"Fuzzy" Uncertainty

<p>2011 Degrees of Risk_Defining a Risk Management Framework for Climate Security_Full Report</p>

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There is a common human tendency to dismiss uncertain consequences as not urgent, even

if the consequences are potentially severe. In the United States, uncertainty has often been

cited as reason to delay national policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Typically, the

stated rationale is to allow time for science to reduce uncertainties before sinking financial

resources into solutions that may prove unnecessary.102 Alternatively, uncertainty around

climate science and climate change policy is often ignored or downplayed to avoid ‘complicating’

policy debates.103 Additionally the media have reported uncertainty in a ‘fuzzy’

manner, implying that all aspects of climate science are highly uncertain, or over-representing

eccentric scientific views as part of the mainstream debate in pursuit of journalistic

‘balance’.104 It is also well documented that some powerful groups and individuals who are

ideologically or economically opposed to action on climate change have intentionally exaggerated

scientific uncertainty to bolster the argument for inaction.105 This has made proponents

of urgent action less willing to acknowledge uncertainty, which then makes it harder to

consider the more extreme risks from climate change and biases risk assessments towards

conservative estimates of potential damages.

The prospects for resolving uncertainty vary across different parts of the climate system, but

few of the most important questions (such as the true equilibrium climate sensitivity, discussed

in the previous chapter) are likely to be resolved within the next decade.106 Waiting another

10 years to implement mitigation policies would lock in additional climate security risk

through additional greenhouse gas emissions and would eliminate the option of stabilizing the

climate at more ambitious levels should it prove necessary or desirable.107While learning will

play a key role in iterative decision-making over time, the prospect of learning should not

imply that waiting to enact policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or to begin adapting

to unavoidable changes is economically efficient.108 Formal analyses designed to test the

optimal timing of climate policy under uncertainty never find that when future learning

is taken into consideration inaction now is still the best response.109

In any case, scientific understanding of climate change has reached a point where it is clear

that it is happening, that human activities are very likely causing it, and that if it continues

unabated it is likely to have predominantly negative impacts on most people and the natural

systems that people depend on for their well-being. Moreover, the real risks and vulnerabilities

to climate extremes in both developed and developing countries are repeatedly being

demonstrated: such as the devastation of New Orleans and Burma/Myanmar by Hurricane

Katrina and Cyclone Nargis, respectively; the heat wave that caused 35,000 premature deaths

across Europe in 2003; and the devastating floods in Pakistan in 2010.110

Given this scientific foundation, economist Gary Yohe has said:

This knowledge alone is sufficient to establish the serious risks of climate change and

the need to respond in the near-term in ways that will reduce future emissions and

thereby ameliorate the pace and extent of future change. Indeed, looking at uncertainty

through a risk management lens makes the case for near-term action

through hedging against all sorts of climate risk. It then follows from simple

economics that action should begin immediately in order to minimize the

expected cost of meeting any long-term objective.111</p>