Scenarios in Global Environmental Assessments: Key characteristics and lessons for future use

► The scenarios published in Global Environmental Assessments over the last 10 years can be categorized in 6 scenario families. ► Global Environmental Assessments have often used an explorative scenario approach. More recently, however, assessments mostly use a method that develops policy variants from a single baseline. ► While the policy-scenario approach can be useful depending on the (relevant question), it may falsely suggest certain ideas. Robustness analysis may help to manage this risk.