Is there space for agreement on climate change? A non-parametric approach to policy evaluation

Economic evaluation of climate policy has become mired in a debate about appropriate time and risk preferences, since reducing greenhouse gas emissions today has a highly uncertain pay-off, far into the future. Rather than occupy a position in this debate, we take a non-parametric approach here, based on the concept of Time-Stochastic Dominance. Using an integrated assessment model, we apply Time-Stochastic Dominance analysis to climate change, asking; are there global emissions abatement targets that everyone who shares a broad class of time and risk preferences would agree to prefer? Overall we find that even tough emissions targets would be chosen by almost everyone, barring those with arguably ‘extreme’ preferences.