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Climate Change and Disaster Management
Avinash Persaud had raised the issue of data gaps on climate change in his H T Parekh Finance column. It is elucidated herein that when different players assess the area of relevance to develop their strategies, games help in narrowing data gaps. This has immediate policy relevance because the Biden presidency’s approach to climate change has greater concern on the rights of forest dwellers of native populations.
We know climate change is a reality (Persaud 2020) that has been affecting our life. There are scientists, many eminent ones, who inspire sympathy for the environment activists although they are not sure if the causes are measurable in a quantitative sense. But for policymaking, one needs to go much further. Policy cannot be built only on beliefs, since concrete action has to be taken. How do we square the circle? India is important in what it does with regard to the actions taken to combat climate change. But, the United States (US) withdrawing from the Paris Agreement shows how important the other actors are too. In this note, I write on the dilemmas that we face in Environmental Economics, when we know a serious problem exists, but do not know the causes in sufficient detail to quantify it exactly.
The issue of climate change is important and India, which is now marginal in the global debates, will again be in the centre as earlier. The facts are unclear in magnitudes. How do we factor in uncertainty in decisions which are important?
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