The Future of Food Security in Global Change Scenarios

Thomas E. DowningGina Ziervogel

Stockholm Environment Institute

• Why scenarios?

• Three methodological challenges

• Toward a research agenda

Why scenarios?

• The nature of the system is beyond our understanding:– Complexity: behaviour emerges from the interaction

of many agents– Time scale of concern is decades to a century (and

beyond)

• Prediction is impossible• Policy options are many and at multiple scales

that preclude simple decision support systems

What is a scenario anyway?

• Narrative of internally consistent processes, actors and linkages

• Quantitative input to global change models

• Path analysis linking present with scenario future

• Vision of desirable worlds (or nightmare of avoidable futures)

From the IPCC

Who frames scenarios?

• Participation is limited by scenario process

• Scenarios are framed for specific purposes

• Vulnerable are rarely directly involved

• Insight qualified by top-down scenarios

• IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios

• Global Scenario Groups Great Transitions

SRES Scenario Families

Purpose:Global GHG profilesConstraint:Government approvalBias:Poorest developing country in 2080s is as rich as OECD is now

SRES:Link GHG emissionsto global concentrationsto global climate change

Global Scenario GroupConventional

WorldsBarbarization Great

Transitions

policy reform

market forces

breakdown

fortress world

new sustainability

eco-communalism

How are local and global linked?

19

65

19

70

19

75

19

80

19

85

19

90

19

95

20

00

Drought Flood Cyclone

Profiles

• Multiple dimensions of rural food insecurity in India

4

6

8

10

12

14

2 4 6 8 10 12 14

Food Availability

Fo

od

Ac

ces

s

Orissa

Bihar

HimachalPradesh

Gujarat

Punjab

WestBengal

TamilNadu

Rajasthan

Maharashtra

Haryana

Karmataka

UttarPradesh

Assam

AndhraPradesh Kerala

MadhyaPradesh

Size of circle isrelated tonutritional status

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Food availability

Food production deficit

Cereal instability

Environmental sustainability

Storm hazard

Drought hazard

Very low food consumption

Inadequate food consumption

Wastelands

Food access and livelihoods

Poverty

Dependence on labour

Rural infrastructure

Female sex ratio

Female literacy

Scheduled peoples

Life expectancy

Illiteracy

Roads

Electricity

Agricultural labourers

Food absorption and nutrition

Chronic energy deficiency

Stunted children

Underw eight children

Infant mortality

Health infrastructure

Hospital beds

Safe drinking w ater

How is a close coupled system represented?

Two approaches Compared

Aggregate demand series scaled so 1973=100

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

J-73

J-74

J-75

J-76

J-77

J-78

J-79

J-80

J-81

J-82

J-83

J-84

J-85

J-86

J-87

J-88

J-89

J-90

J-91

J-92

J-93

J-94

J-95

J-96

J-97

Simulation Date

Rel

ativ

e D

eman

d

Climate change impacts

0

50

100

150

200

2502

01

5

20

17

20

19

20

21

20

23

20

25

20

27

20

29

20

31

20

33

20

35

20

37

20

39

20

41

AlphaMH

BetaMH

GammaMH

DeltaMH

Agent based:DiscontinuitiesLarge range of results

Dynamic simulation:Smooth scenariosModest range

Toward a research agenda

• Formal comparison of scenario processes

• Experiments with large group scenario development

• Peer review and methodological critique

• Reconnecting theory and practice