In two weeks, the next UN Climate Conference, COP 30, kicks off in Belém, Brazil. Every year, the international community of nations agrees on targets to limit global warming. Yet implementation by national governments, economic actors and citizens is lagging behind. An international group of researchers, including Stefan Nabernegg and Nina Knittel from the Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change at the University of Graz, sees one reason for this discrepancy in the assessment models used for climate target negotiations. These models tend to overlook the behaviour of institutions, households and individuals.

For climate policy to be truly effective, however, such aspects must be taken into account. In a paper recently published in the scientific journal PNAS, the researchers propose combining analysis models from different decision-making levels in order to better understand — and ultimately close — the gap between global climate agreements and local implementation.

"The basis for negotiations at UN Climate Conferences are so-called integrated assessment models, which show how much greenhouse gases need to be reduced in order to slow the rise in temperature. At the same time, they take into account what is still economically feasible," explains Stefan Nabernegg, climate economist at the Wegener Center at the University of Graz…

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