OECD global long‑run economic scenarios

This paper describes the latest update of the OECD’s long-term scenarios, which are done every 2-3 years to quantify some of the most important long-term macroeconomic trends and policy challenges facing the global economy. The focus is on illustrating the output trade-off associated with transitioning to low-carbon energy sources, between the shorter-run costs of carbon mitigation and the longer-run benefits of avoided climate damages. Both are subject to considerable uncertainty, which is illustrated using several scenarios that vary according to the steepness of the climate damage curve and how quickly carbon mitigation costs decline. The paper includes two annexes detailing the changes that have been made to the projection framework, the first on the expanded country coverage and revised productivity convergence framework and the second on the new climate damage channel.