Summary table

Qualitative descriptions of four scenario families for Finland were based on expert interviews and on the review of existing socio-economic scenarios and research documents. Quantifications of some key variables such as population, GDP, and government expenditure on R&D and education, were prepared using a basic socio-economic modelling framework.

The expert interviews included representatives from central areas of Finnish economy and administration. The target of the interviews was to collect ideas of possible development paths not to legitimate certain scenarios or results. The interviews created their own discourses and brought forward certain viewpoints and ideas.

In the construction of the long-term scenarios for the Finnish society, the IPCC scenarios, official futures analyses of the Finnish Government, research documents and expert interviews were used as starting point. In the consistent formation of story lines of long run scenarios we also relied on Uusimaa-Helsinki Metropolitan areas’ official scenario analyses and studies (Uudenmaanliitto & YTV 1997), which were formulated on the basis of large public participation process. On the basis of these futures policy statements and analyses we have constructed interpretations of alternative development paths and the critical drivers of the Finnish society.

In order to operationalise the four basic IPCC scenarios for the Finnish economy, a long-term scenario accounting model is being utilised. As a basic modelling framework we have utilised IFs for Terra model, which has been developed by Barry Hughes (developed in the present form in a EU/IST research project Terra2000).

Literature cited

• Nakicenovic N. (ed.) 2000. Special Report on Emission Scenarios. A Special Report of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom.