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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Key determinants of global land-use projections
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2019) Stehfest, Elke; van Zeist, Willem-Jan; Valin, Hugo; Havlik, Petr; Popp, Alexander; Kyle, Page; Tabeau, Andrzej; Mason-D’Croz, Daniel; Hasegawa, Tomoko; Bodirsky, Benjamin L.; Calvin, Katherine; Doelman, Jonathan C.; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Humpenöder, Florian; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; van Meijl, Hans; Wiebe, Keith
    Land use is at the core of various sustainable development goals. Long-term climate foresight studies have structured their recent analyses around five socio-economic pathways (SSPs), with consistent storylines of future macroeconomic and societal developments; however, model quantification of these scenarios shows substantial heterogeneity in land-use projections. Here we build on a recently developed sensitivity approach to identify how future land use depends on six distinct socio-economic drivers (population, wealth, consumption preferences, agricultural productivity, land-use regulation, and trade) and their interactions. Spread across models arises mostly from diverging sensitivities to long-term drivers and from various representations of land-use regulation and trade, calling for reconciliation efforts and more empirical research. Most influential determinants for future cropland and pasture extent are population and agricultural efficiency. Furthermore, land-use regulation and consumption changes can play a key role in reducing both land use and food-security risks, and need to be central elements in sustainable development strategies.
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    Land-use futures in the shared socio-economic pathways
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 2017) Popp, Alexander; Calvin, Katherine; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Havlik, Petr; Humpenöder, Florian; Stehfest, Elke; Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon; Dietrich, Jan Philipp; Doelmann, Jonathan C.; Gusti, Mykola; Hasegawa, Tomoko; Kyle, Page; Obersteiner, Michael; Tabeau, Andrzej; Takahashi, Kiyoshi; Valin, Hugo; Waldhoff, Stephanie; Weindl, Isabelle; Wise, Marshall; Kriegler, Elmar; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; Fricko, Oliver; Riahi, Keywan; Vuuren, Detlef P. van
    In the future, the land system will be facing new intersecting challenges. While food demand, especially for resource-intensive livestock based commodities, is expected to increase, the terrestrial system has large potentials for climate change mitigation through improved agricultural management, providing biomass for bioenergy, and conserving or even enhancing carbon stocks of ecosystems. However, uncertainties in future socio-economic land use drivers may result in very different land-use dynamics and consequences for land-based ecosystem services. This is the first study with a systematic interpretation of the Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSPs) in terms of possible land-use changes and their consequences for the agricultural system, food provision and prices as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, five alternative Integrated Assessment Models with distinctive land-use modules have been used for the translation of the SSP narratives into quantitative projections. The model results reflect the general storylines of the SSPs and indicate a broad range of potential land-use futures with global agricultural land of 4900 mio ha in 2005 decreasing by 743 mio ha until 2100 at the lower (SSP1) and increasing by 1080 mio ha (SSP3) at the upper end. Greenhouse gas emissions from land use and land use change, as a direct outcome of these diverse land-use dynamics, and agricultural production systems differ strongly across SSPs (e.g. cumulative land use change emissions between 2005 and 2100 range from −54 to 402 Gt CO2). The inclusion of land-based mitigation efforts, particularly those in the most ambitious mitigation scenarios, further broadens the range of potential land futures and can strongly affect greenhouse gas dynamics and food prices. In general, it can be concluded that low demand for agricultural commodities, rapid growth in agricultural productivity and globalized trade, all most pronounced in a SSP1 world, have the potential to enhance the extent of natural ecosystems, lead to lowest greenhouse gas emissions from the land system and decrease food prices over time. The SSP-based land use pathways presented in this paper aim at supporting future climate research and provide the basis for further regional integrated assessments, biodiversity research and climate impact analysis. © 2016 The Authors
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    The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview
    (Amsterdam : Elsevier, 2016) Riahi, Keywan; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Kriegler, Elmar; Edmonds, Jae; O’Neill, Brian C.; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Bauer, Nico; Calvin, Katherine; Dellink, Rob; Fricko, Oliver; Lutz, Wolfgang; Popp, Alexander; Crespo Cuaresma, Jesus; KC, Samir; Leimbach, Marian; Jiang, Leiwen; Kram, Tom; Rao, Shilpa; Emmerling, Johannes; Ebi, Kristie; Hasegawa, Tomoko; Havlik, Petr; Humpenöder, Florian; Aleluia Da Silva, Lara; Smith, Steve; Stehfest, Elke; Bosetti, Valentina; Eom, Jiyong; Gernaat, David; Masui, Toshihiko; Rogelj, Joeri; Strefler, Jessica; Drouet, Laurent; Krey, Volker; Luderer, Gunnar; Harmsen, Mathijs; Takahashi, Kiyoshi; Baumstark, Lavinia; Doelman, Jonathan C.; Kainuma, Mikiko; Klimont, Zbigniew; Marangoni, Giacomo; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; Obersteiner, Michael; Tabeau, Andrzej; Tavoni, Massimo
    This paper presents the overview of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and their energy, land use, and emissions implications. The SSPs are part of a new scenario framework, established by the climate change research community in order to facilitate the integrated analysis of future climate impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. The pathways were developed over the last years as a joint community effort and describe plausible major global developments that together would lead in the future to different challenges for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The SSPs are based on five narratives describing alternative socio-economic developments, including sustainable development, regional rivalry, inequality, fossil-fueled development, and middle-of-the-road development. The long-term demographic and economic projections of the SSPs depict a wide uncertainty range consistent with the scenario literature. A multi-model approach was used for the elaboration of the energy, land-use and the emissions trajectories of SSP-based scenarios. The baseline scenarios lead to global energy consumption of 400–1200 EJ in 2100, and feature vastly different land-use dynamics, ranging from a possible reduction in cropland area up to a massive expansion by more than 700 million hectares by 2100. The associated annual CO2 emissions of the baseline scenarios range from about 25 GtCO2 to more than 120 GtCO2 per year by 2100. With respect to mitigation, we find that associated costs strongly depend on three factors: (1) the policy assumptions, (2) the socio-economic narrative, and (3) the stringency of the target. The carbon price for reaching the target of 2.6 W/m2 that is consistent with a temperature change limit of 2 °C, differs in our analysis thus by about a factor of three across the SSP marker scenarios. Moreover, many models could not reach this target from the SSPs with high mitigation challenges. While the SSPs were designed to represent different mitigation and adaptation challenges, the resulting narratives and quantifications span a wide range of different futures broadly representative of the current literature. This allows their subsequent use and development in new assessments and research projects. Critical next steps for the community scenario process will, among others, involve regional and sectoral extensions, further elaboration of the adaptation and impacts dimension, as well as employing the SSP scenarios with the new generation of earth system models as part of the 6th climate model intercomparison project (CMIP6).
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    Comparing impacts of climate change and mitigation on global agriculture by 2050
    (Bristol : IOP Publ., 2018) van Meijl, Hans; Havlik, Petr; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; Stehfest, Elke; Witzke, Peter; Pérez Domínguez, Ignacio; Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon; van Dijk, Michiel; Doelman, Jonathan; Fellmann, Thomas; Humpenöder, Florian; Koopman, Jason F. L.; Müller, Christoph; Popp, Alexander; Tabeau, Andrzej; Valin, Hugo; van Zeist, Willem-Jan
    Systematic model inter-comparison helps to narrow discrepancies in the analysis of the future impact of climate change on agricultural production. This paper presents a set of alternative scenarios by five global climate and agro-economic models. Covering integrated assessment (IMAGE), partial equilibrium (CAPRI, GLOBIOM, MAgPIE) and computable general equilibrium (MAGNET) models ensures a good coverage of biophysical and economic agricultural features. These models are harmonized with respect to basic model drivers, to assess the range of potential impacts of climate change on the agricultural sector by 2050. Moreover, they quantify the economic consequences of stringent global emission mitigation efforts, such as non-CO2 emission taxes and land-based mitigation options, to stabilize global warming at 2 °C by the end of the century under different Shared Socioeconomic Pathways. A key contribution of the paper is a vis-à-vis comparison of climate change impacts relative to the impact of mitigation measures. In addition, our scenario design allows assessing the impact of the residual climate change on the mitigation challenge. From a global perspective, the impact of climate change on agricultural production by mid-century is negative but small. A larger negative effect on agricultural production, most pronounced for ruminant meat production, is observed when emission mitigation measures compliant with a 2 °C target are put in place. Our results indicate that a mitigation strategy that embeds residual climate change effects (RCP2.6) has a negative impact on global agricultural production relative to a no-mitigation strategy with stronger climate impacts (RCP6.0). However, this is partially due to the limited impact of the climate change scenarios by 2050. The magnitude of price changes is different amongst models due to methodological differences. Further research to achieve a better harmonization is needed, especially regarding endogenous food and feed demand, including substitution across individual commodities, and endogenous technological change.