The storm and the day after: quantifying climate impacts of State enforcement emissions in CICERO-SCM towards an ecoanarchist climate model
Year: 2026
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Climate modeling scenarios, despite covering a wide range of biogeophysical possibilities for future climate change, remain sociopolitically narrow. This is particularly the case in climate mitigation, where green-growth driven negative emissions technologies are considered key to achieving climate mitigation goals like the Paris Agreement warming target. Building on the degrowth and postgrowth climate modeling literature, this thesis investigates the climate mitigation potential of a rapid reduction in military, police, and prison emissions, via an exploratory ecoanarchist climate scenario within a postgrowth emissions trajectory. State enforcement emissions were estimated using the 3 scopes system of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, based on the methodology of papers estimating the global military carbon footprint and the yearly emissions of the United States prison system. The scenario was then run with the simple climate model CICERO-SCM, calibrated according to the constraining targets and periods used by the Reduced Complexity Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3, with an 81-member ensemble. The results find an end-of-century warming of 1.58 °C for the ecoanarchist scenario, representing a reduction of 0.10 °C from the postgrowth scenario, suggesting that drastic reductions in state enforcement emissions can, alongside ambitious mitigation measures elsewhere, bring end-of-century warming close to the Paris Agreement target. An analysis of the climate risks through the IPCC Reasons for Concern framework reveals significant uncertainty in the difference of risks between the postgrowth and ecoanarchist scenarios, highlighting the need for further modeling research to a) refine estimates of climate outcomes and b) understand the particular hazards of certain societal trajectories. Three features are proposed as essential for the physical science component of ecoanarchist climate modeling: 1) a GHG emissions framework based on sociopolitical sectors; 2) a model with heterogeneous actors and the climate impacts of their interactions; 3) a scenario narrative with ambitious mitigation action grounded in systemic transformation instead of negative-emissions technology.
Author: Rocha Novella, Santiago
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7165439212