Reproduced, with permission, from: Risbey, James, Milind Kandlikar and Anand Patwardhan. 1995. "Assessing Integrated Assessments" (Submitted to Climatic Change December 1995). Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University.

Assessing Integrated Assessments

James Risbey/ Milind Kandlikar & Anand Patwardhan
Department of Engineering and Public Policy
Carnegie Mellon University

Submitted to

Climatic Change

December 1995

• Contents
• Introduction
• The Integrated Assessment Paradigm
  • What is Integrated Assessment and what is it for?
  • Who does Integrated Assessment and how do they do it?
  • What is left out?
• Lessons from the Past
  • World Systems Models
• Problems in Integrated Assessment
  • Damages Archetype
  • Social Costs of Climate Change
  • Cultural Theory
• Diagnosis of Problems
  • Interdisciplinarity
    • Lack of metrics or standards
    • Source/feeder structure of integrated assessment
    • Peer review
  • Evaluation
    • Integrated Assessment models as heuristic tools
    • Integrated Assessment models as forecasting tools
• Issues to Address
  • Assumptions
  • Anchoring
  • Transparency
  • Diversity
  • Use of results
  • A place for dirty laundry
• Conclusions
• References