Methods and Tools IPCC TAR WGII Chapter 2

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Methods and Tools - IPCC TAR WGII (Chapter 2)

• Gary Yohe
• Professor of Economics
• Wesleyan University
• June 11, 2001

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QUESTIONS RAISED IN THE CHAPTER

• Detecting the current effects of climate change
  (and climate variability)
• Anticipating, estimating, and integrating future
  effects of climate change (and climate
  variability)
• Valuing and costing impacts and adaptations
• Expressing and characterizing uncertainties
• Reflecting appropriate frameworks for
  decision-making.

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The Vulnerability Context of Adaptive Capacity

• Vulnerability (a vector V) is a function of
  exposure (to multiple stresses - a vector E),
  sensitivity (a similarly dimensioned vector S),
  and adaptive capacity (A) so
• V F E(A) S(A)
• Adaptive capacity may be quantified to a scalor,
  but it has multiple determinants Di
• A AC D1 , , D8

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The Determinants of Adaptive Capacity

• Range of adaptation options
• Availability and distribution of resources
• Structure of institutions and decision-making
  processes
• Stock and distribution of human capital
• Stock of social capital
• Access to risk spreading processes and mechanisms
• Ability to process information and the
  credibility of decisions
• Public perception of exposure, sensitivity and
  attribution

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Site Specificity and Path Dependence - The Scale
of Determinants

• Applicable options are determined on a micro
  scale, but the list of possibilities may come
  from macro-scale processes like this one
• The next 5 determinants have macro-scale roots,
  but micro-scale manifestations
• Resources and their distribution
• Institutional structure decision-making
• Human capital
• Social capital
• Access to risk spreading

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Scale Considerations, Continued

• Information management may have macro-scale
  foundations, but it has fundamental micro-scale
  import.
• Public perception of attribution should similarly
  be determined on a micro-scale even if there are
  influences from outside and potential sources of
  information have a macro scale. The issue is
  credibility and when micro-scale actors look for
  credible information.

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Implications for the Adaptation Methods and the
Policy Framework

• The local implications of macro-scale
  determinants are their most important
  characteristics, and working the links across
  scales can add clout by expanding the scope of
  influence.
• The effects of most if not all of the
  determinants of adaptive capacity can be traced
  through their implications for specific
  adaptation options.
• Assessing overall vulnerability through organized
  and determinant-based considerations of the
  abilities of available options to influence
  sensitivity or exposure could be a very effective
  foundation for a methods and policy frameworks.

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Adaptation Options and Coping Capacity

• The critical link in each context can be the
  definition of thresholds that define the
  boundaries of coping capacity against variability
  in the local environment.
• It follows that exploring how each option might
  be able to change those thresholds or variability
  to influence exposure and/or sensitivity is
  critical.
• The roles of other determinants in impeding or
  enhancing those abilities must also be
  recognized.
• And systematic interactions across determinants
  and adaptation options cannot be ignored.

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Returning to the Questions

• Detection informs our understanding about
  exposure and sensitivity.
• Anticipation, estimation and integration of
  future effects does the same
• Anticipation takes detection into the future to
  
• identify stresses.
• Estimation adds detail to characterizations of
  the future.
• Integration brings the interactions of multiple
  stresses into focus.

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Integrating Multiple Stresses

• Some stresses have common sources - another place
  where macro scale processes can be identified and
  exploited.
• Other stresses have different sources, but are
  they positively or negatively correlated? Or are
  they independent?
• Looking endogenously for anthropogenic sources
  can highlight new suites of adaptive options.

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More on the questions

• Valuation and costing impacts and adaptations
  play into evaluations of options, but currency is
  not necessarily the only metric
• Schneiders 5 metrics monetary loss, human
  life
• quality of life, loss of species and
  bioversity, and
• (in)equity and the distribution of well-being
• and both can play a role in assessing the
  significance of resource availability and their
  distribution.

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More on the questions

• Uncertainty plays a role in
• Institutions - how do they cope with
  uncertainty?
• The significance and structure of risk
  spreading mechanisms.
• Decision-makers and public perception - how do
  the players sort the signal from the noise?

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Uncertainty and Coping Capacity

• Looking at climate variability provides early
  warning to not-implausible futures and abrupt
  impacts of climate change.
• Focusing on the ability of adaptation options to
  manipulate the coping capacity as well as
  variability offers a way to include uncertainty
  into the analysis.
• This is the link that brings short-term planning
  horizons into the context of long-term stresses
  like climate change.

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Uncertainty and Analysts

• Notwithstanding our considerable abilities, the
  output of the impact and adaptation analysis
  and/or a Policy Framework must be cast in terms
  of underlying uncertainty
• Ranges of possible outputs.
• Representations of multiple moments.
• Consideration of robustness in assessment
• and adaptation.

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More on the questions

• Understanding of decision analytic frameworks and
  their local, path dependent application informs
  our understanding of
• Institutions
• Human and social capital
• Positive and normative analysis of risk
  spreading
• mechanisms

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Topic Organization of Chapter 2

• Detection (species and managed systems)
• Anticipating change
• Integrated assessment
• Cost and valuation methods
• Representing uncertainty
• Decision-analytic frameworks

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Questions versus Sections in Chapter 2
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Topics Detection

• There are two questions of attribution
• Anthropogenic forces are changing the climate
• Climate change is have an impact
• Fingerprint argument based on global congruence -
  a basis of considerable controversy.
• Still, for present purposes, the second
  attribution critical for framing adaptation.
• Nonetheless, the first attribution important in
  evaluating future.

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Anticipating Future Impacts

• Scenarios define baselines and define scales.
• This is perhaps backwards for adaptation work.
• Integration in Chapter 2 tends to focus on
  feedbacks and the role that vulnerability pays in
  pushing mitigation.
• This is not the type of integration needed
  here.
• Attention is nonetheless drawn to climate
  variability and extremes.
• Exactly, and the link to adaptive capacity
  made.
• Focus attention on variability, thresholds,
  coping
• capacity and abrupt impacts of climate change.

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Integrated Assessment

• Integrated assessment broadly defined is not
  necessarily linear from beginning to end.
• IA methods can help with
• multiple stresses (their common sources and/or
• diversity)
• interactions of adaptation options
• delineating the operative scales of
  determinants
• the definition of location specifics and path
• dependence.

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Cost and valuation methods

• All concepts are based on the notion of
  opportunity cost.
• This foundation can accommodate multiple metrics.
• Costing methods can provide some answers and
  insights, but not all e.g., the cost and sources
  of inequity.
• Other initiatives on quantifying monetary
  estimates of non-market impacts (through direct
  and indirect methods) may not be widely
  applicable.
• This means that cost-benefit analysis is not the
  only game in town. Ultimately, though, there
  needs to be some assessment of tradeoffs across
  values attached to specific metrics.

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This is the ultimate context for opportunity
cost. This is the ultimate context for
opportunity cost.

• This is the ultimate context for opportunity cost.

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Uncertainty

• Sources of Uncertainty
• Missing data or errors in data and noise.
• Random sampling error and/or selection bias.
• Known processes with unknown functional forms.
• Known structures but unknown parameters.
• Structural change over time.
• Ambiguous concepts or techniques.
• Spatial or temporal scale mismatches.
• Humans.

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Cascading Uncertainty

• This is a widely accepted notion that integration
  across multiple systems amplifies uncertainty.
• Adaptation based analysis from second attribution
  short-circuits some of the cascadeas long as
  adaptive capacity analyses consider the
  robustness of that capacity and the derivative
  vulnerability across a range of not-implausible
  scenarios regardless of attributed probabilities
  (these may not be known and the tails might be
  wide).

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Decision Analytic Frameworks

• Highlights formal distinctions between
• Cost-benefit criteria.
• Precautionary criteria.
• Broad-based decision analysis.
• Risk analysis.
• Cost-effectiveness.
• Policy exercises.
• Adaptive capacity focus suggests that local
  specificity and path dependence determine the DAG

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Take-Home Messages

• Multiple tools exist, but they may not be fully
  adept at handling adaptation/impacts analysis.
• While macro-scale processes work in most if not
  all parts of the world, micro-scale processes are
  critical and they may not fit any specific
  context.
• Nonetheless, there will be common insights,
  common frustrations, and common methodology.

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Let many flowers bloom, and

• convene periodically to compare notes, share war
  stories, and otherwise collaborate without the
  requirement of producing a comprehensive
  document.