Topic: SSPs

Are the climate change scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) accurately representing our likely futures, or are they rooted in outdated perspectives that don't represent the progress we’re already making on energy transition? Is the world on a “business as usual” path to climate doom in a planet that’s 5°C warmer, or are we actually within reach of limiting warming to 2°C by the end of this century?

In this episode, we ask two experts to debate these questions in the very first extended three-way conversation on this podcast. Representing the energy analyst’s critique of the IPCC models is Bloomberg New Energy Finance founder Michael Liebreich. And representing the modeling work that informs the IPCC process is Dr. Nico Bauer, an integrated assessment modeler with the Potsdam Institute who has helped develop the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways used in the IPCC framework.

This episode is part one of that three-hour conversation. Part two will be featured in Episode #117. Together, those two episodes make Part 12 of our mini-series on climate science.