Evidence-based tools to support a Green Transformation
The environment, the economy, financial markets, social dynamics: literally all parts in our socio-economic-ecologic system are closely intertwined and interdependent. We have to bear these interdependencies in mind—well, in the first place we have to start to understand their very nature and properties!—if we want to come to acceptable, and accepted, solutions for the Great Transition ahead. How can we manage to drastically reduce carbon burning and at the same time keep civil society well away from massive tensions and potential collapse?
To contribute to the huge endeavor of the green transformation, the Hub can make use of a great deal of its expertise which we will continue to advance. For instance, we use agent-based models to measure the systemic risks of economies, the linkages between the economy and the financial sector, or the economy and environmental destruction. We can also apply our newest insights into the functioning of social dynamics and fragmentation processes, and the difficulties of controlling and balancing social interests.
Based on our models, we aim to provide policymakers with viable possibilities, evidence-based decision tools, and strategies to better manage the necessary decisions to get through the transition: to minimize greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining the highest possible social acceptability by minimizing economic tensions that will arise as a consequence of the transition.
Hub scientists have just started to take a deeper look into the nature of production chain networks. Once their complex dependencies and the CO2 flows in the system are systemically understood, we hope to make proposals on how to meaningfully re-arrange production networks to become more sustainable and socially acceptable. We are thinking of an agent-based model that shows changes of CO2 flows when we “shock” it, for example, by reducing meat consumption by half, or by taxing or closing large CO2 contributors.