News

11/16/2012 - The newly founded Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) gets operational. With already 13 scientists up and working, and 17 more to be employed within the next months, plus support staff, MCC aims at becoming a new factor in the sustainability science scene. "This institute is venturing to provide scientific assessments that actually help policy-makers in taking knowledge-based decision in the field of climate and economics - and we will do so by trying to establish some new kind of dialogue at the science-policy interface," director Ottmar Edenhofer said in front of 200 guests from science, politics, and business, at the opening event last week. Global commons might well become “the decisive scarcity of the 21st century,” guest speaker Robert Stavins of Harvard University pointed out.

12/03/2012 - Economic growth does not only lead to rising turnovers and incomes but also increases greenhouse-gas emissions. Can “Green Growth” be a way out of this dilemma? Is it “a fairytale or a strategy”? Right now, issues like this are being debated at the international climate summit in Doha. Two scientists explored solution paths at the Climate Lecture at Technische Universität Berlin this Monday in front of 1000 guests – British growth critic Professor Tim Jackson and the chief economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Professor at TU Berlin, Ottmar Edenhofer.

08/14/2012 - Right on the first day after his vacation, Peter Altmaier, Federal Minister for the Environment, visited the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) to learn about the activities of the institute, current research and solution pathways. “Climate change is the problem, the energy transformation is the solution,” Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, PIK director, said during his presentation, and a lively exchange about how to achieve a restructuring of the energy system emerged.

07/13/2012 - Three core elements of sustainable energy politics were proposed by Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in a keynote lecture in Berlin. For an audience of more than a thousand listeners at the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) congress, he explained that the key elements were a reform of the European emission trade system, a new form of support for renewable energies, and options for the integration of electricity from solar and wind power into the overall system. For the first time, he thereby framed comprehensively the institutional requirements for a success of the “Energiewende” in the long-term.

07/06/2012 - The protestant church of Germany recognizes global warming as a central challenge. “The climate problem touches the core of the Christian message”, said Bishop Markus Dröge, head of the Protestant Church Berlin-Brandenburg-schlesische Oberlausitz on the occasion of a visit at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “Preserving the integrity of creation is our mission.” It is all the more painful, he pointed out, that some of the successes of the development work achieved in the poorest countries of the world are being thwarted by climate change impacts.

07/06/2012 - Some of the world’s spearheading climate scientists will convene in Potsdam to contribute their knowledge to young, international up-and-coming researchers and practitioners beginning on July 8th. Over the following two weeks, instead of heading to the beaches they will focus on confronting the risks of climate warming in the face of uncertainties and extreme events. This is the “Global Sustainability Summer School 2012” (GSSS), an intensive professional development course for specialists, organized jointly between the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) and the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in New Mexico. The GSSS is made possible by the generous support of the Robert Bosch Foundation.

06/29/2012 - For his outstanding achievements in the field of climate research and political consulting, the Technische Universität Berlin awarded Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), the honorary doctorate this week. “Professor Schellnhuber inspired entirely new approaches in research, like the research of the world climate’s tipping points and its consequences, or the action-orientated 2 degrees target”, said TU president Jörg Steinbach during the ceremony which was attended by 200 guests in the university’s atrium.