Project
The study presents three different sustainable development pathways, all of which avoid dangerous climate change and enable substantial progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The scenarios were quantified by four different modelling teams participating in the SHAPE project, comprising two “full-system” integrated assessment models (REMIND-MAgPIE and IMAGE) and
The study presents three different sustainable development pathways, all of which avoid dangerous climate change and enable substantial progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The scenarios were quantified by four different modelling teams participating in the SHAPE project, comprising two “full-system” integrated assessment models (REMIND-MAgPIE and IMAGE) and two sectoral models specialised on the global buildings sector and the required construction materials (MESSAGEiX-Buildings and ODYM-RECC). The study shows that different pathways towards the SDGs are possible, but all of them have their respective strengths and weaknesses. For example, one of the scenarios (“Resilient Communities”) envisions strong lifestyle changes and a transition to a post-growth economy for high-income countries. This scenario has the lowest warming and the strongest improvements in biodiversity, but the underlying assumptions on lifestyle change might be challenging to adopt. On the other hand, a scenario envisioning green-tech innovation and continued economic growth has a much lower reliance on lifestyle changes, but features technologies unproven to work at scale, such as carbon capture and storage.
The publication is accompanied by an interactive web tool for exploration, visualisation and download of the scenario data.
Further information can befound in the press release by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research