The MPDD Chair was born out of a diagnosis shared by the CIRED and the CMA, as well as their industrial and institutional partners, that :
Meeting the challenges of sustainable development requires working on future “states of the world” and identifying the points of divergence that allow or prevent their achievement. This cannot be done by simply juxtaposing the views of experts from different disciplines, intuitive conjectures and normative judgements.
Prospective modeling is a necessary tool to produce diverse but coherent images of the future and to support scientifically informed debates integrating inputs from engineering, economic and other social sciences.
Progress is needed to reflect the interdependencies between the energy sector and other key sectors of sustainable development (transport, construction, materials industry), as well as the links between climate, energy security, development and migration, changes in technical systems and consumption patterns, and the challenges of growth and employment in an open economy.