Integrating political and technological uncertainty into robust climate policy

As climate change is unlikely to follow a linear path, climate policies should anticipate varied outcomes and be flexibly responsive. The case for such “robust policy” is compelling. However, advocates of robust approaches to policymaking often understate the challenge, as the variability of climate is just one of at least three interactive arenas of uncertainty that require attention. Emerging technologies will have a significant but indeterminate impact on climate adaptation and mitigation efforts. Uncertainty is also heightened because politics is an arena of disruptive change. The development of robust climate policy given the convergence of unknowns in the climatic, technological, and political realms entails three components: (1) diverse, distributed, and transparent participation; (2) safe-to-fail experimentation; and (3) exploratory foresight.