Responding to Threats of Climate Change Mega-Catastrophes

Carolyn Kousky, Olga Rostapshova, Michael Toman () and Richard Zeckhauser

RFF Working Paper Series from Resources for the Future

Abstract: There is a low but uncertain probability that climate change could trigger “mega-catastrophes,” severe and at least partly irreversible adverse effects across broad regions. This paper first discusses the state of current knowledge and the defining characteristics of potential climate change mega-catastrophes. While some of these characteristics present difficulties for using standard rational choice methods to evaluate response options, there is still a need to balance the benefits and costs of different possible responses with appropriate attention to the uncertainties. To that end, we present a qualitative analysis of three options for mitigating the risk of climate mega-catastrophes—drastic abatement of greenhouse gas missions, development and implementation of geoengineering, and large-scale ex ante adaptation— against the criteria of efficacy, cost, robustness, and flexibility. We discuss the composition of a sound portfolio of initial investments in reducing the risk of climate change mega-catastrophes.

Keywords: climate change; catastrophe; risk; decisionmaking under uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D81 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-11-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Responding to Threats of Climate Change Mega-Catastrophes (2010)
Working Paper: Responding to Threats of Climate Change Mega-Catastrophes (2010)
Working Paper: Responding to threats of climate change mega-catastrophes (2009)
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