2014 — Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

Capacity-building workshop on forthcoming World Bank Report

03/21/2014 - To share insights on a forthcoming report for the World Bank, including data and modelling, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) recently hosted a workshop for regional scientists. The report will provide analyses of climate change impacts on issues ranging from heat extremes to sea-level change in the Middle East and North Africa, agriculture in the Western Balkans/Central Asia and forests in Russia. It is the third in a series entitled “Turn down the heat” and is being produced in collaboration with Climate Analytics (CA). The aim is to identify development challenges created by global warming in order to assess social vulnerabilities.

New number two for equal opportunities within Leibniz Institutes

03/21/2014 - The equal opportunities officers of the institutes that are members of the Leibniz Association chose Christine Bounama from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research to become the deputy chair of their speakers’ council. This body is where the equal opportunity officers discuss statements and strategies that aim at getting more women into executive positions, fostering the reconciliation of work and family life, and promoting young female scientists.

Climate-KIC wins 60+ million grant

03/12/2014 - This year, a record sum of 63.5 million Euros is allocated to the Climate-Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) to foster entrepreneurship that leads to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. This is the essence of the grant agreement signed by the European Institute of Innovation Technology recently. The funding is provided by the European Union and aims at ramping up activities in helping Europe lead the world in commercialising climate change technologies.

Networks in the climate system: Research gap is closed

02/24/2014 - There are networks within the climate system of the earth: Changes at one point can trigger changes at another, far away point – so an El Niño-event in South America can interfere with the Asian monsoon. Up to now, these correlations could only be determined statistically by comparing observation data and time series. A study now for the first time reveals the physical mechanisms behind the statistics. According to an article published by scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in the journal Scientific Reports, a new open access journal of the renowned Nature group, flows are of prime interest here.

Colombia’s Minister of the Environment visits PIK

02/18/2014 - Glaciers are melting in the Andes and the rain forest of the Amazon is threatened – Colombia knows the risks of global warming. The Minister of the Environment Luz Helena Sarmiento Villamizar together with her vice minister and other high-ranking representatives of the South American country came to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) for discussions about the research on climate impacts and countermeasures. The end of the internal armed conflicts of many years leads to increased forest clearing – the pressure on the ecosystems is thus increasing from all sides, according to the Minister. Therefore, she is urgently seeking scientific support.

Which adaptation is possible? Climate Service Center meets in Potsdam

02/17/2014 - Renowned scientists met at the annual conference of the Climate Service Center last week on Potsdam´s Telegraph Hill. Under the motto “Society under climate change: Which adaptation is necessary, possible, and sustainable?” the issue of adaptation was in the focus for two days – since even if global warming was limited to two degrees Celsius, the impacts would already be significant. The Climate Service Center (CSC) of the Helmholtz Center Geesthacht, whose offices are located in Hamburg, is funded by the Federal Government.

The European Emissions Trading System: options for reform

02/11/2014 - The most crucial instrument of European climate policy, the Emissions Trading System (ETS), is currently questioned to deliver the desired results as the sum to pay per ton of carbon is dwindling. To move beyond a narrow discussion of the adequate allowance price level, the association of European national academies of applied sciences Euro-CASE along with the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) is convening a high-level workshop in Brussels this week. It aims at exploring options for a reform, and to do so by embedding the discussion about the ETS in the context of its interaction with national policies as well as public finance.

Coastal flood damage and adaptation costs investigated

02/04/2014 - Without increased coastal protection, between one and ten out of 200 people per year could be affected by flooding by the end ouf our century. In such a scenario of unmitigated climate change, the damages induced by sea-level rise without adaptive measure could be expected to be between 1.2 and 9.3 percent of economical activity. These are some results of a yet unprecedentedly broad analysis now published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Building dikes would cost substantial amounts of money – yet much less than the damages by flooding without protection, according to the analysis.

Edenhofer speaks at Munich Security Conference

01/31/2014 - Ottmar Edenhofer discusses “Climate Change as a Challenge for International Politics” at the 50th Munich Security Conference. From crop failure due to climate change to scarcity of resources or migration flows – the potential risks of climate change for stability, development and security are in the focus of the event with renowned experts and decision makers.

World Bank launches online course on climate change

01/27/2014 - The World Bank is launching its first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) based on the report “Turn down the Heat – Why a 4°C warmer world must be avoided” conducted by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). The online course offers a curriculum of four weeks of learning about climate change, from observed changes and impacts of the past to a 4°C warmer world, with leading experts as lecturers, among them PIK director Hans Joachim Schellnhuber and Stefan Rahmstorf, chair of PIK’s research domain Earth System Analysis.

“Global problems require globally coordinated science”: First German Future Earth Summit

01/27/2014 - The ten-year research programme “Future Earth”, an initiative of leading international scientific organizations bringing together existing programmes on global environmental change, starts its first German summit in Berlin today. More than 230 experts from natural and social sciences as well as engineering, the humanities and law will discuss new, interdisciplinary approaches or research in three core areas: Dynamic Planet, Global Development, and the Transition towards Sustainability. They aim at providing knowledge needed to tackle the most urgent challenges of the 21st century related to global sustainability through open and collaborative processes in partnership with society and users of science.