NAVIGATE stakeholder workshop on robustness and legitimacy of models for climate policy assessment

26-27 May 2020

Report available here: NAVIGATE Stakeholder workshop on robustness and legitimacy

Robustness and legitimacy of models for climate policy assessment

The first NAVIGATE workshop was organised by the University of Geneva and brought together three groups of participants: (i) stakeholders from national and international climate policy domains, business, and civil society organizations, (ii) scholars from various disciplines that are relevant to climate policy, and (iii) NAVIGATE consortium members. The workshop aimed to benefit all participants by initiating a multi-stakeholder multi-disciplinary dialogue on a common theme of interest and in this way also inform the design of the NAVIGATE research activities.

The first NAVIGATE workshop focused on the critical issues of robustness and legitimacy of models for climate policy assessment. Robustness refers to the analytical and technical adequacy of the models as well as the validity of modeling results given deep uncertainties and limits to state-of-the-art knowledge. Legitimacy encompasses transparency, traceability and accessibility of the modeling itself as well as the design of participatory processes at the modeling-policy interface.

Although often discussed in the last decade, robustness and legitimacy of models face new challenges today because, as in the case of NAVIGATE, the models need to account for increasingly richer structural, regional and distributional information as well as for transformative change in social, technological and economic systems.

The aim of the workshop was to enable the participants to share their experiences and to reflect on the good-practice examples, expectations, and remaining challenges for robustness and legitimacy of models for climate policy assessment. Specifically, these questions were addressed:

  • What defines robust models, modeling results, and climate policy recommendations?
  • By what means can this robustness be assessed, ensured, documented, and communicated?
  • What models need in order to be legitimate tools to inform climate policy?

Program of the workshop

Day #1, Tuesday, 26 May 2020

Central European Summer Time

14:00 – 14:10 Welcome and introduction

Elmar Kriegler (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)

Evelina Trutnevyte (University of Geneva)

Philippe Tulkens (EC Directorate-General for Research and Innovation)

14:10 – 15:40

 

Plenary session “Robustness and legitimacy: setting the scene,moderated by Massimo Tavoni (European Institute on Economics and the Environment)

10 min for presentations and 5 min for questions:

NAVIGATE_project and_climate_policy_after_pandemic: Elmar Kriegler (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)

o   Robustness and legitimacy: Evelina Trutnevyte (University of Geneva)

o   Insights from risk analysis: Roger Cooke (Resources for the Future)

o   Robust decision making under uncertainty: Julie Rozenberg (World Bank)

o   Evaluating IAMs: Charlie Wilson (University of East Anglia)

15:40 – 16:05

 

 

16:05 – 16:10

Plenary discussion with all speakers, moderated by Massimo Tavoni (European Institute on Economics and the Environment)

 

Introduction to group work by Evelina Trutnevyte (University of Geneva)

16:10 – 16:30 Break
16:30 – 17:45

 

Group work “Robustness and legitimacy of evidence on emissions gap”

Three break-out groups with 5-10 min input presentations:

1.  Robustness of existing evidence and areas for future work, moderated by Detlef van Vuuren (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency) and Volker Krey (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis)

2.  Modeling-policy interface for legitimacyv, moderated by Michiel Schaeffer (Climate Analytics) and Jessica Strefler (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)

3. Gathering new robust evidence on carbon neutrality, moderated by Elmar Kriegler (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) and Christopher Weber (WWF Global Science)

 

Day #2, Wednesday, 27 May 2020

Central European Summer Time

14:00 – 15:15

 

Group work “Informing climate policy after the pandemic”

Three break-out groups with 5-10 min input presentations:

1.      Recovery packages and structural change of the economy, moderated by Nico Bauer (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) and Jean-Francois Mercure (University of Exeter)

2.      Distributional implications of climate policy after the pandemic, moderated by Johannes Emmerling (European Institute on Economics and the Environment) and Celine Guivarch (CIRED)

3.      Role of lifestyles and behavior change, moderated by Sonia Yeh (Chalmers University of Technology), Bas van Ruijven (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis) and Charlie Wilson (University of East Anglia)

15:15 – 15:30 Break
15:30 – 16:30

 

Plenary session “Robustness and legitimacy: outlook,moderated by Detlef van Vuuren (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency)

10 min for presentations and 5 min for questions:

o   Experience in the finance sector: Ryan Barrett (Bank of England)

o   Experience at an NGO: Patrick Hofstetter (WWF Switzerland)

o   Experience at a foundation: Seth Monteith (ClimateWorks Foundation)

o   Insights from climate science: Sonia I. Seneviratne (ETH Zurich)

16:30 – 17:00 Plenary discussion with all speakers, moderated by Detlef van Vuuren (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency)
17:00 – 17:15

 

Wrap up and closing

Miles Perry (EC Directorate-General for Climate Action)

Philippe Tulkens (EC Directorate-General for Research and Innovation)

Evelina Trutnevyte (University of Geneva)

Elmar Kriegler (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)