PNNL

This chapter explores uncertainty in future scenarios of energy, land use, emissions and radiative forcing that span the range in the literature for radiative forcing, but also consider uncertainty in two other dimensions, challenges to mitigation and challenges to adaptation. We develop a set of six scenarios that we explore in detail including the underlying the context in which they are set, assumptions that drive the scenarios, the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM), used to produce quantified implications for those assumptions, and results for the global energy and land-use systems as well as emissions, concentrations and radiative forcing. We also describe the history of scenario development and the present state of development of this branch of climate change research. We discuss the implications of alternative social, economic, demographic, and technology development possibilities, as well as potential stabilization regimes for the supply of and demand for energy, the choice of energy technologies, and prices of energy and agricultural commodities. Land use and land cover will also be discussed with the emphasis on the interaction between the demand for bioenergy and crops, crop yields, crop prices, and policy settings to limit greenhouse gas emissions.