Dr. Christine Merk

Deputy head

Topics: Sustainable Development, Climate, Behavioral Economics

Information

Main research interests

  • Perceptions of Solar Radiation Management
  • Societal perceptions of CCS and Carbon Dioxide Removal
  • Nudging Sustainable Consumption

Christine Merk has been the Deputy Director of the Research Center Global Commons and Climate Policy at the Kiel Institute since 2020. Her main research interest are individuals’ trade-offs between reducing emissions, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and stratospheric aerosol injection. She conducts focus groups, deliberations, field experiments and survey experiments to study public perceptions of marine CDR, like ocean alkalinization or seagrass restoration, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), and stratospheric aerosol injection.

She leads the work on public perceptions of marine CDR in the consortia OceanNETs (H2020) and SeaO2-CDR (Horizon Europe). Furthermore, she contributes to the Horizon Europe Consortium Uptake and the interdisciplinary assessment of marine CDR in the research mission CDRMare. She is member of Working Group 41 on Ocean Interventions for Climate Change Mitigation of the Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP).

Christine’s other research interest are ways to promote more sustainable diets. She researches the effects of interventions to promote climate-friendly meal choices in field experiments.

Christine has a background in policy analysis and administration science from the University of Konstanz and Rutgers University. She earned her Doctorate in Quantitative Economics from Kiel University in 2016.