identifies a number of readily available steps to rapidly lower greenhouse gas emissions in the short term. www.iiasa.ac.at/news/aosis-14 Biodiversity in the balance A new study published in the journal PLoS  ONE, brings together evolutionary theory and ecology to explore one of the big questions in ecology: how is biodiversity developed and maintained? IIASA Evolution and Ecology Program Director Ulf Dieckmann led the study, which shows that “Relative Nonlinearity of Competition,” a well-accepted ecological theory of biodiversity, falls apart when examined from an evolutionary perspective. www.iiasa.ac.at/news/biodiversity-14 Scenarios for climate research A special issue of the journal Climatic Change, published in summer 2014, provides the first in-depth documentation of the Shared  Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), the  next generation of scenarios for climate change research. The papers in the special issue describe the methodology of the SSPs as well as challenges and concepts for future  work. IIASA has been a hub for the SSP  development process, with researchers from  five different programs involved. More publications on the SSPs are planned for 2015. www.iiasa.ac.at/news/ssp-14 G lobal carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel and cement production grew to a record high of 36 billion tons in 2013, according to a new report from the Global Carbon Project (GCP), released this fall. According to the report, fossil fuel CO2 emissions are projected to increase by another 2.5% in 2014. IIASA Deputy Director General Nebojsa Nakicenovic is the co-chair of the GCP. He says, “The scientific assessment of the Global Carbon Project should be a wakeup call to decision makers and the public at large.” One study released in conjunction with the report shows that the upward trend of CO2 emissions over the past decades is continuing, despite discussions on limiting climate change. IIASA researcher Joeri Rogelj contributed to the study, which estimates that in order to limit climate change to below the internationally agreed 2°C limit (compared to pre-industrial levels), future cumulative emissions would need to be limited to below 1,200 billion tons CO2. Continuing at 2014 emissions levels, the 1,200 billion mark would be reached in 30  years. But if emissions continued to rise, as projected, the limit would be reached sooner and far stronger measures to reduce emissions would be required later, with a greater risk that climate targets would be overreached. In a Nature Climate Change commentary, also published in conjunction with the GCP report, IIASA guest research scholar Sabine Fuss, of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC), Nakicenovic, and co-authors point out that most scenarios for achieving the 2°C stabilization target assume the use of negative emissions technologies, such as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), which remain unproven. Fuss, lead author on the paper and a member of the steering committee of the GCP, says, “We’re relying on an approach that involves considerable uncertainties.” KL Further info Friedlingstein P, Andrew RM, Rogelj J, Peters GP, Canadell JG, Knutti R, Luderer G, Raupch MR, Schaeffer M, van Vuuren DP, Le Quere C (2014). Persistent growth of CO2 emissions and implications for reaching climate targets. Nature Geoscience 7(10):709–715 [doi:10.1038/ngeo2248]. §  Fuss S, Canadell JG, Peters GP, Tavoni M, Andrew RM, Ciais P, Jackson RB, Jones CD, Kraxner F, Nakicenovic N, Le Quere C, Raupach MR, Sharifi A, Smith P, Yamagata Y (2014). Betting on negative  emissions. Nature Climate Change 4:850–853 [doi:10.1038/nclimate2392]. §  Le Quere et al (2014). Global Carbon Budget 2014. Earth System Science Data Discussions, 7:521–610 [doi:10.5194/essdd-7-521-2014]. Nebojsa Nakicenovic naki@iiasa.ac.at § Joeri Rogelj rogelj@iiasa.ac.at § Sabine Fuss fuss@iiasa.ac.at Climate targets move further from reach