Imagining
Futures
Scenarios, simulations and systems thinking for a world in transition. We map the pathways — you choose which future to build.
Explore the
Full Suite
Three explorations into the same systems challenge — how humanity navigates the transition from the world we have to the world we need. Part of the Imagination Labs programme →
Futures Exploration Simulator
Set five policy drivers across any region or country. Run the model. See your transition score, projected outcomes and plausible future — then generate a full policy brief.
Explore Simulator →Imagining MENA 2050
Three pathways, four futures, one region at the intersection of heat, water, oil and solar. An interactive deep-dive into the Middle East and North Africa’s transition decade.
Open MENA 2050 →Imagining Asia Pacific 2050
The world’s most consequential energy transition. 60% of global emissions. 4.5 billion people. Three scenarios from coal lock-in to Asia’s Green Century.
Open Asia Pacific 2050 →Futures
Exploration
Simulator
The most comprehensive open futures modelling tool for sustainability transitions. Five drivers. Real data. Your future.
The Regional
Pathways
Fractured Drylands
Oil revenues sustain political settlements. Renewable ambitions exist on paper. By 2050, water scarcity drives conflict and displacement at a scale governance systems cannot absorb.
Uneven Oasis
Gulf states lead the clean energy shift — but on sovereign terms. Fragile states and frontline communities remain exposed. A two-speed region, better on aggregate, worse in the margins.
The Green Crescent
The MENA region exports clean energy to Europe and Africa. A binding aquifer compact stabilises water access. Solar becomes the cheapest energy in history. The transition becomes a development model.
Resilient Mosaic
A fourth possibility emerges: not full transformation, but a genuinely resilient patchwork — community-led adaptation, regional water compacts, distributed solar. Imperfect. Durable. Human.
Choking Sprawl
Coal remains dominant through 2040. Urban air quality collapses. Coastal flooding displaces tens of millions. China and India’s rivalry blocks the cooperation needed for a regional grid.
Dragon’s Bargain
China leads on renewables deployment but on export terms. JETP frameworks deliver for some nations, not others. Southeast Asia splits between early movers and coal-dependent laggards.
Asia’s Green Century
An ASEAN clean energy grid integrates solar, wind and storage. The Mekong Compact governs water across borders. 68 million green jobs replace coal employment. The Asia Pacific becomes the world’s clean energy powerhouse.
Mekong Compact
River systems as governance architecture. The Mekong, Irrawaddy and Yangtze basins become sites of diplomatic breakthrough — shared water forcing shared energy, forcing shared climate policy.
2025–2035:
The Critical Window
The Subsidy Reckoning
$7 trillion in annual fossil fuel subsidies must begin unwinding. Every year of delay locks in infrastructure and political economy that can’t be undone for 20 years.
Grid Integration Compacts
Regional clean energy grids must be commissioned now to come online before 2035. Renewable deployment without grid integration is wasted investment.
Coal Phase-Out Lock-In
The coal retirement cascade either begins or the window closes. 500M+ workers in coal-dependent economies need just transition frameworks in place before finance moves.
Tipping Point — Or Not
By 2035, either the clean energy tipping point has been crossed — or the pathway to 1.5°C is physically closed. The decade between now and then is the only one that matters.
Run Your
Simulation
Choose your region, set your policy ambitions, and see where your decisions take the world by 2050.
