Climate models failing to reflect inequality and Global South realities, study warns

Scientists are calling for a radical rethink of the climate models used to shape global environmental policy, warning that many of today’s dominant scenarios are too rooted in the very economic and political systems that created the climate crisis. In a newpaper, researchers argue that widely used climate and biodiversity models focus too heavily on technological fixes while paying too little attention to inequality, power and the perspectives of the Global South and Indigenous communities. The paper, published in the journalOne Earth, found that many existing global scenarios are built on assumptions that economies, governance systems and social norms will remain largely unchanged, even as countries attempt to rapidly cut emissions and halt the loss of nature.

“Right now, many of our global scenarios are effectively asking how to fix the future without really changing the present,” saidLaura Pereira, the lead author of the study and a commissioner with theEarth Commission. She is one of 23 commissioners on the Earth Commission, four of whom are from Africa. Convened byFuture Earth, the world’s largest network of sustainability researchers, the commission brings together an international team of natural and social scientists to identify the planet’s critical thresholds, to ensure there is clean air and water, biodiversity and a stable climate in which all life can thrive.

“If we want pathways that work, we need tools that can explore different economic models, different power structures and different relationships between people and nature, not just different technologies,” she said. The researchers argue that this approach is too narrow for a world facing multiple interconnected crises at once, including climate change, thecollapse of biodiversityandwidening inequality. Climate scenarios and models play a major role in shaping international policy.

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Their outputs feed into global scientific assessments and negotiations under bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity, helping governments decide how to respond to environmental threats. But the study argues that many models focus on incremental adjustments rather than deeper structural transformation. Key questions are often left unasked: who benefits from climate policies, who bears the costs and whose voices are included in imagining the future.

The paper also highlights Africa’s limited representation in the modelling systems that underpin global climate decision-making. Scientists often rely on integrated assessment models (IAMs), which combine climate, economic and social data to project future scenarios. However, Africa remains the only region without its own IAM.

According to the researchers, this limits the ability of climate models to fully capture African realities, including poverty, inequality, development pressures and local environmental challenges. To address this, the authors propose a Global South-led “scenarios secretariat” that would help shape future climate pathways and research priorities.

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