Many UN-led scientific assessments are produced each year. To support these reports, modelling and scenarios are used to help communicate possible futures, which help policymakers understand the possible implications of their decisions. To illustrate these possible futures, experts that participate in these UNEP, IPCC, IPBES, or IRP-led assessments typically review the modelling and scenarios literature. Much of this modelling and scenarios work is data-driven and/or narrative based and based on similar socioeconomic and environmental assumptions, which means synergies across these different efforts might be possible.
The Adhoc Global Assessment Dialogue (AGAD) provides an opportunity for discussions across modelling and scenarios teams which might allow collaboration by building new partnerships and leveraging the variety of inputs and outputs that this work may generate. The AGAD may also wish to discuss whether guiding the scientific community on the type of modelling and scenarios work would be useful and whether there are better ways to communicate the results of this work to non-technical policymakers.
Types of Modelling / Scenarios Practices
To discover such areas of possible collaboration across assessments, an understanding of each of the modelling and scenarios practices used in different assessment processes is needed. Information could be gathered on:
- The assumptions in baseline scenario(s) and their timeframes,
- types of data inputs and outputs, and at what temporal and geographic scale,
- The types of policy questions that the scenario analysis looks to answer,
- How linkages across environmental, social and economic domains are managed in the modelling or scenarios work, and
- current approaches used to communicate results to policymakers and how successful these have been.
When engaging in dialogue about modelling and scenarios practices, it is important to understand how each effort is conducted.
