Coupling Socioeconomic Factors into a Global Earth System Model: An Inter-comparison of the Socio-Economic Consequence of the IPCC RCP8.5 and RCP4.5 scenarios

There is growing scientific evidence on the increased likelihood of considerable global warming over the coming century. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) advocates measures to stabilize greenhouse gases at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. The full implications of climate change on the environment and society will depend not only on the response of the climate system to changes in greenhouse gas concentrations, but also on the actions that humankind takes to mitigate and adapt to those changes, through the use of technology, economic structures and incentives, lifestyle choices, institutional and policy settings. To explore the economic implications of moving to a low carbon economy, and the implications of a shifting climate on the global economy we couple the CSIRO version of the Global Trade and Environment Model (GTEM-C) to the Australian Community Climate Earth System Simulator Coupled Model (ACCESS-CM) via a set of widely studied damage functions. Like the original GTEM model, GTEM-C is a multi-region, multi-sector dynamic recursive CGE model that has a detailed energy technology bundle. In this version of GTEM, we have included detailed accounting of energy and resources flows that are embedded in traded energy goods, along with some additional features, such as a coupling for exporting GHG emission and other environmental pollutants to ACCESS-CM. In this modelling exercise, ACCESS-CM and GTEM-C are forced to follow the IPCC RCP8.5 and RCP4.5 Representative Concentration Pathway emissions trajectories. The projected surface air temperatures are used to calculate changes in total factor productivity, via a set of well-known damage functions. These climate feedbacks are taken to GTEM-C as exogenous shocks to the socio-economic system, and GTEM-C solves for the set of policy, economic, welfare constraints so that its projected carbon emissions comply with the d...