Understanding climate change as risk: a review of IPCC guidance for decision-making

This paper examines the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) recommendation for risk-based approaches to knowing and communicating policy problems, and its suitability as a general directive for public policy decision-makers and their advisors. Although explicitly ambiguous about what a risk-based approach is or should be, this paper shows how the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report nonetheless perpetuates ideals of objective risk...