A1 rapid and successful economic development on a global scale

• gap between poor and rich countries will dissolve
• Market based solutions are the policy drivers
• Increased education on resource and energy awareness at the household level
• High investment in innnovation and technology presumably high investment in University basic research
• International mobility of people, ideas, and technology.
  • A1T: rapid development of solar, wind and other technologies for supply side electricity.

    A1F1: Aggressive mining of remaining fossil fuel resources but coupled with carbon sequestration and other pollution abatement measures

A2 Maintenance of Global inequities due to increased regional self-reliance.

• Economic growth is uneven and the income gap between now-industrialized and developing parts of the world does not narrow
• People, ideas, and capital are less mobile so that technology diffuses more slowly (slower technology change is a big deal)
• Social and political structures diversify
• High population growh means that food resources become a serious issue so environmental concerns such as soil erosion and water pollution become paramount
• International disparities in productivity, and hence income per capita, are largely maintained or increased in absolute terms.
• Huntington's conflicts between civilizations superceded globalizing economies

B1 A high level of environmental/social consciuousness changes consumber behavior

• Global coherence to more sustainable development
• Heightened environmental consciousness (Cronon)
• Environmental factors of development are key in government and business decision making
• Strong reliance on dematerializiation and improved efficiency of resource usage
• Smooth transition to alternative energy systems as conventional oil and gas resources decline; but extensive use of conventional and unconventional gas as the cleanest fossil resource during the transition,

B2 Policy determined not by markets but environmentally aware citizens

• High educational levels promote both development and environmental protection.
• strategies to address global environmental challenges are not of a central priority and are thus less successful compared to local and regional environmental response strategies (this is a key difference)
• International institutions decline in importance, with a shift toward local and regional decision-making structures and institutions. Community based decision making.
• Energy systems differ from region to region, depending on the availability of natural resources (this means maintenance of high carbon intensity in some areas).

But clearly, only A1T and B1 are sensible green trajectories:

Things to notice about the 4/6 scenarios compared:

A2 has a significantly higher population growth trajcetory than any of the other scenarios (B2 somewhat high); The other 4 may have unrealistically low projections. The A1 families all have high income scenarios and A2 is dramatically low this means that pooor countries remain so under A2 B1 has 3-4 times less energy usage than the other scenarios In a ridiculous irony, largely defeating the entire purpose, all six scenarios are within a factor of 2 of each other in cumulative CO2 emissions. A2 is actually more fossil fuel intensive than A1F1 !

Finally note one real problem with markets. Production capacity is finite and limited. As an example, the figure below shows the projected integrated production of PV cells by the now 400 manufacturing plants around the world.

By the year 2009 total world wide installed capacity would be 10GW (this would be only 1% US electricity).

The slope of the line from 2007 to 2009 is about 4 GW per year. At rate it would take 250 years for PVs to equal just US electricy use (as of 2008).

However, its possible that this data also reflects an exponential increase with a double time of about 4 years.

But even in that case, there are problems. By the year 2025 we would have 160 GW of world wide installed capacity which, by then, would still be just 10% of US electricity generation. And to meet that exponential increase would mean that from 2009 to 2025, 150 GW would need to be installed, which is an annual average of 10 GW per year, 2.5 times larger than the current rate! can Market driven policy really increase production on these scales?