Scenario
Emissions Gap Report 2019 published by the UN Environment Programme defines a scenario as: ‘A description of how the future may unfold based on ‘if-then’ propositions. Scenarios typically include an initial socio-economic situation and a description of the key driving forces and future changes in emissions, temperature or other climate change-related variables.’
AR5 Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, Glossary, published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines a scenario as: ‘A plausible description of how the future may develop based on a coherent and internally consistent set of assumptions about key driving forces (e.g., rate of technological change, prices) and relationships. Note that scenarios are neither predictions nor forecasts, but are useful to provide a view of the implications of developments and actions.’
Global Warming of 1.5 ºC, Glossary, published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2018, defines a scenario storyline as: ‘A narrative description of a scenario (or family of scenarios), highlighting the main scenario characteristics, relationships between key driving forces and the dynamics of their evolution. Also referred to as ‘narratives’ in the scenario literature.’
See also Scenarios and percentiles
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