Intermediate results of the TRANSrisk project which contributes to climate mitigation

The European project “Transitions pathways and risk analysis for climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies”, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No 642260, has now passed to the second stage of its implementation.

Key outcomes of the first stage include appropriate methods and tools regarding the participation of stakeholders in the process of energy systems’ and societies’ modelling, as well as tools for coupling qualitative and quantitative data to increase results’ robustness. Moreover, TRANSrisk researchers thoroughly recorded the implications of climate change, focusing on implications of different “heterodox” mitigation policies, such as behavioural changes, and additionally identified the stakeholders’ opinion on them (find the related reports at http://transrisk-project.eu/virtual-library/transrisk-results).

At the core of TRANSrisk work lie fourteen (14) country case studies. Each of the case studies particularly captures the energy systems and societal structures within the examined case study countries.

Specifically, the Greek case study explores the energy production by big-scale solar systems, the improvement of energy efficiency in the building sector with suitable interventions, as well as the diffusion of electrical and thermal energy production and storage in domestic level. In order to outline the existing status, a literature review was carried out and stakeholders’ opinions were gathered via 21 semi-structured interviews and a participatory workshop with forty-three (43) participants. More information is available at the relevant report D3.2 Context of 15 case studies: Greece - Solar Power, Buildings, and Micro-Generation & Storage.

Research during the next stage of implementation, will focus on a comparison among the different transition pathways and will further investigate stakeholders’ and general public’s opinions regarding the importance of climate policy risks. Among the project’s ultimate objectives is to identify the best policy strategies (June 2018), and simultaneously to develop a non-specialist “tool box” to assess and evaluate the socio-economic costs & benefits of mitigation (July 2018).