The Stern Review: an assessment of its methodology

"A Productivity Cmn staff working paper released last Thurs credits Stern for trying to provide a comprehensive coverage of the costs of “low probability, but potentially catastrophic” climate events. But it found “value judgements and ethical perspectives” influenced the work to the extent that Stern’s costs were “substantially higher, and abatement costs lower” than previous research. It said “the review has a tendency to ‘headline’ higher, less certain, estimates of warming and sea level rise”. It could “have included more sensitivity analysis to highlight to decision-makers the consequences of alternative assumptions or judgements”, the paper said."