PRISMA – Net zero Pathway Research through Integrated Assessment Model Advancements
Introduction The 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
PRUDENT: Promoting Green Nudging for Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry
PRUDENT aspires to revolutionize agriculture and forestry by promoting sustainable practices and innovative farming technologies. The project will explore the use of “nudges”, small changes in how farmers and foresters make decisions, to encourage them to adopt more sustainable approaches. These nudges will be tested in real-life situations alongside policy changes to see their combined effect on sustainability. Innovative tools, like web or mobile apps, will be developed to help farmers and foresters regulate their actions and make lasting changes, supporting these behaviour changes. Different types of farming and forestry systems across Europe will be studied to understand their unique challenges. The insights gained from this research will create new ways of thinking about agriculture and forestry, including social innovations, business models, and policy recommendations.
RAWS: Re-Analysis of Water for Society
RAWS (Re-Analysis of Water for Society) aims to develop the first high-resolution global reanalysis of terrestrial water resources, reconstructing water availability and use over the past 60 years at approximately 1 km spatial resolution and daily time steps. The project combines a global hydrological model with satellite observations, climate datasets, and artificial intelligence–enhanced data assimilation to generate a consistent picture of the evolution of water systems worldwide. RAWS will integrate information on groundwater, water quality, crop growth, and human water use, with a focus on water scarcity hotspots. The project is part of the Schmidt Sciences VIEW programme and brings together leading research institutions to advance knowledge and tools for sustainable water management.
RE-CONNECT: Modelling, Projecting and Tracking Emissions Reduction Pathways project
The RE-CONNECT project is dedicated to assisting the 196 Parties committed to the 2015 Paris Agreement, established under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, in meeting their climate change obligations.
RE-DESIGN – Europe’s Moment: Designing Effective Policies in Energy Storage Technology for Renewables
RE-DESIGN project investigates how sustainable investment in renewable energy storage can be fostered through effective policy design that includes prosumers (energy-producing consumers), starting in the EU.
REPAIR – Removing non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions to support ambitious climate transitions
REPAIR will develop first-of-its kind technological proof of concept to remove non-CO2 gases like CH4 and N2O from diluted sources, including from the atmosphere. Two process routes are proposed: (i) capture, concentration and storage/conversion (ii) direct catalytic conversion.
SPARCCLE – Socioeconomic Pathways, Adaptation and Resilience to Changing CLimate in Europe
The SPARCCLE is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe program, and it is focused on delivering adaptation and mitigation strategies for a just and climate-resilient Europe. The project aims to support policymaking for action on the socioeconomic risks of climate change, establishing new methodological frameworks to link knowledge across disciplines from research communities working on climate impacts and risks in Europe. Bottom-up assessments of multidimensional climate vulnerabilities, risks, damages, and adaptation will be combined with top-down integrated assessment frameworks (IAFs) and leading multi-sectoral macroeconomic models.
UNITES: Uncertainty Integration for a Transition in Energy and Sustainability
Geopolitical and socio-economic uncertainties are putting the European and Global energy transitions at stake. These deep uncertainties affect the analytical assessments underpinning energy and climate policies. For example, the models used to inform energy planning rely on uncertain forecasts and assumptions for future energy demands, macroeconomic indicators, social acceptance, fuel prices, technology costs, and climate scenarios. Due to fundamental methodological, computational, and data challenges, this uncertainty is at best rarely considered in energy planning, which increases the risk of failing to meet our urgent climate targets. This makes accounting for uncertainty one of the major unsolved problems in energy planning. UNITES addresses these limitations to enable a new paradigm for long-term energy planning. In contrast to current approaches, which try to accurately predict the future, UNITES’ ambition is a systematic integration of uncertainty in energy-climate models.
UPTAKE: Bridging current knowledge gaps to enable the UPTAKE of carbon dioxide removal methods
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.