Uncertainty makes action on climate change more – not less – urgent

Uncertainty about climate change can, counter-intuitively, produce actionable knowledge and thus should provide an impetus, rather than a hindrance, to addressing climate change, researchers from the University of Bristol's Cabot Institute argue in a special issue of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions A, published this week. Responding and adapting to climate change: Uncertainty as knowledge , edited by Professors Stephan Lewandowsky and Rich Pancost of Bristol's Cabot Institute with Dr Timothy Ballard of the University of Queensland, illustrates that, rather than being an argument for delaying mitigative action, uncertainty provides an impetus to be concerned about climate change because greater uncertainty increases the risks associated with climate change. Professor Pancost said: "Uncertainty plays a pivotal role in public debate, and arguments against mitigation are frequently couched in terms of uncertainty. Such arguments often draw attention to the possibility that because an issue is uncertain, it may be less serious than anticipated. "In fact, in many instances - including climate change - the reverse is true: mathematical analyses of the risk associated with climate change have revealed that as uncertainty increases, so almost always does risk. Similarly, potential surprises are more likely to be calamitous than benign, because the probability of extreme climate events (such as ice sheet collapse) increases with increasing uncertainty, all other factors being equal.