Showing papers in "Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change in 2020"

Unraveling the influence of atmospheric evaporative demand on drought and its response to climate change

Abstract: This review examines the role of the atmospheric evaporative demand (AED) in drought. AED is a complex concept and here we discuss possible AED definitions, the subsequent metrics to measure and estimate AED, and the different physical drivers that control it. The complex influence of AED on meteorological, environmental/agricultural and hydrological droughts is discussed, stressing the important spatial differences related to the climatological conditions. Likewise, AED influence on drought has implications regarding how different drought metrics consider AED in their attempts to quantify drought severity. Throughout the article, we assess literature findings with respect to: (a) recent drought trends and future projections; (b) the several uncertainties related to data availability; (c) the sensitivity of current drought metrics to AED; and (d) possible roles that both the radiative and physiological effects of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations may play as we progress into the future. All these issues preclude identifying a simple effect of the AED on drought severity. Rather it calls for different evaluations of drought impacts and trends under future climate scenarios, considering the complex feedbacks governing the climate system. This article is categorized under: Paleoclimates and Current Trends > Earth System Behavior

Online misinformation about climate change

Abstract: Policymakers, scholars, and practitioners have all called attention to the issue of misinformation in the climate change debate But what is climate change misinformation, who is involved, how does it spread, why does it matter, and what can be done about it? Climate change misinformation is closely linked to climate change skepticism, denial, and contrarianism A network of actors are involved in financing, producing, and amplifying misinformation Once in the public domain, characteristics of online social networks, such as homophily, polarization, and echo chambers—characteristics also found in climate change debate—provide fertile ground for misinformation to spread Underlying belief systems and social norms, as well as psychological heuristics such as confirmation bias, are further factors which contribute to the spread of misinformation A variety of ways to understand and address misinformation, from a diversity of disciplines, are discussed These include educational, technological, regulatory, and psychological‐based approaches No single approach addresses all concerns about misinformation, and all have limitations, necessitating an interdisciplinary approach to tackle this multifaceted issue Key research gaps include understanding the diffusion of climate change misinformation on social media, and examining whether misinformation extends to climate alarmism, as well as climate denial This article explores the concepts of misinformation and disinformation and defines disinformation to be a subset of misinformation A diversity of disciplinary and interdisciplinary literature is reviewed to fully interrogate the concept of misinformation—and within this, disinformation—particularly as it pertains to climate change This article is categorized under: Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Communication

On the political feasibility of climate change mitigation pathways: Is it too late to keep warming below 1.5° C?

Abstract: Keeping global warming below 1.5°C is technically possible but is it politically feasible? Understanding political feasibility requires answering three questions: (a) “Feasibility of what?,” (b) “Feasibility when and where?,” and (c) “Feasibility for whom?.” In relation to the 1.5°C target, these questions translate into (a) identifying specific actions comprising the 1.5°C pathways; (b) assessing the economic and political costs of these actions in different socioeconomic and political contexts; and (c) assessing the economic and institutional capacity of relevant social actors to bear these costs. This view of political feasibility stresses costs and capacities in contrast to the prevailing focus on benefits and motivations which mistakes desirability for feasibility. The evidence on the political feasibility of required climate actions is not systematic, but clearly indicates that the costs of required actions are too high in relation to capacities to bear these costs in relevant contexts. In the future, costs may decline and capacities may increase which would reduce political constraints for at least some solutions. However, this is unlikely to happen in time to avoid a temperature overshoot. Further research should focus on exploring the “dynamic political feasibility space” constrained by costs and capacities in order to find more feasible pathways to climate stabilization. This article is categorized under: The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Decarbonizing Energy and/or Reducing Demand.

Negative emissions and the long history of carbon removal

Abstract: Recent IPCC assessments highlight a key role for large‐scale carbon removal in meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement. This focus on removal, also referred to as negative emissions, is suggestive of novel opportunities, risks, and challenges in addressing climate change, but tends to build on the narrow techno‐economic framings that characterize integrated assessment modeling. While the discussion on negative emissions bears important parallels to a wider and older literature on carbon sequestration and carbon sinks, this earlier scholarship—particularly from the critical social sciences—is seldom engaged with by the negative emissions research community. In this article, we survey this “long history” of carbon removal and seek to draw out lessons for ongoing research and the emerging public debate on negative emissions. We argue that research and policy on negative emissions should proceed not just from projections of the future, but also from an acknowledgement of past controversies, successes and failures. In particular, our review calls attention to the irreducibly political character of carbon removal imaginaries and accounting practices and urges acknowledgement of past experiences with the implementation of (small‐scale) carbon sequestration projects. Our review in this way highlights the importance of seeing continuity in the carbon removal discussion and calls for more engagement with existing social science scholarship on the subject. Acknowledging continuity and embracing an interdisciplinary research agenda on carbon removal are important aspects in making climate change mitigation research more responsible, and a precondition to avoid repeating past mistakes and failures. This article is categorized under: The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Benefits of Mitigation

Physical and policy pathways to net-zero emissions industry

Abstract: Several recent studies have identified emerging and near‐commercial process and technological options to transition heavy industry to global net‐zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by mid‐century, as required by the Paris Agreement. To reduce industrial emissions with sufficient speed to meet the Paris goals, this review article argues for the rapid formation of regional and sectoral transition plans, implemented through comprehensive policy packages. These policy packages, which will differ by country, sector, and level of development, must reflect regional capacities, politics, resources, and other key circumstances, and be informed and accepted by the stakeholders who must implement the transition. These packages will likely include a mix of the following mutually reinforcing strategies: reducing and substituting the demand for GHG intense materials (i.e., material efficiency) while raising the quantity and quality of recycling through intentional design and regulation; removal of energy subsidies combined with carbon pricing with competitiveness protection; research and development support for decarbonized production technologies followed by lead markets and subsidized prices during early stage commercialization; sunset policies for older high carbon facilities; electricity, hydrogen and carbon capture, and storage infrastructure planning and support; and finally, supporting institutions, including for a “just workforce & community transition” and monitoring and adjustment of policy effectiveness. Given the paucity of industrial decarbonization perspectives available for in‐transition and less‐developed countries, the review finishes with a discussion of priorities and responsibilities for developed, in‐transition and less developed countries. This article is categorized under: Climate Economics > Economics of Mitigation Climate and Development > Decoupling Emissions from Development

Climate change adaptation in SIDS: A systematic review of the literature pre and post the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report

Abstract: Edited by Lars Otto Naess, Domain Editor, and Mike Hulme, Editor-in-Chief Abstract The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2014 was the most comprehensive to date. Yet it left several gaps with regards to the impacts, implications and responses to climate change in small island developing states (SIDS). SIDS are recognized as a special grouping of developing countries. Located in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, Caribbean, and Pacific regions, they comprise 58 countries that are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change and its impacts. With adaptation to climate change viewed as a viable and necessary complement to mitigation, academic interest in adaptation in these complex geographies is increasing. Despite this, not enough is known about the body of knowledge relating to adaptation in SIDS. This article systematically reviews 208 articles, books, book chapters, conference papers, and notes, and synthesizes the nature and extent of the research evidence before and after AR5 (i.e., from 1990 to 2014, and from 2015 to 2018). It specifically explores shifts in (a) when, where and by what means knowledge is being produced (e.g., subject areas, methodologies), and the ways in which adaptation is being framed (i.e., conceptually, operationally), (b) the narratives, consensuses, and tensions across the key emerging themes in the literature, and (c) the knowledge gaps that exist. It also outlines a future research agenda, which is an important consideration not only for multi-scale actors working to help solve the global climate challenge, but also for the scholars preparing the Small Islands Chapter of the Sixth Assessment Report due in 2021.

Public participation, engagement, and climate change adaptation: A review of the research literature

Abstract: There is a clear need for a state‐of‐the‐art review of how public participation in climate change adaptation is being considered in research across academic communities: The Rio Declaration developed in 1992 at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) included explicit goals of citizen participation and engagement in climate actions (Principle 10). Nation states were given special responsibility to facilitate these by ensuring access to information and opportunities to participate in decision‐making processes. Since then the need for public participation has featured prominently in calls to climate action. Using text analysis to produce a corpus of abstracts drawn from Web of Science, a review of literature incorporating public participation and citizen engagement in climate change adaptation since 1992 reveals lexical, temporal, and spatial distribution dynamics of research on the topic. An exponential rise in research effort since the year 2000 is demonstrated, with the focus of research action on three substantial themes—risk, flood risk, and risk assessment, perception, and communication. These are critically reviewed and three substantive issues are considered: the paradox of participation, the challenge of governance transformation, and the need to incorporate psycho‐social and behavioral adaptation to climate change in policy processes. Gaps in current research include a lack of common understanding of public participation for climate adaptation across disciplines; incomplete articulation of processes involving public participation and citizen engagement; and a paucity of empirical research examining how understanding and usage of influential concepts of risk, vulnerability and adaptive capacity varies among different disciplines and stakeholders. Finally, a provisional research agenda for attending to these gaps is described. This article is categorized under: Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Institutions for Adaptation Policy and Governance > Governing Climate Change in Communities, Cities, and Regions

Four approaches to anticipatory climate governance: Different conceptions of the future and implications for the present

Abstract: In times of accelerating earth system transformations and their potentially disruptive societal consequences, imagining and governing the future is now a core challenge for sustainability research and practice. Much social science and sustainability science scholarship increasingly engages with the future. There is, however, a lack of scrutiny of how the future is envisioned in these literatures, and with what implications for governance in the present. This article analyses these two aspects, building on the concept of “anticipatory governance.” We understand anticipatory governance to broadly mean governing in the present to adapt to or shape uncertain futures. We review perspectives within public policy, futures studies, social–ecological systems, environmental policy and governance, transition studies, science and technology studies, and responsible research and innovation literatures. All these literatures engage explicitly or implicitly with the notion of anticipatory governance, yet from distinct ontological and epistemological starting points. Through our review, we identify four approaches to anticipatory governance that differ with regard to (a) their conceptions of and engagement with the future; (b) their implications for actions to be taken in the present; and (c) the ultimate end to be realized through anticipatory governance. We then map onto these four approaches a diverse set of methods and tools of anticipation that each engages with. In concluding, we discuss how these four approaches provide a useful analytical lens through which to assess ongoing practices of anticipatory governance in the climate and sustainability realm.

A review of agent-based modeling of climate-energy policy

Abstract: Agent-based models (ABMs) have recently seen much application to the field of climate mitigation policies. They offer a more realistic description of micro behavior than traditional climate policy models by allowing for agent heterogeneity, bounded rationality and nonmarket interactions over social networks. This enables the analysis of a broader spectrum of policies. Here, we review 61 ABM studies addressing climate-energy policy aimed at emissions reduction, product and technology diffusion, and energy conservation. This covers a broad set of instruments of climate policy, ranging from carbon taxation, and emissions trading through adoption subsidies to information provision tools such as smart meters and eco-labels. Our treatment pays specific attention to behavioral assumptions and the structure of social networks. We offer suggestions for future research with ABMs to answer neglected policy questions. This article is categorized under: Climate Economics > Economics of Mitigation.

Ten years after Copenhagen: Reimagining climate change governance in urban areas

Abstract: In this review, we take stock of the last decade of research on climate change governance in urban areas since the 2009 conference in Copenhagen. Using a systematic evaluation of academic publications in the field, we argue that the current moment of research has been shaped by two recent waves of thought. The first, a wave of urban optimism, which started in 2011 and peaked in 2013, engaged with urban areas as alternative sites for governance in the face of the crumbling international climate regime. The second, a wave of urban pragmatism, which started in 2016, has sought to reimagine urban areas following the integration of the “sub-national” as a meaningful category in the international climate regime after the 2015 Paris Agreement for Climate Action. Four themes dominate the debate on climate change governance in urban areas: why there is climate action, how climate action is delivered, how it is articulated in relation to internationally reaching networks, and what implications it has to understand environmental or climate justice within urban settings. Calls to understand the impacts of climate change policy have fostered research on climate change politics, issues of power and control, conflicts, and the inherently unjust nature of much climate policy. What is largely missing from the current scholarship is a sober assessment of the mundane aspects of climate change governance on the ground and a concern with what kind of cultural and socio-economic change is taking place, beyond comparative analyses of the effectiveness of climate policies.

Contested framings of greenhouse gas removal and its feasibility: Social and political dimensions

Abstract: Prospective approaches for large‐scale greenhouse gas removal (GGR) are now central to the post‐2020 international commitment to pursue efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C. However, the feasibility of large‐scale GGR has been repeatedly questioned. Most systematic analyses focus only on the physical, technical, and economic challenges of deploying it at scale. However, social and political dimensions will be just as important, if not more so, to how possible futures play out. We conduct one of the first reviews of the international peer‐reviewed literature pertaining to the social and political dimensions of large‐scale GGR, with a specific focus on two predominant approaches: Biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and afforestation/reforestation (AR). Our analysis of 78 studies proposes two important insights. First, it shows how six key social and political dimensions of GGR feasibility–namely economics and incentives; innovation; societal engagement; governance; complexity and uncertainty; and ethics, equity, and justice–are identifiable and are emphasized to varying degrees in the literature. Second, there are three contested ways in which BECCS and AR and their feasibility are being framed in the literature: (a) a techno‐economic framing; (b) a social and political acceptability framing; and (c) a responsible development framing. We suggest this third frame will, and indeed should, become increasingly pertinent to the assessment, innovation, and governance of climate futures.

Deliberate decline: An emerging frontier for the study and practice of decarbonization

Abstract: Promoting low‐carbon innovation has long been a central preoccupation within both the practice and theory of climate change mitigation. However, deep lock‐ins indicate that existing carbon‐intensive systems will not be displaced or reconfigured by innovation alone. A growing number of studies and practical initiatives suggest that mitigation efforts will need to engage with the deliberate decline of carbon‐intensive systems and their components (e.g., technologies and practices). Yet, despite this realisation, the role of intentional decline in decarbonization remains poorly understood and the literature in this area continues to be dispersed among different bodies of research and disciplines. In response, this article structures the fragmented strands of research engaging with purposive decline, interrogating the role it may play in decarbonization. It does so by systematically surveying concepts with particular relevance for intentional decline, focusing on phase‐out, divestment, and destabilization. This article is categorized under: Decarbonizing Energy and/or Reducing Demand > Decarbonizing Energy and/or Reducing Demand

Social scientific knowledge in times of crisis: What climate change can learn from coronavirus (and vice versa).

Abstract: "Crisis, by its very nature, requires decisive intervention. However, important questions can be obscured by the very immediacy of the crisis condition. What is the nature of the crisis? How it is defined (and by whom)? And, subsequently, what forms of knowledge are deemed legitimate and authoritative for informing interventions?""

Assessing precipitation trends in the Americas with historical data: A review

Abstract: North, Central, and South America (collectively referred to as the Americas) extend across two hemispheres, and together cover approximately 28% of Earth's land area and are home to about 13% of the world's population. Unique ecosystems, diversified cultures, and communities that inhabit the region rely on precipitation delivered yearly by multiple systems, including mid‐latitudes storms, the North and South American Monsoons, and tropical storms and hurricanes. The rapid warming of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans combined with internal variability of the climate system, have modified precipitation patterns from the tropics to high latitudes. In the Americas, instrumental records have shown evidence of upward trends in extreme precipitation (amount, intensity, and frequency) in many areas. The most consistent evidence of precipitation trends occurs in mid‐latitudes of North America and in the subtropics of South America. Recent studies have indicated a poleward shift of heavy precipitation associated with South American Monsoon. Nonetheless, the deficient network of rain gauges in vast areas over tropical Americas limits the assessment of trends in regions with heavy rainfall amounts. Additionally, observed trends in the North America monsoon precipitation are difficult to separate from the contribution of tropical storms and hurricanes. Furthermore, coupled modes such as the El Nino/Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation modulate precipitation in the Americas, from the tropics to the extratropics, and these teleconnections are relevant to assess precipitation trends using historical records. This review evaluates all these complex issues focusing on observations based on instrumental datasets. This article is categorized under: Paleoclimates and Current Trends > Modern Climate Change

The nature, significance, and influence of perceived personal experience of climate change

Abstract: Following a previous 2014 review of perceived personal experience of climate change, the authors review relevant research published or reported between January 2014 and mid-year 2019. The review findings suggest that the nature, significance, and influence of perceived personal experience of natural environment changes, conditions, and events deemed to be likely consequences of global climate change have been problematically conceptualized, researched, reported, and understood by many climate change scientists and by reporters of climate change science and their audiences. The nature, psychological significance, and psychological adaptation and issue engagement influence of personal experience of perceived environmental manifestations of climate change are arguably central considerations with respect to the human dimensions of climate change. These matters encompass public understanding of climate change science, both internal and external adaptation processes, and the psychological impacts of the ongoing stressor of climate change. They also affect issue engagement and behavioral change. It is increasingly necessary that existing issues with discipline-based assumptive worlds, constructs and measures—and often unclear research and policy questions and objectives—be identified, clarified, and addressed. This particularly matters when researchers and policy makers are addressing public risk perceptions, understandings, and responses to global climate change, ideally to inform and enhance policies directed at climate change mitigation and adaptation, or, alternatively framed, directed towards public issue engagement and ‘psychologically significant’ as well as ‘environmentally significant’ behavioral change. This article is categorized under: Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Perceptions of Climate Change.

Long-term projections of sea-level rise from ice sheets

Abstract: Under future climate change scenarios it is virtually certain that global mean sea level will continue to rise. But the rate at which this occurs, and the height and time at which it might stabilize, are uncertain. The largest potential contributors to sea level are the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, but these may take thousands of years to fully adjust to environmental changes. Modeled projections of how these ice masses will evolve in the future are numerous, but vary both in complexity and projection timescale. Typically, there is greater agreement between models in the present century than over the next millennium. This reflects uncertainty in the physical processes that dominate ice‐sheet change and also feedbacks in the ice–atmosphere–ocean system, and how these might lead to nonlinear behavior. Satellite observations help constrain short‐term projections of ice‐sheet change but these records are still too short to capture the full ice‐sheet response. Conversely, geological records can be used to inform long‐term ice‐sheet simulations but are prone to large uncertainties, meaning that they are often unable to adequately confirm or refute the operation of particular processes. Because of these limitations there is a clear need to more accurately reconstruct sea level changes during periods of the past, to improve the spatial and temporal extent of current ice sheet observations, and to robustly attribute observed changes to driving mechanisms. Improved future projections will require models that capture a more extensive suite of physical processes than are presently incorporated, and which better quantify the associated uncertainties. This article is categorized under: Climate Models and Modeling > Knowledge Generation with Models

Climate risk assessments and science‐based targets: A review of emerging private sector climate action tools

Abstract: With the retreat of the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, the campaign to enroll corporations and other private sector actors into the climate governing arena has accelerated. The tools used by such actors in addressing climate change are similarly expanding. While carbon footprints and carbon offsets have been previously underscored as the chief climate action tools to date, climate risk assessments and science‐based targets have been proposed as new quantitative tools to mobilize corporate action against climate change. This article presents a review of these two tools, arguing for more comprehensive and sustained scholarly investigation into each. Following overviews on the early developments of each tool, related academic research is considered in an effort to point toward future research priorities. These priorities emphasize generating empirical data around each tool's origins, diffusion, and impacts (social, economic, and environmental) so that more robust academic debates might occur on the role of science‐based targets and climate risk assessments in advancing effective polycentric climate governance. This article is categorized under: Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Knowledge and Practice Policy and Governance > Private Governance of Climate Change

Governing climate risks in the face of normative uncertainties

Abstract: Governing risks is not only a technical matter, but also a matter of ethical and societal considerations In this article, we argue that in addition to scientific and technical uncertainties, we need to also address normative uncertainties of risk decisions We define normative uncertainties as situations where there are different partially morally defensible -- but incompatible -- options or courses of action, or ones in which there is no fully morally defensible option We conceptualize normative uncertainties, distinguishing between the four categories of evolutionary, theoretical, conceptual, and epistemic normative uncertainties We will show different instances of normative uncertainties in climate adaptation strategies We finally present two methods for identifying and dealing with normative uncertainties, namely, the Wide Reflective Equilibrium and adaptive planning Situations of normative uncertainties have always been and will continue to be present in risk decisions and they have often been dealt with in an implicit manner In this article, we make them explicit, which could lead to better morally informed and justified decisions about climate risks This article is categorized under: Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Ethics and Climate Change

Integrating social protection and climate change adaptation: A review

Abstract: Policymakers are increasingly interested in how social protection is evolving in the context of climate change. This review assesses what the literature tells us about its role in facilitating adaptation in lower income countries. It also explores how far thinking on an integrated “adaptive social protection” (ASP) agenda considers transforming the socioeconomic and political contexts where vulnerability to climate change originates. The review finds that research to date focuses on how instruments such as cash or asset transfers can protect the poor from shocks and stresses, prevent households from falling into poverty as a result of climate change, and promote climate-resilient livelihoods. However, it cautions that such interventions must go beyond helping households to cope against shocks over short time horizons; they should enable the adoption of forward-looking strategies for long-lasting adaptation. Much less attention in the literature is given to whether social protection measures might have transformational effects for recipients. This is despite the fact that the earliest proponents of ASP favored a rights-based approach to social protection to address issues of inequality and marginalization which are at the root of poverty and vulnerability to climate change. Although the role of social protection should not be overstated, it holds promise as a tool for building adaptive capacity. However, the potential of ASP to be truly transformational for its recipients by tackling the structural causes of vulnerability to climate change is not yet harnessed by policymakers. This constitutes a missed opportunity for the agenda to deliver on the international community's promise to “leave no one behind.”. This article is categorized under: Climate and Development > Sustainability and Human Well-Being Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Values-Based Approach to Vulnerability and Adaptation.

Understanding different perspectives on economic growth and climate policy

Abstract: Should economic growth continue in a world threatened by the prospect of catastrophic climate change? The scientific and public debate has brought forth a broad spectrum of views and narratives on this question, ranging from neoclassical economics to degrowth. We argue that different positions can be attributed to underlying differences in views on (a) factors that determine human well‐being, (b) the feasibility and desirability of economic growth, (c) appropriate intervention points, and (d) preferences about governance and policy options. For each of these dimensions, we propose points of agreement on which a consensus between conflicting positions might be achieved. From this basis, we distill a sustainability transition perspective that could act as a basis for a renewed debate on how to align human well‐being with environmental sustainability. This article is categorized under: Climate Economics>Economics and Climate Change

The practice of responsible research and innovation in “climate engineering”

Abstract: Sunlight reflection and carbon removal proposals for “climate engineering” (CE) confront governance challenges that many emerging technologies face: their futures are uncertain, and by the time one can discern their shape or impacts, vested interests may block regulation, and publics are often left out of decision-making about them. In response to these challenges, “responsible research and innovation” (RRI) has emerged as a framework to critique and correct for technocratic governance of emerging technologies, and CE has emerged as a prime case of where it can be helpfully applied. However, a critical lens is rarely applied to RRI itself. In this review, we first survey how RRI thinking has already been applied to both carbon removal and sunlight reflection methods for climate intervention. We examine how RRI is employed in four types of activities: Assessment processes and reports, principles and protocols for research governance, critical mappings of research, and deliberative and futuring engagements. Drawing upon this review, we identify tensions in RRI practice, including whether RRI forms or informs choices, the positionalities of RRI practitioners, and ways in which RRI activities enable or disable particular climate interventions. Finally, we recommend that RRI should situate CE within the long arc of sociotechnical proposals for addressing climate change, more actively connect interrogations of the knowledge economy with reparative engagements, include local or actor-specific contexts, design authoritative assessments grounded in RRI, and go beyond treating critique and engagement as “de facto” governance.

Four scenarios of the energy transition : drivers, consequences, and implications for geopolitics

Abstract: This opinion article offers insights into the geopolitics of the ongoing global energy transition. In doing so, it draws heavily on a workshop in Berlin in late 2018, and a subsequent paper in the journal Nature. Four scenarios are presented. First, the “Big Green Deal” offers a positive story of the future, under the assumption that there will be a multilateral approach to tackling climate change. Second, “Dirty Nationalism” explores the fallout of nations choosing to turn inward and pursue a short‐term, protectionist, and self‐interested agenda. Third, “Technology Breakthrough” illustrates how a technological leap forward could lead to a great power rivalry and distinct regional energy blocs. Finally, “Muddling On” investigates the outcome of an energy transition that reflect business as usual. By comparing and contrasting the different scenarios, the article highlights the potential winners and losers of the different scenarios, and the geopolitical consequences. It also sketches the implications for policy, theory, and scenario thinking more broadly. This article is categorized under: Integrated Assessment of Climate Change > Integrated Scenario Development The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Future of Global Energy