The International Climate Policy (ICP) team develops and analyzes global scenarios of future climate policy. Our research objectives are to bring to light the requirements for successful implementation of international agreements, and understand the role of major emitter countries and important technological and societal developments. Our results inform both international and national policy makers, but also actors in the financial system aiming to size the risks and opportunities of different climate policy and technology developments (transition risks).
The Paris Agreement of 2015 is an important milestone in international climate policy, but its success crucially hinges on effective strengthening of major emitters contributions, as well as the effective implementation of cooperation and stock-taking mechanisms. In this context, academic scenario analysis based on integrated assessment models plays an important role. Not only does it allow for the analysis of different plausible futures, but it can also inform on critical success factors and key risks for effective climate policies and mitigation.
Our research contributes to model inter-comparison studies, providing insights on factors of political economy such as energy employment effects and the role of technological developments. Furthermore, we actively work on translating academic research into policy advice and scenario databases and online tools for the financial and real economy sectors. Our methodological approach is the global integrated assessment model REMIND, to which we contribute development work and which we employ for our research and scenario studies. We pay particular attention to scenario plausibility and realism by analyzing and integrating recent data. Our key cooperation partners are other global and national modeling teams, as well as various stakeholders from the policy and finance sector, for details see the list of our current and completed projects below.
Key papers
- Bertram, C., Luderer, G., Creutzig, F., Bauer, N., Ueckerdt, F., Malik, A., Edenhofer, O., 2021. COVID-19-induced low power demand and market forces starkly reduce CO 2 emissions. Nature Climate Change 11, 193–196. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-00987-x
- Malik, A., Bertram, C., et al., 2020. Reducing stranded assets through early action in the Indian power sector. Environmental Research Letters https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab8033
- Hilaire, J., Minx, J.C., Callaghan, M.W. et al. 2019. Negative emissions and international climate goals—learning from and about mitigation scenarios. Climatic Change 157, 189–219 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02516-4
- McCollum, D.L., Zhou, W., Bertram, C., et al., 2018. Energy investment needs for fulfilling the Paris Agreement and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Nature Energy 3, 589–599. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-018-0179-z
- Bertram, C., Luderer, G., Pietzcker, R.C., Schmid, E., Kriegler, E., Edenhofer, O., 2015. Complementing carbon prices with technology policies to keep climate targets within reach. Nature Climate Change 5, 235–239. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2514
- Interview with ZDF heute journal update on Climate Leaders Summit (in German)
- Interview with Deutschlandfunk on Climate Leaders Summit (in German)
- Study on power sector effects of COVID-19 was covered by inter alia the New York Times and Forbes
- Interview with DW on Biden's climate policy
- Interview with FAZ on COVID effects on working habits and environmental impacts (in German)
- First scenario set for NGFS covered by inter alia Bloomberg and boerse.de (in German)
Team
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Pascal Weigmann |
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Sebastian Franz |
(Photo of Paris by Rob Potvin on Unsplash)
