Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ECEMF (European Climate and Energy Modelling Forum)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-11-01 bis 2024-04-30
During the second reporting period (months 19-36), we realised several key achievements in both research into European climate neutrality scenarios and the development of digital infrastructure to support model intercomparison. We developed climate neutrality scenarios for the European Union integrating assumptions, boundary conditions and insights from supply-side, sectoral and behavioural models. We developed multi-model scenario exercises examining the impacts of energy trade and geopolitical factors in the EU’s pathway to climate neutrality and the role of alternative policy instruments and technologies to reach the EU’s 2040 and 2050 climate targets. These results informed the EC's consultation on 2040 targets with the ECEMF project cited several times. We hosted several capacity-building events to establish better practices of modelling and scenario analysis across the European energy and climate research communities and co-hosted several editions of the annual European Climate and Energy Modeling Platform conference on behalf of the Commission. The deployed and publicly accessible IT-based communications channel consists of a visualisation tool (FutureSight) and a discussion forum (community.ecemf.eu) which connect to the large database of scenarios generated during the project.
We have been actively working to create a closer European modelling community, setting an example in terms of transparency, openness and reuse of existing standards and codes that we hope will set the standard for future efforts in this space. We have published the Diagnostic Model Comparison Protocol under an open license and will do the same with the Model Comparison Protocol on Net Zero scenarios. We have published a preliminary draft of the open teaching materials online (https://www.ecemf.eu/learn/) and will develop a course for the first of eight planned capacity-building workshops which will be held at the OpenMod workshop in March 2023. Within the project, we have adopted existing standards developed in the OpenEntrance project and further improved them, rather than creating our own.
Through the reporting and dissemination of our core research activities – with the largest model comparison effort focussing on European climate neutrality - we will present a more coherent, unified evidence base that will, in turn, form a concrete basis for action by policymakers.
We are working to improve collaboration beyond Europe, which will lead to a greater influence on global energy and climate policy. For example, we have initiated a cross-model comparison between ECEMF and Stanford EMF of North America and Europe, which will come to fruition during 2024.
We have created a publicly accessible and fully open-source software ecosystem for the comparison of data, scenarios and results including toolkits, scripts and data standards to strengthen the visibility and acceptance of open science in the European energy and climate modelling community and beyond.
We have also established a stakeholder network, and are working towards launching a Secretariat and governance structure to create the forum as a permanent fixture in the European energy and climate research space.