Projections that assume the Global North will continue to over-emit help perpetuate inequalities and violate principles of equity, warn scientists.
A growing body of scientists and other experts in the Global South are calling for what they see as "blinkered" and "neo-colonialist" assumptions in climate models to be addressed. They argue that scenarios presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which inform policy at the national and global level, project unequal futures where developing countries remain poor for decades.
Participants at a meeting of the African Group of Negotiators Experts Support (AGNES) held between 20-22 March raised concerns that the IPCC's latest report, i.e. the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), falls short on equity and climate justice in its pathways for mitigating climate change. AGNES is a non-profit think tank that provides scientific expertise to inform a common African position in climate change negotiations.
Last month, a paper published in the journal Climate Policy assessed 556 scenarios in AR6 that relate to mitigation action such as reducing CO2 emissions and increasing carbon sequestration. The authors found that the scenarios project current disparities between the Global North and South to continue up to 2050. The models suggest that income, emissions, and consumption of goods, services and energy will remain low for decades in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the former faring the worst.
The IPCC report notes in multiple chapters that climate action requires transformational changes in economic and technological systems. But modelling approaches do not reflect this recognition. "When it comes to quantitative models, they only consider transformational changes in technology, but assume business as usual economic trajectories," Tejal Kanitkar, the lead author of the Climate Policy paper and associate professor in the Energy, Environment, and Climate Change Programme at India's National Institute of Advanced Studies tells African Arguments. "This is a blinkered approach to modelling as well as to what is actually needed for climate action."
She adds that even in scenarios with marginally better outcomes for Africa, the projected incomes are still far below levels that would be required to meet the Sustainable Development Goals even as late as 2050.
More broadly, the scenario results indicate that developed countries will continue emitting above their fair allocation of the global carbon budget. Consequently, the burden of mitigation falls disproportionately on developing countries.
Experts, including authors of IPCC reports, warn that models premised on continuing inequalities and poverty risk producing policies that maintain those inequities.
Youba Sokona, the former vice chair of the IPCC suggests that such modelling approaches "perpetuate a cycle of poverty and under-development", hindering progress towards achieving sustainable development goals and improving the well-being of populations in countries in the Global South.
"I consider these scenarios as neo-colonialist," says Yamina Saheb, a researcher at Sciences Po and one of the lead authors of Chapter 9 on mitigation in AR6. She criticises the fact that the models do not seek a convergence between the Global North and South in terms of housing, mobility, and quality food.
The AGNES meeting in March concluded with a request to the modelling community to design models that incorporate a convergence in per capita energy consumption and living standards between the Global South and Global North. Participants called for future reports to better consider principles of common but differentiated responsibilities.
"A disproportionate burden on the Global South"
The IPCC report contains numerous modelled pathways through which the world can meet goals such as limiting temperature rise to 1.5C or 2C. These projections are drawn using Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), which incorporate myriad factors such as GDP growth, energy consumption, land-use change, and climate science to chart possible futures. IAMs are meant to provide a comprehensive framework to guide policymakers on climate action.
One effect of scenarios that project continued inequalities is that they assume the Global North will continue high carbon emissions despite the fact that many developed countries have already far exceeded their fair share of the global carbon budget. Policies for reducing emissions based on these models therefore put the burden on developing countries to keep their emissions low to compensate for rich countries' excess appropriation.
According to these scenarios, North America and Europe end up with near-term mitigation burdens similar to those in their national climate plans - or Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) - of around a 50-55% reduction in emissions by 2030. By contrast, Africa is required to reduce emissions by 80%.
These models, according to the Climate Policy study, also suggest developing countries will undertake more carbon sequestration - from carbon sinks such as forests and the deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies - than developed countries.
The authors conclude that the IPCC models "disregard the notion of historical responsibility of the Global North".
Another study last month, published in Environmental Science and Policy, resulted in similar findings. It found that land-based mitigation pathways like afforestation and reforestation modelled in AR6 place "a disproportionate burden on the Global South".
A major equity-based critique of IAMs is that they prioritise the lowest-cost solutions which end up placing the burden of mitigation on poorer countries. This is because the costs of setting up a solar plant or undertaking afforestation in India or some African countries, for instance, are typically lower than in the US or European Union. "The models prioritise short-term cost minimisation without adequately considering the long-term implications for development and equity," says Sokona.
"A paradigm shift"
The principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, which state that rich historic polluters have a greater responsibility for addressing climate change, are enshrined in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Kanitkar says that if IPCC mitigation scenarios violate these tenets, "they cannot be considered policy relevant inputs to global climate policy discussions".
Sokona suggests that to ensure scenarios adhere to these principles, "a paradigm shift in climate modelling and policy-making" is needed. He says a new framework for modelling must "explicitly" incorporate principles of climate equity, justice, and historical responsibility. He adds that new approaches should better reflect the diverse realities and priorities of countries in the Global South by including qualitative factors such as social equity, human development, and sustainable livelihoods alongside quantitative indicators.
Scientists also agree that trust in modelling approaches should be rebuilt through greater transparency. IAMs are produced based on various assumptions, which could be stated openly because, Kanitkar says, "the lack of such transparency is not only misleading; at a more fundamental level it is also bad science".
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"The new framework should prioritise open access to data, methodologies, and assumptions, allowing for scrutiny and validation by the broader scientific community and stakeholders," adds Sokona.
Finally, experts in the Global South point to a need for diversity and inclusion in the modelling community. Almost all IAMs are currently developed in the Global North in institutions based in countries like Switzerland, Germany, and the US. "While this may not be the critical reason for scenarios to lack equity, the pervasiveness of the absence of equity raises serious questions about the lack of diversity in the model building community, including the absence of perspectives from the global South," says the Climate Policy paper.
Saheb also warns that there may be an element of group-think at play. She notes that the chapter of AR6 that contains the mitigation scenarios is dominated by authors working for institutions party to the Integrated Assessment Modelling Consortium. This means that the people who assess the pathways to decide if they should be included in the IPCC reports are linked to those who develop those models.
Equity-based critiques are an ongoing issue at COP negotiations and IPCC sessions. At COP28 last year, many country groupings like the African Group of Nations and Like Minded Developing Countries emphasised inequities in modelling. The next session of the IPCC is scheduled to be held this July where equity-based critiques of modelling approaches are again expected to be discussed.
Rishika Pardikar is a freelance environment reporter covering science, law, and policy.
