In 1992, governments worldwide agreed to work towards a new sustainable development agenda aimed at eradicating poverty, halting climate change and conserving ecosystems. Although progress has been made in some areas, actions have not been able to alter the trends in other critical areas of sustainable development, such as providing access to sufficient food and modern forms of energy, preventing dangerous climate change, conserving biodiversity and controlling air pollution. Without additional efforts, these sustainability objectives will not be achieved by 2050.

To jointly reach the long-term targets on human well-being (eradicating hunger and ensuring full access to modern energy sources), climate change (temperature rise of less than 2°C) and biodiversity conservation (no further loss by 2050), three scenarios were developed. The long-term targets for sustainability were the objective set for 2050 in these target-seeking scenarios (van Vuuren et al., 2012) which were based on different strategies of sustainable development: global technology, descentralised solutions, and consumption change. The scenarios were evaluated up to 2050 using the IMAGE 3.0 (Integrated Model to Assess the Global Environment) modelling framework (http://themasites. pbl.nl/models/image) combined with the GLOBIO 3.0 model (http://www.globio.info/). IMAGE is an integrated assessment model of global environmental change and enables assessment of the impacts of socio-economic development on the environment, including land use, climate and water flow and pollution. GLOBIO is linked to IMAGE and calculates the impacts of environmental changes on some biodiversity indicators by using cause-effect relationships.