Capacity building workshop, India, 22nd March

On 22^nd March CD-LINKS held a capacity building workshop aimed at post-doctoral researchers and PhD students interested in integrated assessment modeling, systems analysis, and visualisation tools. About 20 people attended the event, who were from the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), IORA Ecological Solutions, and studying at TERI University, and were citizens of India and Nigeria.

Students listening to presentation at capacity building workshop / photo credit J. Callen

Presentations were from invited experts participating in the CD-LINKS project. One session of the workshop was focused on integrated assessment modelling methodology. The second session was focused on the analysis of data and how to present modelling results in a more engaging and useful format.

At the end of the workshop a discussion on communicating results to policy and decision makers took place. During the discussion it was emphasised to the students that the purpose of a model is to explain the order of magnitude and dynamics of a system, but it is not a crystal ball for predicting the future and this should be communicated to policy/ decision makers. The presenters of the course also recommended that the students to undertake sensitivity analysis and model comparison to ensure the robustness of their results.

The presentations are available to download:

• A brief introduction to integrated assessment modeling and the role of scenarios, Daniel Huppmann, IIASA
• Life cycle analysis tools, Gunnar Luderer, PIK
• Non-CO2 gases & linkages to agricultural phase of bioenergy crops, Alex Köberle, COPPE (embargo, to be uploaded at a later date)
• pyam – an open-source Python package for IAM scenario analysis, Daniel Huppmann, IIASA
• R visualisation, Heleen van Soest, PBL

The next capacity building workshop is planned for March 2019 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.