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Experiences of Climate Extremes likely to Lean European Voters towards Green Parties

02/07/2022 - Awareness of and concern for environmental issues has risen across Europe in the past two decades, and so has the willingness to vote for green parties. A new study has looked into this correlation, collecting subnational election data for a large number of countries and combining it with environmental data.

Press Release

A Gender Dimension of Energy: Modern Cooking Fuels Connected to Quicker Demographic Transition

12/13/2021 - Switching to modern cooking fuels like gas or to electricity can improve the well-being of women in the global South, and eventually be connected to falling birth rates, a new study by researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research shows. This highlights, for the first time, a connection between the global energy transition and the demographic transition in poorer countries.

News

Assessing the Evidence: Climate Change and Migration in the United Republic of Tanzania

08/31/2021 – Temperature rise, changes in the rainy seasons, extreme weather events: climate impacts pose risks to people in East Africa, especially to those living in rural areas and are heavily dependent on small-scale agriculture. A new report, a joint effort between the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), looks into possible linkages between climate impacts and migration in Tanzania and offers lenses across East Africa. It is accompanied by a Summary Brief in Swahili to broaden accessibility of climate information at the local level. In today’s event, PIK scientist Julia Blocher presented key findings of the report, followed by a virtual panel discussion.

News

Locked Houses, Fallow Lands: Climate change and migration in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, India

03/25/2021 - Rising temperatures, cloud bursts, and dengue outbreaks: Climate change acts as a risk modifier influencing migration conditions in the Indian Himalayan state of Uttarakhand. Employing the latest climate data, a new report created under the umbrella of the East African Peru India Climate Capacities (EPPIC) project examines how climate impacts such as changing rainfall patterns and increasing extreme weather events affect the state's mountain agriculture and migration processes. In today’s launch, researchers and panelists also discussed what policy measures are needed to manage migration flows and revitalize the economy.

News

Climate change and conflict: PIK researchers give policy advice to the German government

02/03/2021 - Training programs on environmental peacebuilding, pooling international expertise to deal with acute risks of violence, and an even stronger focus on gender roles in crisis regions - these are some of the concrete recommendations for action made by the German government's advisory council for civilian crisis prevention and peacebuilding in its latest study on the interactions between climate impacts and security.

News

PIK at the Chaos Communication Congress rC3

12/23/2020 - This year everything is different. The legendary Chaos Communication Congress is taking place remotely this year due to Corona - but experts from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research will contribute. The major event of Europe's largest hacker association Chaos Computer Club (CCC) traditionally attracts thousands of people to the exhibition halls in Leipzig over the four days between Christmas and New Year, but this year those interested can attend the Remote Chaos Experience (rC3) from home.

Podcast: Separating Fact from Fiction on Climate-Induced Migration and Conflicts

Global estimates of the number of people who may be displaced in the future by climate change abound. Which of these figures can we trust? PIK researcher Julia Blocher explains in a new podcast for Migration Policy Institute (MPI) why that is not necessarily the right question to ask for evidence-based policies and operations. She also outlines her recent research on climate-conflict linkages.

Training webinar for staff of three Peruvian ministries on climate change and migration

Peru is currently breaking new grounds with the development of an Action Plan on Climate Migration, as envisaged in its Climate Change Framework Law. PIK researcher Jonas Bergmann has supported the development scientifically, in cooperation with IOM, most recently by providing a second training webinar for ministerial staff in Peru.

Press Release

Climate Change triggers migration – particularly in middle-income and agricultural countries

09/14/2020 - Environmental hazards affect populations worldwide and can drive migration under specific conditions. Changes in temperature levels, increased rainfall variability, and rapid-onset disasters, such as tropical storms, are important factors as shown by a new study led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Environmental migration is most pronounced in middle-income and agricultural countries but weaker in low-income countries, where populations often lack resources needed for migration. The findings make it possible to identify geographical regions that may be especially susceptible to migration movements in the future.

Press Release

Climate Stabilization: Lessons from the Corona Crisis

08/17/2020 - The dynamics of the current COVID-19 pandemic could offer valuable insights for the efforts to mitigate climate change. Highlighting the parallels between the global health and the climate emergency, a team of researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) has analyzed what policy makers and citizens can learn from the corona outbreak and how to apply it to the global effort of reducing CO2 emissions. Their proposal: A Climate Corona Contract that unites the younger and the older generations.

Leibniz Crisis Interview zum Klimawandel

Warum nutzen wir den Krisenbegriff im Zusammenhang mit dem Klimawandel? Welche Rolle spielen Klimaschutz und Anpassung bei der Krisenprävention? Wie gehen Menschen in unterschiedlichen Ländern mit der Klimakrise um? Diese und andere Fragen diskutiert Dr. Kira Vinke mit dem Leibniz-Forschungsverbund „Krisen einer globalisierten Welt" im Rahmen der Crisis Interviews.

Buildings can become a global CO2 sink if made out of wood instead of cement and steel

A material revolution replacing cement and steel in urban construction by wood can have double benefits for climate stabilization, a new study shows. First, it can avoid greenhouse gas emissions from cement and steel production. Second, it can turn buildings into a carbon sink as they store the CO2 taken up from the air by trees that are harvested and used as engineered timber. However while the required amount of timber harvest is available in theory, such an upscaling would clearly need most careful, sustainable forest management and governance, the international team of authors stresses.

Die Politikwissenschaftlerin Dr. Kira Vinke wird mit dem 13. Potsdamer Nachwuchswissenschaftler-Preis ausgezeichnet

In Anerkennung ihrer herausragenden Leistungen auf dem Gebiet der Politikwissenschaften wird Dr. Kira Vinke beim morgigen Einsteintag der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften von Potsdams Oberbürgermeister Mike Schubert mit dem Potsdamer Nachwuchswissenschaftler-Preis ausgezeichnet (Pressemitteilung der Stadt Potsdam).

Potsdam: Kira Vinke is awarded best PhD Thesis Prize for Work on Climate Migration

29/11/2019 – Kira Vinke from PIK is the first political scientist to receive the Potsdam Young Scientist Award. The prize was awarded to her for her dissertation on "Unsettling Settlements: Cities, Migrants, Climate Change. Rural-Urban Climate Migration as Effective Adaption?" The honor was awarded to her by Lord Mayor Mike Schubert at a ceremony at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

New Dataset: Regional Harmonization of Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) Data

Camille Belmin created a concordance mapping of harmonized district names and indices for 254 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data sets. DHS data have discrepancies in the way district names and indices are reported over time. This data set can help DHS users harmonize their DHS data, which is useful when conducting longitudinal analyses with DHS data. This post explains how the data set was created and provides some guidelines on how to use it.

EPICC training during first national workshop on climate change and human mobility in Peru, 30.09.-01.10.2019

PIK researcher Jonas Bergmann helped to convene the first national workshop on climate change and human mobility in Peru, informing participants from national institutions on the existing scientific evidence in the country and the need for an integrated response strategy.

EPICC Training on Climate Change & Migration, Potsdam, Germany, 19.09.2019

As climate impacts affect migration patterns across Latin America, strong policy responses are needed. Jonas Bergmann, PIK FutureLab Social Metabolism and Impacts researcher within the EPICC project, trained diplomats from the region on this nexus in collaboration with the German Federal Foreign Office.

Neuer Beitrag auf dem PeaceLab Blog: Warum Klimaschutz Krisenprävention ist: Das Beispiel Burkina Faso

In Burkina Faso verschärfen extreme klimatische Bedingungen bestehende Spannungen und Konflikte. Unser Autorinnenteam erklärt, warum.

Discussion with the German Red Cross: The humanitarian imperative in times of climate change

19.08.2019, Berlin. EPICC project lead Dr. Kira Vinke discussed with crisis reporter Dr. Antonia Rados the new challenges that climate change poses to humanitarian organizations at an event of the German Red Cross.

TEDx talk: For Climate Change and Migration, Youth Have the Answers!

Julia Blocher, PIK FutureLab Social Metabolism and Impacts researcher, recently delivered a TEDx talk in Rome entitled “For Climate Change and Migration, Youth Have the Answers!”

13th ISIE-SEM Conference 2019 organized by FL METAB

From 13-15 May FL Metab organized the 13th conference of the socio-economic metabolism section of the International Society for Industrial Ecology at Harnack Haus in Berlin. We share some stats and impressions of the event here.

Metab in the media: Healthcare in world’s largest economies accounts for 4% of global emissions

The health care sectors of OECD countries, India, and China contribute a significant part to their national carbon footprints. Our new study shows a first international comparison of health carbon footprints and explores ways to reduce them without compromising health care.

Call for Abstracts: Conference on Socio-Economic Metabolism organized by PIK

21/01/2019 - This year's Conference of the Socio-Economic Metabolism Section (SEM) of the International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE), founded by the New York Academy of Sciences, is organized by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Chaired by Helga Weisz, head of PIK’s future lab “Social Metabolism and Impacts”, and Peter-Paul Pichler from research domain “Complexity Science”, the meeting will be held in Berlin 13-15 May 2019. The conference aims to share ideas and knowledge of the current and cutting edge socio-economic metabolism research among researchers, academics, and industry experts. The call for abstracts is still open, until January 30.

Update on the first EPICC case study on migration in the context of water scarcity in the Peruvian highlands

October 2018, Peru. How does moving away from areas in Peru hit by climate-related hazards affect people’s well-being? To gain insights on this and related questions, I have started primary data collection for several qualitative case studies in Peru’s three large natural regions: the coast, the highlands, and the rainforest. This post briefly reports on the first impressions from the fieldwork in the Andes.