Where are we going? What are the likely and possible trajectories for our use of fossil fuels and other energy sources? Thumbs good and important questions. Fortunately, those nice people at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change took a stab at answering them back in 2000 in their special report on admissions scenarios. What are scenarios? I'm glad you asked. Scenarios are, and I quote, alternative images of how the future might unfold and are an appropriate tool with which to analyse how driving forces may influence future emission outcomes and to assess the associated uncertainties. They assist in climate change analysis, including climate modelling and the assessment of impacts, adaptation and mitigation. The possibility that any single emissions path will occur as described in scenarios is highly uncertain. So, they are not predictions, their tools for thinking with. It's a bit more complicated than I'm about to make out, but there are two families of scenarios labeled A and B. The A1 storyline in scenario family describes a future world of very rapid economic growth, global population that peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter, and the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies, major underlying themes are convergence among regions, capacity building and increased cultural and social interactions with the substantial reduction in regions. The A1 scenario family develops into three groups that describe alternative directions of technological change in the energy system. The three A1 groups are distinguished by their technological emphasis, fossil fuel intensive, A1 FI, non-fossil energy sources, A1 T, or a balance across all sources, A1 B. The A2 storyline and scenario family describes a very heterogeneous world. The underlying theme is self-reliance and preservation of local identities. Fertility patterns across regions converge very slowly, which results in continuously increasing global population. Economic development is primarily regionally oriented and per capita economic growth and technological change are more fragmented and slower than in the other storylines. The B1 storyline and scenario family describe a convergent world with the same global population that peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter as in the A1 storyline, but with rapid changes in economic structures towards a service and information economy, with reductions in material intensity and the introduction of clean and resource efficient technologies. The emphasis is on global solutions to economic, social and environmental sustainability, including improved equity, but without additional climate initiatives. The B2 storyline and scenario family describes a world in which the emphasis is on local solutions to economic, social and environmental sustainability. It is a world with continuously increasing global population at a rate lower than A2, intermediate levels of economic development, and less rapid and more diverse technological change than in the B1 and A1 storylines. While the scenario is also oriented towards environmental protection and social equity, it focuses on local and regional levels. With the different assumptions in these scenarios, the scientists produced some possible emissions pathways of just how much carbon dioxide we are likely to spew into the atmosphere over the coming decades. It's worth noting that as a species we are burning the coal a lot faster than they thought we would. We are at the top of the A1 fi pathway. There may be, as the song goes, trouble ahead.