Research Programmes
1. Developing climate science and economics
Over the last 20 years, climate models have been developed to an impressive degree of complexity, and have become core tools in the study of human-induced climate change. Quantitative climate predictions have come to motivate efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and they have also assumed a pivotal role in planning adaptation to climate change.
But significant uncertainty remains in predicting future climate change, even using the most complex computer simulation models. In spite of recent progress in quantifying our uncertainty about future climate change, fundamental questions remain about the validity and reliability of evidence from complex climate models. In fact, it is not at all clear that even the most sophisticated of today’s complex climate models can provide decision-relevant probabilities.
Therefore, research programme 1 aims to improve our understanding of the nature of the uncertainties in complex climate models, to help policy-makers manage the risks and uncertainties of climate change policy and balance their investments in adaptation and mitigation. It occupies a pivotal position in the work of the entire Centre, by clarifying the rules of evidence-use in research programmes 2, 3 and 4.
The programme is comprised of a number of individual projects. Project 1a (i and ii) asks what today’s climate models can really tell us. Project 1b (i and ii) goes on to investigate the implications of this for decision-making on climate change, especially using economic methods. Integral to the research programme is an examination, in project 1c, of innovative methods of communicating the complexity of climate predictions to a range of users.
2. Climate-change governance for a new global deal
International negotiations on climate change have made little progress in the past decade, despite widespread scientific agreement on the causes of climate change and its impacts, and despite economic arguments about the benefits of early mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.
The greatest challenges in international negotiations on climate change include the negotiation system itself, and the wider political and institutional context within which the system is embedded. This research programme addresses these challenges by examining the setting of international negotiations, alternatives to state-based governance to combat climate change, and the human rights and social justice aspects of climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Two projects in the research programme examine conventional and new forms of climate change governance.
The first investigates the factors that shape the prospects for international collective action on climate change, considering the extent to which the bargaining positions of countries are shaped by their perceptions of the costs, benefits and risks of climate change and associated policy interventions, and the extent to which bargaining positions are influenced by the interplay between historical and socio-political factors within complex institutional settings.
The second project investigates the potential of emerging governance solutions based on the central role of non-state actors. Together the two projects contribute to public policy by shedding light on the preconditions for co-operation among states on climate change, and identifying alternatives to state-centred solutions in taking international action on climate change.
And since it can make or break new global initiatives, a further two projects look at social justice in relation to the governance of climate change. Combining conceptual and empirical work in philosophy, law and social sciences, the projects aim to clarify what equity may entail in climate change, both in principle and practice.
The projects examine the implications of human rights for international action on climate change, the way that international financing of adaptation and mitigation may challenge notions of sovereignty and global equity, and the potential financial flows brought about by climate change mitigation and adaptation.
3. Adaptation to climate change and human development.
This research programme aims to build an understanding of the links between human development and climate change; helping to target adaptation policies to those most vulnerable and least able to adapt; investigating the potential for climate-friendly forms of development, and development-friendly forms of adaptation to climate change.
4. Governments, markets and climate-change mitigation
What roles should governments and markets play in stimulating the changes that are needed if tougher targets for climate change mitigation are to be met? What levels of change might be possible in the way that businesses operate, and what are the likely side effects of such changes?
It seems that climate change policies and innovations in carbon finance and emissions trading are starting to lead to changes in performance – but are these changes real, or are carbon intensive activities just being shifted away from the balance sheets of countries or companies? And if we are currently in a phase where some relatively easy options for carbon reduction can be exploited, how long will this phase last and what happens when further change becomes more expensive or more challenging?
This research programme involves two inter-related sets of projects that consider questions such as these; one focusing on the targeting of governmental policies for climate change mitigation, the other focusing on the development of markets for carbon finance and emissions trading.
The projects on government and policy look at design, delivery and impacts of different forms of policy on business. A key challenge is to identify the characteristics of individual firms that have been responsive or resistant to climate change policies, and also to other signals from governments and markets about the need to change. This research will allow policy-makers to adopt much more targeted interventions which recognise the variability of firm level conditions, and which facilitate innovation across socio-technical systems.
These projects are complemented by two other projects which seek to improve the prospects for market-based approaches to climate change mitigation. The first considers the extent to which market activities can be informed by reliable forms of carbon accounting, and the extent to which they allow meaningful benchmarks of corporate performance on climate change. The second will look in more detail at changes in carbon markets and emissions trading, and the way that their future evolution might help to promote efficient, effective markets for the post-2012 period.
5. The Munich Re Programme - Evaluating the economics of climate risks and opportunities in the insurance sector
The focus of this research programme| is on informing the insurance sector on the impacts of alternative approaches to carbon finance and emission trading; aiding the design of trading schemes and suggesting new financial service products to be developed; informing decision-makers, at the company level and the country level, on how better to balance investment between mitigation and adaptation, survivability and sustainability (this programme is funded by Munich Re).