Transdisciplinary science in energy transitions: thinking outside strictly formalised modelling boxes
Responding to the climate crisis requires transdisciplinary processes to come into play in order to put together a jigsaw of initiatives that altogether constitute effective policy at different geographic scales: the Paris Agreement, the Global Stocktake, the Talanoa spirit and the urgent need for constantly increasing ambition all highlight existing and bring about new challenges to science in support of energy and climate policy making.
From an empirical point of view, research must stand ready to answer emerging questions that stray from the traditional climate change and policy impact assessment. These include but are not limited to the quantification of Paris-compliant transitions pathways; the consideration of diverse cooperation and coordination regimes; the quantitative assessment of ancillary benefits and avoided impacts from climate action; focused analysis of all dimensions of Nationally Determined Contributions, such as adequacy in respect to actual 1.5°C objectives, potential distributional impacts, and contribution to international equity and other sustainable development goals; and quantitative or qualitative consideration of synergies and conflicts with other policies and/or initiatives.
Furthermore, there currently exist heated debates on the right approach to mitigating emissions from the aviation industry, on the implementation of pathways that highlight energy and climate justice, as well as on the role of negative emissions technologies that most modelling scenarios currently rely on, cultivating the need to carefully examine how their potential could be overestimated and give rise to delays in emission reductions.
Given these challenges and needs, the scientific community must move outside its comfort zone and work hard on combining perspectives across various disciplines and fields, in order to effectively contribute to climate action talks and inform policymaking processes on realistic grounds and in response to actual policy needs. In essence, this calls for improving or integrating climate-economy models with other tools, unlocking assumptions from anchored socioeconomic scenarios, assessing the true impact of uncertainties, and working together with policymakers and other stakeholder groups.
This special issue is devoted to research that touches such critical policy questions, while enhancing the transparency and legitimacy of the scientific processes in support of climate policymaking, as well as introducing innovative frameworks that improve the robustness of modelling outcomes against different types of uncertainties.
More information available here.