Support for a Workshop on Socioeconomic Scenarios for Climate Change Impact and Response Assessments. To be held in Washington, DC early 2010 for the CHDGC

气候变化对社会的影响取决于几十年来气候和社会的变化。例如，2070年气候变化对沿海社区的影响不仅取决于海平面和风暴行为的变化，还取决于从现在到那时期间人口分布和土地利用的变化，包括对未来威胁的预期自愿反应。这次国际研讨会将考虑目前的科学状况，并将发展改进的方法来描述长期的社会和经济未来。其目的是分析气候变化的潜在影响，并考虑可供选择的应对措施。对未来几十年的预测通常被认为超出了从事社会经济和技术变革的人口统计学家和其他社会科学家的能力。持续的全球气候变化对这些社区构成挑战，要求他们超越通常的项目意愿限制，开发综合分析方法，从而将如何应对气候变化的长期决策建立在坚实的科学基础上。该研讨会将汇集几个研究该问题的部分但没有密切协调的研究团体，以及来自高收入国家和低收入国家的以根本不同的方式处理该问题的科学家，讨论如何应对这一挑战。它将鼓励它们考虑新的分析方法，并将促进进一步的工作和合作，以综合物理模型的影响预测；对未来人口、经济和社会变化的科学可信的描述；以及在预期这种影响时可能采取的缓解和适应措施。这种综合情景对于减少易受气候变化影响的长期规划非常重要。它们呼吁决策者关注风险最大的地区和人口，并帮助确定在许多可能的未来都行之有效的应对方案。该研讨会将有助于推进对长期全球气候变化可能影响的分析，并更好地为应对气候变化提供信息。

The effects of climate change on society depend on changes in both the climate and in society over many decades. For example, the impacts of climate change on coastal communities in 2070 depend not only on changes in sea level and storm behavior but also on changes in population distributions and land uses over the period between now and then, including voluntary responses in anticipation of future threats. This international workshop will consider the current state of the science and will develop improved methods for describing the long-term social and economic future. The purpose is to anlyze the potential impacts of climate change and consider alternative responses. Projecting more than a few decades into the future is usually treated as beyond the capability of demographers and other social scientists who work on socioeconomic and technological change. Ongoing global climate change challenges these communities to stretch beyond the usual limits of their willingness to project and to develop methods of integrated analysis that can put long-term decisions about how to respond to climate change on a solider scientific foundation. The workshop will bring together several research communities that work on parts of the problem but that are not in close coordination, as well as researchers from both high- and low-income countries who have addressed the problem in fundamentally different ways, to discuss ways to meet the challenge. It would encourage them to consider new analytical approaches and would stimulate further work and collaborations to integrate impact projections from physical models; scientifically credible descriptions of future demographic, economic, and social change; and potential mitigation and adaptation responses in anticipation of such impacts. Such integrated scenarios are important for long-range planning to reduce vulnerability to climate change. They call the attention of decision makers to the places and populations at greatest risk and help identify response options that will be robust in many plausible futures. The workshop will help advance analysis of the possible impacts of long-term global climate change and better inform responses to climate change.