IKI-IMPACT-RD1

Climate change poses an existential threat to many Small Island States and Least Developed Countries and unmitigated would undermine sustainable development prospects for most. Climate-vulnerable countries often express a lack of capacity to: a) develop and implement science-based strategies for climate adaptation and mitigation, b) access to climate finance programmes and c) fully represent their interests at the international level. Following the adoption and ratification of the Paris Agreement, major focus in the coming years will be on the development and implementation of low-carbon development strategies and adaptation plans and programmes at national and regional level. This will require science-based tools and strategies for SIDS and LDCs to effectively develop these strategies and plans and to help facilitate access to climate finance programmes to support their development and implementation. IMPACT is a cross-cutting, multi-faceted project that aims to strengthen the connections between the scientific assessments of climate impacts, vulnerability, adaptation and mitigation. It is designed to help enable access to finance and help implement concrete projects. SIDS and LDCs also have a vital interest in being able to fully engage in negotiating an ambitious and 1.5°C- compatible implementation of the Paris Agreement in the period up to 2020. This includes the negotiation of the implementation "rules" for the Paris Agreement, as well as the process leading to the submission of revised NDCs by 2020. IMPACT aims to enhance SIDS and LDC participation in and substantive contributions to the international climate negotiations and implementation processes, building on the expertise, networks and trust established through the highly successful SURVIVE and High Level Support Mechanism (HLSM) projects.

PIK will contribute by further developing assessment frameworks to quantify the aggregate level of progress towards achieving the 1.5°C long-term temperature limit. The framework includes tools to derive all-greenhouse-gas emissions pathways from policy scenarios, calculate temperature changes until 2100, and assess individual Parties’ NDCs and long-term development strategies. We are also responsible for calibrating and adjusting the existing Dynamic Global Vegetation Model LPJmL to the project region, especially with regard to performance in (sub-)tropical regions and enabling regional scientists to use the model independently (Activity II.2).