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Coping with uncertainty in climate policy making: (Mis)understanding scenario studies

•We show how climate scenarios are misused in policy making.•We show how uncertainty is misrepresented in scenario studies.•We show how uncertainty is misinterpreted by users of scenario studies.•The location and nature of the uncertainty and the existence of different levels of uncertainty determin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Futures : the journal of policy, planning and futures studies planning and futures studies, 2013-09, Vol.53, p.1-12
Main Authors: Enserink, Bert, Kwakkel, Jan H., Veenman, Sietske
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:•We show how climate scenarios are misused in policy making.•We show how uncertainty is misrepresented in scenario studies.•We show how uncertainty is misinterpreted by users of scenario studies.•The location and nature of the uncertainty and the existence of different levels of uncertainty determine the way uncertainty should be treated.•Communicating the different forms of uncertainty and their meaning for the validity of models, predictions and projections to policy makers and the public is the challenge ahead. This article explores how climate scientists and policy makers deal with uncertainty in climate information. It shows – what is generally said but rarely empirically examined – that scientists and policy makers each deal with uncertainties in their own way and have a different perception of uncertainty; where the analyst wants to reduce uncertainty by generating more information and by improving the knowledge base, the policy maker wants to reduce his chances for making political mistakes. Connecting to the ongoing discussion on uncertainty classifications in futures studies, we discuss the characteristics of scenario studies and the way uncertainty is embedded in several scenario studies on climate change in the Netherlands, as well as in the policy process. Both the users and the producers of scenario studies are analyzed in how they deal with uncertainty. Supported by the empirical evidence we will show that not only miscommunication happens in the entire policy making process because policy makers have their own reality and way of dealing with uncertainty, but also show how scientists themselves struggle with uncertainty, sometimes taking the role of policy advocates wanting to influence decision-making. In the discussion, we show that the basis of this miscommunication lays in these different perceptions of uncertainty.
ISSN:0016-3287
1873-6378
DOI:10.1016/j.futures.2013.09.006