Introduction
Access, understand, and compare existing pathways
Limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C requires a dramatically reimagined future energy system. Climate and energy system scenarios bring different options for this future to light, helping national policymakers to set net-zero goals and implement the necessary policies to enable them.
Corporate, financial, city, and state decision makers also use these scenarios to craft their own climate commitments and strategies. But the diverse assumptions and results among scenarios often confuse rather than clarify what is needed. Few of these scenarios include the level of granularity decision makers require or explain how such dramatic transformations are possible or beneficial. And most fail to adequately account for emerging technologies and societal trends.
As a result, scenarios can provide only a starting point for climate action. Wayfinder helps users to understand where more is possible based on complementary approaches and tools that can support more ambitious emissions reduction strategies.
The Pathways Explorer supports scenario users by offering curated insights and comparative analysis to improve access and usability of energy systems information. It also provides a foundation for understanding key opportunities and gaps in scenario analyses that the Transformation Toolkit will build upon.
Inside the Pathway Explorer
Comparative Analysis:
Read curated insights highlighting the speed, scope, and drivers of change needed to transform the global energy system, including useful information on methods, assumptions, and limitations to help compare and interpret decarbonization scenarios and pathways.
Key Indicators:
Investigate meaningful real-economy transition indicators at the sectoral and geographic level that can be used to calibrate top-down pathways with more granular bottom-up analyses.
Benefits Evidence Base:
Explore recent analysis demonstrating the net benefits of a rapid energy transition, including economic development pathways, job creation and losses, and co-benefits such as health, security, and resilience.
Comparative Analyses
Our comparative analyses provide curated deep dives into how and why decarbonization scenarios differ in their visions of the future. In addition, we provide links to additional evidence and tools that shed new light on unprecedented transitions.
This introductory page includes several topical vignettes exploring various aspects of the energy transition represented in scenarios. Each vignette considers its topic through three lenses:
As Wayfinder evolves, we will expand these comparative analyses to include additional topics and depth based on our partners’ needs and user requests.
