Enhancing the relevance of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways for climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability research

Abstract

This paper discusses the role and relevance of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and the new scenarios that combine SSPs with representative concentration pathways (RCPs) for climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability (IAV) research. It first Climatic Change (2014) 122:481-494 DOI 10.1007 This article is part of the Special Issue on "A Framework for the Development of New Socio-economic Scenarios for Climate Change Research" edited by Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Robert Lempert, and Anthony Janetos. provides an overview of uses of social-environmental scenarios in IAV studies and identifies the main shortcomings of earlier such scenarios. Second, the paper elaborates on two aspects of the SSPs and new scenarios that would improve their usefulness for IAV studies compared to earlier scenario sets: (i) enhancing their applicability while retaining coherence across spatial scales, and (ii) adding indicators of importance for projecting vulnerability. The paper therefore presents an agenda for future research, recommending that SSPs incorporate not only the standard variables of population and gross domestic product, but also indicators such as income distribution, spatial population, human health and governance.

Improving poverty and inequality modelling in climate research

“…Disaggregation of households into several groups or many representative households has been implemented for developed 33,42,59,60 and developing countries [61][62][63][64][65] With respect to climate change impacts, studies that quantify inequality or (multidimensional) poverty are rare (with the exception of a recent World Bank study 6,69 ). Many impacts and vulnerability studies rely on present-day income distributions and poverty levels to assess future vulnerability 70,71 . Even if they do use future socioeconomic scenarios, studies typically adopt simple rules such as constant income distributions, or poverty levels indexed to GDP 10,19 .…”

The roads ahead: Narratives for shared socioeconomic pathways describing world futures in the 21st century

“…However, for many applications, ''extended SSPs'' are likely to be required, which would contain additional, more detailed information for particular regions, sectors, or variables (Van Ruijven et al, 2014) or that would be enhanced according to specific needs (e.g. vulnerability and risk assessment tools at national or sub-national level; Birkmann et al, 2013).…”

Systematic evaluation of scenario assessments supporting sustainable integrated natural resources management: evidence from four case studies in Africa

“…Power dynamics and the inherent power relations of the iterative decision-making process moreover may contribute to difficulties in implementing scientific knowledge in policy (Cáceres et al 2016). The role of governance for successful resource management has long been recognized (e.g., Acheson 2006) and its better representation in quantitative scenarios was demanded (van Ruijven et al 2014). There are attempts to quantify dampening effects of weak governance on policy implementation (McNeill et al 2014) and the conditions that influence the effectiveness of environmental regimes (de Vos et al 2013).…”