2.2.4 Risk of catastrophic or abrupt change
The possibility of abrupt climate change and/or abrupt changes in the earth system triggered by climate change, with potentially catastrophic consequences, cannot be ruled out (Meehl et al., 2007). Disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (See Meehl et al., 2007), if it occurred, could raise sea level by 4-6 metres over several centuries. A shutdown of the North Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation (See Meehl et al., 2007) could have far-reaching, adverse ecological and agricultural consequences (See IPCC, 2007b, Chapter 17), although some studies raise the possibility that the isolated, economic costs of this event might not be as high as assumed (See Meehl et al., 2007). Increases in the frequency of droughts (Salinger, 2005) or a higher intensity of tropical cyclones (See Meehl et al., 2007) could occur. Positive feedback from warming may cause the release of carbon or methane from the terrestrial biosphere and oceans (See Meehl et al., 2007), which would add to the mitigation required.
Much conventional decision-making analysis is based on the assumption that it is possible to model and compare all the outcomes from the full range of alternative climate policies. It also assumes there is a smooth trade-off between the different dimensions of each policy outcome; that a probability distribution provides an expected value for each outcome, and that there is a unique best solution – the one with the highest expected value. Consequently, it could suggest that a policy which risked a catastrophically bad outcome with a very low probability might be valued higher than one which completely avoided the possibility of catastrophe and produced merely a bad outcome, but with a very high probability of occurrence.
Assumptions that it is always possible to ‘trade off’ more of one dimension (e.g. economic growth) for less of another (e.g. species protection) – that there is always a price at which we are comfortable to ‘dispense with’ a species in the wild (e.g. polar bears), an ecological community or indigenous cultures are problematic for many people. This also applies to assumptions that decision-makers value economic (and other) gains and losses symmetrically – that a dollar gained should always assumed to be valued equally to one that is lost, and that it is possible and appropriate to assume that the current generation’s preferences will remain stable over time.
Recent literature drawing on experimental economics and behavioural sciences suggests that these assumptions are an incomplete description of the way in which humans really make decisions. This literature suggests that preferences may be lexicographical (i.e. it is not possible to ‘trade off’ between different dimensions of alternative possible outcomes – there may be an aversion at any ‘price’ to losing particular species, ecosystems or communities), that attitudes to gains and losses might not be symmetrical (losses valued more highly than gains of an equivalent magnitude), and that low-probability extreme outcomes are overweighted when making choices (Tversky and Kahneman, 1992; Quiggin, 1982). This literature suggests that under these circumstances the conventional decision axiom of choosing the policy set that maximizes the expected (monetary) value of the outcomes might not be appropriate. Non-conventional decision criteria (e.g. avoiding policy sets which imply the possibility, even if at a very low probability, of specific unacceptable outcomes) might be required to make robust decisions (Chichilnisky, 2000; Lempert and Schlesinger, 2000; Kriegler et al., 2006).
No one analytic approach is optimal. Decision-making inevitably involves applying normative rules. Some normative rules are described in Section 2.2.7 and in Section 2.6.