Project description DEENESFRITPL Political dimensions of vulnerability in climate change The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. The IPCC community developed the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) – Representative Concentration Pathways scenario framework to study interactions between climate and society. It is the basis for current assessments. However, the quantitative SSPs that describe alternative warming scenarios of exposure and vulnerability to climate-driven social risks ignore political dimensions of vulnerability and use economic models that ignore growth disruption risks. The ERC project POLIMPACT will develop a portfolio of empirically grounded and validated governance, conflict and economic development scenario projections to study the political sources of vulnerability in climate change impact assessments. Its methods will include dynamic statistical simulations and machine learning. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective What are key climate-driven social risks, and how might societal development moderate these risks? The SSP-RCP scenario framework has been developed by the IPCC community to study long-term interactions between climate and society and constitutes the cornerstone of current assessments of climate change impacts. The RCPs represent alternative warming scenarios (hazards) whereas the SSPs describe alternative development scenarios that define exposure and vulnerability to these hazards. Despite their widespread use, the quantitative SSP scenarios suffer from two major shortcomings: (i) they ignore political dimensions of vulnerability, implicitly assuming that governance does not matter for climate-driven risk; (ii) they use economic models that ignore growth disruption risks, resulting in future growth projections for low-income countries that vastly exceed past growth even in the most pessimistic scenarios. The joint result of these shortcomings is a quantified scenario framework that severely underestimates future vulnerability to climate change.POLIMPACT aspires to remedy this problem. Using cutting-edge methods, including dynamic statistical simulations, machine learning, and expert elicitation, the project will develop a new portfolio of empirically grounded and rigorously validated governance, conflict, and economic development scenario projections, consistent with the SSPs, that for the first time enables accounting for political sources of vulnerability in climate change impact assessments. The scientific merit of the novel scenario products will be demonstrated by comparing impact estimates for poverty and hunger relying on the existing SSP framework with updated results using the extended, politically sensitive projections. If successful, POLIMPACT will initiate a step-change in climate change impact modeling, radically improving the quality and real-world relevance of climate change impact assessments for key social risks over the 21st century. Fields of science social sciencessociologygovernancenatural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changesnatural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learning Programme(s) HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2021-ADG - ERC ADVANCED GRANTS Call for proposal ERC-2021-ADG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme HORIZON-AG - HORIZON Action Grant Budget-Based Coordinator INSTITUTT FOR FREDSFORSKNING Net EU contribution € 2 497 678,00 Address Hausmanns gate 3 0186 Oslo Norway See on map Region Norge Oslo og Viken Oslo Activity type Research Organisations Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00
