Abstract
The complex challenges arising from climate change that exceeds the +2 °C target (termed ‘high-end climate change’) in Europe require new integrative responses to support transformations to a more sustainable future. We present a novel methodology that combines transition management and high-end climate and socioeconomic change scenarios to identify pathways and move Europe closer to sustainability. Eighteen pathways have been co-created with stakeholders through a participatory process. The pathways support Europe in moving towards a desirable future vision, through top-down and bottom-up actions that lower greenhouse gas emissions, reduce impacts of and vulnerabilities to climate and socioeconomic changes and enhance well-being. Analysis shows that the pathways that are robust to future scenario uncertainty are those that shift Europe towards sustainable lifestyles, support and strengthen good governance for sustainability and promote adaptive resource management for water, agriculture and energy. The methodology can support the design of the urgent actions needed to meet the requirements of the Paris Agreement and to transform Europe, in preparation for an uncertain future.
Highlights
Despite the Paris Agreement to avoid dangerous climate change, it is increasingly plausible that the global increase in mean temperature will surpass the 2 °C threshold (IPCC 2014; Stafford Smith et al 2011)
As well as coping with, highend climate change will demand the balancing of mitigation, adaptation and transformation, as well as acceptance of residual damages (Tinch et al 2015)
We show that there are three pathways that are common to all scenarios: shifting to sustainable lifestyles, supporting or strengthening good governance for sustainability and promoting adaptive resource management for water, agriculture and energy
Summary
Despite the Paris Agreement to avoid dangerous climate change, it is increasingly plausible that the global increase in mean temperature will surpass the 2 °C threshold (IPCC 2014; Stafford Smith et al 2011). Temperature increases above 2 °C, referred to in this paper as ‘high-end’ climate change, are likely to lead to detrimental environmental, social and economic consequences and to the emergence of critical thresholds that tip current social-ecological systems into another (probably less socially desirable) state with largely unknown consequences (Steffen et al 2015, 2018; Rockström et al 2009; Russill 2015). Responding to high-end climate change requires climate mitigation and adaptation actions that are not technological fixes and that do address one isolated issue at a time. To respond to high-end climate change, the actions must contribute to transformations towards a more sustainable future (Gillard et al 2016; O’Brien and Selboe 2015). Addressing climate change in this way facilitates long-term, integrative approaches that recognise synergies and trade-offs between multiple goals associated with societal well-being (McHale et al 2015; Pelling et al 2015) which can overcome path dependencies and lock-ins (Hermwille 2017; Meadowcroft 2009; Shaw et al 2014)
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