Abstract: In a cross country analysis using national data for both OECD and developing countries, we estimate a regression model with different coefficients for different drivers for per capita meat consumption. The model contains data from approximately 125 countries (depending on the variables included) on meat consumption and production, relative size of agricultural area and pasture and meadows, PPP adjusted consumer prices for meat (and for food as control variable), PPP adjusted GNI per capita, HDI, degree of urbanisation, religion and geographical/cultural belonging.A regression analysis has been conducted, using OLS with data from 2011 and an aggregation of all meat types as the dependent variable. In the results all of the mentioned variables have a significant impact on meat consumption.Based on a first scenario analysis which has been presented on a TradeM Workshop of MACSUR in September 2014, this paper will extend the approach of an estimated cross-country analysis to improve the demand elasticities in the MAGNET model for meat and meat products. Further other demand determining factors of meat consumption, e.g. behavioural change towards less meat consumption (vegetarian or vegan) derived from the regression analysis will be fed into the MAGNET model. This extended approach will help to analyse the resulting market effects of a changing demand pattern for meat.  MAGNET will provide insights in consequences on supply and international trade for meat and meat products.The aim of this combined approach is to further explore the relationship between production and consumption, and to what extent the one is driving the other. Based on the application of the panel data method for a detailed demand analysis with the combination of the feedback from the supply and trade side based on the MAGNET model we will be able to provide a tool which is able to address the important questions of demand responses under different adaptation or mitigation strategies towards clime change, such as tax measures like fat taxes. This extended tool also contributes to an improved decision making process of policy makers under different options to respond to climate change issues – not only with regard to the supply side of agricultural production but also to the consumption side. No Label

Abstract: Over the last decades modelling of climate change through the analysis of empirical meteorological data has become of great interest. The standard approach gives satisfactory results only in the climatic zones with extreme dynamics of climate change, thus there is need to develop and apply more subtle methods such as fractal analysis and chaotic evolution analysis of the atmospheric system. The scaling analysis of meteorological time series is complicated because of the presence of localized trends and nonstationarities. The objective of this study was to characterize scaling properties (i.e. statistical self-similarity) of the daily air temperature, wind velocity, relative air humidity, global radiation and precipitation through multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis on data from 31 years for stations located in Finland, Germany, Poland and Spain. The empirical singularity spectra indicated their multifractal structure. The richness of the studied multifractals was evaluated by the width of their spectrum, indicating considerable differences in dynamics and development. The log-log plots of the cumulative distributions of all the studied absolute and normalized meteorological parameters tended to linear functions for high values of the response, indicating that these distributions were consistent with the power law asymptotic behaviour. Additionally, we investigated the type of multifractality that underlies the q-dependence of the generalized Hurst exponent, by analysing the corresponding shuffled and surrogate time series. The results suggest that MFDFA is valuable for assessing the change of climate dynamics. No Label

Abstract: Developing scenarios is a common interest within MACSUR researchers. This report  outlines the main results of a survey of TRADE-M participants with respect to the  scenarios used within modelling, the time frame and the importance of factors in  their development. Most researchers are generating their own regionally defined  scenarios, though some are basing these on IPCC scenarios. Generally, they adopt  a short-term time frame of up to 2020 to estimate impacts. Most see food  production as the main driver behind the scenarios followed by climate change  mitigation and adaptation. The main weakness seems to be lack of interest in  modelling variability due to weather effects, these may be an argument for  stronger cross-collaboration between different MACSUR consortia within the crops  and animals groups. No Label