An exploration and evaluation framework for climate change mitigation scenarios with varying feasibility and desirability
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Beath, Hamish
Mittal, Shivika
Lamboll, Robin
Rogelj, Joeri
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Ensembles of climate change mitigation scenarios present users with a collection of strategies for limiting global warming. These strategies may differ in their associated feasibility challenges, mitigation co-impacts, and ultimately their relative societal desirability. Understanding these scenario characteristics is therefore crucial when scenarios are used to inform strategic decisions. One approach to enhance this understanding is to establish scenario archetypes and select contrasting illustrative scenarios from a larger ensemble. We present a new multidimensional framework for the systematic comparison of scenarios at the global or regional level. We illustrate the framework with comparisons in seven dimensions: economic feasibility, mineral resource availability, impacts on societal resilience, near-term scenario robustness, environmental sustainability, interregional fairness, and speed of societal transformation. Using cluster analysis, the framework can be used to select a group of illustrative scenarios with contrasting scores across the dimensions. Beyond the selection of scenarios, our exploration and evaluation framework also allows the identification of gaps in the scenario space that may be of interest but are not covered by the literature. We demonstrate these use cases by applying our framework to a set of mitigation scenarios that limit warming to 1.5 °C. Our results show our framework systematically selects contrasting scenarios, with our illustrative pathways having diverging energy mixes and uses of carbon dioxide removal. Further, we highlight considerable regional differences in the distribution of indicator and dimension scores as a key area for further investigation.
Date Issued
2025-07-01
Date Acceptance
2025-05-27
Citation
Environmental Research Letters, 2025, 20 (7)
ISSN
1748-9326
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Journal / Book Title
Environmental Research Letters
Volume
20
Issue
7
Copyright Statement
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
License URL
Identifier
10.1088/1748-9326/addd35
Subjects
feasibility of climate change scenarios
energy transition
climate mitigation scenarios
societal transitions
integrated assessment modelling
scenario analysis
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
074020
Date Publish Online
2025-06-06