A Practical Guide to 1.5°C Scenarios for Financial Users

This report by the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) serves as a practitioner’s guide to understanding the key attributes of IPCC-assessed scenario pathways that limit temperature rise to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot. In addition, it highlights the required actions that arise from these scenario pathways for different sectors as well as considering how these climate scenarios can be used in practice. These scenarios comprise a combination of mitigation actions and are useful in identifying robust features for a 1.5˚C pathway that have reached a consensus in the scientific community. This report aims to achieve the following key objectives:Enhancing the interpretability of climate scenarios for users. Identifying common milestones in the path to decarbonisation in climate scenarios. Improving the understanding of how policymakers and financial users should effectively use climate scenarios, along with clarification of their inherent limitations. The report is structured around distinct themes that explore the implications of these scenario pathways for emissions, carbon dioxide removal, energy demand across sectors, financing needs, and socioeconomic assumptions.