Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research

About 4CMR

The Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research (4CMR) was one of the research centres of the Department of Land Economy. The centre identified and assessed policies that reduce the risks of climate change while allowing for global economic development through the study of both mitigation (reducing climate change) and adaptation (reducing the risks when climate change does occur). Our work explored trajectories of mitigation and adaptation policies that simultaneously achieve economic, energy, environmental and public health aims.

4CMR Book is launched

The 4CMR book is now available through Imperial College Press. The book includes chapters by most of the past research staff of 4CMR, with modeling results from the energy-economy-environment models, Future Technology Transformation, human health risk co-benefits, political analysis and the feasibility (social, economic, technological) of decarbonisation options.

Research Projects

Carbon CAP

4CMR was part of an EU FP7 network - Carbon CAP - exploring collective action on carbon emissions through consumer-based policies. 4CMR was leading the activities around assessment of the economic, political, legal and social feasibility of policies aimed at reducing global carbon emissions through changes in consumer behaviour.

Wildlife Conservation and Energy

4CMR was part of a Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) project modelling the impacts of renewable energy systems on wildlife globally, with a focus on birdlife. 4CMR's role was to provide scenarios of future deployment patterns of wind energy, based on the Future Technology Transformation model. This work is now done by C-EENRG.

Understanding the Food-Water-Energy Nexus

This joint UK-Brazil project, now being led through C-EENRG, uses the technology and decision diffusion model methodology Future Technology Transformations (FTT), developed in Cambridge by a team of 4 researchers led Dr J.-F. Mercure, along with the global macroeconometric model E3ME (www.e3me.com).

ICE ARC

Ice, Climate, Economics – Arctic Research on Change looked into the current and future changes in Arctic sea ice, and investigated the consequences of these changes both on the economics of the area and globally, and social aspects such as on indigenous peoples. 4CMR was charged with assisting the macroeconomic analysis, led primarily by Lydia Prieg.

MAGIC

4CMR was part of the consortium in the £4.1M Managing Air for Green Inner Cities (MAGIC) grant from the EPSRC as part of the Grand Challenge Research programme. 4CMR's role was to develop cost-benefit methods for health impacts of community designs.

FTT adds Transport

Jean-Francois Mercure and Aileen Lam have published analysis of policies for reducing emissions of private passenger transport fleets in six major economies, in the journal Environmental Research Letters. It provides a method to assess the effectiveness of taxes and subsidies on emissions by exploring the likely response of agents using a marketing science approach.

Financing the Future of Energy

4CMR collaborated with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and PWC to produce the ‘Financing the Future of Energy’ report, launched at the 2015 Global Financial Markets Forum in Abu Dhabi, setting out the changing nature of the global energy system over the next several decades.

Climate policy and public health

Our research helped mobilise political will for climate action through evidence for public health co-benefits. This included advising the Department of Energy and Climate Change on the potential role of global health co-benefits and economic development.

UK Climate Risk Assessment

Doug Crawford-Brown of 4CMR was appointed to the UK team producing the 2017 UK Climate Risk Assessment, in regard to Chapter 8 on cross-cutting issues.