The objective of this research network was the use of innovative approaches to shed light on questions regarding a long-term and integrated climate and energy policy from an economic perspective. First, the critique of the Stern Review, concerning the treating of damages, the specification of mitigation costs and the art of discounting is summarized and extended within an advanced analysis framework. Second, due to the close entanglement of climate and energy policy, the influence of both policies on trade, competitiveness and energy security was examined.  Finally, the chances of success of international environmental agreements beyond the Kyoto-Protocol were examined. Theoretical analyses, statistic-econometric methods, simulation models and laboratory experiments were used to investigate these questions.The core of the research network consisted of the two Leibniz-Institutes Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Potsdam. The fundamental economic analysis of climate policy instruments, the macroeconomic analysis of environmentally relevant policies, the empirical and econometric analysis as well as the laboratory experiments was done by the ZEW. The quantitative analyses of climate change impacts, potential mitigation efforts and climate policy simulations with a detailed illustration of the energy system was mainly performed by the PIK.Furthermore, cooperation with top researchers and leading institutions outside of the Leibniz association were implemented into the research network. In Germany the partner was Professor Till Requate from the University of Kiel. Within Europe the partner was the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) in Venice, Italy. The international cooperation inside this research network deepened the contacts of the ZEW with two leading institutes in the USA, Resources for the Future (RFF) in Washington D.C. and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. Thus the transatlantic aspect of this global question was taken into account. The Asiatic point of view was contributed by Professor Michael Oberheitmann from the University of Tshinghua in Peking, China.