IT International Project Office: Pier Vellinga (chair) Anna J. Wieczorek (co-ordinator)

1. IT contribution to the IHDP/IGBP/WCRP crosscutting project on IHDP Industrial Transformation (IT) Project of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) “Global Carbon Cycle” Research Questions in 3 IT Foci relevant for the global carbon cycle: Energy and Material Flows • What are the strengths, and the nature, of the relations between energy and material use, technological change, and economic performance? (from geographical, sectoral and company levels) • How will international trade in energy, investments in energy infrastructure (production and distribution), and the related flows of energy and materials be affected by international treaty regimes, and the World Trade Organization (WTO)? • What are the technical, economic, and social driving forces for the private energy sector towards the development of low carbon technologies and markets? • What is driving and/or pulling consumer needs and preferences in the field of energy and material use and what institutional, socio-psychological and technical arrangements would influence the purchasing, investment and lifestyle towards a significantly lower level of environmental effects? Cities (with focus on transport) • How can the need for mobility be partly or completely de-coupled from effects on the carbon cycle? • Can the dependency of transportation on fossil fuels be reduced or eliminated? • What effects do current urban transportation systems have upon the carbon cycle? • Why do these effects differ from city to city? • How can urban transportation systems be redesigned so as to minimise their negative effects, both locally and remotely? Governance and Transformation Processes • How does systemic change in society-environment relations occur and what processes shape the relation between socio-economic activity and the natural environment, both historically and in the contemporary period? • What contemporary transformation processes might be harnessed to the goal of systemic change in society-environment relations? • What are the most powerful supra-national and non-state driving agents for Global Environmental Change? • What is the role of the state in a globalised context in promoting global environmental change? • Societal context and successful models of policy intervention • IT International Project Office: • Pier Vellinga (chair) • Anna J. Wieczorek (co-ordinator) • Thomas Holmes (assistant co-ordinator) • Els Hunfeld (secretary) • c/o Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) • De Boelelaan 1115, 1081 HV Amsterdam • The Netherlands • Tel. +31 20 4449504, Fax +31 20 4449553 • vell@geo.vu.nl • anna.j.wieczorek@ivm.vu.nl • http://www.vu.nl/ivm/research/ihdp-it