article · Geoscientific model development
Earth system modelling relies on framing pathways to integrate climate projections across scientific domains and international assessment cycles. To prepare for the seventh Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report, climate scenarios should evolve towards representative emission pathways. These proposed pathways are designed to address mitigation policy, adaptation plans, carbon removal risks, delays, loss and damage, and sustainable development goals over the next decade. Key proposed categories include immediate action and delayed action pathways aimed at limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, alongside trajectories reflecting current 2023 policy goals and actual implemented policies. Additionally, counterfactual pathways representing alternate historical choices provide valuable reference points. Developing these modelling frameworks promptly is essential, as scientific inputs are required by 2027 to inform the 2028 global stocktake and subsequent national climate targets under the Paris Agreement.
Global climate negotiations and national policy decisions rely on standard climate model scenarios to evaluate climate risks and action plans. Transitioning to representative emission pathways helps scientists and policymakers understand the concrete consequences of delayed mitigation, carbon removal strategies, and adaptation requirements. This ensures international climate assessments directly evaluate realistic policy options ahead of critical global review milestones in 2028.
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Abstract. In every Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment cycle, a multitude of scenarios are assessed, with different scope and emphasis throughout the various Working Group reports and special reports, as well as their respective chapters. Within the reports, the ambition is to integrate knowledge on possible climate futures across the Working Groups and scientific research domains based on a small set of “framing pathways” such as the so-called representative concentration pathways (RCPs) in the Fifth IPCC Assessment Report (AR5) and the shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) scenarios in the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). This perspective, initiated by discussions at the IPCC Bangkok workshop in April 2023 on the “Use of Scenarios in AR6 and Subsequent Assessments”, is intended to serve as one of the community contributions to highlight the needs for the next generation of framing pathways that is being advanced under the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) umbrella, which will influence or even predicate the IPCC AR7 consideration of framing pathways. Here we suggest several policy research objectives that such a set of framing pathways should ideally fulfil, including mitigation needs for meeting the Paris Agreement objectives, the risks associated with carbon removal strategies, the consequences of delay in enacting that mitigation, guidance for adaptation needs, loss and damage, and for achieving mitigation in the wider context of societal development goals. Based on this context, we suggest that the next generation of climate scenarios for Earth system models should evolve towards representative emission pathways (REPs) and suggest key categories for such pathways. These framing pathways should address the most critical mitigation policy and adaptation plans that need to be implemented over the next 10 years. In our view, the most important categories are those relevant in the context of the Paris Agreement long-term goal, specifically an immediate action (low overshoot) 1.5 °C pathway and a delayed action (high overshoot) 1.5 °C pathway. Two other key categories are a pathway category approximately in line with current (as expressed by 2023) near- and long-term policy objectives, as well as a higher-emission category that is approximately in line with “current policies” (as expressed by 2023). We also argue for the scientific and policy relevance in exploring two “worlds that could have been”. One of these categories has high-emission trajectories well above what is implied by current policies and the other has very-low-emission trajectories which assume that global mitigation action in line with limiting warming to 1.5 °C without overshoot had begun in 2015. Finally, we note that the timely provision of new scientific information on pathways is critical to inform the development and implementation of climate policy. Under the Paris Agreement, for the second global stocktake, which will occur in 2028, and to inform subsequent development of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) up to 2040, scientific inputs are required by 2027. These needs should be carefully considered in the development timeline of community modelling activities, including those under CMIP7.
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DOI: 10.5194/gmd-17-4533-2024
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