First Stakeholder Workshop of the LIMITS Project  – Low climate impact scenarios and the implications of required tight emission control strategies

LIMITS (Low climate IMpact scenarios and the Implications of required Tight emission control Strategies) is a EU funded research project that aims at advancing the understanding of the implementation of climate policies consistent with 2 degree Celsius.
The main objective of the project is to provide an assessment of the emissions reductions strategies at the level of the world and the major global economies, and to assess theirimplementation in terms of:

  • Defining emission reduction pathways according to different assumptions about technology availability, policy regimes, implementation obstacles, and evaluating the regional distribution of mitigation at the level of major economies;
  • Assessing the investment requirements to implement these transformation pathways and the finance mechanisms such that these resources can be best raised and allocated.  Evaluating the national and international policies which are needed to ensure that the transition to a low carbon energy infrastructure is attained efficiently, given specific obstacles in the respective economies;
  • Quantifying the changes in the energy infrastructure and land use which major economies need to implement to attain stringent climate policies;

  • Evaluating the linkages of climate policies with other issues such as energy security, air pollution and economic development.

The aim of this first stakeholder workshop is to initiate a dialogue between the LIMITS project and relevant stakeholders on issues related to the implementation of climate stabilization policies. This first meeting is organized around 2 main discussion sessions, which will aim at identifying knowledge gaps and formulate those into relevant research questions which can be addressed within the LIMITS project. Specifically, each session will begin with presentations by project partners based on modeling results. External stakeholders will then have the chance to express their views on they see as the most critical factors and how can they be incorporated into modeling and policy  research work. For each topic, the key questions of interest are: What are the most pressing policy questions and how can they be incorporated into integrated assessment models? In which way can modeling and policy work best interact and inform stakeholders?