FABLE Interim Report released

We at IIASA and our partner institution, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), have been working hard over the past year on the FABLE Pathways Project. Click the linked text to find the new FABLE Interim Report in full, and its Executive Summary.

This interim report is a joint effort of fellow scientists from research institutions, NGOs, government agencies, and universities from 17 countries and the European Union (the FABLE Consortium) to cut greenhouse gas emissions, protect biodiversity, and make the world food secure in line with the Paris Agreement and the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). Consortium member countries represent more than 60% of the global population and the vast majority of land and food-systems based trade. (For some background on FABLE, see here.)

FABLE Consortium members work together using an IIASA-designed, games-based framework, the Scenathon, to model scientifically constrained, politically feasible pathways towards mutual convergence on sustainability targets for the global commons (GHGs, biodiversity, etc.), while hitting nationally important goals (food security, continuity in certain culturally important sectors, etc.). We do this by additionally modeling global trade of important commodities, like crop and livestock products, out to 2050, highlighting what current trajectories get right and what they get wrong (hint: mostly wrong).

Our project co- and scientific directors penned a commentary in Nature in May that explained FABLE’s approach. In addition to the report, find more information on our websites here and here; and more about IIASA’s Scenathons here. Please do take a look and circulate it widely, particularly to your colleagues who are broadly interested in sustainability and the food and land use space. And if you have a particular interest in any of the countries represented, please do reach out to the corresponding authors.

Moreover, after more than a year of quiet capacity development and work among our Consortium members, FABLE now plans to grow. Our website will feature information for potential members shortly.