Niklas Höhne

He and colleagues broke down the challenge of net-zero global greenhouse gas emissions into actionable sectoral benchmarks. For example in 2016, they argued that this would mean the end of sales of cars with internal combustion engines by 2035. In 2021, the International Energy Agency IEA picked up this goal. Finally in 2022, the EU adopted this date in their regulation on CO2 emissions from cars and vans.

Höhne, Farhana Yamin and Erik Haites were the first to propose in 2013 a global goal for a future international climate agreement to phase out greenhouse gas emissions entirely. This idea was eventually included in the Paris Agreement adopted in 2015 as “to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century”, the so-called net zero emissions goal. Accordingly, many countries set themselves national net zero emissions goals. Höhne and colleagues were the first to find that the full implementation of this wave of national net zero goals would bring the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement within reach.

His PhD thesis work of 2005 on sharing the effort of reducing greenhouse gas emissions between countries contains the statement that developed countries would need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% to 40% in 2020 compared to 1990 and 80% to 95% by 2050 to be compatible with limiting global temperature increase to 2 °C. These values were picked up in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and became the internationally agreed standard for the required reductions by developed countries at that time and inspired many national greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, e.g. Norway, Japan, German, EU, Korea, Mexico, USA.

Höhne contributes to reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 2003.He is author of the chapter on climate policies and international cooperation in the Fourth and Fifth Assessment Report and contributing author for the Sixth Assessment Report of the IPCC. The IPCC with its authors received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He is also lead author of all UNEP Emissions Gap reports since 2010. He created the Climate Action Tracker in 2009 that tracks commitments and actions of countries on climate change.

Already in his master's thesis "Photothermal deflection spectroscopy as a method to characterize solar cells based on amorphous silicon" Höhne was devoted to the promotion of renewable energy. As programme officer at the UNFCCC secretariat from 1998 on he supported the negotiations on reporting under the Kyoto Protocol, projections of greenhouse gas emissions, fluorinated greenhouse gases and emissions from international transport. Höhne led studies related to the international climate change negotiations and national climate policies.

Höhne attended the RWTH Aachen University with a one year scholarship at INSA Lyon and received his master's degree in physics in 1997. From 1998 to 2001 he worked as staff member at the UNFCCC secretariat. In 2001 he joined Ecofys, a leading climate and energy consultancy. In 2005 he received his PhD from Department of Science, Technology and Society, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, for the dissertation on “What is next after the Kyoto Protocol – Assessment of options for international climate policy post 2012″. In 2009 he became Director of Energy and Climate Policy at Ecofys. Together with colleagues he founded in 2014 the NewClimate Institute, a non-profit research organization for climate policy. In 2017 he was appointed Special Professor “Mitigation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions” at Wageningen University.

Niklas Höhne (born October 1970) is a German scientist in the field of national and international climate policy and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. He is founder of the NewClimate Institute in Cologne, Germany and professor at Wageningen University.