National Scenarios of Economic Activity (GDP) - A Downscaling Analysis based on SRES

Riahi, K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7193-3498, Kolp, P., & Grubler, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7814-4990 (2005). National Scenarios of Economic Activity (GDP) - A Downscaling Analysis based on SRES. IIASA Interim Report. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: IR-05-063

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Abstract

This report presents national scenarios of economic activity (GDP) for the time period 1990 to 2100 based on three scenarios (A2, B1, and B2) from the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES; Nakicenovic et al, 2000). Two scenarios (B1 and B2) follow (with minor adjustments due to scenario improvements) the original SRES quantifications at the level of 4 and 11 world regions respectively. The quantification of the original SRES A2 scenario has been revised in order to reflect recent changing perceptions on the demographic outlook of world population growth. In this revised “high population growth” scenario A2 world population reaches some 12 billion by 2100 (as opposed to some 15 billion in the original SRES A2 scenario) and is characterized by a “delayed fertility transition” that is also mirrored in a delayed (economic) development catch-up. Our downscaling approach emphasizes the scenario dependency of the national development path. I.e., national income convergence within a region varies across the scenarios and is guided by the scenario’s specific assumptions for convergence on the macro-regional level. The approach explicitly distinguishes also between countries at different stages of economic development as opposed to earlier downscaling approaches which have employed the (by now widely recognized) problematic method of regionally uniform growth rates as downscaling algorithm. While the results are similar at the regional level to SRES, there are significant differences compared to earlier results from downscaling at the national level.

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