Project "Socioeconomic Pathways"

This project develops socioeconomic scenarios for the future development of Switzerland based on the IPCC's Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP).

Project objectives

The project develops five socioeconomic scenarios for Switzerland. The scenarios are conceptually developed according to the European Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) and support long-term thinking in alternative futures. They provide a basis for long-term strategic decisions, risk analyses and environmental modelling.
The project follows a transdisciplinary approach. For the development of the scenarios, actors from different scientific disciplines as well as from different socio-economic sectors and societal functions are involved. The scenarios are developed both qualitatively and quantitatively.

The project examines the following questions:

What socioeconomic developments are possible in Switzerland by the end of the century?
Consistent, plausible scenarios of Switzerland for the end of the 21st century will be developed based on the European Shared Socioeconomic Pathways. These are formulated in storylines and quantified: For the scenarios, greenhouse gases and land use are modelled using various reduced complexity models.
New methods are being developed to develop the qualitative scenarios with the participation of various actors and to quantify them as input for the greenhouse gas and land use modelling.
What different climate protection policies are possible in the various scenarios?
So-called Shared Policy Assumptions (SPAs) are developed, which contain possible policy-mixes (measures and ambition levels) in the area of climate protection in relevant sectors.
Which current policies of relevant sectors tend to put society on a sustainable development path and which policies tend to prevent this?
A method for a policy analysis will be developed to investigate how Switzerland could tend to develop towards the sustainability scenario.

The project results are developed together with relevant target groups and made accessible to them.