Decision Analysis: Making Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty with Competing Objectives Shelie Miller, SNRE, February 17, 2015

Signal to Noise (perhaps more like climate) From social research methods.net

Models can perform the “control experiment” that we can’t do in the real world Meehl et al., J. Climate (2004) Average surface temperature change (°C)

What are the climate change impacts of emerging technologies? How do we design new technologies (and/or the policies that govern them) to achieve preferred outcomes?

Making Decisions Under Uncertainty Low

Path Dependence 3 We may only be able to “see” one node ahead

Responses to the Climate Change Problem Autonomous/ Individual Policy/ Societal Reactive Anticipatory Adaptation Mitigation

One Proposed Pathway to Greenhouse Gas Mitigation National Resources Defense Council Each of these “wedges” is extremely costly

What if… What if climate change isn’t as bad as scientists think? If we act now and never have major negative impacts, how do we know we did the right thing?

Best Case Scenario: We take action, then never see dire scenario predictions come true This has happened before… Approximately $100 billion spent in US alone Was Y2K a hoax? If you could go back in time and spend less time and money on the Y2K “catastrophe”, would you?

Decision Analysis Any decision can be broken into 3 parts – What is the goal? (objective) – What can be controlled? (decision variables) – What can’t be controlled? (constraints) What you can/can’t control may depend on who you are

What is your decision space? Your team has been asked to be part of a task force to create a Climate Action Plan for the University of Michigan. The goal is to reduce the university’s greenhouse gas emissions by as much as possible. What can you control? What can’t you control? What are some of the uncertainties that might affect your recommendations? How would your answers be different if you were the President of the university? A representative of Congress?

Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Stakeholder Dependent Tradeoff Analysis Greenhouse Gas Emissions Water Footprint CostLand Footprint May have multiple, competing goals

Weighted Scoring Factors Considered Technical Evaluations Final Score Quantifies Stakeholder Values Courtesy CH2M-Hill

BASF Eco-Efficiency Analysis *BASF does use weighting factors based on public opinion surveys; final values are normalized on the basis of weighted scores.

What additional criteria influence a decision? In the first example, your goal was to reduce the university’s greenhouse gas emissions by as much as possible. But any major policy decision often weighs a variety of goals. – What are other criteria that are important to think about when creating a climate action plan? – How would your team decide to make a decision, given competing goals?

Weighting Methods Decision Analysis vs Decision Support

Decisions Need to Be Made in a Wide Variety of Contexts TEMPORAL NEAR-TERMLONG-TERM SPATIAL LOCAL GLOBAL WEALTH Small scales inform large scales. Large scales inform small scales. Need to introduce spatial scales as well

How Will Your Frame of Analysis Change Depending on: Short-term vs Long-term Wealthy vs. Poor Countries High Impact vs. Low Impact Countries Timeframe of election cycles vs. climate cycle How do you weigh: – Climate change impacts – Costs (mitigation, adaptation, climate effects) – Social justice/equity – Individual vs societal benefits and consequences

Knowing, of course…