"Much has been said on how to reduce current anthropogenic emissions with the aid of a portfolio of existing technologies. However, stabilization of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses to a safe level requires that over time net emissions fall to zero. There is only one way that this can be achieved in a manner that is acceptable to the majority of the world's citizens: through some kind of technological revolution. To bring about such an innovation breakthrough extensive research and development (R&D) investments will be required. This will be specifically important for Europe, given its leading position in climate negotiations and in the light of the Lisbon Agenda. Technological breakthroughs will have an essential role in tackling the competitiveness issue that has gained great relevance lately in the policy debate. On top of this, technological transfers to Developing Countries could be the turning key to solve the logjam affecting international negotiations.The current proposal aims at producing an unprecedented analysis of energy-related innovation mechanisms; understanding the role of R&D investments and of inter countries and inter sector spillovers; disentangling the role of public and private R&D investments; incorporating in the analysis the uncertainty that inevitably affects the successfulness of R&D programs; simulating optimal responses using an integrated assessment model. The analysis will make use of empirical analysis of existing databases and will collect new data. Expert elicitation methods will be used in order to better assess technology-specific uncertain effectiveness of R&D programs. Simulation models will be used to produce quantitative grounded results. Summa of the analyses will be projections for optimal public and private energy R&D and energy technologies investment strategies as a product of a cost effectiveness analysis of a stringent climate stabilization target."