Understanding why degrowth is absent from mitigation scenarios: Modelling choices and practices in the IAM community

Entender por qué el decrecimiento está ausente de los escenarios de mitigación: opciones y prácticas de modelización en la comunidad IAM

Béatrice Cointe () and Antonin Pottier
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Béatrice Cointe: CSI i3 - Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Antonin Pottier: CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - Université Paris-Saclay - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CMB - Centre Marc Bloch - MEAE - Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères - Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung - M.E.N.E.S.R. - Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: The range of climate change mitigation scenarios in the IPCC reports frames the futures and policies that we deem possible. In the mitigation pathways produced by Integrated Assessment Models (IAM), economic growth is sustained throughout the century, as we show by surveying the GDP trajectories considered in the IPCC AR5 scenario database and in the more recent IAM literature. We unpack the reasons for IAM's commitment to GDP growth, and seek to understand the quasi-absence of no-growth and degrowth scenarios. An overview of the current organisation of IAM research highlights the internal dynamics within the IAM community and the resulting coordination of choices. We then analyse the representation of economic growth in two IAMs, GCAM (exogenous growth) and WITCH (endogenous growth). From a technical point of view, degrowth scenarios could be considered, but the modelling teams have coordinated their work around growth scenarios. Ultimately, the absence of degrowth/no growth scenarios stems from the fact that, economic growth is largely conceived of and computed as a "natural" driver in IAM research, and not as an intervention point.

Keywords: degrowth; GDP; mitigation scenarios; Integrated Assessment Models; decrecimiento; PIB; escenarios de mitigación; modelos de evaluación integrados; décroissance; scénarios d’atténuation; modèles d’évaluation intégrés (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-mac
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Published in Revue de la régulation. Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs, 2023, Economie politique de l'écologie, 35, ⟨10.4000/regulation.23034⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04384329

DOI: 10.4000/regulation.23034

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