TY - JOUR
T1 - Climate change: making decisions in the face of deep uncertainty
AU - Lawrence, Judy
AU - Haasnoot, Marjolijn
AU - Lempert, Robert
PY - 2020/4
Y1 - 2020/4
N2 - In our view, Zeke Hausfather and Glen Peters’s recommendation to assign a single set of best-estimate probabilities to all future emissions scenarios as a means to assess climate-change risks (Nature 577, 618–620; 2020) could give decision-makers a false sense of certainty, leading to costly adjustments if the world evolves in unanticipated ways. The Society for Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty (www.deepuncertainty.org), to which we belong, offers a better strategy. It relies on methods that focus on the implications of alternative scenarios and the extent to which response tactics are shared across a wide range of scenarios. This helps to manage uncertainties — for example, in sea-level rise after 2050 — by identifying long-term options and short-term, flexible actions that can prepare for a range of future emissions. Bypassing the need to assign probabilities enables decision-makers to better understand the combination of uncertainties that most affect their choices, thereby reducing locked-in choices and decision delays that can arise when using a single scenario.
AB - In our view, Zeke Hausfather and Glen Peters’s recommendation to assign a single set of best-estimate probabilities to all future emissions scenarios as a means to assess climate-change risks (Nature 577, 618–620; 2020) could give decision-makers a false sense of certainty, leading to costly adjustments if the world evolves in unanticipated ways. The Society for Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty (www.deepuncertainty.org), to which we belong, offers a better strategy. It relies on methods that focus on the implications of alternative scenarios and the extent to which response tactics are shared across a wide range of scenarios. This helps to manage uncertainties — for example, in sea-level rise after 2050 — by identifying long-term options and short-term, flexible actions that can prepare for a range of future emissions. Bypassing the need to assign probabilities enables decision-makers to better understand the combination of uncertainties that most affect their choices, thereby reducing locked-in choices and decision delays that can arise when using a single scenario.
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/608d8a04-bde1-3709-b1eb-e6ffba83f9bb/
U2 - 10.1038/d41586-020-01147-5
DO - 10.1038/d41586-020-01147-5
M3 - Article
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 580
SP - 456
EP - 456
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 7804
ER -