Sensitivity of projected long-term CO2 emissions across the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways
Scenarios showing future greenhouse gas emissions are needed to estimate climate impacts and the mitigation efforts required for climate stabilization. Recently, the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) have been introduced to describe alternative social, economic and technical narratives, spanning a wide range of plausible futures in terms of challenges to mitigation and adaptation.
Income and energy efficiency projections key determinants of future CO2 emissions
Thus far the key drivers of the uncertainty in emissions projections have not been robustly disentangled. Here we assess the sensitivities of future CO2 emissions to key drivers characterizing the SSPs.
The researchers used six state-of-the-art integrated assessment models with different structural characteristics, and study the impact of five families of parameters, related to population, income, energy efficiency, fossil fuel availability, and low-carbon energy technology development. A recently developed sensitivity analysis algorithm allows us to parsimoniously compute both the direct and interaction effects of each of these drivers on cumulative emissions.
The study reveals that the SSP assumptions about energy intensity and economic growth are the most important determinants of future CO2 emissions from energy combustion, both with and without a climate policy. Interaction terms between parameters are shown to be important determinants of the total sensitivities.
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Authors
Specifications
- Publication title
- Sensitivity of projected long-term CO2 emissions across the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways
- Publication date
- 16 January 2017
- Publication type
- Publication
- Magazine
- Nature Climate Change
- Product number
- 2842
