
Sky scenario
The Sky scenario illustrates a technically possible, but challenging pathway for society to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Sky builds on previous Shell scenarios publications and is our most optimistic scenario in terms of climate outcomes.
A new energy system is emerging. The Paris Agreement has sent a signal around the world: climate change is a serious issue that governments are determined to address. By 2070 there is the potential for a very different energy system to emerge.
The Sky scenario outlines what we believe to be a technologically, industrially, and economically possible route forward, consistent with limiting the global average temperature rise to well below 2°C from pre-industrial levels. It reveals the potential for an energy system to emerge that brings modern energy to all in the world, without delivering a climate legacy that society cannot readily adapt to.
Download our latest scenario – Sky
By 2070, there is a possibility of a new energy system to emerge. Explore Sky, a technically possible, but challenging pathway for society to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.
The numbers behind Sky
Download the Sky scenario data-set to see the numbers that help test, quantify and explore this scenario.
An Overview of Sky
Download this 10-page summary of Sky, our latest energy scenario, which illustrates a complex combination of mutually reinforcing actions by society, markets and governments.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology have assessed the climate outcomes from the Sky scenario, using their Integrated Global System Modeling (IGSM) framework. They have published their work evaluating the climate impacts of Sky entitled “Meeting the Goals of the Paris Agreement: Temperature Implications of the Shell Sky Scenario”. The report’s summary highlights, “We find that for the median climate parameters the global surface temperature increase by 2100 is 1.75°C above the pre-industrial levels with an 85% probability of remaining below 2°C.”
Sky shows a transformation to a lower-carbon energy system, with the world achieving the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. Consumers, companies and governments will face tough choices and the paths towards lower-carbon energy will vary by country and sector. Over the course of 50 years, it transforms the way society uses and produces energy.
But while encouraging news, success towards the Paris Agreement aim is not guaranteed. The Sky scenario relies on a complex combination of mutually reinforcing actions by society, markets and governments. It recognises that the necessary changes will unfold at different paces in different places, and must ultimately transform all sectors of economic activity. The changes are economy-wide, sector-specific, and amount to re-wiring the global economy in just 50 years.
Shell has been developing energy-focused scenarios for almost 50 years, helping generations of Shell leaders, academics, governments and business leaders to consider possible pathways when making decisions.
Typically, Shell scenarios are plausible and challenging visions of the future. They consider real and potential trends in politics, demographics and technology. They stretch our thinking and help society make crucial choices and navigate critical uncertainties.
Sky joins two other scenarios in Shell’s New Lens Scenarios family: Mountains and Oceans.
Mountains and Oceans explore alternative socio-political pathways and their impact on energy developments, with emissions as an open-ended outcome. Sky also adopts an approach grounded in the reality of current economic and policy development mechanisms, but then progressively becomes driven simply by the ambitious goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070 within techno-economic possibilities. Such a goal-driven scenario is sometimes referred to as “normative”.
By adopting a modelling approach grounded in the current reality of the energy system, but then combined with a specific long-term goal, Sky is intended to be both an ambitious scenario and a realistic tool to inform dialogue.
Scenarios are not policy proposals – they do not argue for what should be done, nor forecasts – what will be done. They are not predictions, nor business plans, and investors should not rely on them to make decisions.
Scenarios can reveal useful insights and show us potential pathways the world might take. Some pathways are more plausible than others, but all challenge society to make tough decisions.
At Shell, we hope this contribution is helpful to finding solutions.
The Sky Scenario webinar
Shell leaders recently held a webinar that detailed the Sky scenario. Our Projects and Technology Executive Director, Harry Brekelmans, introduced the session. Jeremy Bentham, Head of Shell Scenarios, discussed the significance of Sky. The event also included a question and answer session, hosted by Mallika Ishwaran, Shell’s Senior Economist and Policy Advisor. See highlights of the webinar below.
Watch: Sky Scenario webinar highlights
Title: Sky Scenario webinar highlights
Duration: 02:36 minutes
[Audio:]
Quiet music
[Title:]
Text: Sky Scenario / A webinar hosted by Jeremy Bentham, head of Shell Scenarios / April 17, 2018
[Title:]
Text: Scenarios are not intended to be predictions of likely future events or outcomes and investors should not rely on them when making an investment decision with regard to Royal Dutch Shell plc securities. Please read the full cautionary note in www.shell.com/skyscenario.
[Jeremy Bentham in vision:]
Wide shot including crowd
“I'm Jeremy.”
Text: Jeremy Bentham / Head of Shell Scenarios
[Jeremy Bentham in vision:]
Close up
“I've had the privilege of looking after the Shell scenario activities for about a decade now. And it continues to be a fascinating journey in the company.
[Jeremy Bentham in vision:]
Wide shot including crowd
“Where this scenario really begins is recognising”
[Jeremy Bentham in vision:]
Close up
“what happened with the Paris agreement.”
[Image:]
Photograph of man and woman signing agreement
[Jeremy Bentham voice over:]
“It recognised that achieving a future in which you are not putting further stress on the environment meant net zero emissions of greenhouse gases.”
[Jeremy Bentham in vision:]
Side view
“Let's look at the challenges and then get into the scenario.”
[Jeremy Bentham in vision:]
Close up
“The challenge of development and the challenge of decarbonisation together.”
[Graph:]
Text: Sky Summary: A possible primary energy mic for a net-zero emission world
[Jeremy Bentham voice over:]
“There's a massive scope for more efficient economies for many parts of the world. But there's also the need to be able to provide energy into many parts of the world to enable that decent quality of life.”
[Jeremy Bentham in vision:]
Wide shot including crowd
“At the same time, you've also got to look at what's happening, how is energy being used, how do you decarbonise that? And to do that, you've really got to take an economy-wide perspective.”
[Image:]
Images of Sky scenario document (front page, followed by contents page, followed by Chapter 1)
Fade to white
[Jeremy Bentham voice over:]
“We began to construct the Sky scenario and effectively, what that does is it takes, from an emissions point of view, the most positive and constructive elements in all the scenarios and puts them together and says what is technically possible here? What is technologically possible? What is industrially possible? And is this possible from a macroeconomic point of view as well?”
[Jeremy Bentham in vision:]
Wide shot including crowd
“It's going to take governments and business and civil society.”
[Jeremy Bentham in vision:]
Close up
“It shouldn't be surprising that this public ambition,”
[Jeremy Bentham in vision:]
Wide shot including crowd
“this public goal will take some public policy to guide and stimulate parts of that.”
[Jeremy Bentham in vision:]
Side view
“You effectively have to rewire the entire global economy in half a century.”
[Jeremy Bentham in vision:]
Close up
“And that means that there can be no stall technologies, it's an and, and, and world.”
Fade to white
Graphic: Shell logo
Text: #ShellScenarios © SHELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED 2018
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