Confronting Deep and Persistent Climate Uncertainty

Gernot Wagner and Richard Zeckhauser

Working Paper Series from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government

Abstract: Deep-seated, persistent uncertainty is a pernicious feature of climate change. One key parameter, equilibrium climate sensitivity, has eluded almost all attempts at pinning it down more precisely than a 'likely' range that has stalled at 1.5-4.5 degrees C for over thirty-five years. The marginal damages due to temperature increase rise rapidly. Thus, uncertainty in climate sensitivity significantly raises the expected costs of climate change above what they would be if the temperature increases were known to be close to a mean value 3.0 degrees C. The costs of this uncertainty are compounded given that the distribution of possible temperature changes is strongly skewed toward higher values.

JEL-codes: D81 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-res
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecl:harjfk:16-025

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