3 December 2014: The ethics of loss and damage are complicated by the difficulties in linking damages from extreme weather events to changing emissions, according to an event at the Lima Climate Change Conference organized by the Met Office Hadley Centre, Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) and the University of Reading. The event, ‘Climate Change Science Update: The Challenges for Robust Decision Making,’ also explored barriers to making climate projections; risk management in the face of uncertainty; and climate justice.

Peter Stott, Met Office Hadley Centre, explained attribution science compares the “real world” to scenarios of a climate uninfluenced by humans to determine the effect of human activity. Elizabeth Kendon, Met Office Hadley Centre, described improvements in high resolution spatially-detailed models which illustrate climate change events and help predict change over time. She said the models can inform decision makers on potential future risks.

Nancy Tuana, Penn State, said, as countries address climate risk, they should consider the value judgments embedded in both science and climate change politics. She suggested gathering information on community values and then modeling various scenarios to inform risk management strategies.

Allen Thompson, Oregon State University, called for loss and damage to be considered separately from adaptation as residual loss and damages occur beyond the limits of adaptation. Speaking on climate justice, he said event attribution raises the “specter of liability,” noting that claims for compensation often rest on distributional justice.

Claudia Murray, University of Reading, described how rural indigenous communities in Latin America have been forced to migrate to urban areas where governments provide them with sub-standard housing and living conditions. She attributed this injustice to “bad politics” and the construction industry lobby, and called for better land policies.

In the discussion, participants considered the measurement of large-scale changes in relation to local changes in climate; value judgments as part of target-setting; the place for geo-engineering in risk discussions; shifting the discussion from adaptation to survival; the importance of user-friendly science for communities; and the need to understand the political situation in order to present the most influential science to decision makers.

The Met Office is the UK’s national weather service; its Hadley Centre conducts climate change research and contributes to the IPCC assessment reports. [IISD RS ENBOTS Coverage] [IISD RS Coverage of Lima Climate Change Conference] [Met Office Hadley Centre Webpage] [University of Reading Website] [Penn State Website]