Page - 23 - in options, Volume winter 2020

Like many other countries, Ukraine had often been governing sectorial developments in an independent way across sectors and regions, resulting in declining living and environmental conditions, as well as decreasing economic performance. Through a joint National Academy of Science Ukraine (NASU) and IIASA project – Integrated Modeling of Robust Solutions for Food, Energy, and Water Security Management – researchers have however shown how policies that alter one sector could have large impacts on others. The project focuses on problems of common interest for Ukraine, IIASA, and globally, and addresses challenges associated with the management of interdependent food, energy, water, environment, social, and demographic systems for sustainable development. The IIASA-NASU project has produced a multi-model framework, which allows models developed for different sectors and at different resolutions to be integrated, showing policymakers exactly where the trade-offs or synergies of the policy options may lie. The project has also helped to ensure that policies are robust in the face of an uncertain future by incorporating both long-term, strategic policies that anticipate rare events and short-term, operational policies. “IIASA research has led to real improvements in sustainable management in Ukraine,” says Tatiana Ermolieva, deputy principle investigator of the project. The recommendations of the project were included in the Ukrainian Common Cross-cutting Strategy of Agriculture Development and in the National Energy Strategy of Ukraine-2035 detailing policies based on the principles of sustainable development. Biofuels hold the promise of cutting carbon emissions from road and air transport where it is difficult to use other renewable energy, but they can lead to indirect land-use change by displacing food demand in other places. To produce that food, natural land may be cleared for agriculture, emitting carbon through vegetation burning and soil matter decomposition. To assess this difficult question, IIASA researchers came up with interdisciplinary models that estimate the land-use emissions of different feedstocks. Using the IIASA Global Biosphere Management Model (GLOBIOM), the researchers found that the sustainability of the 2009 EU biofuel policy for road transport depends on the feedstock mix, with risk of high indirect land-use emissions from vegetable oils. This research supported the EU debate that led to a 2018 policy revision to limit the use of biofuels made from food crops in favor of biofuels with low or negative land-use emissions. To calculate the true environmental impact of biofuels, aviation also adopted the model. Within the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), aircraft emissions can be curbed through both sustainable aviation fuels and carbon offset credits. For biofuels and carbon credits to compete fairly, CORSIA needs reliable estimates of biofuel emissions and uses the IIASA model for land- use change assessment. “Biofuel policies have significantly evolved over the past decade to strengthen their sustainability,” says IIASA researcher Hugo Valin. “Policymakers now look beyond local impacts, through broader assessments across sectors and regional scales for which system analysis is needed.” Calculating the true impact of biofuels E U R O P E Integrated management of food-energy-water-land for sustainable development Regional impacts Hugo Valin: valin@iiasa.ac.at Yurii Yermoliev: ermoliev@iiasa.ac.at Tatiana Ermolieva: ermol@iiasa.ac.at By Michael Fitzpatrick 23Optionswww.iiasa.ac.at Winter 2020