Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
source material, often qualitative and issue-oriented, severely limited any atempt to
estimate quantitative bounds on probabilities. And third, the highly compressed time
schedule for the technical report preparation process limited potentials for engage -
ment and communication and made it diicult to impose top-down strictures on report
authors.
Given a body of source material that is a highly imperfect it with the NCA guid-
ance, this report made an efort to frame its assessment indings in broad contexts of
risk-based framing, scenarios, and conidence characterization. Assessment indings are
associated with evaluations of the degree of scientiic consensus and the strength of the
available evidence. Where appropriate, indings are also associated with two general
scenario-related framings of possible future climate changes: (1) “substantial, “which is
approximated by IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) emission scenario
A2, and (2) “moderate,” which is approximated by scenario B1.
4) ASSESSMENT FINDINGS
Assessment indings are provided at the end of each major section of the paper, in-
cluding the sections to follow on risk management strategies; knowledge, uncertainties,
and research gaps; and developing a sustained capacity for continuing assessments. The
complete list of twenty three assessment indings is included in this report's Executive
Summary.
B. The Scope of the Report
This report is intended as an update of the two previous energy assessments, consider-
ing energy sector vulnerabilities, impacts, and responses to climate change in the US,
with additional atention to risk management strategies, research needs, and approaches
toward a continuing national and regional assessment process. In line with other recent
energy sector assessments, such as the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (2011) and
the World Bank report on Climate Impacts on Energy Systems (2011), it considers the
entire range of climate change vulnerabilities, impacts, and adaptation potentials for
energy supply and use (Table 1 ) .
C. Emerging Trends And Contexts For Climate Change
Implications For Energy Systems
This report does not provide an overview of climate change expectations, possible so-
cioeconomic paterns and trends afecting energy supply and use, global and national
policy contexts, or broader issues for the energy sector itself, including current directions
of technological change, although it considers these contexts in developing assessment
indings. Representative references to climate change include NRC, 2010, and 2011 and
are summarized elsewhere in the NCA report, as well as being incorporated in NCA
guidance (see above). Socioeconomic trends and scenarios are also explored elsewhere
in the NCA.
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