CC-TAME compiles a set of bottom-up type economic models – coupled with biophysical models which in turn are fed by RCMs – who have a proven record of successful policy assessment, are theoretically founded by state-of-the-art economic theory and are scientifically competitive. Thus, CC-TAME tools will be strongly policy relevant by assessing the impacts of climate (and other sectoral) policies on land use and ecosystems, and at the same time competitive scientifically by, for example, coupling regional climate models with land-use models on continental scales with high resolution. The feed-back of land-use on the climate system will be achieved by iterating resulting land-use change parameters from the coupled biophysical-economic models with the RCMs.
Detailed representation of explicit biophysical and economic mitigation and adaptation strategies in both agriculture and forestry will be achieved by employing biophysical models on the plot/stand level coupled with farm/forest enterprise decision models. CC-TAME compiles the latest and most scientifically competitive crop/trees growth models that operate in a consistent framework on plot to national level and are specialized to estimate the responses and adaptation possibilities of crops and trees. All biophysical models are either directly driven by daily climate scenarios or are informed on higher aggregates of scenario runs of such models in order to assess ecosystem adaptability to both scenarios of extreme climate events and changes in weather patterns. All decision models in CC-TAME are driven by geographically explicit and consistent scenarios for the distribution and pressures from socio-economic drivers. Scenarios feed into the models either on the grid level up to the national or even regional level.
Bioenergy sources and pathways include conventional use of heat and power, but already today some tools include comprehensive coverage of second generation bioenergy pathways as well as those of future biorefineries. Bioenergy systems will be analysed in a geographically explicit fashion taking into account current industrial use (e.g., pulp and paper production) to assess location specific circumstances and economies of scale under polyproduction. CC-TAME will assess and evaluate, in terms of their efficiency and effectiveness, the impacts of alternative policy scenarios using specialized economic models which are either founded on modern welfare- or micro-economics. The associated costs and benefits of the policies will be assessed in a geographically nested fashion on European, Member State, and farm/enterprise level which will yield additional insights with respect to incentive compatibility of policy instruments across scales.
