T5: Tackle the Task of a Transition through Technological Targets

1.1. The Aim

This endeavour aims at integratively assessing the relative importance of long-term techno-socio-economic developments driving global climate change. We ask: Which megatrends help and which megatrends hinder sustainable development?

The results of an interdisciplinary analysis of long-term trends are intended to improve factual understanding and to rank the anthropogenic causes of environmental change in order to help in the formulation of consistent environmental policies, in particular CO₂ abatement measures on global and national levels (Figure 1).

The core of the analysis resides in quantitatively identifying and comparing the “techno-socio-economic causes of environmental change”. Scenarios for the emissions of greenhouse gases (mainly CO₂ from energy systems and also from land use change) are generated and the impact of the respective techno-socio-economic driving forces is assessed. Over 2500 data sets of relevant parameters will describe the developments of recent decades for every country across the globe.

Figure 1.

The setting of this article. The suggested endeavour T⁵ focuses on the entirety of this sketch.

1.2. Issues and State of the Art

Given the scientific and public increase in concern about global warming, policy makers have made several steps in the direction of cutting back greenhouse gas emissions (mainly of CO₂) in various documents, globally comprised in the UNFCCC procedures (UNFCCC, 2015). Recent literature (Weizsäcker et al., 1995; 2009) enumerates practical technological possibilities for reaching such necessary and envisaged targets. In order to strengthen the scientific basis for choosing appropriate, feasible and effective measures, the key linkages and feedbacks between human activities and behaviour – and significant environmental changes – are to be identified and evaluated by an interactive IT approach and evaluated in dialogue.

1.3. The Main Five Elements of the Train of Thought

The character of this entire endeavour (symbolised by the five letters “T” in Figure 2 representing the five learning subtasks) is truly transdisciplinary: societal, economic, technological and natural scientific aspects serve as a means for enhancing implementation of a complex political target like CO₂ emission reduction (Ahamer, 1998: 106). The following thread leads from causes to effects of climate change:

• 1.

  CO₂ emission: On both global and national levels, a dynamics-as-usual case of energy scenarios (Ahamer, 1994; Ahamer & Mayer, 2013; 2014) as the baseline for measures can be constructed by means of a historical long-term trend analysis of the structural change in the socio-economic and energy parameters of the world’s economies;

• 2.

  Macroeconomics: Views on the economic side-effects of reduction measures such as changes in GDP growth or in unemployment rates (Rauch, 2013; 2014) are provided, analysed by means of a macroeconomic model and complemented by qualitative assessment;

• 3.

  Social processes: When designing CO₂ abatement measures, the different views and patterns of values are harmonised during negotiation processes (Ahamer, 2012; Ahamer & Jekel, 2010; Chumakov, 2014; Sayamov, 2013, Matzenberger, 2013) between different institutions and regional aggregates;

• 4.

  Carbon cycle: The effects of CO₂ emissions, especially from land use change, on global CO₂ concentration are modelled by a global carbon cycle model (Ahamer, 1993, 1994; Breiling et al., 2005);

• 5.

  Climate: The resulting scenarios for paths of CO₂ concentrations may serve as input for existing climate models (IPCC, 2000) which assess likely changes in human living conditions.

Figure 2.

The structure of the T⁵ working strategy. The five puzzle pieces refer to the five single tasks.