Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

This award recognises a research institute that has become the world’s foremost authority on planetary boundaries and Earth system tipping points. In 2025, PIK scientists contributed to the Global Tipping Points Report, which identified widespread coral reef die‑off as the first documented climate tipping point and documented mounting risks across ice sheets, ocean currents and rainforests. PIK researchers also provided observational evidence that four major tipping elements – the Greenland ice sheet, the Atlantic overturning circulation, the Amazon rainforest and the South American monsoon system – are losing stability, with lead author Niklas Boers warning that “we now have convincing observational evidence that multiple Earth system components are destabilising.”

These findings, combined with 16 PIK scientists being named among the top 0.1 per cent of the world’s most cited researchers, demonstrate the institute’s unmatched scientific authority. Beyond tipping points, PIK continued to supply the integrated assessment models that underpin the IPCC scenario database. Its REMIND and IMACLIM‑R frameworks quantify the economic and energy transformations required for 1.5°C pathways, providing the analytical backbone for national climate pledges and corporate transition plans. The institute’s 2025 science‑based statement on returning global warming to below 1.5°C, alongside a commentary by Director Johan Rockström warning that the world has missed a critical decade for planetary stability, reinforced its role as the definitive scientific voice on the feasibility, urgency and cost of net‑zero transitions.

For providing the modelling infrastructure that makes decarbonisation measurable and the early‑warning system that makes it imperative, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research receives this recognition.