The scope of possible futures and action pathways as presented in the IPCC reports are prominently based on scenarios generated from Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs). Thus, the assumptions and decisisons of the modelling process have significant impact on how we perceive and evaluate climate futures.
To move towards a sustainable future for all, it is crucial to tackle the climate problem in awareness of its interactions with other environmental issues such as biodiversity loss, pollution and resource constraints. It is challenging to include these aspects in IAMs, adding ever more levels of complexity. However, to achieve robust and policy relevant results from these models, in my view it is crucial to develope an adequate representation of natures impacts on human wellbeing as well as human impacts on biosphere stability.
Approaches to tackle this issue include the Planetary Boundaries Framework, the Nature Futures Framework and generally attempts of improved integration in social-economic-ecological modelling. In my poster, I would like to explore some current suggestions, challenges and/or research gaps in this area.
You are proposing to tackle a big issue in your poster. Very nice! I have nothing much to say beyond what has already been said, except that you might want to check out some of the work of Moritz Drupp directly. Most prominently, I was thinking of his recent work on the value of increasingly scarce ecosystems https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk2086
Great suggestion and interesting discussion here already. I want to add some work that you might want to look at, and depending on how you want to focus and further develop this topic. On the role of models in shaping climate futures and the question whether numbers are always adaequate for the above named purposes, see Mike Hulme’s concept of “climate reductionism”. On the use of IAMs in particular see the work of Felix Schaumann, a previous MICCS student, who now does his PhD in Moritz’ Drupp’s group. He wrote his Master’s thesis on related questions, see https://www.fis.uni-hamburg.de/publikationen/detail.html?id=ddc2dda8-6446-4a0c-a290-83a8034b8739.
This is a suitable topic, which has many interesting aspects. I like your thought that the process of modelling influences our imagination of climate futures. Could we then say that creating models also “shapes” our climate futures? It is interesting to reseach about different methods to quantify the values of nature for human well-being. What would be alternative approaches to monetisation? And also the other line of thought is interesting: How can we quantify the impact of human activities on nature, which is not functioning according to economic sciences?
I am very excited that you want to tackle this issue, since it is something I am thinking about for quite some time as well. How do we integrate values into a model that needs numbers if they don’t have objective numbers we can attach to them? Is it even morally justifiable to to to frame everything in numbers?
It sounds to me as if you want to tackle the first question in your poster and not the second one, do I understand that correctly? And do you intend to approach it more explorative, giving an overview over currently existing ideas, or do you have criteria in mind that an approach has to satisfy in order to be worthy of regarding further? Which I guess is the question of do you want to approach it at the level of basic research or are you thinking about applicability and relevance for policymakers/ society/ other stakeholders?