All Projects

Climate change brings many highly uncertain impacts onto society and economy, and its risks, incorporating vulnerability, require more comprehensive assessments. This requires an enhanced understanding of the interdependencies between climate impacts, adaptation and mitigation measures at high sectoral and spatial granularity, and the temporal evolution and the capacity of the broader socioeconomic context to cope with the climate challenge. TRACCE will deliver new, cutting-edge methodological capabilities by advancing and linking knowledge across research communities. Comprehensive assessment of risk will entail production of granular socio-economic data and projections; bottom-up analyses of multidimensional climate vulnerabilities, including under-researched aspects such as gender inequality; high-resolution probabilistic hazards, damages and mitigation-adaptation synergies and trade-offs; top-down integrated assessment frameworks and leading multi-sectoral macro-economic models; socioeconomic analyses incorporating cross-sector and spillover effects and distributional implications. Stress-test scenarios will be deployed for an advanced understanding of the critical climate risks and how they can be managed. Tool and process co-design and co-development with private and public sector stakeholders, including the JRC will enhance exploitation, capacity building and bridge the science-policy-practice gap; all underpinned by established open science data and models and disseminated through various mediums, including online decision-support platforms and public API. TRACCE outputs will be guided by the ongoing climate policy ambitions such as Mission Adaptation and EU Green Deal to deliver new insights and decision-making support tools which inform robust climate mitigation and adaptation policy, and contribute to the design of societal transformation pathways of for the EU.

UPTAKE aims to facilitate the sustainable upscaling of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods by developing a set of robust strategies through technical, theoretical, and practical analysis accompanied by interactive dialogue within a CDR stakeholder forum. As a result, UPTAKE will develop a harmonised, comprehensive, inclusive, integrated, and transparent CDR knowledge inventory to evaluate a wide range of CDR technologies and methods, quantifying their national, European, and global costs, effectiveness, and removal potential as well as risks, constraints, and side-effects at different scales, and their prospects of technological progress. The UPTAKE approach will allow the assessment of geographical, sectoral, socioeconomic, demographic, and temporal trade-offs, co-benefits, and opportunities emerging from portfolios of different CDR methods. The enhanced socio-technical understanding of CDR methods will feed into an ensemble of state-of-the-art integrated assessment models (IAMs), which will help improve the integration of CDR methods given the EU policy objectives set for 2030, 2050, and beyond climate neutrality. UPTAKE will assess CDR governance and policy frameworks considering social acceptance, accountability, monitoring, and regulations for sustainable CDR rollout at scale. As a result, UPTAKE will generate an open and interactive CDR roadmap explorer to investigate strategies that are resilient to risks of failure and disruption, and minimise adverse impacts on society, economy, and the environment, aiming for a just, inclusive, and sustainable transition.

The ambition to achThe ambition to achieve the Paris Agreement goals has led to the realization that a rapid and full decarbonization of the economy is required, involving a structural transition of the current economy and society. With the rise of quantified policy targets, policy packages, and consideration of multiple dimensions and sectors, Integrated Assessment Models with their ability to consider complex relationships and provide calibrated numerical results have become ever more important in the last decade. The PRISMA project aims to bring these models to the next level by focusing on four key areas of improvement, namely the representation of distributional justice and efficiency, innovation and finance, climate impacts and land-use implications, and lifestyle change and circularity. In these four key areas we will improve existing large-scale IAMs and sectorial models, and consider the linking of different models where applicable. Two cross-cutting shared themes across these areas are the improvement of the temporal and spatial resolution of the analysis, and the representation of disruptive and structural change in the economy. Notably we will increase the spatial granularity with a focus on Europe, and look at the yearly and in particular near term detailed modeling of rapid decarbonization pathways. The extensive model development will be co-designed through an interactive stakeholder engagement process from the beginning, and focus on model openness and usability to ensure the stakeholder and policy relevance. Moreover, PRISMA will focus in its application on the analysis of the spectrum of Fit for 55 package policies of the EU developing focalized robust and resilient Net zero pathways and assess the uncertainty around key variables and outcomes. PRISMA will also provide key insights to international climate assessments, a large number of open modelling tools and databases, including capacity building and dissemination activities for all countries.

OptimESM will develop a novel generation of Earth system models (ESMs), combining high-resolution with an unprecedented representation of key physical and biogeochemical processes. These models will be used to deliver cutting-edge and policy-relevant knowledge around the consequences of reaching or exceeding different levels of global warming, including the risk of rapid change in key Earth system phenomena and the regional impacts arising both from the level of global warming and the occurrence of abrupt changes. OptimESM will realise these goals by bringing together four ESM groups with Integrated Assessment Modelling teams, as well as experts in model evaluation, Earth system processes, machine learning, climate impacts and science communication. OptimESM will further develop new policy-relevant emission and land use scenarios, including ones that realise the Paris Agreement, and others that temporarily or permanently overshoot the Paris Agreement targets. Using these scenarios, OptimESM will deliver long-term projections that will increase our understanding of the risk for triggering potential tipping points in phenomena such as, ice sheets, sea ice, ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, permafrost, and terrestrial ecosystems. OptimESM will further our understanding of the processes controlling such tipping points, attribute the risk of exceeding various tipping points to the level of global warming, and develop a range of techniques to forewarn the occurrence of tipping points in the real world. Artificial Intelligence (AI-) methods for statistical downscaling will be developed and applied to improve our understanding of the effect of long-term global change and tipping points on regional climate, particularly extreme events. New knowledge and data from OptimESM will be actively communicated to other disciplines, such as the impacts and policy research communities, as well as the general public. This knowledge will provide a solid foundation for actionable science-based policies.

The GESUND study investigates the impact of the GemüseAckerdemie school gardening program on healthy and sustainable behaviors among elementary school children. Specifically, the study aims to assess whether the program increases sustainable dietary practices and environmental awareness among children, as well as whether the garden promotes beneficial ecological services in the garden environment. The study will include a process evaluation to evaluate the factors that contribute to the program’s success, and how it can lead to systemic changes toward sustainability in schools and their local communities. GemüseAckerdemie is a year-round, theory- and practice-oriented educational program for schools that has been developed and implemented by the German non-profit organization Acker e. V. since 2014. The program runs throughout the year and involves children and their teachers growing up to 30 different types of vegetables using ecological practices. The GESUND project’s concept development phase aims to design the concept for the larger study during the realization phase. The sub-objectives of this phase are to develop the study protocol, conduct literature research, and develop the methods and instruments that will be used in the realization phase.

The primary objective of the project is to assess the impact of the GemüseAckerdemie program on participating students’ diets, particularly their consumption of vegetables and meat. The project also aims to evaluate the direct and indirect impacts of the program on the environmental sustainability of children’s diets and the local garden environment.

The concept development phase is being carried out by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Heidelberg University, and Acker e.V. The consortium has extensive expertise in epidemiology, public health, nutrition, environmental education, and the evaluation of complex interventions. The consortium is led by the PIK working group "Climate Change and Health". The core tasks of the PIK team include the development of the study design for the randomized controlled trial, the development of quantitative instruments, and the preparation of the review of the project by an ethics committee. The PIK team is also responsible for preparing the full proposal and its submission to the funding agency.

In many food cultures, legumes have historically provided the main source of dietary protein or serve as a necessary supplement to other complementary protein sources, for humans and farmed animals. While processed legume grains have been commonly used to provide nutrient dense foods such as tofu and tempeh in Asia, across Europe the production and consumption of legumes and legume-based products has been low but is now increasing, though whether these foods are derived from ‘home-grown’ legumes (i.e., cultivated within the EU and EU-Associated Countries) is much less-likely. Hence, the potential environmental and economic benefits of legumes are not necessarily being realized ‘at home’. It is, therefore, important that plant-based foods and feeds are delivered by legumes which are home-grown, since high import dependency means the multi-environmental and socio-economic benefits of legumes are forfeited. It is also important to note that as legumes are underutilized crops across Europe, the best-agronomic practices for legumes are not always carried out, and this leads to limited yields, and lower yield stability compared to cereals. Hence, where legume agronomy can be optimized, this can cascade to other following crops in the system, through soil fertility and function, and quality benefits, allowing the potential of diversified legume-based cropping systems to be fully realized. To valorize Ecosystem Services (ES), benefits provided by legumes, and legume-based crop and food systems, we must identify ‘values’ which can be defined in environmental and economic terms. While the potential multifunctional ES benefits of legumes are well known and complex, realizing these in practice has proven difficult. Yet, these benefits are well-positioned to address the three existential crisis facing humanity: climate change, biodiversity loss, and nutritional provision. Hence, ES monitoring is critical, though challenging, and requires that there is strict definition of the ES being monitored, and their underpinning ES-indicators (ESIs). In addition, monitoring approaches must be robust and flexible to ensure uptake and application of ESI monitoring across scales, both spatial and temporal. To address these challenges, legumES propose a set of strategic and fully inclusive multiactor driven solutions, supported by the of practical methodologies, and tools to help inform how legumes and legume-based crop systems should be deployed and monitored to realize diversified legume-based cropping systems in the EU and EU-Associated countries. Our state-of-the-art framework will also account how the environmental benefits of legume-based crop production may be best-balanced with the economic consequences of alternative land use scenarios. LegumES will therefore also diversify legume research to include crops, ecosystem services, contexts, and scales not yet well studied, to provide the agroecological knowledge-base farmers need to amplify their potential benefits.

The overall aim of legumES is to share, showcase, co-develop, and implement the knowledge, key agronomic practices, methodologies, and tools which will allow optimized legume-based systems, and valorization of the ES benefits provided. This is delivered across a diverse range of the major EU pedoclimatic regions. Other aims are to identify, develop, implement, and valorize practical methodologies and tools to monitor the impact of Biological Nitrogen Fixation (BNF) and other multi-functional provisions underpinned by legumes, in a diverse array of novel and innovative Pilot Studies, and to ally operations at the field- and farm-scale to optimize production with assessment of ESIs using a strategic suite of advanced economic and life cycle assessment (LCA) and economic modelling approaches.

PIK will use the open-source model MAgPIE for an integrated assessment of the global food system, investigating the future role of legumes for food, feed and bioenergy in various scenarios, as well as the influence of legume-related policy interventions and market dynamics on environmental ES indicators (WP3).

The German development cooperation, implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is carrying out the project “Multisectoral Management of Water Resources in the Mantaro River Basin (ProGIRH)”, a technical cooperation project financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The Project started in January 2022, its total duration is three years. The objective of ProGIRH is to improve the management of water resources in the Mantaro River basin, in an integrated and climate-sensitive manner. ProGIRH has five components all related to integrated water resources management:1. Improvement of information services; 2. Capacity building; 3. Multisector coordination mechanisms; 4. Support to the evaluation of environmental assessment instruments; 5. Exchange of good practices. Of special concern is to better understand the role and development of hydroclimatic extremes (such as floods and droughts), which are increasing in number and intensity. Not much is known about how hydroclimatic risks manifest in the study region and research is necessary to quantify the climatic risks under different scenario conditions with the aim to define suitable and sustainable adaptation measures. Once available, the results of the analysis will feed into the information services and capacity building program of ProGIRH.

The cooperation between GIZ/ProGIRH and PIK/B-EPICC pursues to close the research gap by quantifying the historical and climate change impacts on floods and droughts at the regional scale of the study sites by applying the hydrological model to investigate specifically the development of extremes in the Mantaro River basin considering the local landscape pattern.

Maybe we can add here the following information from the project proposal: 1. Test and improve, where necessary, the climate data and hydrological model for the target region (Mantaro River Basin). 2. Simulate hydroclimatic extremes and analysis of the results. 3. Communicate and provide the results to water resources planners and researchers in Peru with a specific focus on floods and droughts, including risk estimations and extreme value statistics. 4. Support water resources planning and management in the Mantaro basin (and other river basins in Peru) under climate change conditions, with a particular emphasis on adaptation to extremes. 5. Provide capacity building and training. 6. Support the exchange of information between researchers, research institutes and between research and water resources planners/managers, establishing the basis for possible future cooperation.

Natural climate solutions (NCS) are believed to play an important role in reaching net-zero global CO2 emissions within the next decades. This project will provide a stocktake of which relevant NCS activities on land can already be simulated with our LPJmL model. Based on the results of this stocktake, a strategy will be developed to implement the most important missing processes to improve NCS simulations with LPJmL. The improved model version will then be used to simulate future scenarios of large-scale NCS implementation with LPJmL.

The project key goal is to improve the ability to simulate natural climate solutions (NCS) and provide global scenarios of the potential carbon sequestration by large-scale NCS implementation.

PIK will contribute simulations of large-scale NCS implementation with its LPJmL model.

Der klimaökonomische Dialog zwischen Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft verfolgt das Ziel sozioökonomische Perspektiven und Kompetenzen sowie die integrierte Bewertung innerhalb der Forschung zum Klimawandel stärken, um den Herausforderungen zum Klimawandel angemessen zu begegnen. Das Vorhaben QTFINANZ trägt hierzu das Querschnittsthema Finanzmärkte, Finanzwirtschaft und Finanzierung bei, mit besonderem Fokus auf die Herausforderungen die Klimawandel bzw. Klimapolitik für die Finanzierung von Investitionen und das Funktionieren der Finanzwirtschaft birgen. Konkret gestaltet QTFINANZ Aktivitäten zum Querschnittsthema als Beitrages zum Begleitprozess zum Förderschwerpunkt Ökonomie des Klimawandels – dem Dialog zur Klimaökonomie und trägt zur wissenschaftlichen Vernetzung und zur Steigerung der Sichtbarkeit klimaökonomischer Forschung im gesellschaftlichen Diskurs bei.

The project is about the development of a networked data base concept based on the ideas of linked open data and the semantic web for input and output data of energy system models in energy systems analysis. Further a link shall be established to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems for spatially and temporally resolved data. The developed tools shall be tested with various energy system models within the project. Finally best practice guides will be developed which support the further use of the tools in energy systems analysis. The aim of the project is the development and demonstration of a possible data infrastructure for energy systems analysis.

Die Ziele des Pariser Klimaabkommens erfordern Investitionen im Sinne der Transformation hin zu einer emissionsarmen Wirtschaft umzulenken. Der Einfluss von Infrastruktur ist dabei entscheidend und langfristig. Jedoch wird die Finanzierung emissionsarmer Infrastruktur durch eine Reihe verschachtelter Investitionsbarrieren und -risiken gehemmt. Das Projekt IF zielt daher auf ein tieferes Verständnis der Hindernisse und bestehender bzw. neuer Finanzierungsinstrumente (z.B. öffentlicher Infrastruktur- oder Bürgerfonds) ab, die insbesondere zur Mobilisierung privater Investitionen durch institutionelle und individuelle Investoren beitragen. Dazu werden die Risiko-Rendite-Profile der Finanzierungsinstrumente abgeleitet und mit Präferenzen von institutionellen und individuellen Investoren in Bezug gesetzt, um das Mobilisierungspotential sowie den potentiellen Beitrag zur Schließung der Investitionslücke und damit zur Erreichung der Klimaziele zu evaluieren.

Die Zukunft fossiler Energieträger im Zuge der Treibhausgasneutralität

COACCH will develop an innovative science-practice policy integration approach to co-deliver an improved downscaled assessment of the risks and costs of climate change in the EU of direct usability for end users from the research, business,investment, and the policy making communities. To achieve this objective, COACCH brings Europe’s leading climate change impacts and economic modelling teams together with stakeholders to co-develop methods and co-produce results and dissemination products using a trans-disciplinary perspective.

COACCH researchers will develop technically excellent and innovative research on complex climate change impact chains, climatic and socio-economic tipping points by developing novel modelling tools and approaches that will contribute to advance the physical science, risk assessment and economics. Major innovations include Novel modelling methodologies and approaches will be used to assess the market consequences of climate change impacts, including extreme events over the short- to long-term, on i) macro-economic and sectoral growth, competitiveness; ii) welfare and its distribution. Modelling tools will be complemented with non-modelling approaches to evaluate the non-market consequences on ecosystems,biodiversity, human health, and migration. COACCH will significantly advance the knowledge and the evidence on the socio-economic consequences and non-market impacts of climatic tipping points of major concern for Europe, and explore the new concept of climate-induced socioeconomic tipping points by characterising the likelihood of occurrence of their climate triggering conditions and by assessing the socio-economic and non-market consequences. Besides contributing to major international scientific networks and reports (IPCC, climate-ADAPT platform), COACCH will rely on co-design and public engagement throughout the project to promote easier access to scientific results.

Future projections of climate change impacts on health often build on empirical relationships between observed weather indicators, socio-economic indicators and health outcomes. However, these relationships often fall short, because except for direct heat stress, most weather related health impacts, in particular malnutrition and malaria, are expected to be indirect, i.e. induced by the effect of weather on biophysical indicators such as food supply (crop yields), hydro-climatic extremes (flooding, water scarcity), natural vegetation etc. Most of these bio-physical drivers are not only influenced by weather but also by local management decisions such as investment into agriculture (development of irrigation schemes and reservoirs, fertilizer input), water management, land use changes and disaster risk reduction (e.g. flood protection). Thus, using the actual weather-related bio-physical drivers as predictors of health outcomes could lead to higher explanatory power regarding observed health outcomes than using the raw weather data.

The project will develop and apply methods for the projection of health impacts of climate change on malaria, malnutrition and heat-related mortality at the local scales of two study areas in Kenya and Burkina Faso as well as the national scale for these two countries at different time horizons (2030, 2050 and 2100).

This pilot study aims to evaluate the potential for housing socialization to foster socioecological change. The focus is on evaluating the existence of climate policy levers based on housing socialization in the three areas of increasing the rate and depth of renovation, optimizing the use of the existing building stock through housing sufficiency measures, and resolving the social conflict between the provision of affordable housing and climate protection. The results of the pilot study will be provided to the expert commission appointed by the Berlin Senate to examine the feasibility, methods, and conditions of the referendum's implementation. Beyond the specific case of Berlin, we anticipate that our findings will make a substantial contribution to the national political and societal debate on the mechanisms that can be employed to advance socio-ecological change.

Climate change poses challenges to land and natural-resource-dependent livelihoods in many countries through changes in temperature, precipitation and extreme weather events like droughts or flooding. This is particularly true for sub-Saharan Africa, which is characterised by a high socio-economic dependence on land and natural resources for food security, economic wellbeing and human health. For example, many communities in sub-Saharan Africa rely on water from precipitation for crop production, while others rely on different forest products for fuelwood, food and medicine. Climate change has adverse impacts on these resources, progressively leading to their degradation and depletion. In addition, socio-economic factors like population growth and urban expansion lead to unsustainable management of land and natural resources, including through slash-and-burn agriculture, deforestation and other activities which are harming people and the environment. Hence, adequate responses to these challenges are needed at different levels, in different sectors and in different forms, ranging from national policy and planning processes to local on-the-ground implementation to ensure a climate-resilient land and natural resource management (NRM). In order to identify suitable response options, scientific evidence is needed that evaluates both the magnitude of the challenges faced and the suitability and expected impact of proposed policies and programs. o Engaging with key stakeholders relevant to climate-resilient land and natural resource man-agement in Ethiopia and identifying their needs and priorities with regards to information on climate impacts and opportunities for adaptation; o Providing data and scientific information from the climate risk analysis for Ethiopia to sup-port the revision of the ESIF and other national plans and strategies; o Producing targeted scientific inputs on the most pressing issues related to NRM and climate change adaptation; and o Closely collaborating with local and regional research institutes to enhance data collection, exchange and analysis for future research activities in Ethiopia. PIK will lead the overall project and is responsible for the final objectives and the respective results.

This project builds closely on a previously developed climate risk analysis for Ethiopia as part of the AGRICA project. Specifically, this project seeks to take up the scientific findings produced in the climate risk analysis, further develop the results most pertinent to NRM and feed them into political processes relevant to climate-resilient land and natural resource management in Ethiopia. The focus lies on downscaling climate data to a 1km grid in selected watersheds, to provide locally-specific information that can serve as input into adaptation and NRM decision-making. In addition, scientific analyses on the suitability of agroforestry systems in Ethiopia are produced and synthesized. Finally, the project entails close collaboration with Ethiopian researchers from a range of scientific disciplines to enhance data collection, exchange and analysis for future research activities in Ethiopia.

PIK will lead the overall project and is responsible for the final objectives and the respective results.

The coffee sector is an important part of East Africa’s economy, particularly in countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, which are among the top coffee-exporting nations in the world and are known for their high-quality production of Arabica and Robusta coffee. In East Africa, coffee is typically grown by smallholder farmers who cultivate the crop on small plots of land using traditional farming methods. The coffee industry in the region is further characterized by a complex value chain that involves a range of different actors, including farmers, processors, traders, export companies and roasters. Climate risk assessments that take into consideration the entire value chain are therefore vital for the design of comprehensive adaptation strategies. A better understanding of how climate change will impact the different steps of the coffee value chain and the economic benefits of adapting to these impacts has the potential to guide, incentivize and accelerate public and private investments for climate-resilient coffee value chains.

The project "AfriValue" is implemented on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to quantify losses and damages along the different steps of the coffee value chains in East Africa and identify and assesses innovative adaptation strategies for different value chain actors. Three waves of representative panel data of coffee households (both production and processing) will be collected and analysed in Uganda in combination with qualitative assessments and climate impact modelling to develop recommendations for different time horizons with different climate scenarios. The project results will be prepared in a manner transferable to other contexts and agricultural value chains. Based on the method of design thinking, barriers to selected adaptation options will be identified and concrete, both context-specific and transferable recommendations for action will be developed, together with an expert consortium consisting of different actors in the field of agricultural value chains, including the private sector, academia and politics. Data collection on the ground is conducted in partnership with the French agricultural research centre for international development (CIRAD) and the Uganda Coffee Farmers Alliance (UCFA).

The aim of the AfriValue project is to analyse climate risks for coffee value chains in East Africa (Ethiopia/Kenya/Rwanda/Uganda) and to identify and evaluate effective adaptation measures. The knowledge gained will provide value chain actors and stakeholders in politics, the private sector and development cooperation with a science-based decision-making basis for innovative and economically beneficial adaptation investments.

The AgrImpact project provides an innovative approach to impact evaluations by both assessing the current effectiveness of promoting agroecological practices through farmer field schools (FFS) and modelling their future effectiveness as an adaptation strategy to climate change in Madagascar. Madagascar’s southern regions are characterised not only by high food insecurity, its agricultural sector is also highly vulnerable to a changing climate. Agroecological practices, such as agroforestry, soil cover and crop diversification, are said to improve farmers’ resilience in the face of climate change, and are an integral part of German development cooperation in the agricultural sector. FFS, a method of experiential adult agricultural education, are an established methodology in agricultural extension, but understudied when it comes to more systemic approaches such as agroecology. Using an integrated design, we will first conduct a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to measure the short-term effects of FFS promoting agroecological practices on productivity, food security and nutrition, income and labour use, as well as farmers’ mental models. As far as possible, we will include an assessment of heterogeneous impacts on different vulnerable groups, including women. Then, we will use climate impact models to project the effectiveness of these agroecological practices under different climate change scenarios, integrating empirical data collected during the RCT. Given expectations of a changing climate, this approach allows us to create a scientific basis for both current and future development policy decisions as today's practices will not necessarily be suitable and efficient to solve challenges in future climates. Finally, the proposed project can build on a long-standing, strategic collaboration between PIK and the GIZ, as well as the BMZ, with the aim of evidence-based decision support.

The NGFS Phase 4 project aims to deliver on the need for regular updates and further evolution of the scenario set developed in phase 1-3 of the project. This includes (a) ambitious goals of expansion and the simultaneous increase of usability and (b) more inclusive and streamlined processes of scenario and data production and dissemination. This will be achieved by implementation of activities in four work packages: (1) User interaction, outreach and dissemination; (2) Transition scenarios: Sectoral granularity, annual updates, and expansion of scenario set; (3) Physical risks; (4) Closing the Loop:consistently linking physical risks and transition risks.