The DFG Leverage Points Network met from 10th to 12th of October 2024 for the first time to work on and develop an innovative framework for assessing the means to achieve plausible climate change adaptation, mitigation and transformation pathways.

This first meeting took place at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich focusing on the realm re-structure. We worked on the question how to analyse the capability of institutions to effectively deal with adaptation, mitigation and transformation pathways regarding climate change. We collected ideas on which institutions need to be reformed, renewed or strengthened as well as have started to learn from collapse of institutions (e.g., related to the COVID-19 pandemic and collapse in small-scale fisheries).

Two guest speakers gave us important imputs to work upon. Prof. David J. Abson from the Leuphana University Lüneburg, is the esteemed expert on the leverage points concept. Prof. Abson has written one of the core articles that revived the seminal work by Donella Meadows on leverage points and has since then spearheaded cutting-edge conceptual and empirical research in the field. Most recently, he received an ERC consolidator grant to research the role of sufficiency in sustainability transformation. Hence, Prof. Abson did not only contribute to the workshop through his long-standing work on the subject, but also helped to kick-start the discussions around the conceptual advances of the networking group.

Furthermore, Prof. Matthias Garschagen from the Department of Geography at LMU and one of the leading global experts in topics related to climate change adaption, provided important inputs. He served as Lead Author in the IPCC Special Report on the Oceans and Cryosphere under a Changing Climate (SROCC), the 6th Assessment Report of Working Group II, as well as the Synthesis Report. Further, he contributed to the network topics realm of re-structure with his experience about decision-making for transformations in coastal megacities, particularly in Southeast Asia.