Assessment of Climate Change Mitigation Pathways (AMPERE)

Overview  

For societies to effectively cope with anthropogenic climate change, ambitious policies are needed that can lead to long-term climate stabilization. Reaching that goal requires the transition from carbon-intensive to low-carbon economies be achieved as quickly as possible. To do that, extensive research is needed to identify good “mitigation pathways” for the transition.

The AMPERE project uses state-of-the-art energy-economy and integrated assessment models to explore possible pathways to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, plus the costs of following those paths. Combining the results from a sizable ensemble of these models, the project focuses on four areas:

• The role of uncertainty in the understanding of how the climate will respond to anthropogenic forcing and how that uncertainty will affect energy supplies around the world;
• The role of technology and innovation in the energy sector;
• The role of political limits to policy such as limited regional participation in climate change regimes; and
• The implications for Europe of policies to “decarbonize” the energy sector.

IIASA Research

Using IIASA's MESSAGE and GAINS models, researchers will analyze the effects of different low-carbon technologies on mitigation pathways. Researchers will also look at the effects of climate feedbacks such as a warming-induced increase in methane released from permafrost, which in turn causes more warming. They will additionally use MESSAGE to conduct a comparative analysis of the economic costs of the various mitigation scenarios developed as part of the project.

Last edited: 29 June 2012