Broadly quantifying SSP elements for 188 countries to 2150 in International Futures

Moyer, J. D., Hughes, B. B., Irfan, M., Solórzano, J., Petry, C. L., Xiong, Y., Hanna, T., Meisel, C. J., Sahadevan, D., & Sullivan, E. (2026). Broadly quantifying SSP elements for 188 countries to 2150 in international futures. Nature Communications, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-73836-0

How can researchers better connect the social, economic, and governance dynamics that shape long-term climate futures?

New research from the Frederick S. Pardee Institute for International Futures, published in Nature Communications, expands the socioeconomic foundation available to researchers using the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs)—the community-developed framework that underpins much of today's long-term climate and sustainable development research.

Using International Futures (IFs), Pardee's integrated assessment model, the research team developed open-source SSP projections spanning 188 indicators across 188 countries through 2150. The projections connect population, economic development, governance, conflict, infrastructure, health, education, public spending, and other interconnected systems within a single, internally consistent modeling framework.

By bringing these assumptions together, the research addresses a longstanding challenge in scenario analysis: many long-term projections rely on separate models with different underlying assumptions. The new IFs-based projections provide researchers and practitioners with a transparent foundation for exploring risks, trade-offs, adaptive capacity, and policy choices whose effects may unfold over decades.