Climate change scenarios refer to scenarios that analyze and predict how climate change will progress in the future. Their types broadly include RCP Scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways), SRES (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios), and the SSP to be introduced this time. SSP scenarios are an acronym for Shared Socioeconomic Pathways.
In 2021, while preparing the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Sixth Assessment Report, the international community developed the SSP scenarios (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways), a new type of climate change scenario. The SSP scenarios improved upon the existing RCP scenario approach, which focused on calculating greenhouse gas concentrations, by considering the following two factors together. The first is radiative forcing — the amount of energy accumulating on Earth as of 2100 expressed in numerical terms — and the second is socioeconomic factors.
[SSP Ⓟ ESG.ONL/ESG Today]
Here, socioeconomic factors specifically include how well greenhouse gas reduction policies are being implemented and whether climate change adaptation measures are being carried out. Based on this information, SSP scenarios predict and analyze how future socioeconomic structures will change. Rather than simply calculating the amount of greenhouse gases to be emitted to Earth, these are scenarios that show how society will change depending on how it responds to greenhouse gas reduction policies and adaptation measures.
In the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (2021), SSP scenarios are broadly composed of four types — SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5 — and are commonly used in combination with RCP scenarios. Like the RCP scenario, the numbers following SSP1 refer to radiative forcing as of 2100.
SSP1-2.6 assumes that fossil fuel use is minimized through the development of renewable energy technologies and that environmentally sustainable economic growth will be achieved. It projects carbon dioxide concentrations to reach 432 ppm by 2100.
SSP2-4.5 envisions a case where climate change mitigation and socioeconomic development are at intermediate levels, forecasting carbon dioxide concentrations at 567 ppm.
SSP3-7.0 envisions a case where climate change mitigation policies are passive and technological development is slow, leading to a social structure vulnerable to climate change, predicting carbon dioxide concentrations at 834 ppm.
SSP5-8.5 focuses on rapid development of industrial technology and assumes reckless urban-centered expansion of development and high fossil fuel use. In this case, carbon dioxide concentrations are predicted at 1,089 ppm.
The advantage of combining RCP scenarios with SSP scenarios for analysis is that climate change can be predicted based on specific greenhouse gas concentration pathways according to specific socioeconomic pathways. In this way, through climate change scenario analysis, the risks that climate change will bring in the future can be well understood, and on this basis, damage can be minimized.
by Editor O