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RD 2 - Climate Resilience

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.
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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.
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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.
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Press Release

"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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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%.
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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.
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Press Release

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Press Release

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.
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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.
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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)
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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'.
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Press Release

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.
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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?
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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.
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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).
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Renewable Energies in West Africa: CIREG Project Realises Power Supply in Rural Regions

14/04/2022 - The CIREG project - led by RD2 scientists Stefan Liersch and Hagen Koch - investigated the potential for renewable energies and their spatio-temporal synergies in West Africa. Together with local partners, the project implemented two off-grid demonstrator projects for renewable electricity supply in rural regions in Niger and Togo, enhancing the quality of life in remote villages in a sustainable way.
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Press Release

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.
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Key-note speech by Hermann Lotze-Campen at online workshop on agricultural research on climate change

02/03/2022 - The workshop series 'Agricultural Research on Climate Change' by the German Agricultural Research Alliance (DAFA) offers a platform for interdisciplinary exchanges and discussions on a broad range of topics. The workshop dedicated to 'Climate-friendly cattle farming - measuring, assessing and reducing methane emissions' featured a key-note speech from RD2 Department Head Hermann Lotze-Campen.
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Extremely dry and extremely wet: (lack of) rainfall in Germany in the focus of the media

04/04/2022 - For a few years the precipitation balance is off. Local weather patterns more often show long periods of drought, but also occasional extremely heavy rainfalls. After a very dry winter, the low groundwater-levels in the region of Berlin/Brandenburg cause concerns. Regional and national media-outlets seek advice from Working Group-leader and expert in 'Hydroclimatic risks' Fred Hattermann on the (long-term) effects of the lack of precipitation, but also on the increasing risk of local flooding due to intense local rainfall.
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New IPCC report on climate impacts

02/28/2022 - Today, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 2 published its 6th Assessment Report highlighting climate change impacts. The working group consisted of 270 scientists from across the globe who scanned more than 34,000 pages of scientific literature on the current state of science on what the warming climate means for our life on Earth. They’ve agreed on a more than 3,000 pages report synthesising those insights, and on a 36 pages Summary for Policy Makers (SPM). Several PIK scientists were involved, such as Katja Frieler, co-chair of Tranformation Pathways research at the Potsdam Institute. She was a lead author of the report's chapter on observed cross-sectoral impacts and also contributed to the Summary for Policy Makers.
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Potsdam Summer School 2022: Towards a Sustainable Transformation

02/22/2022 - Climate, Energy and Nature in a Changing World – with this overarching theme the Potsdam Summer School will continue the transdisciplinary and interactive series of events that has been held annually in Potsdam, Germany since 2014. It brings together talented early-career scientists and young professionals operating in the private sector, governmental agencies, and non-governmental organisations from many different parts of the world to discuss frontier research questions on future sustainable development and contribute their insights at this exceptional opportunity to foster cooperation and an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas. The call for applications is now open!
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German launch of WBGU discussion paper on Planetary Health

02/02/2022 – The German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) launched its discussion paper on planetary health in an online event with national and international key stakeholders. Prof. Sabine Gabrysch, head of PIK’s RD2, opened the session with a short presentation underlining the importance of planetary health in the socio-ecological transformation.
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