[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 26 (Wednesday, February 7, 2001)]
[Notices]
[Pages 9304-9307]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-3189]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY


Office of Science; Office of Science Financial Assistance Program 
Notice 01-22; Integrated Assessment of Global Climate Change Research

AGENCY: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)

ACTION: Notice inviting grant applications.

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SUMMARY: The Office of Biological and Environmental Research (OBER) of 
the Office of Science (SC), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), hereby 
announces interest in receiving applications for the Integrated 
Assessment of Global Climate Change Program. This notice is a follow on 
to six previous notices published in the Federal Register. The program 
funds research that contributes to integrated assessment of global 
climate change, in particular, research to develop and improve methods 
and tools that focus on specialized topics of special importance to 
integrated assessments. The research program supports the Department's 
Global Change Research Program, the U.S. Global Change Research 
Program, and the Administration's goals to understand, model, and 
assess the effects of increasing greenhouse gas levels in the 
atmosphere and within that framework to evaluate the economic costs and 
predicted responses to options that

[[Page 9305]]

would mitigate the long term rise in greenhouse gases.

DATES: Applicants are encouraged (but not required) to submit a brief 
preapplication for programmatic review. Early submission of 
preapplications is suggested to allow time for meaningful dialogue.
    The deadline for receipt of formal applications is 4:30 p.m., 
E.D.T., April 3, 2001, to be accepted for merit review and to permit 
timely consideration for award in Fiscal Year 2001 and early Fiscal 
Year 2002.

ADDRESSES: Preapplications, referencing Program Notice 01-22, should be 
sent E-mail to [email protected].
    Formal applications, referencing Program Notice 01-22, should be 
sent to: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Grants and 
Contracts Division, SC-64, 19901 Germantown Road, Germantown, MD 20874-
1290, ATTN: Program Notice 01-22. This address must also be used when 
submitting applications by U.S. Postal Service Express Mail or any 
other commercial overnight delivery service, or when hand-carried by 
the applicant.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. John Houghton, Environmental 
Sciences Division, SC-74, Office of Biological and Environmental 
Research, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy, 19901 
Germantown Road, Germantown, MD 20874-1290, telephone: (301) 903-8288, 
E-mail: [email protected], fax: (301) 903-8519. The full 
text of Program Notice 01-22 is available via the World Wide Web using 
the following web site address: http://www.sc.doe.gov/production/grants/grants.html.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Integrated assessment of global climate 
change is defined here as the analysis, including costs and benefits, 
of the consequences of climate change and the actions to mitigate it 
from the cause, such as greenhouse gas emissions, through impacts, such 
as altered hydrologic regimes and changed energy requirements for space 
conditioning due to temperature changes. Integrated assessment is 
sometimes, but not always, implemented as a computer model.
    A description of integrated assessment may be found in Chapter 10: 
``Integrated Assessment of Climate Change: An Overview and Comparison 
of Approaches and Results,'' in Climate Change 1995: Economic and 
Social Dimensions of Climate Change, edited by Bruce, James P.; Lee, 
Hoesung; and Haites, Erik F., Cambridge University Press, 1996. A 
Special Issue of The Energy Journal entitled ``The Costs of the Kyoto 
Protocol: A Multi-Model Evaluation'', 1999, presents analyses from 
several integrated assessment models of predicted costs to meet various 
target emission scenarios. The Pew Center for Global Climate Change 
posts a collection of papers on the economics of global climate change 
at http://www.pewclimate.org/projects/index that reflect some of the 
research results supported by this program. The web site for the Energy 
Modeling Forum (http://www.stanford.edu/group/EMF/home/index.htm) 
contains further background information.
    The results of research in integrated assessment of global climate 
change help the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program (USGCRP) in 
several ways. First, the integrated assessment models may be used 
outside the USGCRP by the policy community to evaluate specific 
options. The research described in this notice is intended to provide a 
sound scientific foundation for analyzing benefits and costs, some of 
which are not necessarily measured monetarily. The research supported 
as a result of this solicitation will be judged in part on its 
potential to improve and/or support the analytical basis for policy 
development. Policy analysis will not be funded. Second, results from 
integrated assessments can be used to identify high priority research 
needs of the rest of the USGCRP. A representation of the salient 
aspects of climate change, from emissions through impacts, is able to 
provide useful information regarding the degree to which underlying 
uncertainty in specific topics influence the results. And third, this 
program sponsors research on selected topics that focus on the 
connection of two or more different aspects of the entire analysis of 
global climate change. This research can lead to insights that would be 
otherwise unavailable if investigating a more narrowly focused aspect 
of climate change.
    The program is narrowly focused and will concentrate support on the 
topics described below. Applications that involve development of 
analytical models and computer codes will be judged partly on the basis 
of proposed tasks to prepare documentation and to make the models and 
codes available to other groups. The following is a list of topics that 
are high priority. Topics proposed by principal investigators that fall 
outside this list will need strong justification.

A. Technology Innovation and Diffusion

    This category has been a primary focus of the Integrated Assessment 
of Global Climate Change Program since its inception. The research in 
this element is not a stand-alone activity. Its purpose is to fill 
critical gaps in current integrated assessment modeling.
    Assumptions regarding the effects of technology innovation and 
diffusion of greenhouse gas emissions are some of the most important 
contributors to uncertainty in integrated assessment models for the 
prediction of greenhouse emissions over long time scales. Making good 
predictions and being consistent across different modules of the models 
are crucial to good modeling. The representation of backstop 
technologies; resource depletion; labor and capital productivity 
improvements; capital, labor and energy substitutability, and 
adaptation are all based on technology assumptions. Technology 
innovation and diffusion affects energy sector consumption and 
technology characteristics, carbon emissions, economic growth, and many 
other factors in integrated assessment.
    There is a need to identify and separate the driving forces behind 
the prediction of future changes in greenhouse gas emissions. 
Information on the driving forces, such as GDP (gross domestic 
product), productivity, energy mix, and invention, innovation, and 
diffusion are important for integrated assessment. The improvement in 
the ability of the integrated assessment models to represent 
technological change as a function of variables that are determined by 
the model (``endogenizing technological change'') is a key thrust.
    The rate and nature of technology diffusion from the OECD 
(Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries to 
developing countries is not well understood. Predicting economic 
structural change in developing countries is also problematical. Much 
of the uncertainty in integrated assessment models comes from the 
difficulty in predicting the response of the energy sector and 
greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries to both regulation and 
technological innovations in OECD nations. How should integrated 
assessment models treat the transfer of technology from OECD countries 
to developing countries?

    This research would help provide tools to address other policy-
relevant questions such as the following, as they relate to 
greenhouse gas emissions:
    What effect would various policy options have on ``carbon 
leakage'', the movement of emissions of greenhouse gases away from 
relatively regulated countries to relatively unregulated countries?
    How can research and development accelerate the speed of moving 
innovations

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that would mitigate climate change to the manufacturing production 
line? How can the linkages and connections between R&D and 
manufacturing efficiency, invention, innovation, and adoption be 
simulated and modeled quantitatively?
    How do innovation and/or diffusion relate to measurable 
parameters of research and development, such as public and private 
research and development, investments, or regulations?

B. Develop Consistent International Data

    Certain data sets are important to collect and distribute to the 
integrated assessment community so they can be used by several 
researchers. The focus of this research would be to fill in important 
integrated assessment data gaps. Past data collection projects funded 
by this program include (a) providing an energy quantity flow data base 
and assembling fossil fuel resource estimates compatible with the GTAP 
data base, (b) statistics on non-market energy sources in developing 
countries, and (c) carbon dioxide emissions and land use changes by 
country.

C. Supply Curves for Non-Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Gases

    Carbon dioxide provides about two-thirds of the total atmospheric 
forcing potential of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. The remainder 
results from such gases as methane, nitrous oxide, and the halocarbons. 
The emission scenarios for the other greenhouse gases and particularly 
the cost of reducing those emissions are much more poorly understood 
than those for carbon dioxide. This research topic would provide costs 
of reducing emissions of the other greenhouse gases under business-as-
usual scenarios as well as under plausible policy actions.

D. Representation of Anthropogenic Release or Sequestration of Carbon 
Dioxide Through Land Use Changes and Carbon Sequestration Technologies

    Integrated Assessment models do not represent with desirable 
accuracy forecasts of carbon dioxide release or sequestration through 
anthropogenic activities such as land use changes and carbon 
sequestration. Research in this element is not a stand-alone activity. 
Proposed research will be judged on the basis of the potential utility 
of these research results in integrated assessment models.
    Research is ongoing that will improve our understanding and ability 
to develop innovative carbon sequestration technologies and procedures 
that will help reduce levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Such 
developments may rely on the continued use of fossil fuels with the 
sequestration of carbon in the terrestrial biosphere, in underground 
formations, and in the ocean. Research in this topic would identify and 
quantify the costs and likely responses to various carbon sequestration 
policy options, in a way that can be adopted by the integrated 
assessment models. Research funded under this topic might also develop 
new information on global carbon dioxide emissions from various land 
use change and land use management scenarios, including forests and 
agricultural lands. The emphasis is on global scale estimates, perhaps 
regionally disaggregated. What potential is there for enhancing carbon 
sequestration? What changes in the global carbon balance could be 
expected from policy options to enhance sequestration?

Program Funding

    It is anticipated that up to $800,000 will be available for 
multiple awards to be made in Fiscal Year 2001 and early Fiscal Year 
2002 in the categories described above, contingent on the availability 
of appropriated funds. Applications may request project support up to 
three years, with out-year support contingent on the availability of 
funds, progress of the research and programmatic needs. Annual budgets 
are expected to range from $30,000 to $150,000 total costs. Funds for 
this research primarily will come from the Integrated Assessment 
Research program; some funds for research on Topic D will come from the 
Carbon Management Science program.

Collaboration

    Applicants are encouraged to collaborate with researchers in other 
institutions, such as: universities, industry, non-profit 
organizations, federal laboratories and Federally Funded Research and 
Development Centers (FFRDCs), including the DOE National Laboratories, 
where appropriate, and to include cost sharing and/or consortia 
wherever feasible. Additional information on collaboration is available 
in the Application Guide for the Office of Science Financial Assistance 
Program that is available via the World Wide Web at: http://www.sc.doe.gov/production/grants/Colab.html.

Preapplications

    A brief preapplication is strongly encouraged but not required 
prior to submission of a full application. The preapplication should 
identify on the cover sheet the institution, Principal Investigator 
name, address, telephone, fax and E-mail address, title of the project, 
and proposed collaborators. The preapplication should consist of a one 
to two page narrative describing the research project objectives and 
methods of accomplishment. These will be reviewed relative to the scope 
and research needs of the Integrated Assessment of Global Climate 
Change Research Program. Please note that notification of a successful 
preapplication is not an indication that an award will be made in 
response to the formal application.

Merit Review

    Applications will be subjected to scientific merit review (peer 
review) and will be evaluated against the following evaluation criteria 
listed in descending order of importance as codified at 10 CFR 
605.10(d):
    1. Scientific and/or Technical Merit of the Project,
    2. Appropriateness of the Proposed Method or Approach,
    3. Competency of Applicant's Personnel and Adequacy of Proposed 
Resources,
    4. Reasonableness and Appropriateness of the Proposed Budget.
    The evaluation will include program policy factors such as the 
relevance of the proposed research to the terms of the announcement and 
the agency's programmatic needs. Note, external peer reviewers are 
selected with regard to both their scientific expertise and the absence 
of conflict-of-interest issues. Non-federal reviewers may be used, and 
submission of an application constitutes agreement that this is 
acceptable to the investigator(s) and the submitting institution.
    Information about the development and submission of applications, 
eligibility, limitations, evaluation, selection process, and other 
policies and procedures may be found in 10 CFR Part 605, and in the 
Application Guide for the Office of Science Financial Assistance 
Program. Electronic access to the Guide and required forms is made 
available via the World Wide Web at: http://www.sc.doe.gov/production/grants/grants.html. DOE is under no obligation to pay for any costs 
associated with the preparation or submission of applications if an 
award is not made.
    The research project description must be 15 pages or less, 
exclusive of attachments and must contain an abstract or summary of the 
proposed research. All collaborators should be listed with the abstract 
or summary. On the grant face page, form DOE F 4650.2, in block 15, 
also provide the PI's phone number, fax number and E-mail address.

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Attachments include curriculum vitae, a listing of all current and 
pending federal support and letters of intent when collaborations are 
part of the proposed research. Curriculum vitae should be submitted in 
a form similar to that of NIH or NSF (two to three pages), see for 
example: http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/cpo/gpg/fkit.htm#forms-9.
    Related Funding Opportunities: Investigators may wish to obtain 
information about the following related funding opportunities:

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

    Within the context of its Human Dimensions of Global Change 
Research Program, the Office of Global Programs of the National Oceanic 
and Atmospheric Administration will support research that identifies 
and analyzes how social and economic systems are currently influenced 
by fluctuations in climate, and how human behavior can be (or why it 
may not be) affected based on information about variability in the 
climate system. The program is particularly interested in learning how 
advanced climate information on seasonal to yearly time scales, as well 
as an improved understanding of current coping mechanisms, could be 
used for reducing vulnerability and providing for more efficient 
adjustment to these variations. Notice of this program is included in 
the Program Announcement for NOAA's Climate and Global Change Program, 
which is published each spring in the Federal Register. The deadline 
for proposals to be considered in Fiscal Year 2002 is expected to be in 
late summer 2001. For further information, contact: Caitlin Simpson; 
Office of Global Programs; National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration; 1100 Wayne Ave., Suite 1225; Silver Spring, MD 20910; 
telephone: (301) 427-2089, ext. 152; Internet: [email protected].

National Science Foundation

    Starting in FY 2001, NSF will support research and related 
activities associated with the dynamics of coupled natural and human 
systems through its Biocomplexity special competition. The 
Biocomplexity 2001 announcement can be accessed at http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/getpub?nsf0134. The deadline for submission of proposals for 
the FY 2001 competition is March 16, 2001. NSF staff expect the 
competition to continue in future fiscal years, although deadlines may 
be earlier in the fiscal year and the focus may change somewhat. 
Potential applicants should regularly consult the NSF Web site for 
updates.

    The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number for this 
program is 81.049, and the solicitation control number is ERFAP 10 
CFR Part 605.


John Rodney Clark,
Associate Director of Science for Resource Management.
[FR Doc. 01-3189 Filed 2-6-01; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6450-01-P