Strengthening the Climate Change Scenario Framework
Published:26 Nov.2020 Source:International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
The scenario framework contains a set of scenarios about how society may evolve in the future -- so-called Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) -- and defines different levels of climate change known as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). Combining both aspects of the framework allows researchers to develop integrated analyses of how future societies can avoid climate change and cope with its impacts.
"The SSPs started with brief global narratives combined with projections of a few key variables like GDP, population, and urbanization. In the past few years, researchers extended the SSPs to individual countries, cities, and sectors. They've also added new indicators, such as governance, income distribution, access to basic services, and air pollution. The framework has been widely and successfully applied, and has shaped climate change research," explains Brian O'Neill, director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI) and main author of the assessment published in Nature Climate Change.