Economics of Climate Change

With increasing climate change, the debate over its economic impacts also intensifies. The goal is to develop durable, practical ways of estimating the costs, risks and opportunities involved in climate protection and adaptation. These are an important base if governments, enterprises and the public are to be ready to take and finance preventive measures.

To this end, climate economics research looks at the impacts of different emission pathways and evaluates their economic, social, ecological and technological implications. It relates to conclusions about margins, needs and uncertainties and creates a quantitative basis for comparing potential actions and putting them into a global context.

The BMBF funding priority "Economics of Climate Change" is, therefore, extremely important in providing empirical, action-based knowledge for dealing with climate change. To this end, the funding priority pursues a mainly economic approach. Since the end of 2011 / beginning of 2012 the BMBF is funding 27 projects with a total of 15.5 million €. The chose projects particularily relate to policy, are practically-based and will improve the basis for decision-making in politics, the economy and society.

The funding priority followed on from five reports showing the current status of research and development potential in Germany.

On behalf of the BMBF the organisational unit "Environment and Sustainability" of the DLR Project Management Agency attends functionally and administrative to the funding measure Economics of Climate Change.