How does the Review account for the uncertainties in the science?
The Review is explicit about the treatment of risk and uncertainty in assessing the impacts of climate change. Indeed, a major feature of the Review is that the economics of risk is placed at the heart of the economics of climate change. The Review has worked with quantitative approaches, drawing on recent peer-reviewed science, in many areas. One important area is understanding the link from concentrations to temperature rise. We look at recent scientific evidence on the probabilities of reaching certain temperature thresholds at different stabilisation levels. These probabilities, which have only recently been available, provide a crucial underpinning for the economics of the analysis of risks. The work of a recent Hadley Centre study, and from the IPCC Third Assessment Report, form the basis of this analysis, although we have also looked at other projections, some of which show much higher risks at the upper end. We also consider how emissions influence atmospheric concentrations –
