What are transformation pathways to a sustainable management of the atmosphere and biosphere as global commons, and what do we gain compared to alternative development pathways transgressing planetary boundaries?

Societies around the world are facing the task of rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit the negative impacts of climate change. Research Department 3 (RD3) aims to provide an integrated perspective on climate change mitigation pathways and the remaining impacts of climate change to support political and societal decision-making. Climate change mitigation may have costs, but these are outweighed by the costs of further global warming. Climate change will exacerbate biodiversity loss, which is already occurring due to climate change, but could also be intensified by certain climate protection strategies that rely on new forms of land use. Climate protection may create winners and losers, but climate change itself will have severe distributional effects and will particularly affect low-income groups. Therefore, an integrated perspective on all these aspects is necessary.

RD3 particularly addresses the following research topics:

• Development of integrated climate protection and climate impact pathways. Analysis of global mitigation and climate change impact pathways and their  implications for socio-economic development, planetary integrity and equity.
• Societal impacts of climate change. Assessment of climate change as a potential driver of migration, displacement, and conflict.
• Transformation to sustainable energy use. Analysis of transformation pathways towards carbon-neutral energy use taking into account their resource use and environmental footprint.
• Policy strategies for climate protection pathways.  Analysis of policy instruments, policy portfolios and policy sequencing with regard to their efficiency, and distributional implications, and ability to initiate transformation.

Energy Transition Lab

The lab is assigned to RD3 and provides valuable key components, focusing on overarching research topics with long-term relevance and is led by Lavinia Baumstark and Gunnar Luderer: Which transformation pathways lead to sustainable net-zero energy supply and demand systems for the world, Europe and Germany?

FutureLab Security, Ethnic Conflicts and Migration

The FutureLab  is assigned to RD3 and led by Jacob Schewe and Barbora Sedova: How will future climate change affect migration patterns, social stability, and the risk of violent conflict for different regions and populations?

For the analysis of climate protection and sustainable development pathways, RD3 research builds on, inter alia, the energy-economy model REMIND and, in cooperation with the RD2, on the land-use model MAgPIE driven by inputs from PIK’s land biosphere model LPJmL, and a combination of these models forming the Potsdam integrated assessment modelling framework (PIAM). For the analysis of climate risks, RD3 research builds on biophysical impact projections from the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project ISIMIP and the derivation of socio-economic impacts based on process-based or empirical models developed in RD3.

The chart below illustrates the organisational structure of the Research Department. More information on the structure and on each of the Working Groups can be found in the here.