Vulnerability of the Socio-economic Worlds of the IPCC Scenarios to Sea Level Rise & Water Stress  Saskia Werners Alterra, Wageningen University & Research Centre, NL  Roel Boumans, Bob Costanza GUND Institute for Ecological Economics, Vermont, US  Today: - context research (IPCC Scenarios & GUMBO model) - conclusions for today’s meeting

Question for you: Assume there are 2 worlds: Equal in GNP, population and energy use Different in a focus on agriculture versus services and in resources management Would these 2 worlds be : A. Equally vulnerable to climate change B. Different in vulnerability to climate change C. Don’t know / no opinion

Most analyses of impacts of climate change use GNP, population & energy use as driving forces Research Goal: Understand how complex dynamic socio-economic conditions influence our world’s vulnerability to climate change in the coming century Note: NOT: vulnerability of 1 sector under different climate scenarios INSTEAD: influence of complex socio-economic conditions on vulnerability. By: Simulating IPCC Scenarios (storylines to climate change & (feed)back) in Global Unified Meta model of the BiOsphere: GUMBO

IPCC & GUMBO Model parameter  Investment strategies  Technology development  Resources management  Labor particip.  Health&Educat. SRES storylines Model variables  population  gross world prod  ecosystem goods&services  knowledge  energy  land-use &cover Emission scenarios  CO 2 emissions Climate scenarios  temperature change  sea level rise  precipitation feedbacks and impacts GUMBO model equations

Global Unified Model of the BiOsphere:GUMBO  System thinking (integration, feedbacks, change)  Programmed in Stella environment (runs in 30 sec)  Almost 1000 variables and 2000 parameters  No spatial resolution; accounts for carbon, nutrient, water fluxes across 11 land covers and 4 capital stocks (natural, social, human, built capital). Global model->Closed cycles  Free available from internet

Conclusions Vulnerability to sea level rise and water stress in agriculture depends not only on SRES driving forces but also on socio- economic world of SRES storylines Evaluation of alternative multidimensional socio-economic conditions is important addition to understand our world’s vulnerability to climate change Meta Model can offer a promising, flexible and fast environment for the assessment Challenges: Adaptation to existing climate variability can increase long term vulnerability Dynamic evolution of socio-environmental conditions, adaptive capacity and global change (incl regime shift) Want to know more?: GUMBO (incl. model):

Method & Results B1: This storyline describes a convergent world with rapid changes in economic structures towards a service and information economy, with reduction in material intensity, + introduction of clean&resource-efficient technologies.