Systematic construction of global socioeconomic pathways using internally consistent element combinations

Abstract

Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) describe alternative outcomes for socioeconomic development. Papers describing the conceptual framework for SSPs refer to challenges to mitigation and to adaptation as fundamental concepts. Identifying which socioeconomic factors are the most important determinants of these challenges, and how to combine them in an internally consistent manner, is critical to scenario design. Here we demonstrate a systematic and traceable approach for identifying and prioritizing scenario elements. In this study, we identify 13 determinants of mitigation and adaptation challenges at a globally aggregated scale based on a survey of 25 experts. In addition, we use 19 expert elicitations and a cross-impact balance analysis to create approximately 1.5 million combinations of trends for these determinants and rank them in terms of internal consistency. Using the 1,000 most consistent combinations, we construct composite metrics for challenges to mitigation and adaptation to uncover distinguishable characteristics for five types of SSPs: those with Low, Medium, and High challenges to both mitigation and adaptation (consistent with SSPs 1-3), and those in which adaptation challenges or mitigation challenges dominate (consistent with SSPs 4-5). We find a distinguishing characteristic for mixed typology SSP4 (low mitigation challenges, high adaptation challenges): High trends for innovation capacity could lower challenges to mitigation but not necessarily challenges to adaptation. We also find that a low trend for quality of governance consistently corresponds to higher challenges to adaptation. These findings are suggestive for future research on the SSPs in particular, while our analytical approach is instructive for scenario development in general.

Comparing Approaches for the Integration of Stakeholder Perspectives in Environmental Decision Making

“…A particular challenge is to ensure that the scenarios are comprehensive (i.e., do not leave out important developments) and internally consistent. The formalized methods for this, such as the cross-impact-balance method [75,76], require experts to judge-and if necessary 'correct'-the stakeholder input in order to maintain "the primacy of science" [17]. For example, [68], in a project about the decarbonisation of the UK power system, researchers found out that stakeholders "overestimate [the] irreplaceability of carbon capture and storage", but "underestimate (...) the role of nuclear power".…”

Greenhouse Gas Implications of Peri-Urban Land Use Change in a Developed City under Four Future Climate Scenarios

“…The high emissions scenario is reflective of a business as usual approach to climate change [21]. Population High growth [13,21,28,29]. Energy Primary energy consumption rises threefold compared to year 2000.…”

“…Few planning restrictions. Agricultural change Lower agricultural productivity [28]. Increased food requirements for the growing population are met through transformation of land from other agricultural land or from native ecosystems.…”

New outlooks in traceability and consistency of integrated scenarios

“…For instance, Volkery et al [23] report from their PRELUDE project that problems of consistency occurred on two levels: With regard to consistency between different storylines 14 [ 23]. 15 Further empirical hints are provided by Schweizer and 6 Cf. e.g., URL: http://forlearn.jrc.ec.europa.eu/guide/3_scoping/meth_ scenario.htm.…”

“…Despite having plenty of appeal, these approaches are also fraught with difficulties [12,13]. Therefore, new forms are called for [11,14] and are also currently being developed in the fields of climate change [15] and energy research [13,[16][17][18][19][20], for example.…”