In Short
Berlinale: „Greening the film industry“
02/07/2012 - The Berlinale international film festival, starting this week, will host a debate on – as the program puts it – “Greening the film industry”. Protagonists of the creative industries “could become pioneers of change if they produce in a climate-friendly way and communicate this,” says Fritz Reusswig from the Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research. The debate is part of an initiative of the Climate Media Factory, a joint research project of the Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen “Konrad Wolf”, supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
PIK ranked amongst top environmental think tanks
01/20/2012 – The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research again has been ranked amongst the top environmental think tanks worldwide. In the 2011 survey now published, it has been placed on the fourth rank – slightly improving from a fifth rank in the year before and a seventh rank in 2009. The winner in this research area is the Pew Center on Global Change in the US. Approximately 5300 think tanks in different categories participated in this ranking.
Green Growth: World Bank appoints Edenhofer as an advisor
01/16/2012 - The World Bank appointed Ottmar Edenhofer of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research as a member of the advisory committee of the Green Growth Knowlegde Platform. This platform is a joint effort of the Global Green Growth Institute, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and World Bank, to identify and address major knowledge gaps in green growth theory and practice. In order to help countries design and implement policies to move towards a green economy, it brings together leading researchers and practitioners from all over the globe. The platform just held its inaugural conference in Mexico City.
New building for 17 million Euro – research project included
01/13/2012 - Climate research in Potsdam gets a new house. Next to the impressing main buildings from the 19th century, a new energetically optimized building for 190 employees and a planned new high-performance computer will be built for the cost of 17 million Euro altogether. The laying of the foundation stone will take place this year. The building is also subject of a research project on energetic optimization, in cooperation with Dresden Technical University.
“New hot paper”: International news agency
01/03/2012 - The leading international news agency Thomson Reuters ranked a study by scientists of the Potsdam Institue for Climate Impact Research as a top “New Hot Paper” this month. “The Economics of Low Stabilization: Model Comparison of Mitigation Strategies and Costs” by Ottmar Edenhofer, Brigitte Knopf and others has been identified as one of the most-cited papers published during the past two years in the field of economics and business.
Climate scientist writes for children, and other new books
12/30/2011 – Several intriguing books have been published by scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) this year. The probably most unusual one is by Stefan Rahmstorf, co-chair of the Earth System Analysis research domain: He wrote a book on climate and weather for children. Other books cover topics ranging from extreme events to China to religion – to name just a few.
Proposals for reducing emissions must balance with development needs
12/22/2011 – How to integrate developing countries into global CO2 reduction schemes is subject of an ongoing debate. An approach for balancing climate change mitigation and the need for development is now being presented by the North South Project of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). The study shows that emissions of societies up to now are closely linked to their human development levels under parallel consideration of the 2 degrees target. The 2 degrees guardrail by 2050 has been accepted by states around the world in order to prevent dangerous climate change.
Excellence at PIK
12/22/2011 - The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) is one of the most important scientific institutions in this field of research worldwide; many international scientists are therefore drawn to Potsdam. A manifestation of the excellent work done at PIK is the growing number of professorships held by PIK scientists or to where they move on.
„Providing information for transformation”
12/19/2011 – This year has been “a good year of good science,” said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), at the conclusion of the 2011 Research Days. This annual gathering of all PIK scientists is an opportunity to discuss research results and new projects. One of the latter is a big intercomparison project of global warming impact models that will be relevant for the 2014 assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For socioeconomic scenarios as well, an intercomparison project has been launched. Both are coordinated by PIK.
Climate knowledge for computer game
12/19/2011 - With two digital projects, staff members from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) supported professional programmers with their expertise. For the computer game “Anno 2070”, scientists of the research project Climate Media Factory, funded by the federal government, discussed scenarios of global warming with game developers and informed them about the latest state of climate science. PIK contributed a problem statement for a programming contest as well. Both projects were about knowledge transfer.
The dilemma of geoengineering
12/13/2011 – End-of-the-chimney fixes for anthropogenic global warming are becoming increasingly popular in public debate. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), now sheds some light on the fundamental dilemma of geoengineering in a comment published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “This is a tale of two fairies: the rather wicked one conjures up solar radiation management, and the tolerably good one delivers CO2 removal through schemes like industrial ‘air capture,” says Schellnhuber. The latter however would generate “a multitrillion dollar bill,” he points out.
Durban: an ambivalent outcome
12/11/2011 – The outcome of the Durban summit is ambivalent, according to leading scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), interviewed by various media. The world map of climate politics has changed, said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of PIK. “China is not speaking for the poor countries any longer, which have joined forces with Europe instead.” The EU and Germany “had a strong showing in Durban,” adds Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist of PIK. However, both are stressing the fact that too little has been achieved at the negotiations. The more than 190 states did not agree on a binding reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions.
Science and Policy: Dialogue in Durban
12/06/2011 - Leading policy-makers and researchers met today in Durban to urge climate negotiators to acknowledge scientific findings and address the sustainability challenge. Amongst the participants of this dialogue were Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa and Co-Chair of the UN Secretary General’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, and the European Union’s Climate Comissioner Conny Hedegaard, as well as Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and Nicholas Stern from the London School of Economics. The event was hosted by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and Johan Rockström, Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute.
Global warming “not slowing down”
12/06/2011 - A new analysis of the five leading global temperature data sets provides further evidence for climate change. Despite some differences between the measurement curves they indicate an almost identical, steady global warming trend over the past 30 years. The researchers factored out three of the main factors that account for short-term fluctuations in global temperature: el Niño, volcanic eruptions and variations in the sun’s brightness. “Differences between the five data sets reside, to a large extent, in their short-term variability,” says Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, one of the study’s authors. ”After the variability is removed, all five of them are very similar.”
Scheduling for Durban - and beyond
11/24/2011 – At the moment, hardly anyone expects a breakthrough of the climate summit in Durban. Even before the negotiators from around the world come together in South Africa at the end of November, some observers already turn away bored. Especially for this reason, scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) direct attention to questions that go beyond the summit with a whole series of media briefings these days. What happens if nothing happens in Durban? That is the natural scientific view on climate change. And what works if nothing works in Durban? That is the view on economy and politics. New scientific findings show ever clearer what the risks of resigning to human-made global warming could be – and what chances climate protection still offers.
European Parliament: towards a low carbon economy
11/11/2011 - To support its discussions about pathways towards a competitive low carbon economy, the European Parliament (EP) recently organised a workshop in Brussels. Daniel Klingenfeld from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research contributed the scientific view. Other experts were from the International Energy Agency, Business Europe, and the European Commission. The members of the EP's Committee on the Environment announced they will use the results of the workshop to propose concrete measures that the Commission should introduce within three years if the 2050 target is to be realised.
Schellnhuber receives renowned Volvo Environment Prize
11/04/2011 - The Volvo Environment Prize was awarded to the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, in Stockholm yesterday. The internationally recognized prize for “outstanding innovations or scientific discoveries” is in its 20th year and is endowed with 160.000€. Schellnhuber is the first German to receive the prize.
Strengthening links between Indian and German researchers
10/28/2011 - Indische Wissenschaftler wollen ihre Verbindungen zum Potsdam-Institut für Klimafolgenforschung (PIK) ausbauen. Das Institut für sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Wandel in Bangalore hat Jürgen Kropp eingeladen, bei einer hochrangig besetzten Konferenz vergangene Woche die Hauptrede zu halten sowie die Eröffnung und die Schlussbemerkungen zu machen. Kropp ist Leiter des Nord-Süd-Projekts im PIK-Forschungsbereich Klimawirkung und Vulnerabilität. Unter den mehr als 200 Teilnehmern war der Premierminister und der Präsident des Bundesstaates Karnataka. Das Treffen stand unter dem Motto „Kooperation zwischen Deutschland und Indien stärken“ und wurde von der Humboldt Stiftung unterstützt.
Thawing Tundra, endangered crops - new books by PIK-scientists
10/26/2011 - How can climate types be categorized to comprehend climate changes ore precisely? How can crops adapt to a changing climate? And where to find comprehensive analyses and questions on ecological, political and economic aspects of climate change in one volume? Several contributions to books of scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) recently published give some answers.
Climate Change a core topic at the World Health Summit
10/26/2011 - What are the consequences of climate change for public health? The World Health Summit made this question, rather neglected in public debate, one of its core topics this week. This was a cooperation with the German Federal Foreign Office and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK): research domain leader Wolfgang Lucht was one of the two keynote speakers.
