HR: 16:00h
AN: U22C-01    [PDF]
TI: "Dangerous" Climate Change
AU: * Mastrandrea, M D
EM: mikemas@stanford.edu
AF: Stanford Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 United States
AB: Current climate change mitigation policy decisions must be made despite layers of uncertainty. Modeling of future climate, projections for future economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions, and characterizations of the interactions and feedbacks within the coupled social-natural system all contain uncertain components. Researchers communicating with policymakers have learned that, instead of presenting "best guesses" or other point estimates, uncertainty assignments require such techniques as probability distributions of outcomes and quantitatively defined descriptions of subjective confidence. We present a quantification of "dangerous" climate change, a term important in policy discussions. Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change expresses the opinion of the signing Parties that steps be taken to "prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system," but the Convention did not specify what constitutes the value judgment of being "dangerous." We present one possible definition. A threshold for "dangerous" climate change is a clear tool for evaluating the need for and impact of proposed climate policy. Monte Carlo analyses with a simple integrated assessment model demonstrate that endogenously calculated climate policy controls appreciably reduce the probability of "dangerous" climate change. Under mid-range assumptions, climate policy reduces the probability of "dangerous" climate change by 30-50%.
UR: http://www.stanford.edu/~shs
DE: 6309 Decision making under uncertainty
SC: U
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting