Richard Bradley (LSE) and Casey Helgeson (LSE): Decision and Climate Change Assessments

Thursday, 26 February, 2:00

Richard Bradley (LSE) and Casey Helgeson (LSE), presenting work co-authored with Brian Hill (HEC, Paris)

Decision and Climate Change Assessments

ABSTRACT. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has adopted official guidelines for communicating uncertainties attached to the scientific findings that appear in their assessment reports. One novel feature of their approach is the use of ‘confidence’, a second-order qualification that indicates the level of scientific understanding behind a claim. So far, it is unclear how findings communicated in this format can be used to inform rational decisions. We explore how the IPCC guidelines fit together with a new, confidence-based normative model of decision making (Hill, 2013, ‘Confidence and Decision’, Games and Economic Behavior).