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

The document argues that climate-economics models often underrate the potential for low-income countries to escape poverty, which leads to underestimated business-as-usual emissions and consequently weaker emissions reduction goals. It suggests that if low-income countries experience faster economic growth, more ambitious global emissions reduction policies would be required today to achieve climate stabilization.

• Current 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 and results in lower projected business-as-usual emissions and weaker emissions reduction goals.
• If low-income countries achieve faster economic development, similar to the trajectories of China and India, business-as-usual emissions would increase, necessitating 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} }