Designing effective responses to climate change is complicated by deep uncertainty—about climate dynamics, economic adaptation, and technological advancement. This project, led by University of Chicago economist Lars Peter Hansen, develops tools to help policymakers make better decisions in the face of such unknowns. The primary aim is to better understand the trade-offs between alternative social investments in new technologies.
The project evaluates how, with limited resources, to best invest in technologies—such as carbon removal, solar geoengineering, or nuclear fusion—that could help fight climate change in the future. Investment in research and development today, whether by governments or the private sector, enhances progress in making new technologies economically viable. Their potential for success and the time horizon over which success might be achieved is uncertain and differs across investment types.
Hansen’s team is building models that show where investments are most likely to pay off and how to navigate the associated uncertainty wisely. By integrating ideas from economics, geoengineering, statistics, and machine learning, this research helps bring clarity to climate choices—and supports the Climate Systems Engineering initiative’s mission to make policy smarter under uncertainty.
