Energy, land-use and greenhouse gas emissions trajectories under a green growth paradigm

TLDR

The SSP1 storyline, aligned with a green growth paradigm, outlines future global energy use, land use, emissions, and climate changes, and serves as a basis for discussing how climate policy can be integrated with other societal goals. The study investigates the potential trajectories of global energy use, land use, emissions, and climate change under the SSP1 green growth scenario. The authors use the IMAGE 3.0 integrated assessment model, comparing its SSP1 results with other IMAGE SSP implementations and with SSP1 runs from alternative models. The analysis shows that resource efficiency, sustainable production preferences, and human development investment can drive a strong transition to renewable energy, reduced land use, and lower GHG emissions by 2100, even without explicit climate policies, yet additional climate policy is required to limit temperature rise to 2–1.5 °C.

Abstract

This paper describes the possible developments in global energy use and production, land use, emissions and climate changes following the SSP1 storyline, a development consistent with the green growth (or sustainable development) paradigm (a more inclusive development respecting environmental boundaries). The results are based on the implementation using the IMAGE 3.0 integrated assessment model and are compared with a) other IMAGE implementations of the SSPs (SSP2 and SSP3) and b) the SSP1 implementation of other integrated assessment models. The results show that a combination of resource efficiency, preferences for sustainable production methods and investment in human development could lead to a strong transition towards a more renewable energy supply, less land use and lower anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2100 than in 2010, even in the absence of explicit climate policies. At the same time, climate policy would still be needed to reduce emissions further, in order to reduce the projected increase of global mean temperature from 3 °C (SSP1 reference scenario) to 2 or 1.5 °C (in line with current policy targets). The SSP1 storyline could be a basis for further discussions on how climate policy can be combined with achieving other societal goals.