ESM projections underpin analyses of human dimensions of the climate issue, yet little is known about how ESMs are used in human dimensions research.

While every society can be exposed to heatwaves, some people suffer far less harm and recover more quickly than others from their occurrence.

Our center has supported the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the development of its Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) forecasts, as a member of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium. We have collected SSP forecasts and included them for comparison with our Base Case and other scenarios in all recent version of IFs. On the shoulders of this effort we also collaborated with the United Nations University's Institute for Environment and Human Security on a publication in Climatic Change that uses IFs to explore climate change and disaster risk.

Sanderson, Benjamin M., and Brian C. O'Neill. 2020. “Assessing the costs of historical inaction on climate change.” Scientific Reports 10, 9173 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-66275-4

Gao, Jing, and Brian C. O'Neill. 2020. "Mapping global urban land for the 21st century with data-driven simulations and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways." Nature Communications 11, 2302 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15788-7

O'Neill, Brian C., Leiwen Jiang, Samir KC, Regina Fuchs, Shonali Pachauri, Emily K. Laidlaw, Tiantian Zhang, Wei Zhou and Xiaolin Ren. 2020.

“The effect of education on determinants of climate change risks.” Nature Sustainability 3, 520–528 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0512-y

O'Neill, Brian C. and Steve Hedden. 2018. "Xcel Energy carbon emissions targets and limiting warming to less than 2 degrees C." Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, University of Denver, Denver, CO.

Director of Research Brian O'Neill and former Pardee Center Lead System Administrator Steve Hedden published a report evaluating Xcel Energy's recently announced goals for carbon emissions reductions. Their findings, which are incorporated in Xcel Energy's own report outlining their goals, conclude that the company's aims of reducing emissions 80% by 2030 and delivering carbon-free electricity by 2050 are consistent with targets in the Paris Climate Agreement to limit warming to 2 degrees C or less.

Achievements and needs for the climate change scenarios framework. Plenary presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium, Tsukuba, Japan. December 2, 2019.