Net Zero Society: scenarios and pathways
A report designed to help policy makers test the UK’s net zero strategy against scenarios for how society could look in future.
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The UK is committed to reaching net zero by 2050. Future societal norms and behaviours will have a significant impact on how emissions are reduced, but they are also highly uncertain. Society in 2050 is likely to be very different from today.
This report was commissioned as part of the government’s net zero strategy in 2021, and aims to answer the following questions:
- What does evidence on past societal changes tell us about how future changes could unfold, and can we spot early signs of this happening?
- Informed by this evidence, how might society plausibly change by 2050, and how could this affect our pathway to net zero?
The report is designed to help policy makers test the UK’s net zero strategy against a wider set of assumptions about how society could look in the future, to help make it more resilient and ready to address risks and opportunities as they arise.
The research included in the report was carried out up until early 2023 and only considers trends and policy up until this point. The report does not explore or make recommendations for the government’s net zero strategy.
Updates to this page
Published 6 April 2023Last updated 17 February 2025 + show all updates
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Added annexes to the 'Net Zero Society: scenarios and pathways' report.
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First published.