Excited to announce my first academic paper has been published today in @NatureClimate! It discusses the importance of using reference scenarios appropriately in modelling work that explores low-carbon futures https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0826-9
Why is this important? A THREAD 1/n

When evaluating different low-carbon futures, energy/integrated-assessment modellers often compare them to a reference scenario. Ref Scens therefore play a central role in framing the results of analysis, as well as being used by other actors in the climate space. 2/n

What are the issues?
1. Most Ref Scens don’t include climate impacts. But the #ClimateCrisis is already here & is having huge impacts. Neglecting these can suggest there’s a future in which we continue to grow smoothly, w/o reducing emissions. This is NOT a future on offer 3/n

2. Many Ref Scens have been no-policy baselines, often termed #BusinessAsUsual. While we’re far from on track with climate action, we also don’t have no climate action. There are >1000 climate laws implemented across the world. We need to account for this in Ref Scens 4/n

3. Many Ref Scens have been criticised for failing to keep up with clean tech progress in the past decade / future rates of change. Many people are making this case more articulately than me – see @AukeHoekstra in relation to @IEA WEO e.g. https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1064529619951513600 5/n

This is important b/c when assessing low-carbon futures, we must remember that our aim is to avoid climate breakdown (so mitigation = v good idea) & that we’ve made some *limited* progress (tech/policy) that we should account for. Current RefScens don’t always help us do this 6/n

This is all nice – but what should we do? Well, if the mitigation agenda is no longer “should we act”, but rather “how much & in what way should we act, & how can we ensure we get on track and remain on track”, then we need to think about Ref Scens differently. 7/n

The key take-home? We need a range of Ref Scens, covering the space from implemented policies, to targets which may still currently be ambitions (e.g. NDCs), to ambitious mitigation scenarios compliant with Paris. The role of no-policy baselines is getting smaller by the day. 8/n

This is already happening in some places, e.g. the work done by @C_DLINKS, @COMMIT_MCS & @ParisReinforce (at @Grantham_IC we’ve just finishing runs for COMMIT and PR – look out for these in the future!) But there’s more work to be done on using Ref Scens appropriately 9/n

Some recommendations: First - try & keep abreast of clean-tech progress. As a modeller myself, I know how difficult this is. Greater collaboration between modellers & tech experts would be great here. I’ve learned a lot from e.g. @EAVgooner, @gnievchenko, @MLiebrech & @ramez 10/n

Second, think before using a no-policy baseline as a Reference Scenario to frame results against. Is this really the most appropriate scenario for the policy context at hand? Might current-policies, NDCs, or a central mitigation scenario be better suited for your analysis? 11/n

Third, let’s try & communicate better about our creation/use of ref scens. A specific ask – stop using the term #BusinessAsUsual. The future will be disrupted – by climate impacts/ambitious mitigation (& probably both). BAU is no longer a helpful concept for futures analysis 12/n

*DISCLAIMER*– the paper doesn’t explicitly address #RCP85isBollox & doesn’t intend to. I am no expert about climate sensitivity/impacts & am focused on those producing low-carbon emissions pathways. But ofc improved emissions scenarios could help improve climate scenarios 13/n

Thanks to my wonderful supervisors & co-authors @AjayGambhir11, @tamarynnapp & Adam Hawkes, as well as @Grantham_IC for their support. And to anyone who’s read this far!
@hausfath @mammuthus @st_pye @Peters_Glen @jritch @RHarrabin FYI you might find this interesting (I hope)