Page - 6 - in options, Volume summer 2021

News in brief While many people are now enjoying longer, healthier lives, current retirement ages are posing challenges for both policymakers and retirees, while falling fertility rates, especially in European countries, are leading to a marked increase in the share of older adults. This situation poses a risk to financial sustainability in several areas of social security systems, one of them being pension systems. It has also prompted discussions around retirement ages and measures to support longer working lives at the country, as well as at the European Union level, and many countries have already initiated and passed policy changes to gradually increase the official retirement age. One pertinent question that has surfaced in this context, however, is how large the potential is to increase working lives further given the health status of people at that phase of life. A study led by IIASA researcher Daniela Weber endeavored to answer this question. The findings indicate that there is indeed potential to increase the expected number of economically active years for both men and women between the ages 60 and 69. An education- specific analysis however revealed large differences between socioeconomic subgroups of the population when it comes to the size of this potential. “The heterogeneity between education groups in terms of health and the ability to work beyond currently observed labor market exit ages has to be taken into account when working lives are being extended. This will require policies that account for this heterogeneity,” Weber says. Healthy enough to retire later? Daniela Weber: weberd@iiasa.ac.at Further info: pure.iiasa.ac.at/16911 Bioenergy is often considered an option to reduce greenhouse gases, especially if combined with capturing the CO2 from biomass power plants and storing it underground. In addition to land, growing large- scale bioenergy plantations however also requires considerable amounts of freshwater for irrigation. IIASA researchers and colleagues explored how much additional water stress could result for people worldwide in a scenario of conventional irrigation for bioenergy production compared to one of sustainable freshwater use. The results indicate that irrigation of future biomass plantations for energy production without sustainable water management, combined with population growth, could double both the global area and the number of people experiencing severe water stress by the end of the century. Sustainable water management on the other hand, could almost halve the additional water stress compared to another analyzed scenario of strong climate change unmitigated by bioenergy production. “Sustainable water management means both political regulation to reduce the amounts of water taken from rivers, as well as on-farm improvements to make more efficient use of the water,” explains study coauthor Sylvia Tramberend, a researcher in the IIASA Water Security Research Group. The study confirms that sustainable water management is a challenge to be addressed urgently. Measures currently considered to stabilize the climate, in this case bioenergy plus carbon capture and storage, must take into account a number of further dimensions of the Earth system, including water cycles. Risks and tradeoffs have to be carefully considered before launching large-scale policies that establish biomass markets and infrastructure. Bioenergy production requires sound water management Sylvia Tramberend: trambers@iiasa.ac.at Further info: pure.iiasa.ac.at/17076 6 Options www.iiasa.ac.atSummer 2021