Current externally funded projects
LIMITS
Title: Low climate IMpact scenarios and the Implications of required Tight emission control Strategies
Duration: October 2011 until September 2014
Budget:
Description: The LIMITS Project explores policy instruments to implement emission reductions in a set of major economies using large scale integrated assessment models as well as assessments of existing policy instruments and possible enhancements. Within this project, PIK will focus on reviewing climate policy-relevant market failures in major economies and beyond, as well as the available climate and energy policy instruments corresponding to these market failures, and a modeling assessment of selected 2nd best policies.
CREW
Title: Climate Policy in a Reluctant World
Duration: September 2011 until August 2014
Budget:
Description: Setting out with the observation that a global regime of climate change mitigation seems far away, this project focuses on three major research questions: (1) Why has cooperation failed so far?; (2) How can we address the problem of climate change in a second-best world without global cooperation? and (3) How can we facilitate global cooperation so that one may move from a second-best world without global cooperation to a first-best world with cooperation? more information
Global IQ
Title: Impact Quantification of Global Changes
Duration: August 2011 to July 2014
Budget: 2.6 million €
Description: Global-IQ is a project with 10 partners from different European countries. It aims to advance the quantification of socio-economic impacts of global changes at global, European and regional scale. This includes but is not limited to climate change. Other global challenges which will be explored include the infrastructure and transportation sector, migration and international trade. Besides impacts also possible adaptation strategies will be studied and the final goal is to evaluate total costs and the optimal mix of adaptation and mitigation against global changes. This will be achieved utilizing a large set of state-of-the-art modeling tools. PIK contributes the ReMIND-R-MAgPIE system to the project. Key sectors of research will be agriculture, forestry, water, energy, EU competitiveness, labor and international trade. Theoretical innovations concerning discounting, risk and ambiguity will also be developed and tested numerically with models.
AMPERE
Title: Assessment of Climate Change Mitigation Pathways and Evaluation of the Robustness of Mitigation Cost Estimates
Duration: February 2011 until January 2014
Budget: 4,25 Mio. € (706.680 € for PIK) funded by EU
Description: The project AMPERE is aiming for a broad exploration of mitigation pathways and associated mitigation costs under various real world limitations, while at the same time generating a better understanding about the differences across models, and the relation to historical trends. Uncertainties about the costs of mitigation originate from the entire causal chain ranging from economic activity, to emissions and related technologies, and the response of the carbon cycle and climate system to greenhouse gas emissions. AMPERE will use a sizable ensemble of state-of-the-art energy-economy and integrated assessment models to analyse mitigation pathways and associated mitigation costs in a series of multi-model intercomparisons.A consortium of 21 international partners will work on AMPERE. more information
Szenarien zur Darstellung der Machbarkeit von 2 Grad-Emissionsminderungszielen (UBA 2°-Ziel)
Title: Szenarien zur Darstellung der Machbarkeit von 2 Grad- Emissionsminderungsszenarien - Technologien, Kosten, Potenziale - international/regional
Duration: January 2011 until March 2013
Budget: 187,292 € (132,909 € for PIK) funded by Umweltbundesamt
Ambitious global socio-economic and technical climate protection scenarios that are compatible with the 2°C goal are developed and modelled within this project. In addition, existing scenario databases are assessed in order to expand the understanding of significant influence factors necessary to obtain the 2° goal. The results should enable the Federal Environment Agency to derive implications of the model results for international climate policy. Core questions of the project are: Which minimum requirements to technology availability and global cooperation are necessary to comply with the 2° goal? How do the costs to obtain this goal differ in the ideal case (full technology availability and early introduction of ambitious global climate protection policy) from costs in situations with limited technology availability and / or fragmented climate protection policy? How does the distribution of the regional abatement costs look like and how does the distribution key of emissions rights influence the regional distribution of costs? With which climate protection requirements and costs are especially key regions for climate protection (USA, EU27, China, India) confronted?
ERMITAGE
Title: Enhancing Robustness and Model Integration for The Assessment of Global Environmental Change
Duration: December 2010 until November 2013
Budget: 3,383.456 € (617.276 € for PIK) funded by EU
Description: This international project aims to advance the integration of existing models representing the global economy and climate change mitigation strategies, models representing climate change impacts, and models representing agriculture, hydrology and land use. The resultant integrated modelling systems will be used to produce consistent future world scenarios that respect common sustainability goals.
VOLANTE
Title: Visions of land use transitions in Europe
Duration: November 2010 until April 2015
Budget: total of 6,997.000 € (386.132 € for PIK) funded by EU
Description: VOLANTE will provide an interdisciplinary scientific basis to inform land use and natural resource management policies and decision-making. The overarching aims of the project are to design new methodologies and integrated models to analyse human-environment interactions, feedbacks in land use systems, hotspots of land use transitions and identify critical thresholds in land system dynamics.
EntDekEn
Title: Klimaschutz, Entwicklung und Gerechtigkeit: Dekarbonisierung in Entwicklungs- und Schwellenländern
Duration: August 2010 until July 2013
Budget: 500.000 € funded by BMBF
Description: Climate change and the fight against global poverty are two challenges for this century that cannot be seen separately. The challenge is find solutions between promoting economic growth (and thus burdening the climate) on the one hand, and forgoing economic growth (and thus burdening the poor) on the other. To meet this challenge new pathways for low carbon development will be identified. more information
Economy of an integrated and long-term climate and energy policy
Title: WGL Initiative for Research and Innovation
Duration: January 2010 until December 2012
Budget:
Description: Within this project, aspects of an integrated and long-term energy policy are examined from the economic point of view, i. e. considering their macroeconomic costs and benefits. The work focuses on three topics: (i) Assessment questions on benefits and costs of climate policy; (ii) Interdependencies between climate and energy policy and (iii) Further development of international agreements on climate policy.
RoSE
Title: Roadmaps towards Sustainable Energy Futures
Duration: January 2010 until December 2012
Budget: total of 1,170.000 € (545.000 € for PIK) funded by the Mercator Foundation
Description: In cooperation with FEEM in Italy, JGCR Institute in the USA, ERI and the Tsinghua University in China PIK scientists set up a model-based analysis of the economy of climate policies targeting at carbon dioxid stabilization at 450 and 550 ppm. The aim of this project is to provide a portfolio of roadmaps for establishing sustainable energy systems that also shows options for ambitious aims in climate policy.
GLUES
Title: Global Assessment of Land Use dynamics on Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Ecosystem Services
Duration: January 2010 - December 2014
Budget: total of 2.759.522 € (765.405 € for PIK) funded by BMBF
Description: Together with colleagues from Research Domain I and II we are working on part 2 of the GLUES project: climate and landuse scenarios.
EuropeAid
Title: Climate policy outreach on integrated assessment modeling
Duration: January 2010 - December 2012
Budget: total of 500.000 € (70.500 € for PIK) funded by the European Commission
Description: The overarching objective of this project is that of improving modeling capacity in developing countries and of advancing the dialogue among modelers and with policy makers, both in developing and developed countries.
PROGRESS
Title: Spitzenforschung und Innovation in den Neuen Ländern - Progress - Potsdam Research Cluster for Georisk Analysis
Duration: November 2009 until October 2014
Budget: total of 1,33 Mio. € (150.000 € for RD III) funded by German Federal Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF)
Description: The Potsdam Research Cluster for Georisk Analysis, Environmental Change and Sustainability (PROGRESS) is a joint research project of 7 institutions in the metropolitan region Potsdam-Berlin on geo-risks, climate adaptation/ mitigation and the governance of geo-risks. Our RD focuses on the fact that within the economics of climate change and global warming mitigation, new geo-scientific information obtains an economic value. In that context, this project shall put the strategic role of a refined knowledge on climate sensitivity, ocean heat uptake and aerosol forcing into perspective. In the context of CCS (carbon capture & storage), the economic value of minimum observable CO2 leakage rates in relation to costs of corresponding observation systems is integrated into the economic optimization of mitigation options.
Biofuel as Social Fuel
Title: Biofuel as Social Fuel: a socio-economic and ecological assessment of biofuels and their compatibility with sustainable development.
Duration: October 2009 until October 2013
Budget: 1,42 Mio. € funded by German Federal Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF)
Description: The research focus lies on a regional level. Therefore two model regions were chosen, one in Brandenburg, Germany and the other one in Ribeirão Preto, Estado São Paulo, Brazil. The project content is to analyze the current situation in the respective regions regarding the agrarian structures, the value chains of biofuel production and the drivers of the biofuel industry as well as incentives and political framework. Following this analysis it will be researched and discussed what possible alternative approaches and structures are that could lead to a so called social sustainability.
Bio Energy Planet
Title: Auswirkung weltweit expandierter Biomasse-Nutzung auf Ökonomie, Klima und Biodiversität der Erde
Duration: January 2009 until December 2011
Budget: total of 950.000 € for PIK
Description: In cooperation with RD I and RD II we explore the impact of a worldwide extension of bio energy use on economy, climate and biodiversity of the world.
ENCI-LowCarb
Title: European Network engaging Civil society in Low Carbon scenarios
Duration: April 2009 until October 2011
Budget: 110.000 € funded by EU
Description: The overall aim of ENCI-LowCarb is to engage civil society in research on low carbon scenarios. This will be achieved by creating a European network related to the factor 4 composed by Civil Society Organisations and research institutes and elaborating two national studies (France and Germany) based on the confrontation between climate policies of low carbon scenarios and civil society organisations. (further information)
HTC
Title: Hydrothermale Karbonisierung von Biomasse - Potential, Entwurf, Versuchsanlage
Duration: April 2009 - May 2012
Budget: total of 2 mio. € (395.000 € for PIK) funded by German Federal Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF)
Description: Together with several other partner institutes PIK scientists are working on the optimisation of so called HTC-reaction by gaining a deeper understanding of the chemical reactions involved. Building and running a trial plant for hydrothermal carbonisation of biomass is also involved in the project.
Kosteneffizienter Ausbau der Erneuerbaren Energien
Title: Kosteneffizienter Ausbau der Erneuerbaren Energien
Duration: October 2007 until April 2011
Budget: total of 380.000 € (180.000 € for PIK) funded by Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Reaktorsicherheit (BMU)
Description: Together with the Technical University Berlin PIK investigates how a further implementation of renewable energies might help mitigating climate change and secure the world´s energy supply in the future.
ClimateCost
Title: Full Costs of Climate Change
Duration: November 2008 until July 2011
Budget: 190.000 € funded by the EU
Description: Funded under the Seventh Framework Programme, ClimateCost aims at a major contribution towards an assessment of the full costs of global warming. Our RD organizes a review on major tipping elements in the Earth system that could be triggered by further increase of global mean temperature and outlines first steps towards the economics of tipping points.
