Paris Reinforce: From Numbers to Insights: How to think about economic-climate modelling

Video and audio recordings

Economic-climate models are a powerful tool for providing insight into sensible climate policy choices and how they would impact our economy. As the EU announces stricter climate targets, there are an increasing number of modelling studies published attempting to do just so. However, these models are highly complex and largely inaccessible to wider audiences.

Therefore, at this event we discussed some of the key issues that policymakers should consider when confronted with new modelling studies. For example, why do different models provide very different perspectives when trying to answer the same question? Why is it that certain models are better suited to certain policy questions? How can we sensibly form our own opinions about how strongly to trust new modelling results?

This event was jointly held by Bruegel and PARIS REINFORCE: a three-year, Horizon 2020 project funded by the European Commission. The PARIS REINFORCE project seeks to actively involve stakeholders in multiple aspects of its own modelling processes, from the formulation of relevant policy questions to the definition of modelling assumptions.

Presentation by Georg Zachmann and Haris Doukas