SRES is one of the types of climate change scenarios for evaluating the impact of climate change on the future, and is an acronym for Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. The SRES is a climate change scenario introduced in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Third Assessment Report (2000) and also used in the Fourth Assessment Report (2007).
[SRES Ⓟ ESG.ONL/ESG Today]
The SRES broadly covers factors that influence future greenhouse gas emissions, such as population, economy, and technological development. It is a method of first setting the types of social and economic factors and then determining greenhouse gas concentrations through the scenarios calculated accordingly. The SRES, which has thus evolved into a total of 40 scenarios, classifies all scenarios into six categories: A1F1, A1B, A1T, A2, B1, and B2.
For example, the A1B scenario presented in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report AR4 is a balanced scenario among the scenarios, evaluated as the most realistic, and its application cases are increasing. It is a scenario premised on a world that is integrated and undergoes rapid social and economic growth but uses fossil fuels and eco-friendly energy in balance.
The SRES also has its limitations. While the annual average carbon dioxide emission growth rate in the 1990s was 1.1%, it increased to an annual average of 3% between 2000 and 2009, surpassing the values predicted by 35 of the 40 SRES scenarios. In 2010, greenhouse gas emissions increased by 6% from 2009, making the situation more severe than the worst-case SRES scenario had predicted.
While the SRES was evaluated as having improved considerably over the previous IS92 scenarios, because it is impossible to perfectly account for all social, economic, and environmental aspects, uncertainties inevitably exist. Accordingly, it was replaced by the more sophisticated RCP Scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways) through the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report in 2014.
by Editor O