Tag: Events

Implications for climate policy – helping policy makers understand opportunities in Joint Policy Day

On 7 November 2018, CD-LINKS, GREEN-WIN and TRANSRISK are hosting a Joint Policy Day in Brussels, Belgium.

Climate strategies showing that voluntary nationally determined contributions to meet the Paris Agreement will also be beneficial in terms of other policy objectives at local, national and regional levels are now seen as cornerstones for climate action. This may include national policies that generate environmental and health co-benefits, such as a reduction in air pollution.

The development of shorter-term, multiple-objective and bottom-up climate strategies is further strengthened by implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These provide 2030 targets for all aspects of human development, including climate, water, human health and well-being, social justice, poverty reduction and gender equality. Many of those SDGs, such as human well-being, poverty reduction and gender equality, are prerequisites for governments to address the climate problem – fostering SDGs in the short term will also provide climate benefits in the longer term. Conversely, implementation of the SDGs also illustrates possible trade-off between goals such as, for example, food security and emission reduction through biofuels.

The policy day integrates complementary perspectives on climate goals by collectively presenting the core findings of three EU-funded projects together with their implications for climate policy. Policy makers will need to understand the opportunities that this new framework presents, as well as the potential risks and uncertainties that lie in any proposed transition.

The three EU-funded Horizon 2020 projects featured have helped to address this need from complementary perspectives:

  • GREEN-WIN focused on macro-economic and green business strategies that address both economic and climate goals, as well as the role finance plays within these;
  • TRANS-RISK studied risks and uncertainties within low emission transition pathways, and how transitions can be implemented in ways that are economically and sociably feasible; and
  • CD-LINKS explored the complex interplay between climate action and development, while simultaneously taking both global and national perspectives and thereby informing the design of complementary climate-development policies.

The event is hosted by the Global Climate Forum and will take place at the Royal Library Meeting Center in Brussels, Belgium.

For more information, please email: cd-links.secretariat(@)iiasa.ac.at.

You can find the agenda here.

CD-LINKS side event at UNFCCC SBSTA 2018

On Thursday 3rd May 18:30-20:00 CD-LINKS will be holding a side event at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 48th session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 48).

Combining analysis from the COMMIT and CD-LINKS projects, and the work of NewClimate Institute on the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions, the event is an opportunity to discuss with negotiators and reflect on credible low-emission pathways.

The event is titled ‘Towards long-term national scenarios: Modelling meets policy’.

Geographical reach of CD-LINKS project, created with mapchart.net

SBSTA is one of two permanent subsidiary bodies of the UNFCCC. It provides timely information and advice on scientific and technological matters, with key areas including:

SBSTA 48 will take place from 30 April to 10 May 2018, in Bonn, Germany, with the side event taking place in the Berlin Room. The draft agenda for the event is available from here.

CD-LINKS travels to Delhi, India

CD-LINKS travels to Delhi, India 19th to 22nd March for an action-packed week of a stakeholder workshop, project meeting and a capacity building workshop.

The CD-LINKS project brings together a consortium of 19 leading international research organizations to explore national and global transformation strategies for climate change and their linkages to a range of sustainable development goals. The CD-LINKS project is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 framework and brings together a unique set of partners, comprised of European organisations and collaborators from Brazil, China, India, Japan, Russia, Republic of Korea and the USA.

Stakeholder workshop 19th March

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and The Energy Resources Institute (TERI) are organising a half day stakeholder workshop for the CD-LINKS project. Invitees of the event include researchers of think tanks (e.g. NITI Aayog), staff from NGOs (e.g. World Wildlife Fund India), businesses (e.g. Tata Power) and governmental staff of various ministries in India (e.g. Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy).

The main focus of the workshop is ‘Sustainable national roadmaps towards the global objective of 1.5 and 2°C – the Indian perspective’.

The first session will be presentations by policy-makers and national modelling teams, including the results of the Indian researchers participating in the CD-LINKS project. The second session will be a series of panel discussions, titled ‘From Paris to the SDGs in India and globally – How can science contribute?’ With the first part of the discussions focusing on climate, energy, air pollution and the second part on energy-water nexus, energy access, food security.

The workshop is being hosted by TERI at Juniper Hall, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi starting at 12.00pm with lunch.

The agenda is available from here.

Project meeting 20th to 22nd March

The consortium will be gathering in Delhi for their 5th (and second from last) meeting of the CD-LINKS project. The meeting will provide an opportunity for the researchers to work together face-to-face as they are based in locations across the global, spanning several time zones.

In addition to focusing on the progress and implementation of the project so far and planning for the coming year, there will be several break out groups scheduled that will focus on in-depth specialised topics, such as climate change adaptation or carbon lock-in. Carbon lock-in is the self-perpetuating tendency of fossil fuel-based energy systems to remain unchanged and inhibits public or private efforts to establish alternative energy technologies.

Discussions are also planned to be held on clarifying the final messaging of the project and innovating ways to present the research findings to policymakers.

The agenda is available from here.

Capacity building workshop 22nd March

The capacity building workshop is aimed at junior researchers and PhD students interested in integrated assessments and systems analysis, modelling, and visualisation tools.

Presentations will be given from invited experts who are participating in the CD-LINKS project. One session of the workshop will be focused on the analysis of data and how to present modelling results in a more engaging and useful format. The second session would be focused on modelling methodology. Participants will be from the CD-LINKS partner institutes and other local universities, such as think-tanks based in Delhi or TERI University.

To register for the event contact: cd-links.secretariat(@)iiasa.ac.at

The agenda is available from here.

CD-LINKS at COP23

The CD-LINKS project had a busy two weeks during the 2017 United Nations Climate Change Conference twenty-third Conference of the Parties (COP23), with a total of six activities. Two official CD-LINKS side events took place in the Bonn Zone, two presentations were given at separate events at the World Wide Fund for Nature pavilion, one side event was held in the Interconnections Zone hosted by the German Development Institute; in addition, prior to the opening of COP23 insights from the CD-LINKS project were presented at a plenary discussion for an event hosted at the German Development Institute titled ‘Climate Action and Human Wellbeing at a Crossroads: Historical Transformation or Backlash?’

Background

Two significant agreements were formulated in 2015: the Paris Agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted at the UN Sustainable Development Summit. The transformation by countries to low a carbon future in order to meet the 1.5 or 2°C temperature targets outlined in the Paris Agreement is expected to have significant impact on the SDGs. The SDGs are inherently connected, and of paramount importance for climate policy. Understanding how climate policy will influence the other SDGs is critical to incentivise further action and to understand how climate policy trade-offs can be avoided. For example, actions taken to reduce climate pollutants from transport or agriculture could help reduce global warming and would also have a positive effect on SDG 3 good health and well-being, because of the harmful effects of climate pollutants to public health. However, some climate change mitigation policies may need large-scale land based measures such as bioenergy production or afforestation that could have a negative impact on SDG 2 zero hunger because of the implications for food security.

Interconnections Zone, 13 November © German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik

To maximize synergies between the two agreements made in 2015 and to support national policy making within climate and development issues, interactions between climate policies and the SDGs need to be better understood. The research project CD-LINKS brings together a consortium of 19 leading international research organizations to explore national and global climate transformation strategies and their linkages to a range of SDGs. The project is financed by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme.

Crossroads, 4 November © German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik

CD-LINKS at COP23

Each of the three CD-LINKS side events during COP23 presented the most recent outcomes of the CD-LINKS project and examined the links between climate and development. The scientists of the CD-LINKS project made comparisons of the strategies to reach the 1.5 and 2°C goals for key countries like Brazil, China, the European Union, and India, along with a comparison of the current ambition level of the Nationally Determined Contributions, which are the efforts by each country to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement in reducing national emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change.

Interconnections Zone, 13 November © German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik

There were animated and informative dialogues that took place following the presentations, with panel discussions, along with question and answer sessions with the audience. The CD-LINKS side event hosted at the Interconnections Zone benefited from panel members from the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the European Commission who were able to provide the policymakers’ perspective. Of particular concern was what actions need to be taken now in order to ensure deeper emission reductions in the future, and what the social dimensions of decarbonization are.

For Brazil’s transition to low carbon the role of biofuels and carbon capture and storage was shown to be important, along with an increase in electrification of the transport sector. It was also noted that land use change would need to be managed to allow for the increase in crops for biofuels and enabling afforestation. For India there is a need to increase access to electricity, as 304 million people currently are without access, with the Indian government establishing a target of 100% village electrification by 2019. This will need to be achieved in parallel while significant changes are made to India’s power sector that provides this electricity, such as the retiring of old and inefficient coal power plants, replacing them with clean coal technologies and other low carbon technologies such as solar, wind or nuclear. An important role is also attributed to actions to improve energy efficiency in buildings such as changing to light-emitting diode (LED) light sources and energy efficient air conditioners.

The CD-LINKS project also includes global analysis by integrated assessment models that determine whether current policies are on-track to reducing greenhouse gases in line with the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The analysis shows that the policies fall short of the NDCs and have also calculated how much more reductions are needed to meet the Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 or 2°C. The findings show that further strengthening is needed in all countries, with some countries being close to meeting their NDCs. However, these same countries would then have to make significant increases in effort (i.e. ratcheting up the ambition level of their NDCs) to enable them to meet the Paris Agreement targets. The CD-LINKS project has provided a wide range of outcomes useful in this stocktaking process.

Highlights of the discussions between the 270 guests at the German Development Institute’s Crossroads event included the topics global cooperation and multilateralism, as well as different sectors of the transformation towards sustainability (e.g. mobility, digitisation, financing the transformation and agriculture). The conclusions of the conference are summarised in a Memorandum titled: ‘The Climate – Justice – Cooperation Nexus: 10 Cornerstones of the Great Transformation towards Sustainability’.

Presentations during the three CD-LINKS COP23 side events

Monday 6th November, Climate & Development Links: National decarbonization pathways toward 1.5 & 2°C and impacts on SDGs, Bonn Zone

  • Introduction – Keywan Riahi, IIASA
  • Informing the global stock-take: National midcentury strategies and global 1.5°C and well below 2°C pathways – Elmar Kriegler, PIK
  • Sustainable development implications of global pathways and national mid-century strategies – Volker Krey, IIASA
  • Mid-century decarbonisation pathway for the E.U. – Zoi Vrontisi, ICCS
  • Mid-century decarbonisation pathway for China – Sha Fu, NCSC

Monday 13th November, Ratcheting up nationally determined contributions (NDCs): Consistent national roadmaps towards the global objective of 1.5 and 2°C, German Development Institute/Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)

  • Introduction – Keywan Riahi, IIASA
  • Burden-sharing, regional budgets and dialogue process – Detlef Van Vuuren, PBL
  • Sustainable development implications of the transformation pathways – Volker Krey, IIASA
  • Policy perspective on the NDCs – Niklas Höhne, WU
  • National transformation pathways: case of Brazil – Roberto Schaeffer, COPPE
  • National transformation pathways: case of India – Amit Garg, IIMA
  • Policy perspective – panelist discussion – Tom van Ierland, EC and Guido Schmidt-Traub, UNSDSN

Wednesday 15th November, 1.5 & 2°C strategies, SDGs and green growth – EU Research Projects CD-LINKS and GREEN-WIN, EU Pavilion

  • Introduction – Volker Krey, IIASA
  • National and global decarbonization pathways – Elmar Kriegler, PIK
  • Climate policies and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – Volker Krey, IIASA
  • Reconciling climate and economic goals through green-growth and green-business models – Jochen Hinkel, GCF
  • Climate clubs and the macro-economic benefits of international cooperation – Antoine Mandel, Paris School of Economics

The three side events were in partnership with:

COP23 side event – 15 November – 1.5 & 2°C strategies, SDGs and green growth – EU Research Projects CD-LINKS and GREEN-WIN

Based on two EU-funded projects CD-LINKS and GREEN-WIN, the latest findings for ratcheting up the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) toward the 1.5 & 2°C goals from the Paris Agreement and green-economy strategies for aligning economic with climate goals will be presented in a side event at the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 23, 6-17 November 2017).

The side-event is one of three CD-LINKS events taking place at COP 23. This event titled 1.5 & 2°C strategies, SDGs and green growth – EU Research Projects CD-LINKS and GREEN-WIN highlights synergies & trade-offs with regards to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), investigates green growth strategies induced through alternative climate financing schemes, and presents local green economy business models that reconcile revenue generation with the SDGs.

Lijiang China – Shutterstock ©

The side-event will feature four thematic presentations followed by a panel discussion. the agenda is available from here.

Time and date: 15:15-16:30 on 15 November

Location: EU pavilion, Bonn Zone, COP23, Germany

For more information, contact: cd-links.secretariat(@)iiasa.ac.at.

Side event at COP23 – 6 November 2017 – National decarbonization pathways toward 1.5 & 2°C and impacts on SDGs

CD-LINKS will be holding a side event at the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 23, 6-17 November 2017).

The latest findings on ratcheting up the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) toward the 1.5 and 2°C goals of the Paris Agreement and implications for sustainable development will be presented in the event titled Climate & Development Links: National decarbonization pathways toward 1.5 & 2°C and impacts on SDGs.

During the event the scientists of the project will compare strategies to reach the 1.5 and 2°C goals for key countries like Brazil, China, the European Union, and India.

View of Rocinha, the largest favela in Brazil – shutterstock ©

The agenda and announcement are available to download.

The event will be in partnership with:

Time and date: 15:00-16:30 on 6 November 2017

Location: Meeting room 12, Bonn Zone, COP23, Germany

For more information, contact: cd-links.secretariat(@)iiasa.ac.at.

 

Side event at COP23 – 13 November – National roadmaps towards the global objective of 1.5 and 2°C

The German Development Institute/Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) will be hosting a CD-LINKS side-event at the Interconnections Zone during the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 23, 6-17 November 2017).

The Interconnections Zone will facilitate dialogue towards more integrated and balanced development, which would both deliver on the 2030 Agenda (including the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the Financing for Development Process) and the Paris Climate Agreement. As a transdisciplinary space, it welcomes civil society, researchers, policy-makers and other stakeholders to explore interconnections, and possible synergies, between climate change and sustainable development.

© Shutterstock

The title of the CD-LINKS side event is: Ratcheting up nationally determined contributions (NDCs): Consistent national roadmaps towards the global objective of 1.5 and 2°C. The event will be co-organised with 4 of the 19 CD-LINKS partners:

The event will take place on Monday 13 November from 14:00-16:00 and a short description of the side-event is below. For more information, contact: cd-links.secretariat(@)iiasa.ac.at.

The agenda of the side event is available from here.

Two significant agreements were formulated in 2015: the Paris Agreement within the UNFCCC and the establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted at the UN Sustainable Development Summit.

The transformation towards low carbon pathways is expected to have notable impacts on the development goals. The goals that could be affected either positively or negatively include, poverty reduction and reducing inequalities (SDGs 1, 10, 5), food security (SDG 2), health issues (SDG 3), water availability (SDG 6), energy access and energy poverty (SDG 7), economic growth and employment (SDG 8), industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG 9) and climate action (SDG 13).

To maximize synergies between the two agreements and to support national policy making within climate and development issues, interactions between climate policies and the SDGs need to be better understood. The research project ‘Linking Climate and Development Policies – Leveraging International Networks and Knowledge Sharing’ (CD-LINKS) brings together a consortium of 19 leading international research organizations to explore national and global climate transformation strategies and their linkages to a range of SDGs. The project is financed by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme.

This side event will introduce the most recent outcomes of the CD-LINKS project. The strategies required to reach the 1.5 and 2°C targets will be presented along with a comparison of the current ambition level of the Nationally Determined Contributions. The implications of the low carbon transformation pathways for the SDGs will be assessed and presented, such as for poverty, food security, water, biodiversity, air pollution and health. Representatives of the Indian and Brazilian partners of the project will also present country-level strategies for climate transformation pathways that support the global target of staying well below 2°C, together with initial results on their impact on SDGs.

Data visualization tools and data management: Capacity building

On 18 May 2017 at Potsdam, Germany, a dedicated meeting was held on the data visualization tools for Work Package 5 and  a workshop was held on data management/analysis routines, shared libraries, common standards.

Data visualization tools for Work Package 5

The data-visualization is a tool to explore the multiple dimensions of the dataset: policy, time and regional dimension. The webpage was coded in HTML/CSS and the data-visualization using d3.js. Data is embedded in a csv file. A demonstration was given of the progress made on the tool, as shown in the figure below, and a temporary website address was shared with the group so that the tool can be reviewed by all members of the CD-LINKS consortium.

During the meeting, presentations were given by:

  • Valentina Bosetti: Brief introduction to the agenda, recap of WP 5 discussions during CD-LINKS workshop
  • Elmar Kriegler: Overview of SENSES project, introduction of the term ‘Climate Change Scenario Services’
  • Boris Müller (FH Potsdam): Examples of data visualization, applications in the context of climate change
  • Daniel Huppmann: Overview of visualization hierarchy (infographics / scenario portal / scenario data explorer), presentation on new web database infrastructure at IIASA (ix Modeling Platform, ixmp)

It was agreed during the meeting that a common data repository (Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC) Annual Release, IAMC Scenario Portal) with regular updates might be a useful avenue to present the ‘state-of-the-art’ and provide an entry point to the most up-to-date results from the IAM community. As a result of this meeting, a draft proposal will be prepared and submitted to the IAMC Steering Committee for further discussion.

Workshop for data management/analysis routines, shared libraries and common standards

A workshop was also held on data management/analysis routines, shared libraries and common standards. A presentation was given by Jan Dietrich on the overview of data management standards of the different CD-LINKS teams.

© Shutterstock

An open discussion then took place, followed by an agreement to pursue the following action items:

  • set up a Github repository under the IAMC umbrella for a data analysis package specifically aimed at the IAMC data template

+ function for generating standard figures as pdf (‘country profiles’) to be used as first consistency check for scenario results (before uploading to the IIASA database)

+ data sanity checking (based on error/warning messages during upload to the IIASA database)

+ own R class for IAMC-style timeseries objects (based on quitte or magclass)

+ future: direct upload from R to the IIASA database using R-ixmp API

The management of model input data, how to learn from each other and burden-sharing on reference data updates will need to be discussed in the future. It was also noted the need to specifically write work packages (and prepare a budget) for capacity building and shared data format/tool development in future proposals.

Achieving climate change and sustainable development objectives: national de-carbonisation roadmaps

A CD-LINKS side event for the Vienna Energy Forum was held on 12 May 2017.

The side event introduced the most recent outcomes of the CD-LINKS project. Utilising the knowledge of 19 different international research organisations from around the globe, the project explores national and global climate and energy transformation strategies and their linkages to a range of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

During the side event, the energy and climate policy measures that would be needed to reach the well below 2°C target, and a comparison with the current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) was presented. The well below 2°C target was established through the Paris Agreement, which is within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The NDCs are the climate actions pledged by countries under the Paris Agreement for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. The side event was chaired by Keywan Riahi and Valentina Bosetti.

© ShutterStock

Part of the CD-LINKS project assesses the implications of the NDCs for the SDGs, such as poverty, food security, water, biodiversity, air pollution and health. The team of international researchers working on the project have considered and analyzed how more stringent climate action could foster an energy transformation with positive additional feedbacks with regards to the SDGs.

The SDGs cannot be seen as isolated targets, and so important interlinkages between the individual goals have been identified. For example, the goal of Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG 7), can be seen to have direct or indirect linkages to all of the other goals. Energy policies have especially notable impacts on poverty reduction and reducing inequalities (SDGs 1, 10, 5), food security (SDG 2), health issues (SDG 3), water availability (SDG 6), economic growth and employment (SDG 8), industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG 9) and climate action (SDG 13), in the same way as these dimensions will affect energy policy. The SDG assessments were presented by Volker Krey at the side event.

Representatives of the two Chinese partners (Jiang Kejun and Chen Wenying), and the Indian (Ritu Mathur) and Brazilian (Roberto Schaeffer) partners of the CD-LINKS project presented country-level strategies for climate and energy transformation pathways for the future that support the global target of staying well below 2°C, together with initial results on their impact on other sustainable development dimensions.

During the event a question and answer session followed each presentation. Questions that were asked included the role of gas in India’s transformation, the electrification of transport in Brazil (e.g. trains) and whether the project has identified which holistic SDG policies have found to work in practice.

Stakeholder dialogue in Beijing on climate and sustainable development modelling

13 December 2016

CD-LINKS has engaged in dialogue with Chinese policy makers and an international group of scientists in Beijing, China. The project organized a stakeholder workshop in conjunction with the CD-LINKS project meeting hosted by The Energy Research Institute (ERI) of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of China, and a session of presentations at the 9th Annual Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC) meeting the first days of December 2017.

On 1 December, the project convened Chinese decision-makers representing the Chinese government and the international community present in China to discuss and receive feedback on some of its initial results on transition pathway development and modelling of sustainable development dimensions. The discussion was highly fruitful and provided to be a great basis for discussing the future plans in the project in the subsequent project meeting.

A key concern raised by the Chinese stakeholders was having more research data on the sustainable development objectives beyond climate change. For a country like China, economic transition and environmental concerns, such as air pollution, are politically important questions, and therefore research that helps policy makers to understand the underlying synergies and trade-offs between different development concerns was deemed highly useful. Furthermore, as development-related issues tend to be highly complex, more diverse scenarios and model development to better integrate sustainable development issues were called for. The CD-LINKS project aims at strengthening existing Integrated Assessment Modelling (IAM) to better incorporate sustainable development concerns for facilitating the understanding of co-benefits and trade offs of different policy decisions, which is in line with the needs of the Chinese stakeholders.

Many positive developments from China with regards to a sustainable future were presented: the country has in the last years managed to decouple economic growth from energy consumption (29% reduction of energy intensity of GDP 2005 to 2015) and intends to further reduce the energy intensity in the future. Air pollution control has become more stringent in many cities and regions of the country. In addition, coal consumption is expected to reach its peak already by 2020, and according to some sources even before that.

Finally, the message from the stakeholders was that it is important to keep up a dialogue between decision-makers and science to better confront the challenges for sustainable development that lie ahead.

The second outreach event was held on 7 December 2017 as part of the 9th Annual IAMC meeting, which brings together scientists in the field of IAM from around the world. In this session, project results were presented with a focus on the country-level results, with insights of several of the country teams participating in CD-LINKS (China, Brazil, EU, Japan and India). The discussion centered around how to further develop the scenarios and the models involved in the project. Specifically the goal of CD-LINKS will be to compare the national and global models and incorporate the insights of this comparison to further model development. The inputs from events like these are important in the process of refining the scenarios and models participating in the project.

Engaging with stakeholders early on in the project implementation gives the chance for the project to revise its research agenda to better fit the expectations of stakeholders in different parts of the world, and to provide useful information to countries both in the developing as well as the developed world.

 

beijing_cdlinks© Johanna Zilliacus

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