Modeling Pessimism: Does Climate Stabilization Require a Failure of Development?

This research paper examines how assumptions regarding income growth in low-income countries within climate-economics models affect global emissions reduction goals, arguing that underestimating the development potential of the poorest nations leads to weaker mitigation targets.

• Climate-economics models frequently assume that low-income countries will lag behind high-income countries in per capita income, which underestimates the ability of the least developed countries to escape poverty. This assumption results in lower projected business-as-usual emissions for these regions, which in turn leads to the setting of much weaker emissions reduction goals.
• If low-income countries experience faster economic development similar to that of China and India, business-as-usual emissions would be higher in the absence of reduction policies. Consequently, this scenario would necessitate more ambitious global emissions reduction policies in the present.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2012). Modeling Pessimism: Does Climate Stabilization Require a Failure of Development? https://www.sei.org/publications/modeling-pessimism-does-climate-stabilization-require-a-failure-of-development/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Modeling Pessimism: Does Climate Stabilization Require a Failure of Development? 2012. https://www.sei.org/publications/modeling-pessimism-does-climate-stabilization-require-a-failure-of-development/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Modeling Pessimism: Does Climate Stabilization Require a Failure of Development? |date=5 June 2012 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/modeling-pessimism-does-climate-stabilization-require-a-failure-of-development/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2012modeling, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Modeling Pessimism: Does Climate Stabilization Require a Failure of Development?}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2012}, month = jun, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/modeling-pessimism-does-climate-stabilization-require-a-failure-of-development/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }