3.2.1.3 GDP growth rates in the new literature

Many of the long-term economic projections in the literature have been specifically developed for climate-related scenario work. Figure 3.2 compares the global GDP range of 153 baseline scenarios from the pre-SRES and SRES literature with 130 new scenarios developed since SRES (post-SRES). There is a considerable overlap in the GDP numbers published, with a slight downward shift of the median in the new scenarios (by about 7%) compared to the median in the pre-SRES scenario literature. The data suggests no appreciable change in the distribution of GDP projections.

Figure 3.2: Comparison of GDP projections in post-SRES emissions scenarios with those used in previous scenarios. The median of the new scenarios is about 7% below the median of the pre-SRES and SRES scenario literature. The two vertical bars on the right extend from the minimum to maximum of the distribution of scenarios by 2100. The horizontal bars indicate the 5^th, 25^th, 50^th, 75^th and the 95^th percentiles of the distributions.

A comparison of some recent shorter-term global GDP projections using the SRES scenarios is illustrated in Figure 3.3. The SRES scenarios project a very wide range of global economic per-person growth rates from 1% (A2) to 3.1% (A1) to 2030, both based on MER. This range is somewhat wider than that covered by the USDOE (2004) high and low scenarios (1.2–2.5%). The central projections of USDOE, IEA and the World Bank all contain growth rates of around 1.5–1.9%, thus occurring in the middle of the range of the SRES scenarios. Other medium-term energy scenarios are also reported to have growth rates in this range (IEA, 2004).

Figure 3.3: Comparison of global GDP growth per person in the SRES scenarios and more recent projections.

Notes: SRES = (Nakicenovic et al., 2000), WB = World Bank (World Bank, 2004), DoE = assumptions used by US Department of Energy (USDOE, 2004), IEA assumptions used by IEA (IEA, 2002 and 2004); (Van Vuuren and O’Neill, 2006).

Regionally, for the OECD, Eastern Europe and Central Asia (REF) regions, the correspondence between SRES outcomes and recent scenarios is relatively good, although the SRES GDP growth rates are somewhat conservative. In the ASIA region, the SRES range and its median value are just above that of recent studies. The differences between the SRES outcomes and more recent projections are largest in the ALM region (covering Africa, Latin America and the Middle East). Here, the A1 and B1 scenarios clearly lie above the upper end of the range of current projections (4%–5%), while A2 and B2 fall near the centre of the range (1.4–1.7%). The recent short-term projections reported here contain an assumption that current barriers to economic growth in these regions will slow growth, at least until 2015.