【Speaker】: Dr. Alaa Al Khourdajie (Imperial College London)

【Title】: Navigating the unexpected: The impact of disruptive events on mitigation scenarios

【Time】: 1:30pm, Jan 8, 2026.

【Location】: Zoom meeting, ID: 913 7161 6190

【About Report】: Climate mitigation scenarios from Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) typically assume smooth, predictable transitions, leaving them ill-equipped to assess the impacts of disruptive events. Here we introduce the Disruptive Events-Resilient Pathways (DERP) framework, a methodology that maps mitigation pathways along two dimensions: Mitigation Action Ambition and Resilience to Socioeconomic Impacts. The framework employs narrative-based societal archetypes to systematically explore how different resilience capacities shape mitigation strategies under disruption. Our application to stylised heatwave and technological disruptions reveals that socioeconomic resilience is a precondition for a capital-efficient transition, that a myopic focus on single technologies creates hidden vulnerabilities by delaying structural change, and that a diversified, resilient strategy can hedge against these risks at little to no additional cost. The DERP framework is therefore a valuable diagnostic tool, advancing scenario analysis to a new frontier by considering long-term transition dynamics alongside the resilience required to navigate disruptions.