After 3.5 very productive and scientifically exciting years, in which we worked with thousands of stakeholders to co-create modelled pathways for supporting climate action in Europe and worldwide, the PARIS REINFORCE research project came to an end, on November 30, 2022.

As a truly co-creative modelling research project, PARIS REINFORCE would not have produced as much as it did in these 42 months, if it weren't for our stakeholders. The consortium sincerely thanks all those that put their piece in the PARIS REINFORCE puzzle, however big or small, whether in a stakeholder workshop, a response to a survey or poll, a question raised in a policy event, or a message sent via this website.

In numbers: Over the course of these 3.5 years, the project has used over 20 different models to assess policies and develop realistic mitigation pathways at all geographic scales, produced at least 86 high-impact scientific publications and participated in 43 conferences (with many more to come in the coming months), released 15 infographics, 2 videos, and 3 targeted policy briefs, and published (or was discussed in) 43 articles in news media. All this, with the input and support of over 3,000 stakeholders, with whom the project interacted—physically or online—in 23 national and regional workshops and deliberation dialogues as well as one large-scale expert survey (260 participants), and 2 final conferences. It also carried out two national polls (of over 1,000 participants each). It also fed hundreds of scenarios into the IPCC AR6 WGIII and the European Environment Agency's Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change processes, as well as five submissions to the Global Stocktake in 2022.

Last but not least, the project developed the I²AM PARIS platform, which is now established as a central vessel of the international modelling community, before passing the torch onto four new EU-funded projects that will be operating and sustaining it in the near future: H2020 NDC ASPECTS and ENCLUDE, and Horizon Europe IAM COMPACT and DIAMOND.

As promised during our first policy workshop in Brussels, in November 2019, we genuinely hope that from now on we can look back upon and think “we will always have PARIS” REINFORCE! Considering your role in making this project a success and sticking to one movie for borrowing our quotes, we "think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”.

Recently, the European Union (EU) revisited its climate ambitions, aiming to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. With its recent Climate Law as a starting point, Greece will soon have to also revisit its national energy and climate plan, in this new European direction. At the same time, the EU's plan for responding to today's energy crisis and eliminating its dependency on Russian fossil fuels explicitly mentions accelerating new renewable energy projects, diffusing energy efficiency measures, and diversifying its energy supply portfolio. However, many European leaders have so far sought solutions in currently available "grey" resources as well as in new fossil-fuel investments. In Greece, this translates to reprioritisation of lignite and bold investments into new fossil fuels, notably liquefied natural gas, opening many questions regarding the country's climate ambition in the near future.

Any effort to respond to these questions, regarding national climate action and green transition in the light of today's energy crisis, must be socially acceptable. In this context, PARIS REINFORCE held a national conference on "Climate change, the Energy Crisis and Greece's Net-Zero Transition", on Tuesday, November 8, 2022, giving the opportunity to stakeholders from industry, academia, government, and the civil society to get informed, discuss, raise concerns, and help decide the way forward.

The conference included four sessions, during which the consortium presented findings from the PARIS REINFORCE project and discussed issues regarding the national plan towards dealing with the energy price shocks, the value of energy democracy in the long-term transition, the role of business in today's energy crisis, and the potential lying in renewables (and especially wind energy) in a socially just and environmentally effective pathway to net-zero.

You may read more and browse all presentations on our website (link).

To celebrate what we achieved and to effectively disseminate the knowledge co-/produced these 3.5 years, the PARIS REINFORCE consortium hosted its final event in Paris, France, on November 15, 2022.

The event, "Delivering on the Paris Agreement in a fragmenting world", held at the breathtaking Salle Louis Liard de la Sorbonne, was co-organised with the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne university and the World Energy Council – France. On the day, 61 participants attended the final conference and had the opportunity to learn about our key findings, ask their questions, and raise their concerns, allowing to discuss together on the future of the EU and the planet

The conference agenda included four main sessions, following some welcome notes and opening remarks by all co-hosts, as well as a brief overview of the project by Coordinator Prof. Haris Doukas (National Technical University of Athens):

Session 1: "Quantifying the road to Paris", on global climate action, followed by a regional deep-dive with an explicit focus on all major economies and a panel discussion with the participation of stakeholders from Harvard University, the International Energy Agency, Nos Energies - Occitanie Environnement, and the audience.

Session 2: "Towards Net Zero Emissions in the EU", on a detailed deep-dive into European Paris-compliant pathways and respective policy implications that were produced in the project, a focus on bottlenecks to EU industrial decarbonisation, and a heated debate among stakeholders from World Energy Council – France, Negawatt, and the audience.

Session 3: "Enabling climate policy support", with a detailed presentation of how the project's flagship exchange platform, I²AM PARIS, has facilitated decision-making, how it plans to secure sustainability beyond the project, and what critical lessons were learnt, followed by an interactive discussion with the audience.

Session 4: "Planning in the light of today’s threats to sustainability", on emerging challenges to EU and international sustainability, including COVID-19 recovery in the EU and other major economies, a stakeholder-informed modelling perspective on today's energy crisis as well as the prospect and costs of phasing out Russian fossil-fuel imports, and a panel discussion among project members and external experts.

You may read more and browse presentations on the website (link).

PARIS REINFORCE actively participated in the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), which is taking place physically from November 29 to December 1, 2022, in Maryland, USA.

Like every year, the 15^th IAMC Annual Meeting aimed to present and discuss the state of the art in integrated assessment modelling, review the status of ongoing community activities, facilitate interaction with collaborating communities, as well as evaluate and revisit the priorities of the IAM community.

The PARIS REINFORCE consortium participated in the conference with seven presentations and one poster:

• Köberle, A.C., Mittal, S., Gambhir, A., van de Ven, D.J., Bui, H., Campagnolo, L., Delpiazzo, E., Vielle, M., Perdana, S., Giarola, S., Rogelj, J. & Nikas, A. (2022). Diagnosing inter-model differences in the macro-economic implications of deep mitigation. Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), November 29 - December 1, 2022, Maryland, USA.
• Kikstra, J., Nicholls, Z., Smith, C., Lewis, J., Lamboll, R., Byers, E., Sandstad, M., Meinshausen, M., Gidden, M., Rogelj, J., Kriegler, E., Peters, G.P., Fuglestvedt, J., Skeie, R., Samset, B., Wienpahl, L., Van Vuuren, D., Van der Wijst, K.I., Al Khourdajie, A., Forster, P., Reisinger, A., Schaeffer, R. & Riahi, K. (2022). IPCC AR6 climate scenarios and the open-source “climate-assessment” tool for IAM emissions scenarios. Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), November 29 - December 1, 2022, Maryland, USA.
• Gambhir, A., Mittal, S., Lamboll, R., Grant, N., Köberle, A.C., Hawkes, A., Rogelj, J. & Lowe, J. (2022). Course correcting 1.5oC mitigation pathways in light of new adverse information. Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), November 29 - December 1, 2022, Maryland, USA.
• Campagnolo, L., Delpiazzo, E., Moreno, J., Van de Ven, D.J., Chiodi, A., Gargiulo, M., Boitier, B., Koasidis, K. & Nikas, A. (2022). Paris-compliant sustainable development pathways in the EU: a multi-model study. Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), November 29 - December 1, 2022, Maryland, USA.
• Mittal, S., Köberle, A.C., Shukla, P.R. & Gambhir, A. (2022). India’s Energy System Transformation to Net Zero. Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), November 29 - December 1, 2022, Maryland, USA.
• Van de Ven, D.J. (2022). An Open and Transparent Modelling Initiative for Globally Implemented Emission Reduction Policies. Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), November 29 - December 1, 2022, Maryland, USA.
• Van de Ven, D.J., Fragkos, P., Filippidou, F., Hermwille, L., Obergassel, W., Clarke, L., Gambhir, A., Gonzalez-Eguino, M., Mittal, S., Nikas, A., Peters, G.P. & Sognnaes, I. (2022). Tracing the transformation through a decade of mitigation scenarios. Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), November 29 - December 1, 2022, Maryland, USA.

Send us an email for any questions or express interest in the PARIS REINFORCE research

PARIS REINFORCE, NTUA 9, Iroon Polytechniou str., Athens, Greece

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