On Growth Projections in the Shared SocioeconomicPathways

Halvard Buhaug and Jonas Vestby

Global Environmental Politics, 2019, vol. 19, issue 4, 118-132

Abstract: The recently developed Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) have enabledresearchers to explore coupled human–nature dynamics in new and morecomplex ways. Despite their wide applicability and unquestionable advantage overearlier scenarios, the utility of the SSPs for conducting societal impactassessments is impaired by shortcomings in the underlying economic growthprojections. In particular, the assumed economic convergence and absence ofmajor growth disruptions break with historical growth trajectories in thedeveloping world. The consequence is that the SSP portfolio becomes too narrow,with an overly optimistic lower band of growth projections. This is not atrivial concern, since resulting impact assessments are likely to underestimatethe full human and material costs of climate change, especially for the poorestand most vulnerable societies. In response, we propose that futurequantifications of the SSPs should incorporate the likelihood of growthdisruptions, informed by scenarios of the relevant political contexts thathistorically have been important in curbing growth.

Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/glep_a_00525 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:19:y:2019:i:4:p:118-132

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://mitpressjour ... rnal/?issn=1526-3800

Access Statistics for this article

Global Environmental Politics is currently edited by Steven Bernstein, Matthew Hoffmann and Erika Weinthal

More articles in Global Environmental Politics from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().