Key-note speech Prof. Lotze-Campen at European Association of Agricultural Economists (EAAE) Seminar
06/10/2022 - The 181st European Association of Agricultural Economists (EAAE's) Seminar on "Greenhouse gas emissions in the EU agriculture and food sector - potential and limits of climate mitigation policies and pricing instruments" in Berlin, Germany featured a key-note speech from RD2 Department Head Hermann Lotze-Campen.
Read More
Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture exchange with scientists from Climate Resilience Department
22/09/2022 - On 22 September 2022, representatives of Department 521 "Climate Protection, Climate Adaptation, Water" from the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) met with scientists from Department 2 "Climate Resilience". The aim was a first exchange on the topics "Transformation of livestock farming - contribution to climate protection" and "Water solutions for conflicting goals in water use in the course of climate change".
Read More
Congratulations Dr. Laudien!
02/09/2022 - Rahel Laudien successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled "Supporting climate risk management in tropical agriculture with statistical crop modelling" at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
Read More
Towards food security despite climate crisis and war
09/01/2022 - To secure the world's food supply, a shift toward more plant-based and less animal-based foods is needed, researchers explain in a 'Policy Brief' published today. The Russian war of aggression on Ukraine has triggered a shortage of some agricultural products as well as gas-produced mineral fertilizers. As a result, food prices are rising. At the same time, droughts and flash floods threaten crops worldwide as the climate crisis intensifies. The researchers show the connections - and make concrete recommendations on how a food turnaround could be initiated.
Read More
Hydrologists from RD2 featured in media coverage on drought
18/08/2022 - Heatwaves and extended periods of drought over the course of the year have had serious impacts on soil, groundwater levels and rivers in Germany and abroad. Many media outlets have reached out to hydrology experts from RD2 to get a scientific explanation and glimpse into the (potential) future of our rivers.
Read More
Urban Transformation-team organises workshop on teaching and research related to sustainability held in Nepal
26-28/07/2022 - Members of the 'Urban Transformations' Working Group of RD2 organized a three-day workshop on 'Strengthening Teaching and Research on Sustainable Development Goals Curriculum Co-development' in Banepa, Nepal. The workshop was organized within the framework of the "ForHimSDG" project (Förderung der Entwicklung des Himalayas durch Stärkung von Lehre und Forschung im Bereich der Sustainable Development Goals) funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and aiming to strengthen teaching and research on sustainability issues in the Hindu-Kush-Himalaya region by fostering North-South and South-South cooperation.
Read More
Christopher Reyer at high-level UK conference on cascading climate risks
03/08/2022 - The Chatham House invited key UK government officials to discuss their work on climate impact analysis, risk planning and policy coherence with regard to international cascading climate risks with national and international scientists and experts working in this field.
Read More
Congratulations Dr. Porwollik!
06/07/2022 - Vera Porwollik successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled "Patterns of Cropland Management Systems for Assessment of Global Change" at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
Read More
"For a secure climate future": High-ranking guests at 30 years celebration of Potsdam Institute
06/30/2022 - High-ranking guests attended the 30th anniversary celebration of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) - from federal and Brandenburg politicians to a Nobel laureate. The institute, founded in 1992 and now employing a good 400 people, is needed more today than ever before in the worsening climate crisis, speeches said. The PIK Board of Directors thanked politicians as well as the scientists and all employees of PIK for their part in the success story.
Read More
How taxing the rich can help everyone
06/23/22 - Taxing rich peoples’ gains from capital can help reduce inequality while keeping up overall prosperity – yet only on two conditions. First, the revenues from taxation must be invested into public infrastructure such as schools, public transport, or sustainable energy grids. Second, it must be fairly possible to replace machines by labour. This is the outcome of a mathematical modelling study by a team of economists including US Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Read More
SDGs failing to have meaningful impact, research warns
06/20/2022 - Sustainability has never been higher on the international agenda. But an international assessment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—the 17 global goals used by governments, companies, and NGOs worldwide to guide action towards a prosperous and just future—shows they are having limited impact, and may instead be contributing to greenwashing. Two years into the decisive decade for humanity's future on Earth, fundamental changes are needed if we are to shift onto a sustainable and resilient path, argue the authors of the study in Nature Sustainability.
Read More
Congratulations Dr. Krummenauer!
16/06/2022 - Linda Krummenauer successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled "Global heat adaptation among urban populations and its evolution under different climate futures" at the University of Potsdam.
Read More
PIK welcomes Prof Thomas Hertel visiting on Humboldt Research Award
06/13/2022 - Thomas Hertel, Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University, Indiana, USA, will be visiting PIK on a Humboldt Research Award for the second half of 2022. An expert in international trade, food and environmental security, he will add to PIK's expertise in Research Department 2 on Climate Resilience and integrated modelling.
Read More
Healthy soil, healthy planet: Soil quality key for improved crop production and resilient climate
06/09/2022 - Healthy, high-quality soils lead to more robust and stable crop yields and are key for adapting to a changing climate, a new study finds. In China, appropriate efforts to improve soil quality may reduce the decline in crop production induced by climate change by 20%.
Read More
Food sector emissions accounting: Sharing responsibility across the value chain
06/09/2022 - A new approach to account for emissions caused in the food sector that considers trade, as technical as it sounds, could help meet greenhouse gas reduction targets. Spreading the responsibility to reduce onto all countries along a product’s value chain could yield substantial effects, according to a study now published in Nature Communications.
Read More
Climate Economics: Policies change People
06/09/22 - The makers of climate policy should rethink about how people think: A team of researchers led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) shows that abiding by climate-friendly policies actually changes the way people think about what they do. People’s preferences are more malleable than textbook economics often assumes. The researchers’ advice to policy makers is to take changing preferences into account when tailoring policies like carbon taxes or building low-carbon infrastructure.
Read More
PIK-Scientist Svenja Fluhrer awarded with Early Career Best Paper Award
06/03/2022 - Development economist Svenja Fluhrer was awarded with the prize "Ökonomie des Klimawandels - Early Career Best Paper Award" of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. She received the award for her paper "Sitting in the same boat: Subjective well-being and social comparison after an extreme weather event", published in Ecological Economics.
Read More
Projecting climate change impacts: Cross-sectoral ISIMIP-PROCLIAS workshop full success
05/27/2022 - From risks in the Sixth IPCC Assessment Report to the future of climate modelling and progress in compound event research: The ISIMIP-PROCLIAS workshop 2022 featured a number of diverse topics around climate impact modelling.
Read More
PIK RD2 Scientists and GIZ kick off climate risk analyses in three new countries
27/05/2022 - After finalizing the climate risk analyses in Burkina Faso and Niger, RD2 scientists from the 'Adaptation in Agricultural Systems' recently kicked off the climate risk analysis process in three new countries: Cameroon, Uganda and Zambia.
Read More
Nu-Tree project started: Integrating nutrition and health aspects into agroforestry projects in sub-Saharan Africa
17/05/2021 – The project ‘Integrating nutrition and health into agroforestry projects of GIZ and NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa: A feasibility study’ (short: Nu-Tree) aims to create awareness of the nutrition and health aspects of agroforestry projects for key stakeholders and to support their implementation and evaluation in future agroforestry programs. It is funded by the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU) and will be implemented from April 2022 until March 2024.
Read More
How to avoid eating the world: From degrowth to a sustainable food system transformation
05/16/2022 - Proponents of degrowth have long argued that economic growth is detrimental to the environment. Now scientists show that concerning the food sector, curbing growth alone would not make our food system sustainable – but changing what we eat and putting a price on carbon would. In a first, a group led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) used a quantitative food and land system model to gauge the effects of degrowth and efficiency proposals on the food sector’s greenhouse gas emissions. They find that combining a dietary shift, emissions pricing, and international income transfers could make the world’s food system emissions-neutral by the end of the 21st century – providing at the same time a healthier nutrition for a growing world population.
Read More
PIK experts appointed to Berlin's "Klimaschutzrat"
05/13/22 - Two PIK researchers, Cornelia Auer and Julia Epp, have been appointed to the "Klimaschutzrat" of the city of Berlin. The 18-member body with experts from science, business and representatives of civil society will advise the Berlin Senate and the House of Representatives on issues of climate mitigation and energy policy.
Read More
Dr Lisa Pörtner and Prof. Dr. Hermann Lotze-Campen at Planetary Health Academy
04/05/2022 - The fifth edition of the Planetary Health Academy "Planetary Health in the clinical context -Part II" started off on May 4 2022 with a lecture on 'Planetary health in the light of current global events' by Dr. Lisa Pörtner (PIK - Climate Resilience), Prof.Dr. Hermann Lotze-Campen (PIK- Climate Resilience), Prof. Dr. Harald Lesch (LMU München) and Dr. Martin Herrmann (KLUG)
Read More
German Prize for Economics of the Joachim Herz Foundation for Linus Mattauch
09/05/2022 - Every other year, the Joachim Herz Foundation honours scientists in interdisciplinary research in economics for their significant contribution to the further development of economic research. This year, the award aimed to honour scientists in the field of 'environmental economics'. Prof. Dr. Linus Mattauch together with his colleague Jiaxin Zhao was awarded third place with their paper 'When Standards have better Distributional Consequences than Carbon Taxes'.
Read More
Fungi-based meat alternatives to help save Earth’s forests
05/04/22 - Substituting just a fifth of meat from cattle with microbial protein - a meat alternative produced in fermentation tanks - by 2050 could halve deforestation, a new analysis by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) now published in Nature finds. The market-ready meat alternative is very similar in taste and texture, but is a biotech product which – by replacing beef – involves much less land resources and greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and land-use change. This goes under the assumption of a growing world population’s increasing appetite for beefy bites, and it is the first time researchers have projected the development of these market-ready meat substitutes into the future, assessing their potential impact on the environment.
Read More
Sustaining Peace Amidst the Climate Crisis: PIK Scientists at the Federal Foreign Office
05/04/2022 - How can data and innovative technologies be used for climate protection and crisis prevention?
Read More
Citizen participation for energy transition in Hesse and Berlin
04/25/2022 - Citizen participation is an important element of modern policy for the energy transition. Sociologist Fritz Reusswig from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research is involved in corresponding approaches in the two federal states of Hesse and Berlin and will be participating in events there this week. His research group works, among other things, on energy conflicts.
Read More
New Advisory Council for Area Development of the Ministry of Construction
04/25/2022 - The Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building (BMWSB) has appointed Hermann Lotze-Campen, a researcher from Potsdam, to its new Advisory Council for Area Development. The aim of the advisory board is to advise the ministry in the current legislative period on fundamental questions of spatial development and the strengthening of regions in Germany. Lotze-Campen, an agricultural economist, heads the Climate Resilience Department at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).
Read More
Food crisis due to Ukraine war calls for demand-side action: less animal products, less waste, and greening EU agricultural policy
03/18/2022 - The global food system is impacted by the war in Ukraine, adding to the direct humanitarian and security crisis caused by the Russian aggression. Ukraine and Russia are major producers of grains and fertilizers, yet their exports are at risk of getting disrupted. However, agricultural policy-makers – like the EU ministers meeting on Monday – should not abandon sustainable farming practices just to increase grain production, a team of scientists argues. They propose three key measures to cope with the shocks. In a statement published today they highlight that, instead of focusing only on the supply side for e.g. animal feed, it is changing the demand side which can lead to both a more resilient and more sustainable global food system.
Read More
