Technical Note 5: Developing policy-relevant narratives underlying long-term climate strategies

The Paris Agreement and, recently the European Union (EU) through its new legislation “Regulation for the Governance of the Energy Union”, stipulate upon its parties and members to the EU to develop long-term climate strategies. These strategies need to be underpinned by narratives in order to consistently inform medium- and short-term policy including stakeholder groups on the decarbonisation pathway. Therefore, narratives need to ingrain socioeconomic development objectives that respond to the national circumstances and priorities.

However, to date there is little guidance on how to approach the development of narratives capable of responding to policymakers and stakeholder’s concerns. Furthermore, there is no cross-countries applicable design framework that translate Paris-compatible objectives into effective national strategies and narratives. The Deep Decarbonisation Pathways Project (DDPP) aims to fill that gap through enabling a profound understanding of what is needed for deep decarbonisation sector by sector and over time in line with (well-) below 2°C emission.

This following note describes the DDPP pathway design framework focussing on the development of narratives to inform policy and stakeholders while incorporating national socio-economic development goals.