How does the lack of uncertainty analyses affect the calculation of risk?
You can think of risk as what can happen multiplied by the probability of its actually happening. The IPCC gives the whole range of things that could happen, some that involve a small amount of warming and some involving rather large amounts of warming. In terms of how probable each of those is, there’s a lot of debate, but in terms of actually making policy, you have to look at all possibilities and figure out possible actions you could take to limit the damage from climate change. Then you need to put price tags on each of these. With that kind of information, you can decide the policies you want to adopt and how to spend your money. I don’t think that whole analysis has really been thoroughly done. The UNFCCC has focused on one policy—carbon cap-and-trade and emissions reductions. There’s a whole host of others. Even if you’re focused on limiting CO2, there are taxes, and there is the possibility that through technology the problem will solve itself without cap-and-trade or a carbon
