Unprecedented number of briefings in run-up of climate summit

11/16/2015 - In the run-up of the much anticipated UN climate summit in Paris, scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) are involved in an unprecedented number of briefings and public events. In this crucial time, stakeholders and media increasingly ask for the perspective of science on the state of the Earth and perspectives for climate policy. Yet PIK scientists also try to directly inform interested citizens. It is impossible to provide a complete list of all such outreach efforts, but here are some noteworthy examples.
Unprecedented number of briefings in run-up of climate summit

Director John Schellnhuber will co-present a declaration of the Deutsches Klima-Konsortium, the official organization of German Climate Science, in the week before COP21. He will also join the German Federal Minister for the Environment in presenting a climate statement. With the leader of the German Labour Unions he will debate about a new concept of justice in the age of globalization and climate change at a public event hosted by Leibniz-Gemeinschaft. A few days ago already, he spoke at PIK’s annual workshop for the media to more than 30 journalists, together with Katja Frieler and Ottmar Edenhofer.

Next week, Edenhofer will speak at an event of the global oil company Shell. He already did briefings at a meeting of all members of both the federal and regional parliaments of the Christian Democratic Party that cover environmental policy; at a Berlin event of the State of Brandenburg on energy futures for Germany and Europe; and for business leaders at the Baden-Badener Unternehmergespräche.

At the German Federal Foreign Office, Anders Levermann last week presented the state of science for members of the diplomatic corps. He has been sided by State Secretaries both from the Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, as well as business representatives. Before, he did two briefings in the German Federal Parliament and one for journalists with the Worldwide Fund for Nature.

Many other PIK scientists spoke at public events, or will do so. Wolfgang Lucht for example joined a proWissen debate in Potsdam with the Director of the German Research Centre for Geosciences, the director of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Ocean Research, and the scientific director of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies. Ricarda Winkelmann will co-present the new movie by Academy Award Winner Luc Jacquet “Ice and the Sky”, also with proWissen Potsdam, at a local cinema. And Daniel Klingenfeld, Head of Director's Staff, will talk about the challenges for the Paris climate conference at Urania Berlin and about climate protection as peace politics at a forum of the German Association for Security Policy (Gesellschaft für Sicherheitspolitik).