TRANSrisk

Both the models concerning the future climate evolution and its impacts, as well as the models assessing the costs and benefits associated with different mitigation pathways face a high degree of uncertainty. There is an urgent need to not only understand the costs and risks associated with climate change but also the risks, uncertainties and co-effects related to different mitigation pathways as well as public acceptance (or lack thereof) of low-carbon (technology) options.

The main aims of TRANSrisk are: (a) To create a novel assessment framework for analysing costs and benefits of transition pathways; and (b) to design decision support tools to help policymakers better understand uncertainties and risks and enable them to include risk assessments into more robust policy design. Uncertainties are pervasive in climate change, and this includes the under-researched area of climate change policy. 

In order to help policy-makers manage irreducible uncertainties, TRANSrisk not only employs a range of different models to explore scenarios and pathways, but also engages a wide range of stakeholders to help develop plausible pathways in the light of potential difficulties in public acceptance, and the risk of policy failures. 

This unique approach, integrating quantitative and qualitative analysis, offers policy-makers help in a situation where ‘optimal’ policies are rarely feasible, recognising the critical importance of innovation in achieving climate change targets. In addition TRANSrisk provides country case study of ways that the framework and tools developed in the project can produce useful empirical results for policy-makers. Climate change and policy are of global concern, so while several of these case studies focus on EU countries, we provide examples from climate-critical countries such as India and China.