Developing Resource Use Scenarios for Europe

This study generates biophysical scenarios for resource constraints to the supply side of economic activity in Europe. Scenarios are both oriented at natural constraints (resource scarcity) and at politically targeted constraints (European climate policies, resource use reduction goals, UNEP global contraction and convergence scenarios) and thus establish material boundaries to serve as input to macroeconomic models and to constitute the biophysical frame for further analyses. A particular challenge for this study is the strong empirical interlinkage between the use of various resources (energy materials, biomass use – land use – water use, energy – metals, etc.). It does not make sense to formulate constraints independently from one another. These interlinkages may then in turn be a challenge for economic models.