IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/metaar/fqtdr_v1.html

Operationalising the IPCC uncertainty guidance for climate policy evaluation

Author

Listed:
  • Miersch, Klaas
  • Lamb, William
  • Creutzig, Felix
  • Garschagen, Matthias
  • Haines, Andy
  • Hansen, Gerrit
  • Harper, Sherilee
  • Khanna, Tarun M

    (Mercator Research Institute for Global Commons and Climate Change)

  • Konnyu, Kristin
  • Mastrandrea, Michael D.

Abstract

The rigorous treatment of uncertainties in global environmental assessments is essential to characterise the scientific state of the art and to inform policy. Recognizing this, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has adopted a standardized assessment framework to promote transparency and consistency in reporting the level of confidence in its key findings — most prominently those featured in the Summary for Policymakers. However, applying this framework is challenging and often leads to confidence statements based on expert judgment rather than a transparent and replicable process. Here we recommend an updated framework for assessing uncertainties that is suitable for lines of quantitative ex-post policy evaluation evidence that inform Working Group II and III reports. The framework uses evidence synthesized from systematic reviews to support robust and transparent confidence statements and to provide a clear and traceable rationale for conclusions. Where such synthesized evidence is lacking, we offer practical guidance and outline intermediary steps for improving confidence assessments. Our approach provides a concrete and replicable pathway to enhance the level of transparency and the reliability of scientific assessments that inform climate policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Miersch, Klaas & Lamb, William & Creutzig, Felix & Garschagen, Matthias & Haines, Andy & Hansen, Gerrit & Harper, Sherilee & Khanna, Tarun M & Konnyu, Kristin & Mastrandrea, Michael D., 2026. "Operationalising the IPCC uncertainty guidance for climate policy evaluation," MetaArXiv fqtdr_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:metaar:fqtdr_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/fqtdr_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/69714775ebe83b26c91afcc7/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/fqtdr_v1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Mastrandrea & Katharine Mach & Gian-Kasper Plattner & Ottmar Edenhofer & Thomas Stocker & Christopher Field & Kristie Ebi & Patrick Matschoss, 2011. "The IPCC AR5 guidance note on consistent treatment of uncertainties: a common approach across the working groups," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 108(4), pages 675-691, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Klenert & Franziska Funke & Linus Mattauch & Brian O’Callaghan, 2020. "Five Lessons from COVID-19 for Advancing Climate Change Mitigation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(4), pages 751-778, August.
    2. Tomich, Thomas P. & Lidder, Preetmoninder & Coley, Mariah & Gollin, Douglas & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & Webb, Patrick & Carberry, Peter, 2019. "Food and agricultural innovation pathways for prosperity," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 1-15.
    3. Carl-Friedrich Schleussner & Joeri Rogelj & Michiel Schaeffer & Tabea Lissner & Rachel Licker & Erich M. Fischer & Reto Knutti & Anders Levermann & Katja Frieler & William Hare, 2016. "Science and policy characteristics of the Paris Agreement temperature goal," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(9), pages 827-835, September.
    4. Fayaz Ahmad Lone & M. Imran Ganaie & Showkat A. Ganaie & M. Shafi Bhat & Javeed Ahmad Rather, 2023. "Drivers of agricultural land-use change in Kashmir valley - an application of mixed method approach," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 1-20, December.
    5. Ottmar Edenhofer & Carlo Carraro & Jean-Charles Hourcade, 2012. "On the economics of decarbonization in an imperfect world," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 114(1), pages 1-8, September.
    6. Rolf, Werner & Diehl, Katharina & Zasada, Ingo & Wiggering, Hubert, 2020. "Integrating farmland in urban green infrastructure planning. An evidence synthesis for informed policymaking," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    7. Feliciani, Thomas & Morreau, Michael & Luo, Junwen & Lucas, Pablo & Shankar, Kalpana, 2022. "Designing grant-review panels for better funding decisions: Lessons from an empirically calibrated simulation model," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(4).
    8. Jacobs, Sander & Burkhard, Benjamin & Van Daele, Toon & Staes, Jan & Schneiders, Anik, 2015. "‘The Matrix Reloaded’: A review of expert knowledge use for mapping ecosystem services," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 295(C), pages 21-30.
    9. Elisabeth A. Lloyd & Theodore G. Shepherd, 2021. "Climate change attribution and legal contexts: evidence and the role of storylines," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 167(3), pages 1-13, August.
    10. Jobst Heitzig & Sarah Hiller, 2020. "Degrees of individual and groupwise backward and forward responsibility in extensive-form games with ambiguity, and their application to social choice problems," Papers 2007.07352, arXiv.org.
    11. D. Carvalho & S. C. Pereira & R. Silva & A. Rocha, 2022. "Aridity and desertification in the Mediterranean under EURO-CORDEX future climate change scenarios," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 1-24, October.
    12. Scott Janzwood, 2020. "Confident, likely, or both? The implementation of the uncertainty language framework in IPCC special reports," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 1655-1675, October.
    13. Torres, Cati & Faccioli, Michela & Riera Font, Antoni, 2017. "Waiting or acting now? The effect on willingness-to-pay of delivering inherent uncertainty information in choice experiments," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 231-240.
    14. Michael Thaler & Mattie Toma & Victor Yaneng Wang, 2024. "Numbers Tell, Words Sell," CESifo Working Paper Series 11600, CESifo.
    15. David R. Mandel & Daniel Irwin, 2021. "Facilitating sender-receiver agreement in communicated probabilities: Is it best to use words, numbers or both?," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(2), pages 363-393, March.
    16. Christopher W. Karvetski & David R. Mandel, 2020. "Coherence of probability judgments from uncertain evidence: Does ACH help?," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 15(6), pages 939-958, November.
    17. Shu Liu & Yong Wang & Guang J. Zhang & Linyi Wei & Bin Wang & Le Yu, 2022. "Contrasting influences of biogeophysical and biogeochemical impacts of historical land use on global economic inequality," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, December.
    18. Lydia Gorn & Janina Kleemann & Christine Fürst, 2018. "Improving the Matrix-Assessment of Ecosystem Services Provision—The Case of Regional Land Use Planning under Climate Change in the Region of Halle, Germany," Land, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-18, June.
    19. Robert Mislavsky & Celia Gaertig, 2022. "Combining Probability Forecasts: 60% and 60% Is 60%, but Likely and Likely Is Very Likely," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(1), pages 541-563, January.
    20. Marina Baldissera Pacchetti & Suraje Dessai & David A. Stainforth & Seamus Bradley, 2021. "Assessing the quality of state-of-the-art regional climate information: the case of the UK Climate Projections 2018," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 168(1), pages 1-25, September.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:metaar:fqtdr_v1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/metaarxiv .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.