Rethinking the role of scenarios: Participatory scripting of low-carbon scenarios for France

Abstract

Abstract:This article considers the usefulness of low-carbon scenarios in public decision-making. They may be useful as a product-oriented trajectory. The scenarios on the agenda of the 2013 Energy Debate in France belong to this category. But a scenario may also be process-oriented, in the sense that its scripting process helps build consensus and a minimum level of agreement. We have scripted scenarios using a codevelopment method, involving about 40 stakeholders from the private and public sectors, and from the state: NGOs, consumer groups, trade unions, banks and local authorities. They selected policies they considered acceptable for achieving 75% greenhouse gases emission reductions in 2050. These policies were then integrated in the Imaclim-R France technicoeconomic simulation model, as part of a high or moderate acceptability scenario. In the first case emissions were cut by between 58% and 72% by 2050; in the second case by between 68% and 81%, depending on the energy price assumptions. All these measures benefited jobs and economic growth, swiftly and durably cutting household spending on energy services. This offers a solid basis for gaining acceptability for low carbon trajectories; the process constitutes also a framework for consolidating collective learning centring on the acceptability of climate policies.

Low-carbon strategies towards 2050: Comparing ex-ante policy evaluation studies and national planning processes in Europe

“…Particularly methods that provide immediate feedback (e.g. on-site interaction between modellers and stakeholders) have been found to yield notable result (as has been demonstrated in France) (Mathy et al, 2015b). Approaches that offer no direct feed-back, such as the My2050 online platform in the UK, have not been considered as effective methods in Allen and Chatterton (2013).…”

“…In France, the national government has taken stock of supported transition pathways via nation-wide stakeholder dialogue sessions (involving academia, industry and NGOs) (DNTE, 2013;Mathy et al, 2015b). Model-based analyses by stakeholders have provided input to these dialogue sessions, leading to the development of four stylised long-term energy transition scenarios.…”

A pathway design framework for national low greenhouse gas emission development strategies

“…In particular, many IAMs face structural challenges including context-specific aspects of non-climate co-benefits or costs. 22 There is also a "bottom-up" literature 23 , designed around national circumstances and policy, which conducts country-scale investigation of development and ambitious climate objectives for a wide range of countries across Asia [24][25][26][27][28] , Latin America [29][30][31][32][33][34] , Africa 35,36 , Europe [37][38][39][40][41][42][43] and North America. [44][45][46][47][48][49] Several studies describe multi-country exercises in which country teams co-explored their domestic pathways.…”

Achieving Sustainable Development Goals in Nigeria’s power sector: assessment of transition pathways

“…Stakeholder validation and, more broadly, stakeholder participation and engagement, are increasingly used in scenario building with the aim of improving the effectiveness and transparency of public policy as well as the acceptance of, and engagement in, long-term strategies. In the realm of energy and climate change mitigation, stakeholder-based scenario building has emerged recently as a method for eliciting required data and for improving interpretations of model outputs, as well as for translating the results of the analysis into strategies (Mathy, Fink, & Bibas, 2015;Schmid & Knopf, 2012;Wiebe et al, 2018). From a theoretical point of view, collaboration between researchers and stakeholders is seen as a prerequisite for trans-disciplinary research that enables societal transitions (Brandt et al, 2013).…”