Austria’s emissions rose in 2025: University of Graz researchers analyse the causes
The Environment Agency Austria has today published the figures for the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2025. While emissions fell sharply year on year from 2022 to 2024, they rose again by just under 0.7 per cent in 2025. Researchers at the University of Graz have analysed how much of this increase was due to structural changes in the economy and how much was attributable to external factors over which there is little control. “In 2025, the colder winter compared with 2024 increased emissions by 0.81 per cent, while the weak economy reduced them by 0.38 per cent. If we factor out these influences, we find an underlying increase of 0.26 per cent compared with the previous year,” reports economist Karl Steininger. “This clearly means that Austria is not on track to meet its climate targets, which require a substantial reduction in emissions by 2030.”
Electrifying: Researchers film the first moments on the way from light to electricity
Physicists at the University of Graz (Austria), in collaboration with colleagues from Marburg University and Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany), have achieved a scientific breakthrough. For the first time, the generation of electrical energy from light has been filmed and described theoretically. This work is of far-reaching significance, not least for optimising sustainable energy production from photovoltaics. This is because it provides fundamental building blocks for understanding the physical processes that take place, for example, in organic solar cells. The paper was published in the journal Physical Review X, one of the world’s most prestigious physics journals.
