Societal transformations in models for energy and climate policy: The ambitious next step
File(s)
Published version
OA Location
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Whether and how long-term energy and climate targets can be reached depend on a range of interlinked factors: technology, economy, environment, policy, and society at large. Integrated assessment models of climate change or energy-system models have limited representations of societal transformations, such as behavior of various actors, transformation dynamics in time, and heterogeneity across and within societies. After reviewing the state of the art, we propose a research agenda to guide experiments to integrate more insights from social sciences into models: (1) map and assess societal assumptions in existing models, (2) conduct empirical research on generalizable and quantifiable patterns to be integrated into models, and (3) build and extensively validate modified or new models. Our proposed agenda offers three benefits: interdisciplinary learning between modelers and social scientists, improved models with a more complete representation of multifaceted reality, and identification of new and more effective solutions to energy and climate challenges.
Date Issued
2019-12
Date Acceptance
2019-12-01
Citation
One Earth, 2019, 1 (4), pp.423-433
ISSN
2590-3322
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Start Page
423
End Page
433
Journal / Book Title
One Earth
Volume
1
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Sponsor
Shell Global Solutions International BV
Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
Shell Global Solutions International BV
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332219302246?via%3Dihub
Grant Number
PO 4550182471
NE/N018656/1
PO: 4550182471 (Agr.N.PT77776)
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2019-12-20