|
Emissions scenarios that describe future economic growth and energy use are important tools for understanding the long-term consequences of climate change. Scenarios are ‘what ifs’—sketches of future conditions (or alternative sets of future conditions), used as inputs to exercises of decision making or analysis. Scenarios are not predictions.
Emissions scenarios are often based on different storylines of economic and population growth, energy efficiency, and concern for environmental sustainability. Corresponding levels of emissions of greenhouse gases and other factors may be deduced from these storylines.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has developed a widely used set of emissions scenarios. The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) / Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) has also developed and analyzed a set of emission scenarios that would lead to stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse gases at four different levels. These stabilization scenarios are documented in a USGCRP/CCSP report, Scenarios of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Atmospheric Concentrations. This report describes energy system characteristics that could lead to the four alternative stabilization levels, as well as the possible economic consequences of meeting each stabilization level.
  
|
