Transcript The Future of Food Security in Global Change Scenarios

The Future of Food Security in
Global Change Scenarios
Thomas E. Downing
Gina Ziervogel
Stockholm Environment Institute
• Why scenarios?
• Three methodological challenges
• Toward a research agenda
Why scenarios?
• The nature of the system is beyond our
understanding:
– Complexity: behaviour emerges from the interaction
of many agents
– Time scale of concern is decades to a century (and
beyond)
• Prediction is impossible
• Policy options are many and at multiple scales
that preclude simple decision support systems
What is a scenario anyway?
• Narrative of internally consistent
processes, actors and linkages
• Quantitative input to global change models
• Path analysis linking present with scenario
future
• Vision of desirable worlds (or nightmare of
avoidable futures)
From the IPCC
Who frames
scenarios?
• Participation is limited by
scenario process
• Scenarios are framed for
specific purposes
• Vulnerable are rarely directly
involved
• Insight qualified by top-down
scenarios
• IPCC Special Report on
Emissions Scenarios
• Global Scenario Groups
Great Transitions
SRES Scenario Families
SRES:
Link GHG emissions
to global concentrations
to global climate change
Purpose:
Global GHG profiles
Constraint:
Government approval
Bias:
Poorest developing country in
2080s is as rich as OECD is now
Global Scenario Group
Conventional
Worlds
Barbarization
market forces
fortress world
policy reform
breakdown
Great
Transitions
eco-communalism
new sustainability
How are local and global
linked?
Drought
Flood
Cyclone
2000
1995
1990
1985
1980
1975
1970
1965
Profiles
• Multiple dimensions of rural food insecurity in
India
14
Himachal
Pradesh
12
Size of circle is
related to
nutritional status
Food Access
Haryana
Punjab
10
Rajasthan
Karmataka
Andhra
Uttar Pradesh
Pradesh
Gujarat
8
Assam
Kerala
Maharashtra
West
Bengal
Orissa
Madhya
Pradesh
Tamil
Nadu
6
Bihar
4
2
4
6
8
10
Food Availability
12
14
0%
Food availability
Food production deficit
Cereal instability
Environmental sustainability
Storm hazard
Drought hazard
Very low food consumption
Inadequate food consumption
Wastelands
Food access and livelihoods
Poverty
Dependence on labour
Rural infrastructure
Female sex ratio
Female literacy
Scheduled peoples
Life expectancy
Illiteracy
Roads
Electricity
Agricultural labourers
Food absorption and nutrition
Chronic energy deficiency
Stunted children
Underw eight children
Infant mortality
Health infrastructure
Hospital beds
Safe drinking w ater
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
How is a close coupled system
represented?
Two approaches Compared
Aggregate demand series scaled so 1973=100
200
180
Agent based:
160
Discontinuities
Large range of results
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J- J73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97
Climate change impacts
Simulation Date
250
BetaMH
100
GammaMH
DeltaMH
50
2041
2039
2037
2035
2033
2031
2029
2027
2025
2023
2021
0
2019
Smooth scenarios
Modest range
AlphaMH
150
2017
Dynamic simulation:
200
2015
Relative Demand
140
Toward a research agenda
• Formal comparison of scenario processes
• Experiments with large group scenario
development
• Peer review and methodological critique
• Reconnecting theory and practice