DIAMOND will update, upgrade, and fully open six integrated assessment models (IAMs) that are emblematic in scientific and policy processes, improving their sectoral and technological detail, spatiotemporal resolution, and geographic granularity. It will further enhance modelling capacity to assess the feasibility and desirability of Paris-compliant mitigation pathways, their interplay with adaptation, circular economy, and other SDGs, their distributional and equity effects, and their resilience to extremes, as well as robust risk management and investment strategies.

Despite the wide recognition of the complex interactions between trade and climate policies, the state-of-the-art capabilities in macroeconomic models face substantial limitations, such as lack of granular data, dependence on conventional trade theories, limited empirical evidence on trade-climate interactions, limited representation of the value and material chain in key (existing and emerging) sectors, heavy reliance on frameworks not accounting for endogenous technical change, limited understanding of the role of developing countries in trade, etc.

The overall goal of the RETOOL project is to advance our understanding of how to address the twin challenges of responding to the climate imperative while strengthening and reinvigorating democratic governance. The project has four overarching objectives: 

(i) To deepen our understanding of the relationship between democratic governance and the climate imperative by developing a novel analytical framework and creating new empirical underpinnings, including important new open-access datasets;