A transdisciplinary modeling framework for the participatory design of dynamic adaptive policy pathways

Abstract

Efficient policymaking is crucial towards climate change mitigation. However, policies’ successful implementation depends largely on the context where they are applied. Classic decision-making used to be based on a static plan that was considered optimal for the “most likely” future contextual outcome. However, predicting the most probable evolution of this context has been proved unsuccessful, since it is vulnerable to unanticipated parameter change. Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways can address this problem focusing on the design of short-term policies, with simultaneous definition of adaptive interventions to be chosen on the long-term. This article presents a transdisciplinary modeling framework, which builds on the original Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways methodology. To demonstrate the applicability of this framework the authors used it to explore the evolution of the small-scale solar photovoltaics share in Greece, towards the achievement of the national capacity targets of 2025 and 2030. Model outcomes facilitated the identification of several pathways achieving the capacity targets, while reducing the risk for retroactive policy changes. Overall, the presented study demonstrates potential to support the design of adaptive policies over contextual evolutions so that social, economic and technological aspects of integrative planning are balanced towards the achievement of climate targets.