Background report to the OECD Environmental Outlook to 2030 - Overviews, details, and methodology of model-based analysis

Apr 2008

This background report provides overviews of the forward-looking analyses carried out for the OECD Environmental Outlook to 2030 (OECD, 2008). The first of these overviews gives the results of three comprehensive policy packages that were simulated: enhanced environment-related policies in OECD countries, in OECD countries+BRIC and in OECD countries+BRIC+Rest of the World. The second overview summarises the impact of the Baseline and policy packages on the various regions, showing important differences and similarities. These overviews are important in order to appreciate the case for international collaboration.
The focus of this report is on the comprehensive analyses conducted with the suite of models of OECD, MNP and others. It does not discuss theme-specific simulations that were run directly with the ENV-Linkages model of OECD. Moreover, the focus of the report is on the analyses in which model-based quantification is important.
Furthermore, this report documents the results of model-based quantification in more detail than available in the OECD Environmental Outlook report. Frequently these details have featured in discussions with delegates and other reviewers and, from a good practice point of view, are therefore documented in this report.
Other examples of the importance of documenting details are the time series that were developed as part of the modelling for the Outlook. For many environmental variables, the full set includes the period from 1970 to 1980, which helps to put the projections into perspective.
Additionally, the analysis for the slow-changing processes features a policy horizon of 2030 and an impact horizon of 2050. This background report gives this sort of wider information, allowing the Outlook reader a better understanding of the results in the main report.
Finally, this report describes the modelling framework and the assumptions behind the outcomes in the OECD Environmental Outlook to 2030. It explains the relation between the variables used in the Outlook. Also, it discusses the main uncertainty issues at a deeper level than in the main report.

By: Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, OECD

 
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