Home › PIK Members › Hans Joachim Schellnhuber › News

News

EU-Commissioner Oettinger visits PIK

06/26/2012 - Günther Oettinger, European Commissioner for Energy, visited the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) for an exchange of ideas this week. Three presentations provided information on current research on climate change as well as scientific findings on chances and risks of the transformation of the energy system. Oettinger was impressed by the “profound and objective presentation”. He invited PIK-scientists to Brussels for expert discussions “to maintain the conversational thread”.

“A house for the 21th century“: To celebrate its 20th anniversary, PIK is laying the foundation stone for a new research building

06/20/2012 - Climate research in Potsdam will get a new home. Adjacent to the historic main buildings of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) dating from the 19th century, a new energy-optimized building will come into existence. The laying of the foundation stone for this exceptional new research building also marks PIK’s 20th anniversary. Representatives of science and politics congratulated the institute, underlining that it has become one of the world’s leading climate research centres.

The dilemma of geoengineering

12/13/2011 – End-of-the-chimney fixes for anthropogenic global warming are becoming increasingly popular in public debate. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), now sheds some light on the fundamental dilemma of geoengineering in a comment published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “This is a tale of two fairies: the rather wicked one conjures up solar radiation management, and the tolerably good one delivers CO2 removal through schemes like industrial ‘air capture,” says Schellnhuber. The latter however would generate “a multitrillion dollar bill,” he points out.

Science and Policy: Dialogue in Durban

12/06/2011 - Leading policy-makers and researchers met today in Durban to urge climate negotiators to acknowledge scientific findings and address the sustainability challenge. Amongst the participants of this dialogue were Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa and Co-Chair of the UN Secretary General’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, and the European Union’s Climate Comissioner Conny Hedegaard, as well as Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and Nicholas Stern from the London School of Economics. The event was hosted by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and Johan Rockström, Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute.

Stiftung Mercator and PIK initiate new institute with EUR 17m budget

11/28/2011 - Today Stiftung Mercator and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) announced the foundation of a joint institute for research and policy advice in Berlin. The Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) will address interdisciplinary research on questions of sustainable growth in a finite world. The MCC will be run by Prof. Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer, who will also remain as Deputy Director at PIK. Stiftung Mercator is providing financing of around EUR 17m over eight years. This is the largest individual funding contribution ever provided by a private foundation in the field of climate research in Germany. Up to 40 jobs will be created over the course of the coming year. The institute is likely to be located at the Euref site in Schöneberg, Berlin.

Schellnhuber receives renowned Volvo Environment Prize

11/04/2011 - The Volvo Environment Prize was awarded to the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, in Stockholm yesterday. The internationally recognized prize for “outstanding innovations or scientific discoveries” is in its 20th year and is endowed with 160.000€. Schellnhuber is the first German to receive the prize.

„Tireless admonisher“ receives Federal Cross of Merit

10/06/2011 - Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founder and director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), was awarded the Order of Merit, first class, of the Federal Republic of Germany by President Christian Wulff this tuesday.

Schellnhuber: CCS technology “should not be demonized“

09/22/2011 - The controversial issue of carbon capture and storage, CCS, is on the agenda of the German Bundesrat this week. However, the public debate about this technology is characterized by a variety of fears. It is in this context that the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, is highlighting the relevance of the sequestration of CO2 for climate change mitigation. “Scientific scenarios show that without CCS, avoiding dangerous climate change will be considerably more expensive," says Schellnhuber. “Heavy investment in other technologies to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases would then become necessary.”

„Brown coal is not sustainable“: Researchers attend state government session

09/01/2011 - If Brandenburg wants to reach its climate targets, it cannot just carry on relying on power generation from brown coal. This, and more, has been stated by scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) this week when attending the state government session. “Such an open and intensive dialogue between science and politics is anything but a matter of course,” said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of PIK. For the fourth time already, Brandenburg’s prime minister Matthias Platzeck invited Schellnhuber and his colleagues for a discussion on energy policy and climate change.

"Coming out"

08/10/2011 - Scientists should do science, not appear in the public sphere – that’s a popular view. This week, philosophers and physicists, economists and ecologists discussed this issue in a workshop initiated by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Humboldt-Viadrina School of Governance. “Science has to constantly follow the principle of truth”, says Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of PIK. “And that is exactly why it has a societal responsibility.”

“Australia in a hot world”

07/12/2011 - Right in the middle of a heated debate in Australia about the carbon tax just announced by the government, a scientific event in Melbourne this week sheds light on the consequences of climate change for down under. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research has been invited by Australian climate scientists to give the opening lecture as well as the public keynote speech plus some concluding remarks at the conference “Four degrees or more? Australia in a hot world”.

Indian Minister of Environment and Forests proposes science and politics to meet in Potsdam

07/04/2011 - Leading scientists and politicians from all over the world are to debate new pathways for international climate negotiations – this was suggested by the Indian Minister of Environment and Forests during a visit to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research this Monday. In time before the next round of negotiations of the global community of states will take place in Durban, South Africa, before the end of the year, Ramesh wants stakeholders to exchange views with the sciences. The question of a fair share of rights for greenhouse gas emissions could be central. “The work of the Potsdam Institute in this field has been groundbreaking”, Ramesh said.

Vatican Science Panel Calls Attention to the Threat of Glacial Melt

05/09/2011 - A panel of some of the world's leading climate and glacier scientists co-chaired by a Scripps Institution of Oceanography researcher issued a report today commissioned by the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences citing the moral imperative before society to properly address climate change. (This press release has been drafted by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego - the PIK sent out it's own press release only for German language media.)

Sustainable change needs a new social contract

04/07/2011 - To achieve the transition to an “age of efficiency and renewables”, a scientific advisory council calls for nothing less but a reconstruction of civil society. This can only be achieved through a new kind of interaction between governments and citizens, with citizens being more involved in political decisions. As stated today by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) during the presentation of its flagship report “World in Transition – A Social Contract for Sustainability”, massive investments in energy transformation, changes in consumption habits and the imposition of global fees on greenhouse gas emissions will be necessary in order to meet the challenge.

"The dictatorship of now": Schellnhuber in Spiegel magazine

03/22/2011 – In the light of the nuclear tragedy in Japan Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, brings forward the idea of a new social contract. In an interview with Spiegel magazine, he explains why the rights of coming generations have to be taken more seriously. “Once for all we have to decide to leave our descendants more than just nuclear risks and climate change”, Schellnhuber says. “This means empathy across space and time.”

Schellnhuber directs topic group of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

08/16/2010 - The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina strengthens its consulting activities for policymakers and the public by setting up topic groups. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), has been appointed spokesman of the topic group “Climate, Energy and Environment”.

A global limit on emissions, equal per-capita emissions rights and “peak and trade” emissions trading for the “2°max Climate Strategy”

04/27/2010 – A report by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK-Report No. 116), published today, points at constructional flaws in the current global system for protection of the climate. The authors analyse the interests of the different groups of countries and delineate how international climate policy could be modified to keep global warming to two degrees Celsius, as called for in the Copenhagen Accord.

Editorial on Tipping Elements online-hit of PNAS

04/20/2010 – An article in the renowned journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” (PNAS) by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber regarding Tipping elements in the Earth System was one of the 30 most read online papers in January and February 2010.

New book rises to the global sustainability challenge

02/08/2010 - In the wake of the Copenhagen climate conference, which ended without a clear mandate for global climate protection, the new book Global Sustainability - A Nobel Cause, published by Cambridge University Press, addresses the main lines of conflicts and offers new solutions. The contributing authors - Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, medicine, economics and peace, top-level political leaders, representatives of major NGOs and renowned experts on sustainability - point out strategies for the stabilisation of the climate and global sustainable development. The open access publication is now available for download.

Emissions cut of 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 needed for industrial countries for 2°C limit

12/15/2009 - Authors of the landmark 2009 climate report “The Copenhagen Diagnosis” estimate that by 2020 industrial nations must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by around 40% below 1990 levels to secure a decent chance of avoiding dangerous human interference with the climate system.

Copenhagen Climate Report: “Inaction is inexcusable”

06/18/2009 - Key climate indicators such as global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise and extreme climatic events are already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which contemporary society and economy have developed. This is one of the key messages of a report presented by leading scientists in Brussels today in preparation for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December. The up-to-date overview of research relevant to climate change was handed over to the Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the host of the conference.

“Climate Change means Cultural Change”

06/09/2009 – The foreseeable consequences of dangerous climate change call for combined global efforts for climate protection – efforts that require great social, political and cultural changes. These aspects of climate protection will be discussed for the first time between scientists of various disciplines and international experts from the worlds of politics and business. The conference from June 8-10 in Essen (Germany) aims to consolidate the social debate on climate change and provide new incentives for scientific policy advice in the run-up to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. The conference is hosted by the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen (KWI) and Stiftung Mercator, in cooperation with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy.

Chancellor Angela Merkel: “You should get on politicians nerves"

05/11/2012 - German chancellor Angela Merkel has warned about the consequences of unabated climate change and called on scientists to keep on pushing this topic. “You should be persistent and sometimes get on politicians nerves,” Merkel said at a symposium of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WGBU) which was founded 20 years ago. Coming to a worldwide agreement on limiting global warming to two degrees would be difficult, and the energy transition would ask for the willingness for change from the German public, the chancellor said. However, not doing anything is no option, she said: “All progress is of little use if we react too slowly. That’s why we should be aware of what is going to happen if nothing happens now. And that is going to be bitter.”

Schellnhuber joins Santa Fe Institute

03/08/2010 - Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), has been appointed to the position of External Professor of the Santa Fe Institute (SFI). The election to the external faculty recognizes Schellnhubers “many contributions to science and the SFI research effort”. At the US institution a transdisciplinary research community, working in the field of complexity science, investigates physical, computational, biological, and social systems. The term of the appointment is January 2010 through June 2013.