Why do climate change scenarios return to coal

The following article conducts a meta-analysis to systematically investigate why Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) in the Fifth IPCC Assessment are illustrated with energy system reference cases dominated by coal. These scenarios of 21st-century climate change span many decades, requiring a consideration of potential developments in future society, technology, and energy systems. To understand possibilities for energy resources in this context, the research community draws from Rogner (1997) which proposes a theory of learning-by-extracting (LBE). The LBE hypothesis conceptualizes total geologic occurrences of oil, gas, and coal with a learning model of productivity that has yet to be empirically assessed.