Supporting the development of climate policies to deliver on the Paris Agreement, through Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs)

Under the Paris Agreement (PA), Parties of the UNFCCC have to submit and periodically update Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which represent their undertaking to pursue the objectives the Agreement. Parties have also committed to formulate and communicate their mid-century low greenhouse gas emission development strategies by 2020. The collective progress towards achieving the objectives of the PA will be periodically assessed, with the first ‘global stocktake’ envisaged to take place in 2023. These critical processes for global climate action must be underpinned by authoritative scientific results at national, regional and global level and supported by knowledge co-created through adequate frameworks that enhance legitimacy, inclusion, effectiveness and sustainability. Science should provide the necessary tools and knowledge-base in order to support the above mentioned processes, and contribute to the high impact and quality of the major emitters’ submissions.

Scope

Actions should address only one of the following:

a) Supporting the design and assessment of climate policies: Actions should provide new and more comprehensive scientific knowledge on the design, requirements, governance and impacts of climate action at national, European and global level, for the effective implementation of NDCs, the preparation of future action pledges, the development of 2050 decarbonisation strategies in major emitting countries and for supporting the 2023 global stocktake under the UNFCCC. The potential and feasibility for dynamically increasing decarbonisation ambition over time should be considered, together with related socio-economic impacts and co-benefits (for example those related to water, air pollution or avoided impacts of climate change), also taking into consideration market-driven actions. This action should be based on the use of ensembles of Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), covering the entire economy, all greenhouse gases, and the wide range of climate, air quality/environment, energy and other sectoral policies contributing to decarbonisation, and should provide useful information at global and national level. Beyond the EU, proposals should extend their analysis to some major emitters outside Europe and to selected less developed countries.

b) Improving Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs): Actions should further improve the state-of-the-art of IAMs, in order to provide robust and transparent assessments to support the design and evaluation of all mitigation policies – including those on energy efficiency and renewables – in the short to mid-term, as well as to address the challenges and opportunities related to long term decarbonisation with a time horizon beyond 2050. Improvements in one or more of the following areas should be addressed: sectoral coverage across the entire economy (including more accurate representation of bunker fuels and land-based emissions/sinks), inclusion of all greenhouse gases, representation of issues such as structural and behavioural change and uncertainty, inequality, interaction with other relevant development goals, negative emission technologies, co-benefits of actions due to avoided impacts and reduced adaptation needs. Furthermore, actions should also improve the geographical coverage of global models including through in-country development of national modelling capacity.

Under both a) and b) subtopics and in line with the strategy for EU international cooperation in research and innovation (COM(2012)497), international cooperation is encouraged with major emitters and with less developed countries requiring support for the design and implementation of current and future NDCs.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 5 million and EUR 7 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected Impact

The project results are expected to contribute to:

• supporting EU climate policy and the preparation of EU submissions to the UNFCCC and the 2023 global stocktake exercise under the UNFCCC;
• major international scientific assessments such as the IPCC reports;
• enhanced international cooperation
• fostering innovative policy-making through robust methodologies and tools and reduction of uncertainties;
• improved legitimacy of models, methods and tools through greater transparency.

Cross-cutting Priorities

• Socio-economic science and humanities
• International cooperation