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Mitigating climate change through fighting poverty

10/29/2014 - Progress in climate change mitigation hinges on the alleviation of poverty in developing countries. To this end, the international community should pursue a policy that prioritizes the global reduction of greenhouse gases just as much as the development objectives of poorer countries. This is the result of a study conducted by a team of scientists led by experts from the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

European Council debates 2030 framework for climate and energy policy

10/20/2014 - This week, the European Council will debate and likely decide its 2030 framework for climate and energy policy.

PIK among top ten research institutes for economics in Germany

10/17/2014 - For the first time, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) has been ranked as one of the top ten German economic research institutes with influential economists. Climate change is often seen as a subject primarily involving the natural sciences. Yet the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper has now assessed PIK as an economics institute. It was ranked in seventh place, above many other well-known and highly respected institutes. The top ranking went to DIW Berlin.

Natural gas boom will not slow climate change

10/15/2014 - The recent natural gas boom due to the use of technologies such as fracking will not lead to a reduction of overall greenhouse gas emissions. Burning natural gas produces only half the CO2 emissions as coal per unit of energy. However, as natural gas becomes abundant and therefore cheap, it adds to the total energy supply and only partially replaces coal, a study published in the journal Nature shows. This market effect erases the advantage of lower emissions from the natural gas itself, according to an unprecedented international comparison of computer simulations.

Educational project 'GemüseAckerdemie' wins special innovation award

10/15/2014 - The educational project 'GemüseAckerdemie' (a play of words on vegetable field/field for learning) has been designated an "Excellent Place in the Land of Ideas", a special award which honors innovative projects helping to make rural areas fit for the future. A certificate signed by German President Joachim Gauck was handed over to the initiator of the GemüseAckerdemie Christoph Schmitz by Brandenburg's agriculture minister Jörg Vogelsänger.

Trapped atmospheric waves triggered more weather extremes

08/12/2014 - Weather extremes in the summer - such as the record heat wave in the United States that hit corn farmers and worsened wildfires in 2012 - have reached an exceptional number in the last ten years. Man-made global warming can explain a gradual increase in periods of severe heat, but the observed change in the magnitude and duration of some events is not so easily explained. It has been linked to a recently discovered mechanism: the trapping of giant waves in the atmosphere. A new data analysis now shows that such wave-trapping events are indeed on the rise.

New numbers, new movement: from the UN Climate Summit to the Global Carbon Project

09/25/2014 - The UN climate summit this week in New York brought progress in an unexpected way. "Most of the politicians in the hall gave speeches of the same old conventional type – effusive formulation, minimalistic commitment," said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who himself took part in the meeting of 120 heads of state. "But it took place against a novel background, generated on the streets of New York by more than 300,000 people. If the politicians don't pull from the front, civil society will just have to push. Last week we saw how climate protection is developing into a world citizens' movement."

Edenhofer presents reform concept for EU emissions trading scheme in Brussels

09/29/2014 - The emissions trading scheme as the most important pillar of European climate policy is currently under great scrutiny, as permit prices have been low. Europe’s technical academies (Euro-CASE) just published a comprehensive reform concept that outlines pathways to advance the emissions trading scheme. Ottmar Edenhofer presented this report in Brussels, in personal meetings with Jos Delbeke, Director General for Climate Action of the European Commission, and Ivo Belet, rapporteur of the ETS reform for the European Parliament.

Local food supply could help propel global food security

9/4/2014 - Local or regional food supply could help ensure food security across continents, a new study conducted by scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) says. It explores under which conditions a shift to local food supply may result in food self-sufficiency. The researchers found that by increasing crop yield in a number of ways, every continent could become food self-sufficient by 2050. This could substantially diminish the current demand for international agricultural trade, although it will continue to be relevant to some regions. The study is the first of its kind to demonstrate that actions at a local level could help achieve food self-sufficiency in many regions.

High-ranking Taiwanese delegation visits PIK

09/16/2014 – During a recent visit to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), the Minister of Taiwan's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Wei Kuo-yen, was briefed on the latest climate change research findings. The 14-member delegation included the Representative of the Taipei Office in Germany, Agnes Hwa-Yue Chen, her deputy Klement Gu and scientists from leading Taiwanese universities and business representatives. During his discussion with the group, PIK Director Hans Joachim Schellnhuber acknowledged the influence of the island, "What Taiwan does for climate change matters."

Charity concert on the Telegraph Hill: The sound of the forest

09/02/2014 - For the second time, soloists of the renowned Staatskapelle Berlin and singers of the State Opera gathered for an exceptional charity concert on the Telegrafenberg (Telegraph Hill) in Potsdam. In the suspenseful darkness of the Great Refractor, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber - Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) - spoke of the reason for creating and promoting this unique mix of music and science: "Science can appeal to the the mind of man, but music can win over his heart." Complemented by short presentations of PIK researchers Hermann Lotze-Campen, Susanne Rolinski and Christopher Reyer, this year's concert focused on "The Sound of the Forest" and included both classical and contemporary compositions.

The cost of delay: White House report citing PIK research

08/30/2014 - Delaying climate policy might enhance costs substantially. The US government in a major recent report makes this finding a central message, citing a number of studies led by scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Mitigation costs increase, on average, by approximately 40 percent for each decade of delay, the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors states in the report. Inaction is likely to cause persistent economic damages, they argue – many billions of Dollars each year in the US alone.

Dead ends and solutions for the climate crisis: Panel discussion with Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks

09/01/2014 – Dr. Barbara Hendricks, Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, Dr. Michael Otto, Chairman of the Otto Group Supervisory Board and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Michael Otto Foundation for Environmental Protection, Prof. Dr. Christian Thomsen, President of the Technische Universität Berlin, Prof. Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Professor for Climate Economics at the Technische Universität Berlin and Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute in Washington D.C. will discuss "Climate change and climate mitigation between global transformation and national challenges" in Hamburg on September 2, with topics ranging from Germany's energy transition to the European Union's emissions trading.

Antarctica could raise sea level faster than previously thought

8/14/2014 - Ice discharge from Antarctica could contribute up to 37 centimeters to the global sea level rise within this century, a new study shows. For the first time, an international team of scientists provide a comprehensive estimate on the full range of Antarctica’s potential contribution to global sea level rise based on physical computer simulations. Led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the study combines a whole set of state-of-the-art climate models and observational data with various ice models. The results reproduce Antarctica’s recent contribution to sea level rise as observed by satellites in the last two decades and show that the ice continent could become the largest contributor to sea level rise much sooner than previously thought.

Reforming emissions trading: Failure is not an option

07/30/2014 - Courageous steps are required to reform the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, argues Ottmar Edenhofer from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in a comment piece now published in Nature Climate Change. The centerpiece of the European climate policy is currently under great scrutiny, as permit prices have been too low to incentivize a switch to low- or zero-emission alternatives. While some ideas to correct this already move in the right direction, only a broad approach embedding for instance a price corridor could restore the main pillar of climate policy in the EU, argues Edenhofer.

Connecting dead ends increases power grid stability

06/09/2014 - Climate change mitigation strategies such as the German Energiewende require linking vast numbers of new power generation facilities to the grid. As the input from many renewable sources is rather volatile, depending on how much the wind blows or the sun shines, there’s a higher risk of local power instabilities and eventually blackouts. Scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) now employed a novel concept from nonlinear systems analysis called basin stability to tackle this challenge. They found that connecting dead ends can significantly increase power grid stability. The findings are confirmed by a case study of the Scandinavian power system.

IPCC Co-Chair calls for re-thinking of policy assessments

07/04/2014 – When the Working Group III (WGIII) contribution to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, the most comprehensive assessment of climate change mitigation options to date, was accepted by IPCC member governments in April this year, governments could not agree on parts of its Summary for Policymakers during the approval process. As a result the material was cut. In the current edition of the journal Science, a Co-Chair and leading authors of Working Group III re-visit the approval session and comment on deleted content and the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC process in a series of articles.

CO2 is fertilizing hidden hunger

06/27/2014 - While CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are a driver of climate change with potentially negative impacts on crop yields, they are also a fertilizer for the plants. However, this effect comes at the expense of a deterioration of the current nutritional value of food, new research by the Harvard School of Public Health and others shows. This might lead to hidden hunger, researchers of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research argue in a recent commentary published in Nature Climate Change. Diets with sufficient calorie content could come with an insufficient supply of vitamins and minerals.

High-ranking Chinese researchers visit PIK

06/17/2014 - A high-level delegation from China was brought up to speed on a variety of topics - from rising sea levels to the problems of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) - during a visit to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). The delegation was led by Du Xiangwan, Director of the China Expert Panel on Climate Change (EPCC), which advises the Chinese State Council. Other acclaimed scholars from renowned Chinese institutions such as Tsinghua University were also present, including He Jiankun, Zhou Dadi and Chao Qingchen. The delegation also included Tian Chengchuan, Yuan Jiashuang and Zhu Songli, all of whom hold notable positions in key advisory bodies such as the National Development and Reform Commission (NRDC). China is currently discussing its future carbon emission targets. Due to the country’s critical impact on the global climate and international climate policy, the outcome of this deliberation has been the subject of intense speculation and anticipation.

Capturing CO2 emissions needed to meet climate targets

06/26/2014 - Technologies that are discussed controversially today may be needed to keep the future risks and costs of climate change in check. Combining the production of energy from fossil fuels and biomass with capturing and storing the CO2 they emit (CCS) can be key to achieving current climate policy objectives such as limiting the rise of the global mean temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius. This is shown by the most comprehensive study to date on technology strategies to combat climate change, published in a special issue of the journal Climatic Change. It is based on the analysis of 18 computer models by an international team of scientists under the roof of the Stanford Energy Modelling Forum (EMF 27).

Air pollution and climate policies: workshop in Beijing

06/20/2014 – Policies aimed at countering climate change can have important co-benefits in terms of reduced air pollution and hence on public health. Now for the first time, a so-called multi model comparison was used by researchers to scrutinize this interplay using a whole set of different computer simulations of economic and social processes. Their findings, including a robust win-win-scenario, were recently at the center of a workshop in smoggy Beijing. It was hosted by the Energy Research Institute of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (ERI-NDRC), which is one of the most important players in the field, whereas the research project itself is coordinated by the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM). The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) is part of the steering group and led a major analysis of 2 degree scenarios that was conducted by the project.

First Potsdam Summer School to focus on Arctic climate change

06/13/2014 - "Arctic in the Anthropocene" – the present geological era which has been dominated by humankind – will be the main focus of the Potsdam Summer School. During the two-week program, 40 selected young international scientists and experts will exchange ideas on a wide range of issues, including the melting of Greenland’s ice sheets and marine biology. In northern regions of the world, the effects of climate change have already become quite apparent. In collaboration with the Alfred Wegner Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) and the University of Potsdam, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) will be organizing the event, which will be held from June 23 to July 4, 2014, and is likely to be continued on an annual basis in the future.

World Bank hosts IPCC report presentation

06/12/2014 - Dealing with climate change is an exercise of risk management, two leading authors of the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports said at a major World Bank event in Washington D.C. last week. Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, co-chair of the IPCC working group on climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability addressed about 600 people both in the room and online, together with Ottmar Edenhofer of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, co-chair of the IPCC working group on climate change mitigation.

"Excellent researcher, warm manners": farewell symposium for Gerstengarbe

06/02/2014 - One of the founding members and key figures of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) was honored with a farewell symposium last week. Friedrich-Wilhelm Gerstengarbe, assistant director of the institute and co-chair of its research domain Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities, embarked on his retirement. About 200 peers, colleagues, and friends, gathered to debate an issue dear to Gerstengarbe, a meteorologist who always cared about the practical implications of his findings: 'Climate and Climate Impact Research between Science and Society'.

German Federal Environment Minister Hendricks Visits PIK

06/03/2014 – German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks was briefed by scientists of the Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) on current research developments. The minister, who has only held this office for several months, discussed recent findings and their impact on politics with PIK Director Hans Joachim Schellnhuber as well as other researchers. The focus of the talks was on the difficulties encountered in implementing climate policies.

China's reported plans to introduce absolute carbon cap

06/05/2014 - Today, media outlets have reported that China plans to introduce an absolute carbon cap. Yesterday, the US announced plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The EU is currently discussing its climate targets for 2030.

Global warming can be limited to 2 degrees with major technological and institutional change: IPCC report

Many pathways to substantial greenhouse-gas reductions are available at relatively little cost, a landmark report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows. Among the options put on the table there are the use of bioenergy combined with carbon capture and storage, and comprehensive pricing of CO2 emissions. The report's team of authors has been led by Ottmar Edenhofer, vice-director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

From Chaos to Order: How Ants optimize Food Search

05/27/2014 - Ants are capable of complex problem-solving strategies that could be widely applied as optimization techniques. An individual ant searching for food walks in random ways, biologists found. Yet the collective foraging behaviour of ants goes well beyond that, as a mathematical study to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals: The animal movements at a certain point change from chaos to order. This happens in a surprisingly efficient self-organized way. Understanding the ants could help analyze similar phenomena - for instance how humans roam in the internet.

Emissions trading reform could result in billions of euros for European countries

05/23/2014 - With a reform of the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), the economically troubled countries of southern Europe could increase their revenues by several billion euros per year while also increasing their competitiveness. This was the finding of an analysis conducted by the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) headed by Ottmar Edenhofer, chief-economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. It was one of the issues debated at an international workshop in Berlin under the title "Closing the carbon price gap: public finance and climate policy", chaired by Edenhofer.

Two PIK researchers appointed professor at Humboldt University

05/23/2014 - Industrial ecology and land use: for these two research areas leading scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) have recently been appointed professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. “We are glad that Professor Helga Weisz and Professor Hermann Lotze-Campen, two renowned climate scientists, are joining HU, and that PIK and HU today are connected through no less than five professorships,” says Peter Frensch, Vice-President for Research at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.