Updated 19/08/20
International Research Network (IRN)
Argentina, Brazil, China, India, South Africa, Russia, Vietnam
January 2020 – December 2024
© CNRS
Context
Long-term forecasting and the evaluation of sustainable development policies require models integrating the knowledge of economists, engineers, climatologists, biologists and other actors (politicians, industrialists, associations). In order to respond to this scientific challenge at the interface of development and environmental questions, in particular for the evaluation of climate and energy policies, CIRED has developed the "IMACLIM" modelling architecture. It is based on "hybrid" modelling which integrates a macroeconomic approach and an "engineer" vision at the sectoral level.
The different tools integrated into IMACLIM allow to:
- Contribute to the design and evaluation of strategies to limit greenhouse gas emissions and national contributions, in a wide range of countries
- Analyse the interactions between these national strategies, particularly via their implications on the fossil fuel markets, international trade, or capital flows
- Contribute to the public debate on the link between energy transition and development challenges
- Constitute an international training tool on prospective energy/economy/environment modelling promoting a nuanced approach, anchored on dual economic and energy accounting
Objectives
The International Research Network aims to strengthen and develop the already-existing IMACLIM network, which has brought together an increasing number of research teams from around the world in the past years. The main objective of the network is the improvement of the architecture coupling the macro-economic model, initially developed at CIRED, with models of engineers from partner institutions, which describe their national energy systems and other fields of human activity (transport, industry, land use), with the goal to produce a forecast of national development trajectories under energy and carbon constraints (or potentials).
In addition to refining a new generation of modeling tools, the joint construction of databases and the resulting scientific co-publications, the network intends to take up the challenge of making major contributions to the sixth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The expected results of the IRN cover 6 elements:
- Methodological developments to the IMACLIM tool
- Maintenance and development of the platform that hosts the IMACLIM code online
- Development and maintenance of a scenario database
- Scientific co-publications
- Communication towards academic and political circles
- Development and maintenance of the network website
Partners
- Centre International de Recherche sur l’Environnement et le Développement, France
- Energy Research Centre, Faculty of Engineering and the Built environment, University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa
- Fundación Bariloche, Argentina
- Instituto de Pesquisa e Pós-graduação de Enegenharia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Institute of Energy Environment and Economy, Tsinghua University, China
- Public Systems Group, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, India
- Center for Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, Higher School of Economics, Russia
- Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition, Vietnam
Scientific coordination: Frédéric Ghersi, Cired
Funding
CNRS-Institut National des Sciences Humaines et Sociales
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