Can we project well-being? Towards integral well-being projections in climate models and beyond

Abstract

Scientists have proposed many “Beyond-GDP” indicators to replace the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in order to quantify genuine societal development. While GDP is regularly projected, research on future trajectories of Beyond-GDP indicators is lacking, failing to meet policymakers’ needs. Focusing on the Human Development Index (HDI), this paper attempts to calculate one of the first global well-being projections for 161 countries by 2100 using the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), the socioeconomic inputs underlying global climate change scenarios. The results indicate a potential global well-being improvement from medium to very high level, depending on the SSPs, with most countries reaching high human development under SSPs 1&5. While serving as an initial step in well-being projection, the results highlight a crucial gap in existing climate change models which are used by the IPCC—they inadequately account for the feedback effects of climate change on well-being. This oversight results in counterintuitive or potentially misleading well-being projections. Therefore, we propose steps to improve this situation. By synthesizing climate change feedback effects on HDI determinants, this assessment delves into their implications for well-being and further underscores the necessity for interdisciplinary collaborations among well-being researchers, climate scientists and policy modelers to achieve sound integral well-being projections.