IMACLIM-R: a modelling framework to simulate sustainable development pathways

Abstract

To assess the sustainability of future development pathways requires models to compute long-run Economy–Energy–Environment scenarios. This paper presents the IMACLIM-R framework, aimed at investigating climate, energy and development inter-related issues. The model was built in an attempt to address three methodological challenges: to incoporate knowledge from economics and engineering sciences, to support the dialogue with and between stakeholders, to produce scenarios with a strong consistency, concerning especially the interplay between development patterns, technology and growth. These goals led to the development of a recursive structure articulating a static general equilibrium framework, including innovative features and sector-specific dynamic modules now concerning energy, transportation and industry. This paper provides the general rationale of the model and the description of all its components.