Determining the global significance of local and regional mitigation strategies: Setting the scene with global integrated assessment models

Because of the importance and complexity of the processes involved in the response of land cover and land use to changing environmental conditions, other approaches are required to evaluate the effectiveness of mitigation options. One such approach is provided by the global integrated assessment model, IMAGE 2. This article presents the structure and some of the underlying assumptions of IMAGE 2, which illustrates the importance of feedback processes in evaluating the effectiveness of mitigation options with respect to land use. Although models such as IMAGE 2 are unsuitable for local and national mitigation evaluations, they can be used to define the regional and global constraints of the smaller scale assessments.