Shared Socioeconomic Pathways for Switzerland – SSP-CH

This project developed socio-economic scenarios for Switzerland up to 2100. They are structured along the lines of on the IPCC’s Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP).

Background

The project developed five possible socio-economic future scenarios for Switzerland up to the end of the century. These are based on focus group discussions with 59 scientists from 20 scientific institutions in Switzerland and were expanded upon in five workshops with participants from various disciplines and fields of practice. The qualitative scenarios were then translated into quantitative parameters, and their potential greenhouse gas emissions and land uses were modelled. In addition, four Shared Policy Assumptions (SPAs – packages of potential climate policy instruments) with different levels of ambition and state intervention were formulated, and their effect on greenhouse gas emissions was modelled.

Results and outputs

The modelling of greenhouse gas emissions shows that socio-economic developments have a major influence on future greenhouse gas emissions. Taking socio-economic scenarios into account is essential for planning in response to climate change. The scenarios developed in this project thus serve as an important basis for adapting to climate change as well as for avoiding greenhouse gas emissions.

The following results and key outputs have been produced as part of the project:

Summary of greenhouse gas emissions modelling:

INFRAS, PROGNOS, WSL (2026): Greenhouse gas emissions under different socio-economic and climate policy scenarios for Switzerland. Summary. National Centre for Climate Services (NCCS) (ed.), Zurich. doi.org/10.55419/wsl:42756

WSL Report SSP-CH

Gubler, L., Tschumi, P., Pütz, M., Seidl, I. (2026): SSP-CH: Sozioökonomische Szenarien für die Schweiz. Bericht über Grundlagen, Methoden und Resultate. WSL Bericht. Birmensdorf. doi.org/10.55419/wsl:42764

Technical report on modelling

invalid link: https://doi.org/10.55419/wsl:42766Oberpriller, Q., Schmid, N., Kemmler, A., Gubler, L., Bogler, S., Giger, D., Piegsa, A., Brutsche, A., Kreidelmeyer, S., Vu, M. Ph., Black, B., Kirchner, A., Füssler, J. (2026): Treibhausgasemissionen unter verschiedenen sozioökonomischen und klimapolitischen Szenarien für die Schweiz. Modellierung und Analyse. Infras, Prognos, WSL. Zürich. doi.org/10.55419/wsl:42766

Peer-reviewed papers

Tschumi, P., Seidl, I., Pütz, M., Gubler, L. (2026): Advancing national Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs): A novel procedure applied to develop current Swiss SSPs. Global Environmental Change. Volume 96, 103105. doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.103105

Schmid, N., Oberpriller, Q., Gubler, L., Füssler, J. (forthcoming): Shared Policy Assumptions revisited: A framework for assessing national climate policy pathways. Climatic Change.

Further products

• Illustrative SSP-CH impact diagrams
• Input and output data from greenhouse gas modelling
• Land use modelling data: https://zenodo.org/records/16875541

• SSP-CH land use maps (10 land use classes)
• Change maps
• Sankey plots

Further information on the results and the products themselves can be found on the external project website: nccs-impacts.ch/en/ssp-ch

Project partners

• WSL (Lena Gubler)
• INFRAS (Dr Jürg Füssler, Dr Quirin Oberpriller)
  
• PROGNOS (Dr Andreas Kemmler)
  
• Zoï (Johanna Zwahlen)

Last modification 05.05.2026