The Paris Climate Change Conference reached the hoped-for breakthrough: 195 nations agreed to the climate agreement. This agreement for the first time obliges all nations to protect the climate and will become effective in 2020. The Climate Protection Agreement sets the target to keep global warming due to greenhouse gases below 2°C, if possible, at 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial level. Scientists of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) study climate change and develop innovative technologies to push the transformation of the energy system.
“The Paris Climate Change Conference sent a ground-breaking signal and will initiate a technology change,” the President of KIT, Professor Holger Hanselka, says. “This success certainly was also based on the clear scientific facts relating to worldwide climate change and all foreseeable consequences. Our task is now to fill this agreement with life and to develop safe and sustainable structures for energy supply. Only if we will replace fossil fuels by renewable ones, can the worldwide climate objectives be reached. This is a clear mandate to science. Science now has to develop technologies for sustainable energy supply in cooperation with industry and in accordance with the needs of society. At the same time, it will be necessary to further study climate change and its impacts as well as adaptation strategies.”
Digital press kit of KIT relating to the UN Climate Change Convention in Paris: http://www.pkm.kit.edu/un-klimakonferenz2015.php (in German only).
In close partnership with society, KIT develops solutions for urgent challenges – from climate change, energy transition and sustainable use of natural resources to artificial intelligence, sovereignty and an aging population. As The University in the Helmholtz Association, KIT unites scientific excellence from insight to application-driven research under one roof – and is thus in a unique position to drive this transformation. As a University of Excellence, KIT offers its more than 10,000 employees and 22,800 students outstanding opportunities to shape a sustainable and resilient future. KIT – Science for Impact.