Lecturer:
Jiesper Tristan Strandsbjerg Pedersen – Ph.D. student in “Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policies” – University of Lisbon with internship at the “Science and Management of Climate Change” PhD Program – Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

Introduced by:
Enrica De Cian – Associate Professor in environmental economics at Ca’ Foscari Unversity of Venice (Italy) and ERC Starting Grant grantee with the project ENERGYA – Energy use for Adaptation.

AGENDA AND ABSTRACT
30-40 minute presentation:
For almost 30 years the emissions scenarios used by the IPCC in its Assessment Reports have played a key role in the development of knowledge, such as the understanding of the possible future climate, the impacts on the physical environment, societies, and possible response strategies. Because the IPCC is an institution navigating at a nexus point between science, politics, and society, the emissions scenarios have been playing a sometimes controversial role in the scientific, public, and political debate on climate change. Despite several controversies and debates, till today no review paper has covered the major lines of the critique of the four scenario sets presented by the IPCC.
This short presentation provides an introduction to the four emissions scenarios used by the IPCC: 1) a brief introduction of the emissions scenarios, their development, and their key variables and narratives; 2) the key debates/controversies, various types of critiques, the critics, and the underlying reasoning; and 3) comparisons of the scenarios emissions ranges compared against the historical trend for CO2 emissions from fossil fuel and industry.

20-30 minute Discussion/debate:
Possible debate questions:

• What does the long-term development in driving forces tell us about emissions growth in the perspective of a future emissions pathway? (long-term and short-term emissions drivers, social, and socio-economic trends?)
• What are the key drivers of climate policies?