The ADVANCE project

ADVANCE developed a new generation of advanced Integrated Assessment Models and applied the improved models to explore different climate mitigation policy options in the post-Paris framework. The project ended in December 2016.

Integrated Assessment Models (IAM) help quantifying the requirements for climate stabilization and the implications of international climate agreements in general and the Paris Agreement specifically, including costs, economic impacts, as well as feasibility of the rapid transformative changes they involve at the global and regional scales. ADVANCE put a particular focus on improving the understanding of the crucial dynamics in the low-carbon transformation, such as the technological change, the role of consumer behavior, emission reduction potentials in energy demand sectors, as well as decarbonization bottlenecks in energy supply. The model developments performed in ADVANCE allow a renewed and improved assessment of climate change mitigation strategies.

ADVANCE was coordinated by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Project chair: Elmar Kriegler; Project Director: Gunnar Luderer). The steering committee of the project included Detlef van Vuuren (PBL), Keywan Riahi and Volker Krey (IIASA), Bert Saveyn (JRC) and Massimo Tavoni (FEEM). ADVANCE was funded through the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) under grant agreement no. 308329.

The project started in January 2013 and ended with a public final conference in October 2016. The conference brought together stakeholders, climate policy experts and scientists to discuss project results with a view to implications for climate and energy policies, as well as priorities for future research.