Research

ENGAGE is framed by two main research questions:

  • How and to what extent does climate change affect long-term economic growth trajectories?
  • How does the inclusion of economic growth impacts play out in the integrated assessment of selected climate impacts and mitigation strategies?

 

Our research focuses on five main areas, organized in four work packages (WPs):

  • conceptual understanding of climate change impacts on economic growth (impact channels, relevant economic processes)
  • the role of international market linkages in shaping climate change
  • impacts from tropical cyclones and floods on growth (empirical relations, projections under climate change)
  • macroeconomic dynamics of climate impacts on land
  • an improved integrated assessment of mitigation and impacts based on inputs from the previous research tasks

 

 We use a large variety of tools to tackle our research questions. These include:

  • the ifo GAME (Geological and Meteorological Events) and NatCatService databases on natural disasters and their effects
  • outputs from the Intersectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP) and the 5th round of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP)
  • econometric tools and simple growth models as well as the integrated assessment model DICE
  • the integrated assessment framework REMIND-MAgPIE, coupling  the energy-economy-climate model REMIND with the land-use model MAgPIE, both developed at PIK
  •  the newly developed scenario framework of the Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSPs)