Linking Global and Local Scenarios under Climate Change

This briefing paper from the Stockholm Environment Institute addresses the gap between global climate and socioeconomic scenarios and local social realities. It argues that current global models, such as the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), often fail to capture the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of local vulnerability. The document proposes a ten-step 'glocal' research methodology to integrate global drivers with local outcomes by focusing on the changing relationships between them to better inform adaptation strategies.

• Global scenarios, specifically the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), are limited in their ability to reflect local social realities because they rely on broad categories like demographic change, economic development, and technological change. This limitation hinders the capture of "heterogeneous impacts of change and the changing relationships between global drivers and local impacts" and fails to account for local factors such as "informal institutions and uncertainties."
• Local research on climate change often focuses on outcomes and past adaptations rather than the evolving relationship between global drivers and local realities. While such research provides detailed information on local group characteristics and resilience, it frequently neglects "how global and local change might impact on the relationship between the global drivers and the local realities and the new vulnerabilities that might emerge or subside."
• The document proposes a ten-step methodology to link global and local futures, emphasizing the identification of "vulnerability in relationships" over just "vulnerability in outcomes." This process involves determining a local concern (e.g., food security), identifying global drivers, mapping relationships between drivers and local realisations, and creating matrices for different scenarios to visualize how these relationships change over time.
• The author notes that the UNDP's Adaptation Policy Framework (APF) guidance for developing scenarios is more aligned with mitigation and relies on the SRES. While the APF technical paper on socioeconomic conditions is comprehensive regarding demographic and economic analysis, it is criticized for having a "very cursory attempt at moving between scales" and failing to adequately address "social/informal institutions."

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (n.d.). Linking Global and Local Scenarios under Climate Change. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Risk-livelihoods/linking_global_local_scenarios.pdf

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Linking Global and Local Scenarios under Climate Change. n.d. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Risk-livelihoods/linking_global_local_scenarios.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Linking Global and Local Scenarios under Climate Change |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Risk-livelihoods/linking_global_local_scenarios.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitutendlinking, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Linking Global and Local Scenarios under Climate Change}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Risk-livelihoods/linking_global_local_scenarios.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }