IAM COMPACT is a project of high relevance to informing the development of climate policies and national planning for the post-2030 period, in the light of the Paris Agreement goals and of the need to achieve net-zero global GHG emissions by 2050. The project represents an opportunity to enhance the ambition, transparency, legitimacy, and governance of climate action in major emitters and non-high-income countries, as well as to enhance international cooperation and mutual learning among and across scientific and policy communities.
Paris Agreement and NDCs
Under the Paris Agreement, Parties must pursue measures to mitigate (e.g., by reducing their GHG emissions) and adapt to climate change, including by preparing and implementing successive Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
Neither the first round of NDCs, mostly defining targets for this decade, nor currently implemented climate policies are on track to meeting the Agreement’s objectives. Whether globally we are on track to keeping the rise of mean global temperatures below 1.5 C compared to pre-industrial levels is in doubt, now.
Parties are expected to increase their ambition and produce new NDCs covering the post-2030 period, informed by the 6th Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as well as by the 2022/23 Global Stocktake.
The design of a multi-dimensional set of policy instruments of technical, economic, social, and legislative nature that comprise countries’ climate policy agendas is supported by equally diverse climate-economy modelling activities.
Integrated Assessment Models constitute the backbone of these activities.
Notwithstanding the progress made in these modelling tools’ literature and scenario space in the past few years, the modelling world has fallen short of its promise to include non-scientists/stakeholders in its process, despite policy-level initiatives brought about by UNFCCC processes like the Talanoa dialogue, and numerous calls in the literature for knowledge co-production. The global focus of the modelling work (justified by climatic changes having global impacts, besides regional and local ones) may have also caused some of it to be less relatable for decision makers faced with local issues and national challenges. Furthermore, modelling practice has hitherto focused predominantly on the supply-side action space, with individual choices and lifestyle changes indirectly narrated as assumptions that do not interact with the vividly modelled technology-economy-environment-policy flows. Critically, although sustainability has been gaining attention in modelling science by treating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as synergies/trade-offs of mitigation, there is little progress in placing climate action as a cross-cutting theme across the sustainability spectrum.
It is in this context that IAM COMPACT aims to support the assessment of global climate goals, progress, and feasibility space, as well as the design of the next round of NDCs and policy planning beyond 2030 for major emitters and non-high-income countries.
And recent climate extreme events underline the urgency of this exercise.
In order to be practical and effective, IAM COMPACT is travelling where it is most needed: in developing countries feeling already the brunt of the climate crisis and obliged to be committed to mitigating it and adapting to it, despite climate financing remaining woefully short.
It is visiting Sri Lanka, to contribute to its debate on climate neutrality by 2050, as well as Ethiopia, to contribute to the assessment of the use of sustainable biomass for energy and low-carbon farming.
And it is travelling to Kenya’s Mombasa, seat of the Technical University of Mombasa (TUM), one of IAM COMPACT’s consortium partners, where it will hold a 4-day workshop on Modelling Tools for Sustainable Development. The 4-day workshop is broken to three distinct sessions:
- a session for Kenya’s Modellers and Policy makers,
- a session for TUM’s students, and
- a session for Stakeholders of various fields and backgrounds.
The workshop is hosted by RECCReC (Renewable Energy and Climate Change Research Centre) at the Technical University of Mombasa, with contributions by Politecnico di Milano, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, National Technical University of Athens, and several other partners of the project’s consortium.
This workshop aims to contribute to ongoing debates on climate change mitigation and adaptation in the country, by creating long-lasting spaces for co-creation of modelling assessments and sharing of knowledge. Thus, it will focus on sharing notions of, and giving hands-on experience on, integrated (energy, food, water supply) planning and links between resource systems and economic sectors. Transparency will be the overarching philosophy: open access knowledge base and open-source modelling tools will be used, in line with the state of the art of Integrated Assessment Modelling worldwide.
The workshop targets the above groups interested in contributing to efforts by the global scientific community to provide science-based evidence in support of countries’ climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.
It gives the participants a chance to learn the grounds of the modelling that lies behind parts of the IPCC reports on climate change, for use in their studies or professional life. It also gives the participants the opportunity to join a worldwide community of practice in modelling for sustainable development, laying the ground for collaboration in future modelling work for Kenya.
No pre-knowledge is needed, just curiosity and commitment to sustainable development!
It is hoped that, by the end of the workshop, participants will have acquired knowledge and understanding of the principles of energy planning, national energy accounting methods and integrated planning, and their importance in the deployment of development strategies in Kenya, East Africa, and globally.
- Dr. Francesco Gardumi, Senior Researcher at the Division of Energy Systems, Department of Energy Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
- Dr. Alexandros Nikas, Senior Researcher at the Energy Policy Unit, School of Electrical & Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Mombasa
- Dr. Ioannis Tsipouridis, Director of RECCReC (Renewable Energy and Climate Change Research Centre) at the Technical University of Mombasa, Visiting Professor at the Universities of TUM(Mombasa) and MUST (Meru)