Robert J. Lempert

@RobertLempert on Twitter

Director, Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition; Principal Researcher; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Santa Monica Office

Education

Ph.D. in applied physics, S.M. in applied physics and science policy, Harvard University; B.A.S. in physics and political science, Stanford University

Media Resources

This researcher is available for interviews.

To arrange an interview, contact the RAND Office of Media Relations at (310) 451-6913, or email media@rand.org.

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Overview

Robert Lempert is director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition and a principal researcher at the RAND Corporation. His research focuses on risk management and decisionmaking under conditions of deep uncertainty. Lempert's work aims to advance the state of art for organizations managing risk in today's conditions of fast-paced, transformative, and surprising change and help organizations adopt these approaches to help make proper stewardship of the future more commonly practiced.

He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, coordinating lead author for Working Group II of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, a chapter lead for the Fourth U.S. National Climate Assessment, chair of the peer review panel for California's Fourth Climate Assessment, a member of California's Climate-Safe Infrastructure Working Group, and has been a member of numerous study panels for the U.S. National Academies, including America's Climate Choices and Informing Decisions in a Changing Climate. Lempert was the Inaugural EADS Distinguished Visitor in Energy and Environment at the American Academy in Berlin and the inaugural president of the Society for Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty (http://www.deepuncertainty.org). A professor of policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, Lempert is an author of the book Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Longer-Term Policy Analysis. He earned his Ph.D. in applied physics from Harvard University.

Research Focus

Pardee RAND Graduate School Courses

Robust Decision Making

Recent Projects

Developing and applying new tools for managing deep uncertainty and surprise
Climate change and environment
Water resources management
Managing innovation

Selected Publications

Robert Lempert and Sara Turner, "Engaging Multiple Worldviews With Quantitative Decision Support: A Robust Decision-Making Demonstration Using the Lake Model," Risk Analysis, 2020

Knopman, Debra, Robert J. Lempert, Urban Responses to Climate Change: Framework for Decisionmaking and Supporting Indicators, RAND Corporation (RR-1144-MCF), 2016

Tariq, A., R. J. Lempert, J. Riverson, M. Schwartz and N. Berg , "A climate stress test of Los Angeles' water quality plans." 144(4): 625-639., Climatic Change, 2017

Isley, S. C., R. J. Lempert, S. W. Popper and R. Vardavas, "The effect of near-term policy choices on long-term greenhouse gas transformation pathways." 34: 147-158., Global Environmental Change, 2015

Lempert, R. J. , "Values and uncertainty." 5.10 (2015): 914-915., Nature Climate Change, 2015

Robert J. Lempert et al., "A General, Analytic Method for Generating Robust Strategies and Narrative Scenarios," Management Science, 52(4), 2006

Christopher P. Weaver, Robert J. Lempert, Casey Brown, John A. Hall, David Revell, Daniel Sarewitz, Improving the contribution of climate model information to decision making: the value and demands of robust decision frameworks. Volume 4, Issue 1, pages 39–60, January/February 2013., WIREs Climate Change, 2013

Lempert, Robert J., Steven W. Popper, and Steven C. Bankes, Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis, RAND Corporation (MR-1626), 2003

Honors & Awards

Fellow, American Physical Society
2020 Biennial Medal Winner, International Environmental Modeling and Software Society

Recent Media Appearances

Interviews: American Interest; Beyond the Beltway; Challenging Climate; Fox; New York Times; NPR

Commentary: Bloomberg Government; The Hill; The Huffington Post; Nature; NPR News; Palisadian-Post; The Sacramento Bee; United Press International; U.S. News & World Report

Commentary

Global Climate Change

Climate Change Will Transform How We Live, but These Tech and Policy Experts See Reason for Optimism
To slow climate change and adapt to the damage already underway, the world will have to shift how it generates and uses energy, transports people and goods, designs buildings, and grows food. That starts with embracing innovation and change.
Apr 18, 2022
The Conversation
Global Climate Change

California Needs a More Flexible Approach to Sea Level Rise Planning
Rising seas create significant risk to the health, safety, and economic vitality of California's coast communities, and we must prepare. A contingency-planning approach would provide flexible action over time and would build capacity that California and the nation need to respond to the many other serious and growing climate-related risks.
Feb 18, 2021
San Diego Union Tribune
Emergency Preparedness

Planning as Freedom
The pandemic has made Americans less free, confining us to our homes, and separating us from the people we love and the activities we value. This experience may help people learn the importance of planning to preserving and expanding freedom.
Sep 4, 2020
The RAND Blog
Wildfires

A Climate Scientist's Brush with Wildfire
RAND researcher Robert Lempert was evacuated from the path of a wildfire. This experience emphasized for him the challenges of adapting to climate change, not merely because it is hard, but because it makes the familiar become unfamiliar in unexpected ways.
Dec 18, 2019
CalMatters
Global Climate Change

How Voters Can Assess New Climate Plans
While the U.S. government has announced its intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, most presidential candidates and many states have proposed climate plans of their own. How might voters determine if any of these plans can seriously address climate change?
Nov 14, 2019
GreenBiz.com
Emerging Technologies

A Better Way to Think About Scooters
Unleashed in Santa Monica, California, last September, Bird and its competitors are now in 30 American cities and counting. Cities are responding to the scooter takeover with new regulations and increased law enforcement. But if officials rely only on 20th-century tools to integrate these 21st-century scooters into their cities, they will miss a big opportunity.
Aug 28, 2018
Los Angeles Times
Global Climate Change

When It Comes to Climate, Look for Vulnerabilities in Policy, Not Science
Federal policymakers have picked up on the concept of red teaming — actively seeking out one's own vulnerabilities. While red teaming may not make sense for climate science, it does offer great benefits when weighing climate policy options.
Aug 4, 2017
The Hill
Global Climate Change

Navigating the Uncertain Path to Decarbonization
Deep decarbonization can reduce the risk of climate change, and it offers opportunities to reimagine energy, transportation, and infrastructure. But it could also fail in many ways. Diverse, independent actors need a shared understanding of its complexity and deep uncertainty to design a solution to this challenge.
Jul 11, 2017
The RAND Blog
Global Climate Change

The Big Bet: Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement
America's formal withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement could have far-reaching consequences for U.S. global leadership on many issues, not just on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Jun 2, 2017
Inside Sources
Robust Decision Making

Decision-Making Under Uncertain Climate Change: A Response, and an Invitation, to Bret Stephens
It is difficult to determine what actions balance society's goals where there is deep uncertainty about the consequences. The decisionmaking under uncertainty methodology provides tools to acknowledge uncertainty, avoid overconfidence, promote deliberation, and help craft consensus on sensible approaches to climate change.
May 9, 2017
Society for Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty
Global Climate Change

With Trump in the White House, States Could Step Up on Climate Change
The new administration has expressed skepticism about climate change. But states may choose to pursue their own climate change initiatives.
Nov 26, 2016
Fox News Channel
Critical Infrastructure Protection

Infrastructure Design Must Change with Climate
Until recently, infrastructure engineers could use data on past weather to predict future climate. But this is no longer an option. More and more, engineers must consider the effects of climate change. Failure to do so would threaten public safety.
Aug 12, 2016
Orange County Register
Global Climate Change

COP21: Ambition and Momentum
Negotiators in Paris achieved a historic breakthrough by adopting a fundamentally different, and likely more effective, institutional framework to address climate change. It builds on two concepts missing from past attempts to forge a global treaty: voluntary participation and adaptive policymaking.
Dec 17, 2015
The RAND Blog
Global Climate Change

COP 21 Not a Silver Bullet on Climate Change
The Paris climate conference cannot provide the engine that will drive a solution to the world's climate change challenge. Rather, it can best serve as a mediator that will help guide and structure the swirling, bottom-up process of radical change that is the best hope of preserving Earth's climate.
Nov 24, 2015
The RAND Blog
Global Climate Change

Climate Targets: Values and Uncertainty
Policymakers know that the risks associated with climate change mean they need to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. But uncertainty surrounding the likelihood of different scenarios makes choosing specific policies difficult.
Aug 11, 2015
Nature Climate Change News and Views
Flooding

Future of Coastal Flooding
President Obama's executive order that directs federal agencies to plan and build for higher flood levels as they construct new projects in flood-prone regions will affect hundreds of billions of dollars of future public works projects. In an ideal world, planners would estimate the benefits and costs for each project, taking into account everything from the details of the local landscape to the potential for adaptive responses over time.
Feb 25, 2015
The Hill
Global Climate Change

U.S.-China Global Warming Deal Could Signal Shift on Climate Change
The U.S.-China agreement on limiting greenhouse gas emissions represents a significant and welcome shift in the international approach to addressing climate change. For the first time, a large developing country has agreed to limit its greenhouse gas emissions -- a crucial step since these countries have become the world’s largest sources.
Dec 9, 2014
U.S. News & World Report
Environmental Regulation

New Coal Plant Rules Need Sustained Support to Succeed
Stopping climate change will require the United States and the rest of the world to virtually eliminate emissions over the course of the 21st century. Getting anywhere close to zero emissions demands sustained political and public support, driven by an energy production sector given enough incentives to make carbon reduction succeed.
Jun 30, 2014
The Sacramento Bee
Community Resilience

Planning for Superstorms, Wildfires, and Deep Uncertainty
The path to climate change preparedness should start at the intersection of resilience and robustness — that is, building resilient communities with the individuals and organizations within those communities making robust decisions, ones designed to work well over a wide range of ever-changing conditions.
Apr 18, 2013
The RAND Blog
Global Climate Change

Evidence for Climate Change Is Overwhelming
In case after case, the theory that best fits the data is the one that also leads inexorably to the conclusion that human influence is one of the most important forces currently changing the climate, writes Robert J. Lempert.
Mar 8, 2012
Palisadian-Post
Global Climate Change

Climate Scientists Should Wear Adam Smith Ties
If it were really possible to explain millions of years of Earth data with a theory that doesn't also imply a recent human influence on the climate, some ambitious, self-interested team of scientists somewhere in the world would seek scientific renown by doing so, writes Robert Lempert.
Mar 30, 2011
Bloomberg Government
Global Climate Change

Redesigning the International Approach to Climate Change
Limiting climate change requires a revolution in the way the global economy generates and consumes energy. It is becoming increasingly clear that the current diplomatic approach should be redesigned to meet this immense political, technical, and social challenge, writes Robert J. Lempert.
Jul 1, 2010
The Huffington Post
Missed Opportunities in Johannesburg
Published commentary by RAND staff: Missed Opportunities in Johannesburg in United Press International on October 22, 2002.
Oct 22, 2002
United Press International

Publications

Journal Article
Community-Level, Participatory Co-Design for Landslide Warning with Implications for Climate Services
This paper describes a community-level co-design process among academic, state, and federal scientists and the community of Sitka, Alaska to develop a novel landslide warning system for the small coastal town.
Mar 1, 2023
Journal Article
City-Heat Equity Adaptation Tool (City-HEAT): Multi-objective Optimization of Environmental Modifications and Human Heat Exposure Reductions for Urban Heat Adaptation Under Uncertainty
Rising global temperatures and the urban heat island effect can amplify heat-related health risks to residents. Cities are considering various heat adaptation actions to improve public health, enhance social equity, and cope with future conditions.
Feb 1, 2023
Multimedia
Update on Findings of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
In this webinar, contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and experts from the RAND Climate Resilience Center discuss findings from the report of the IPCC Working Group II.
Aug 3, 2022
Report
Adaptive Engagement for Undergoverned Spaces: Concepts, Challenges, and Prospects for New Approaches
This report is a compendium of expert insights regarding opportunities for investing in science and technology to increase U.S. ability to engage in long-term competition in undergoverned spaces.
Jul 13, 2022
Testimony
Observed Impacts, Future Risks, and Adaptation Solutions: Highlights from the Recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II Report
Testimony presented before the Minnesota House of Representatives Committee on Climate and Energy Finance and Policy on March 10, 2022.
Mar 10, 2022
Journal Article
Recalibrating the Belt and Road Initiative Amidst Deep Uncertainties
We describe the deep uncertainties affecting Belt and Road Initiative decision making, and identify drawbacks of existing BRI policy analysis in light of its future challenges.
Dec 9, 2021
Journal Article
Run Uphill for a Tsunami, Downhill for a Landslide
Following fatal landslides, the town of Sitka, Alaska, worked with scientists to create a new, individualized hazard warning system, revealing the complexities of coproducing knowledge.
Nov 12, 2021
Journal Article
Reopening California: Seeking Robust, Non-Dominated COVID-19 Exit Strategies
This paper uses simulation models and the Robust Decision Making (RDM) approach to stress-test California's reopening strategy and other alternatives over a wide range of futures.
Nov 5, 2021
Journal Article
Measuring Global Climate Risk
Risks generated by climate change are growing and a strong international response is needed to contain and reduce them.
Oct 28, 2021
Report
Reopening Under Uncertainty: Stress-Testing California's COVID-19 Exit Strategy
Researchers used the Robust Decision Making approach to stress-test California's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This Perspective presents lessons learned from these experiments and outlines four characteristics of the best reopening strategies.
May 10, 2021
Journal Article
A Framework for Complex Climate Change Risk Assessment
In this perspective, we present a framework for three categories of increasingly complex climate change risk that focus on interactions among the multiple drivers of risk, as well as among multiple risks.
Apr 28, 2021
Journal Article
Forecasts and Decisions: A Commentary on Lustick and Tetlock 2021
This article is a commentary on a paper by Lustick and Tetlock (2021), on forecasting, decisionmaking, and the intelligence community.
Apr 2, 2021
Journal Article
The Societal Benefits of Vehicle Connectivity
This scenario analysis suggests that actions focused on enhancing equity in any push towards vehicle connectivity represent a low-regrets option for public, private, and civil society actors.
Apr 1, 2021
Journal Article
Engaging Multiple Worldviews With Quantitative Decision Support: A Robust Decision-Making Demonstration Using the Lake Model
This study builds on recent advances in methods and tools for decisionmaking under deep uncertainty to demonstrate analytic approaches that help reduce the tension between quantitative decision support tools and approaches for addressing wicked problems.
Aug 25, 2020
Journal Article
Meeting Climate, Mobility, and Equity Goals in Transportation Planning Under Wide-Ranging Scenarios: A Demonstration of Robust Decision Making
Robust Decision Making offers a promising complement and possibly future alternative to current prediction-based and scenario approaches that could help planners better manage in today's conditions of fast-paced change.
May 21, 2020
Journal Article
Defining the Solution Space to Accelerate Climate Change Adaptation
Better understanding of the solution space for climate change adaptation, and identifying ways to influence this space, is critical for informing policy making globally to accelerate adaptation action.
Mar 24, 2020
Report
Implementing a New Mobility Vision for Rancho Higuera in a Deeply Uncertain, Fast-Changing World: Results from RAND Corporation Participatory Local Planning Workshops
Culver City seeks to reimagine mobility, shifting from cars to other transit modes. A RAND team helped the city develop an implementation plan using decision making under deep uncertainty (DMDU) methods embedded in a participatory "shadow" process.
Jan 3, 2020
Journal Article
Sacramento Area Council of Governments Peer Review
This is a peer review of Robust Decision Making, an exploratory modeling approach for informing decisions under deep uncertainty, and the Exploratory Analysis and Modeling Tool, focusing applications for the Sacramento Area Council of Governments.
Sep 25, 2019
Report
Technology and Work Worth Doing (Not Jobs) Post-AlphaGo: A World-Building Workshop on the Future of Artificial Intelligence
This report summarizes a 2018 workshop that gathered a small group of innovative thinkers to engage in an approach called large-scale speculative design to sketch desirable future worlds that could be enabled by artificial intelligence.
Jun 21, 2019
Journal Article
Pathways to 2050: Alternative Scenarios for Decarbonizing the U.S. Economy
This scenario exercise draws on the insights of more than 20 leading companies to advance understanding of the opportunities and challenges associated with decarbonizing the United States by mid-century in order to reduce the risks of climate change.
Jun 4, 2019
Journal Article
Robust Decision Making (RDM)
Decisionmakers often seek predictions about the future to inform policy choices. But a reliance upon analytic methods that require them can prove counter-productive and sometimes dangerous in a fast-changing, complex world.
Apr 10, 2019
Journal Article
Bezos World or Levelers: Can We Choose Our Scenario?
This essay explores how AI might be used to enable fundamentally different future worlds and how one such future might be enabled by AI algorithms with different goals and functions than those most common today.
Mar 28, 2019
Journal Article
Resilience of the Eastern African Electricity Sector to Climate Driven Changes in Hydropower Generation
This study developed a framework consisting of long-term models for electricity supply and water systems management, to assess the vulnerability of potential electricity infrastructure expansion plans to the effects of climate change in Africa.
Jan 29, 2019
Journal Article
Addressing Uncertainty in Developing Long-Term Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Strategies
Long-term strategies (LTSs). and the body of research on which they are based, offer strategies of how each nation can achieve a prosperous future with no or low greenhouse gas emissions. But current LTSs rest on methods insufficient to meet the challenges of the Paris Agreement.
Jan 11, 2019
Journal Article
Could AI Drive Transformative Social Progress? What Would This Require?
This paper explores various strategies and business models for developing and deploying artificial intelligence-enabled products.
2019
Report
Deep Decarbonization as a Risk Management Challenge
Deep decarbonization -- reducing net human greenhouse gas emissions to zero -- presents a risk management challenge. This Perspective describes three concepts that are particularly important for implementing risk management for deep decarbonization.
Oct 22, 2018
Report
Adapting Land Use and Water Management Plans to a Changing Climate in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, Florida
This report addresses the vulnerability to flooding, saltwater intrusion, and related issues in Southeast Florida and describes a model and decision support tool to help regional planners and decisionmakers better focus on the most vulnerable areas.
Jun 6, 2018
Report
Is Climate Restoration an Appropriate Climate Policy Goal?
This report offers an initial exploration of the concept of climate restoration -- that is, approaches that seek to return atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to preindustrial levels within one to two generations.
Apr 6, 2018
Report
Participatory Modeling of Climate Change Impacts on Public Health in Long Beach, California: Discussion from a Workshop Hosted by the RAND Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition
Participatory modeling, using causal loop diagramming, was employed to identify public health issues; examine connections between climate change and public health; and understand feedback loops among climate change impacts and public health.
Mar 7, 2018
Journal Article
Demonstrating the Applicability of a Robust Decision Making (RDM) to Conservation Decision-Making Under Uncertain Future Climate: Pilot Study Using the Northern Pygmy Salamander (Desmognathus Organi)
This study suggests initial ideas for managing climate uncertainty in conservation planning. Differences with previous RDM applications include focus on finer scale geography and significantly more uncertainty in the system (species response) model.
Oct 3, 2017
Journal Article
A Climate Stress Test of Los Angeles' Water Quality Plans
Overall, this study suggests that climate change and land use can significantly affect TMDL implementation plans; identifies how one such plan might be modified to address the resulting vulnerabilities; and demonstrates how robust decision making methods, employed with existing simulation models, may be able to generate legally acceptable plans that are robust and flexible in the face of climate and other uncertainties.
Sep 20, 2017
Journal Article
Advancing Alternative Analysis: Integration of Decision Science
Incorporating decision science into alternatives analysis would help companies and regulators to select alternatives to environmentally harmful ingredients.
Aug 1, 2017
Journal Article
Testing the Scenario Hypothesis: An Experimental Comparison of Scenarios and Forecasts for Decision Support in a Complex Decision Environment
Decision support tools are known to influence and facilitate decisionmaking through the thoughtful construction of the decision environment. However, little research has empirically evaluated the effects of using scenarios and forecasts.
May 1, 2017
Research Brief
Exploring America's Role in a Turbulent World: Strategic Rethink
This brief outlines the Strategic Rethink project and describes research documented in the final volume of the project, focusing on three different strategic orientations to satisfy the greatest number of U.S. interests and objectives.
Jan 18, 2017
Report
Strategic Choices for a Turbulent World: In Pursuit of Security and Opportunity
This report is the last of a series in which RAND explores the elements of a national strategy for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, in this new era of turbulence and uncertainty. Three alternative strategic concepts are presented.
Jan 18, 2017
Journal Article
Building a Values-Informed Mental Model for New Orleans Climate Risk Management
ViMM helps identify gaps between the values used by the public and experts to understand risk factors and strategies. This study suggests a framework to construct a more explicit model of the public's and CRM experts' and climate scientists' values.
2017
Journal Article
Scenario Techniques for Energy and Environmental Research: An Overview of Recent Developments to Broaden the Capacity to Deal with Complexity and Uncertainty
This TI gathers recent methodological innovations in quantitative techniques to push the frontiers of scenarios capabilities and demonstrates how they can address the dual challenge posed by the context of (deep) uncertainty and complexity.
2017
Journal Article
Understanding Scientists' Computational Modeling Decisions About Climate Risk Management Strategies Using Values-Informed Mental Models
This study used values-informed mental models (ViMM) to capture how a set of scientists thinks about modeling CRM strategy tradeoffs and how their values influence this thinking.
2017
Report
Urban Responses to Climate Change: Framework for Decisionmaking and Supporting Indicators
This report presents a decisionmaking framework and supporting indicators for urban responses to climate change based on risk governance, emphasizing capacities to transform policies, institutions, financing, and other actions to affect change.
Dec 7, 2016
Report
Using High-Performance Computing to Support Water Resource Planning: A Workshop Demonstration of Real-Time Analytic Facilitation for the Colorado River Basin
This document summarizes a workshop exploring the use of high-performance computing to support real-time analytic facilitation of multiscenario natural resource management planning.
Aug 25, 2016
Journal Article
Reinvigorating the Scenario Technique to Expand Uncertainty Consideration
Scenarios are widely used for long-term climate and energy analysis.
Feb 4, 2016
Report
Defense Resource Planning Under Uncertainty: An Application of Robust Decision Making to Munitions Mix Planning
Defense planning faces significant uncertainties. This report applies robust decision making (RDM) to the munitions mix challenge, to demonstrate how RDM could help defense planners make plans more robust to a wide range of hard-to-predict futures.
Feb 1, 2016
Journal Article
The Effect of Near-Term Policy Choices on Long-Term Greenhouse Gas Transformation Pathways
This paper introduces a new agent-based, game theoretic model designed to compare how near-term choices regarding alternative policy architectures influence long-term emission reduction trajectories.
Nov 23, 2015
Report
Managing Water Quality in the Face of Uncertainty: A Robust Decision Making Demonstration for EPA's National Water Program
Climate change may affect water quality implementation plans, but uncertainty complicates any appropriate response. This study explores how Robust Decision Making (RDM) can help make water quality plans more resilient to climate and other changes.
Sep 9, 2015
Report
Choices for America in a Turbulent World: Strategic Rethink
Exploring the elements of a national strategy for U.S. foreign policy, the book examines critical global, regional, and other policy issues and decisions likely to confront the next president and senior U.S. officials in 2017 and beyond.
Jul 23, 2015
Journal Article
Evaluating Simulation-Derived Scenarios for Effective Decision Support
This study uses behavioral experiments and structured decision-maker interviews to evaluate the results of scenario discovery, a quantitative method that defines scenarios as sets of future states of the world in which proposed policies fail to meet their goals.
2015
Journal Article
Embedding (Some) Benefit-Cost Concepts Into Decision Support Processes with Deep Uncertainty
This paper argues that new approaches exist that can help reduce the tension between the benefits of providing useful, scientifically based information to decision makers and the costs of aggregating uncertainty and differing values into single best estimates.
2014
Journal Article
Improving Scenario Discovery Using Orthogonal Rotations
Scenario discovery offers a new means to characterize and communicate the information in computer simulation models under conditions of deep uncertainty.
Oct 1, 2013
Report
An Evolutionary Model of Industry Transformation and the Political Sustainability of Emission Control Policies
To compare the long-term sustainability of alternative carbon emission reduction policies, an agent-based simulation explores the co-evolution of an industry sector, its technology base, and political coalitions that influence government policy.
Sep 6, 2013
Journal Article
Building SSPs for Climate Policy Analysis: A Scenario Elicitation Methodology to Map the Space of Possible Future Challenges to Mitigation and Adaptation
Proposes a methodology to develop SSPs with an approach based on an a priori identification of drivers of mitigation and adaptation challenges; a modeling exercise to generate scenarios; and a posteriori selection among these scenarios using statistical cluster-finding algorithms.
Sep 1, 2013
Journal Article
Managing Risk with Climate Vulnerability Science
Climate information alone cannot be sufficient for anticipating and reducing climate impacts.
Jul 1, 2013
Draft
Is it Ethical to Use a Single Probability Density Function?
Describes Robust Decision Making, one of a new class of methods for quantitative analysis that addresses both quantitative analysis and ethical reasoning.
May 28, 2013
Journal Article
Ensuring Robust Flood Risk Management in Ho Chi Minh City
This study demonstrates how robust decision making can help Ho Chi Minh City develop integrated flood risk management strategies.
May 1, 2013
Journal Article
Creating Constituencies for Long-Term, Radical Change
This essay will argue that long-term emissions reduction goals currently proposed before Congress at best only highlight the magnitude of the climate change challenge, without contributing much to a solution.
Apr 1, 2013
Journal Article
Many Objective Robust Decision Making for Complex Environmental Systems Undergoing Change
MORDM also allows decision makers to characterize the most important vulnerabilities for their systems, which should be the focus of ex post monitoring and identification of triggers for adaptive management.
Apr 1, 2013
Journal Article
Scenarios That Illuminate Vulnerabilities and Robust Responses
This paper proposes a particular conceptualization of scenarios that aims to address many of the challenges faced when using scenarios to inform contentious policy debates.
Apr 1, 2013
Research Brief
Making Good Decisions Without Predictions: Robust Decision Making for Planning Under Deep Uncertainty
Quantitative analysis is often indispensable to sound planning. But with deep uncertainty, predictions can lead decisionmakers astray. Robust Decision Making supports good decisions without predictions by testing plans against many futures.
Feb 28, 2013
Journal Article
Improving the Contribution of Climate Model Information to Decision Making: The Value and Demands of Robust Decision Frameworks
This paper reviews the need for, use of, and demands on climate modeling to support so-called 'robust' decision frameworks, in the context of improving the contribution of climate information to effective decision making.
2013
Journal Article
The Need for and Use of Socio-Economic Scenarios for Climate Change Analysis: A New Approach Based on Shared Socio-Economic Pathway
Socio-economic scenarios constitute an important tool for exploring the long-term consequences of anthropogenic climate change and available response options.
Oct 1, 2012
Journal Article
Characterizing Uncertain Sea Level Rise Projections to Support Investment Decisions
Many institutions worldwide are considering how to include expectations about future sea level rise into their investment decisions regarding large capital infrastructures.
Jun 1, 2012
Journal Article
Recrafting Scenario Practice to Achieve Robust Long-Term Decisions
In this essay, we are concerned with the question: How does what might happen in 2050 affect decisions about the freight transport sector today? How do we make near-term choices that last over the long term? In other words, how do we make decisions today that are robust over a wide range of alternative futures?
Feb 1, 2012
Report
How Americans Will Live and Work in 2020: A Workshop Exploring Key Trends and Philanthropic Responses
These proceedings summarize the discussion at a July 2011 workshop convened to examine how trends in four areas -- the economy, demographics, the workplace, and lifestyles -- will affect the poor and vulnerable in America in the coming decade.
Jan 16, 2012
Journal Article
Investment Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty: Application to Climate Change
This paper summarizes the additional uncertainty that is created by climate change, and reviews the tools that are available to project climate change (including downscaling techniques) and to assess and quantify the corresponding uncertainty.
2012
Journal Article
Robust Climate Policies Under Uncertainty: A Comparison of Robust Decision-Making and Info-Gap Methods
This study compares two widely used approaches for robustness analysis of decision problems: the info-gap method originally developed by Ben-Haim and the robust decision making (RDM) approach originally developed by Lempert, Popper, and Bankes.
2012
Journal Article
Some Thoughts on the Role of Robust Control Theory in Climate-Related Decision Support: An Editorial Comment
Any successful response to climate change--both the challenges of limiting the magnitude of future climate change and adapting to its impacts--will clearly involve policies that evolve over time in response to new information and that are robust over a wide range of difficult-to-predict future conditions.
Aug 1, 2011
Journal Article
Technology Interactions Among Low-Carbon Energy Technologies: What Can We Learn from a Large Number of Scenarios?
This paper uses a combinatorial approach in which scenarios are created for all combinations of the technology development assumptions that underlie a smaller, representative set of scenarios.
Jul 1, 2011
Report
Governing Geoengineering Research: A Political and Technical Vulnerability Analysis of Potential Near-Term Options
Geoengineering is risky, but could transform the options available for limiting future climate change. This report compares risks associated with alternative international approaches the United States might pursue to govern geoengineering research.
Apr 18, 2011
Journal Article
Managing Climate Risks in Developing Countries with Robust Decision Making
The authors present the concept of robust decision making (RDM), which draws on already-existing knowledge of practitioners to choose actions that are viable in both the short- and long-term.
2011
Journal Article
Identifying and Evaluating Robust Adaptive Policy Responses to Climate Change for Water Management Agencies in the American West
This paper describes work helping the Inland Empire Utilities Agency (IEUA) explicitly develop adaptive policies to respond to climate change and integrating these policies into the organizations' long-range planning processes.
Jul 1, 2010
Journal Article
Thinking Inside the Box: A Participatory, Computer-Assisted Approach to Scenario Discovery
This paper systematically describes the scenario discovery concept and its implementation, presents statistical tests to evaluate the resulting scenarios, and demonstrates the approach on an example policy problem involving the efficacy of a proposed U.S. renewable energy standard.
2010
Report
Shaping Tomorrow Today: Near-Term Steps Towards Long-Term Goals
These proceedings of a workshop called Shaping Tomorrow Today: Near-Term Steps Towards Long-Term Goals summarize the workshop, which focused on education, international policy, and climate change, and include the papers written for participants.
Aug 3, 2009
Journal Article
Methods for Long-Term Environmental Policy Challenges
This article provides a concise overview of methods for analyzing policy choices that have been used in the study of long-term environmental challenges.
Aug 1, 2009
Journal Article
Do We Need Better Predictions to Adapt to a Changing Climate?
Many scientists have called for a substantial new investment in climate modeling to increase the accuracy, precision, and reliability of climate predictions.
Mar 31, 2009
Report
U.S. Pharmaceutical Policy in a Global Marketplace
Investigates the effects on consumers of lowering U.S. pharmaceutical prices under various assumptions and finds that publicly financing price reductions, without affecting manufacturer prices, delivers benefits in virtually all plausible cases.
Jan 9, 2009
Research Brief
Regulating Drug Prices: U.S. Policy Alternatives in a Global Context
Discusses the effects of regulating drug prices in the United States in terms of the trade-off between benefiting the current generation (with lower prices) and benefiting future generations (with greater pharmaceutical innovation).
Dec 11, 2008
Journal Article
A Toolbox for Policy Planners
A review of The Handbook of Technology Foresight / Edited by Luke Georghiou, Jennifer Cassingena Harper, Michael Keenan, Ian Miles and Rafael Popper (Edward Elgar: 2008).
Sep 1, 2008
Report
Impacts on U.S. Energy Expenditures and Greenhouse-Gas Emissions of Increasing Renewable-Energy Use
This report assesses the potential impact on U.S. consumer energy expenditures and CO2 emissions if 25 percent of U.S. electric power and motor fuels come from renewable resources by 2025.
Jun 15, 2008
Report
Comparing Alternative U.S. Counterterrorism Strategies: Can Assumption-Based Planning Help Elevate the Debate?
Often, emotion and uncertainty can lead to difficulty in assessing solutions to controversial problems. This briefing reports on assumption-based planning workshops discussing alternative U.S. counterterrorism strategies.
Apr 6, 2008
Draft
Comparing Algorithms for Scenario Discovery
Evaluates alternative algorithms needed to implement a novel task the authors call ''scenario discovery,'' in which users identify concise descriptions of input parameters to a simulation model.
Mar 25, 2008
Research Brief
Evaluating Alternatives for Renewing TRIA in an Uncertain World
This research brief summarizes an analysis of terrorism-insurance policy. The current law produces positive outcomes for conventional attacks but does not effectively address risks that nuclear, biological, chemical, or radiological attacks present.
Mar 3, 2008
Report
Preparing for an Uncertain Future Climate in the Inland Empire: Identifying Robust Water-Management Strategies
This briefing presents an analysis of how different adaptive water-management strategies may reduce Southern California's vulnerability to climate change and other planning uncertainties.
Jan 22, 2008
Research Brief
Identifying and Reducing Climate-Change Vulnerabilities in Water-Management Plans
This research brief summarizes work with Southern California's Inland Empire Utilities Agency to help it identify climate-change vulnerabilities in its long-term water plans and evaluate its most effective options for managing those risks.
Jan 22, 2008
Report
Presenting Uncertainty About Climate Change to Water-Resource Managers: A Summary of Workshops with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency
RAND researchers are working with water agencies in California to help them better understand how climate change might affect their systems and what actions they may need to take to address this challenge. This report documents the study.
Jan 2, 2008
Journal Article
Planning for Climate Change in the Inland Empire: Southern California
Water managers in Southern California, who grapple with how to address climate change in their near-term and long-term plans, are beginning to seek methods for incorporating such changes in their planning processes.
2008
Report
The Federal Role in Terrorism Insurance: Evaluating Alternatives in an Uncertain World
This book examines the impact of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act on the market for terrorism insurance and analyzes program enhancements to improve the availability of insurance for nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological attacks.
Sep 25, 2007
Report
A New Analytic Method for Finding Policy-Relevant Scenarios
Description of a new analytic method, based on robust decisionmaking, that could be applied to water resource management in California and climate change policy questions.
Jun 19, 2007
Report
Trade-Offs Among Alternative Government Interventions in the Market for Terrorism Insurance: Interim Results
This briefing informs the debate over extending the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA). The results suggest that TRIA performs well on outcomes examined for conventional attacks but not for chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear ones.
May 28, 2007
Journal Article
Managing the Risk of Uncertain Threshold Responses: Comparison of Robust, Optimum, and Precautionary Approaches
This study uses a simple computer simulation model to compare several alternative frameworks for decision making under uncertainty—optimal expected utility, the precautionary principle, and three different approaches to robust decision making—for addressing the challenge of adding pollution to a lake without triggering unwanted and potentially irreversible eutrophication.
2007
Journal Article
Multiple Equilibria in a Stochastic Implementation of DICE with Abrupt Climate Change
Integrated assessment modeling of global climate change has focused primarily on gradually occurring changes in the climate system. However, atmospheric and earth scientists have become increasingly concerned that the climate system may be subject to abrupt, discontinuous changes on short time scales, and that anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions could trigger such shifts.
Nov 1, 2006
Research Brief
Despite Deep Scientific Uncertainty, Long-Term Problems Can Be Tackled
This research brief describes an analytical approach developed by RAND to manage scientific uncertainty, which involves the use of computer programs to frame strategies that will work well across a wide range of plausible futures.
Jun 22, 2006
Journal Article
A General, Analytic Method for Generating Robust Strategies and Narrative Scenarios
This study identifies robust, adaptive pollution-control strategies to help ensure economic growth and environmental quality for the 21st century.
2006
Journal Article
Assessment of Environmental Kuznets Curves and Socioeconomic Drivers in IPCC's SRES Scenarios
This study performs a standard econometric analysis on the simulation model outputs from six scenarios from the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) to assess the extent to which the projected CO 2 and NO x emissions reflect Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) behavior.
Mar 1, 2005
Report
High-Performance Government: Structure, Leadership, Incentives
In this book, RAND experts in public policy and management suggest practical ways to implement the recommendations and define a research agenda for the future.
Jan 5, 2005
Journal Article
Shaping the Future
Authors have developed an alternative framework focused on flexibility--finding, testing and implementing policies that work no matter what happens.
2005
Journal Article
Characterizing Climate-Change Uncertainties for Decision-Makers
Climate-change policy-making confronts a wide range of significant scientific and socioeconomic uncertainties. How experts should best characterize such uncertainties for decision-makers has emerged as an important debate within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
2004
Report
Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis
What should people do today to shape the next hundred years to their liking?
2003
Report
Next Generation Environmental Technologies: Benefits and Barriers
Examines the potential of Next Generation Environmental Technologies, which reduce or eliminate the use of hazardous materials in manufacturing processes and products.
2003
Journal Article
Adaptive Strategies for Climate Change
In this chapter the authors argue for a different approach to climate-change policy and thus a different use for forecasts.
2002
Journal Article
Confronting Surprise
RAP methods may offer greater insight into the vulnerabilities inherent in several types of surprises.
2002
Journal Article
A New Decision Sciences for Complex Systems
Computer-Assisted Reasoning, an approach to decision-making under conditions of uncertainty suited to applying complex systems to policy analysis.
2002
Report
Transition Paths to a New Era of Green Industry: Technological and Policy Implications
This paper reproduces the talk delivered by the author at a Science Form on Science, Technology, and Innovation for Sustainable Development event in Johannesburg on August 31, 2002.
2002
Report
Assessing the Benefits and Costs of a Science Submarine
Assessing the Benefits and Costs of a Science Submarine
2001
Journal Article
Climate-change Strategy Needs to Be Robust
Recommendation for use of ensembles of multiple scenarios to capture what is known about the long-term climate future.
2001
Journal Article
Computer-assisted Reasoning
Computer models provide a powerful tool for reasoning about difficult problems.
2001
Journal Article
Finding Transatlantic Common Ground on Climate Change?
The US and European Union have reached an impasse over climate change, which threatens both transatlantic relations and the Earth's environment.
2001
Report
The Impacts of Climate Variability on Near-Term Policy Choices and the Value of Information
The Impacts of Climate Variability on Near-Term Policy Choices and the Value of Information
2001
Report
Robust Strategies for Abating Climate Change
Robust Strategies for Abating Climate Change
2001
Report
The Public Benefit of California's Investments in Energy Efficiency
This study reports on the results of an assessment of the benefits of energy efficiency for California.
2000
Draft
Achieving the Texas Higher Education Vision
The Texas higher education systems faces severe challenges, including responding to demands arising from economic growth. In this report, RAND's examines how well the system can meet these challenges if current trends and patterns continue.
2000
Journal Article
Carrots and Sticks for New Technology: Abating Greenhouse Gas Emissions in a Heterogeneous and Uncertain World
Many governments use technology incentives as an important component of their greenhouse gas abatement strategies.
2000
Periodical
RAND Review: Vol. 23, No. 3, Winter 1999-2000
Argues that developing and industrialized countries can avoid both environmental and economic disaster resulting from global warming by harnessing alternative fuel technologies; also covers relations with China and U.S. military personnel issues.
2000
Report
Developing Countries & Global Climate Change: Electric Power Options for Growth
This report, prepared for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, investigates policy and technology choices in the electric power sector that can lower carbon dioxide and other air emissions, while maintaining or improving economic growth.
1999
Report
Technology Forces at Work: Profiles of Environmental Research and Development at DuPont, Intel, Monsanto, and Xerox: Executive Summary
Technology Forces at Work: Profiles of Environmental Research and Development at DuPont, Intel, Monsanto, and Xerox
1999
Report
Technology Forces at Work: Profiles of Environmental Research and Development at DuPont, Intel, Monsanto, and Xerox
Not too long ago industry almost monolithically viewed environmental considerations as an expense — sometimes as a nuisance. That is beginning to change.
1999
Report
The Class of 2014: Preserving Access to California Higher Education
Discusses a study that used a new approach to address the conditions under which California can preserve access to public higher education over the next two decades.
1998
Report
New Methods for Robust Science and Technology Planning
In the fall of 1996, RAND researchers conducted a successful proof-of-concept demonstration for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of new methods for science and technology (S and T) planning.
1998
Report
When We Don't Know the Costs or the Benefits: Adaptive Strategies for Abating Climate Change
Most quantitative studies of climate-change policy attempt to predict the greenhouse-gas reduction plan that will have the optimum balance of long-term costs and benefits.
1996
Report
The Mediterranean environment : prospects for cooperation to solve the problems of the 1990s
The Mediterranean environment : prospects for cooperation to solve the problems of the 1990s
1995
Draft
Performance Measures for the Federal Investment in Environmental and Natural Resources Research and Development
This report describes a template designed to help the National Science and Technology Council's Committee on Environment and Natural Resources develop performance measures for its research and development programs.
1995
Report
Technology for a Sustainable Future — Ideas: A Summary of Workshop Discussions
Presents a summary analysis of stakeholder input gathered from a series of technical workshops and broader policy symposia regarding the development of a National Environmental Technology Strategy.
1995
Report
The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Its Sustainable Recovery: Volume 1
Concerned by this decline, Congress asked RAND's Critical Technologies Institute to conduct a comprehensive study of the machine-tool industry in the United States, Japan, Germany, and Italy.
1994
Report
The impact of potential abrupt climate changes on near-term policy choices
The impact of potential abrupt climate changes on near-term policy choices
1994
Draft
Performance Measures for the Federal Investment in Science and Technology: A Draft Template for CENR
Performance Measures for the Federal Investment in Science and Technology: A Draft Template for CENR
1994
Report
Transition to Sustainable Waste Management: A Simulation Gaming Approach
This report presents a simulation gaming methodology to explore the policy levers available to governments for encouraging a transition to sustainable waste management.
1993
Report
Report of a Workshop on Expanding U.S. Air Force Non-Combat Mission Capabilities
Report of a Workshop on Expanding U.S. Air Force Non-Combat Mission Capabilities
1993
Report
Global warming, let's take this decade to prepare
A key challenge facing climate change policy-makers is to balance the extensive uncertainty about the dangers of climate change--which suggests postponing costly action until more is known--against the risk that delay may constrain future options. Th...
1993
Report
U.S. Spaced-Based Remote Sensing: Challenges and Prospects
This Note presents a survey of remote sensing policy issues for the 1990s.
1993
Report
Air Force Noncombat Operations: Lessons From the Past, Thoughts for the Future
In the years ahead, noncombat operations ranging from disaster relief to "AWACs diplomacy" are likely to form a growing portion of Air Force activities. This note examines the Air Force's experience with such operations over the last fifty years.
1992
Report
Emerging Technology Systems and Arms Control
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and the Conventional Forces in Europe agreements call for unprecedented cuts in strategic nuclear and conventional forces, but these treaties will have no significant limitations on emerging technology weapons systems.
1991
Report
Cruise Missile Arms Control
The treatment of long-range, land-attack, sea-launched, and air-launched cruise missiles has been and will continue to be a major stumbling block in negotiations aimed at controlling strategic nuclear weapons.
1989