Using Games to Understand Uncertainty in Attribution

11/24/20222 min read

In communicating climate risk and integrating science into policy, not only must scientific knowledge be delivered in a comprehensible way to persons without scientific backgrounds, it is also important to build engagement, foster retention of information, and create space for meaningful dialogue.

To that end, Parker et al (2016) developed Climate Attribution Under Loss and Damage: Risking, Observing, Negotiating (‘CAULDRON’), a dice-based game of probability for policymakers, which is aimed at enhancing their understanding of the field of Probability Event Attribution (“PEA”).

The use of a game was proposed in order to assist in policymakers’ understanding of, first, the role of probability in the analysis of climate-related data, and, second, the ways in which such data can help guide policy-making decisions, to be achieved in an experiential way that captures the players’ attention on both emotional and intellectual levels and encourages activity over passivity during the process (Parker et al 2016).

There are multiple uncertainties in relation to, on one hand, “loss and damage” in a more general sense of impacts suffered by reason of climate change, and, on the other hand, to “Loss and Damage” as a pillar of debate under the United Nations Framework For Climate Change (“UNFCCC”) and for the purposes of the Warsaw international mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts (“WIM”). Notably, the UNFCCC has stated that “Loss and Damage” “includes, and in some cases involves more than, that which can be reduced by adaptation” (UNFCCC). This implies that loss and damage encompasses “loss and damage” which has been already suffered as well as future, perhaps inevitable (but less quantifiable and unpredictable) “loss and damage”.

Climate change is only one factor affecting the extent of “loss and damage” suffered in a country. “Loss and damage” is also determined by its vulnerability and exposure in general, and interactions between processes at various social and economic levels such as governance structures and the modes and speed of its economic development (Byrnes and Suminskin 2019).

Additionally, climate science practitioners agree that while it is possible to attribute events to anthropogenic climate change, one must provide for uncertainties in observation and modelling (Parker et al 2016). Uncertainties are also present in the availability and integrity of observational data and socio-economic information, estimations of future socio-economic conditions, climatic responses to various forcing, lack of clarity of future emission levels and their concentration in the atmosphere (OECD).

To overcome some of the resistance to the use of serious games in stakeholder education and engagement - such as the controversial nature of Loss and Damage discussions or the perception of a game as lacking seriousness – Parker et al (2016) suggest that it could be helpful to repackage such activities as role-playing or simulations, and to forego explicit references to the UNFCCC and/or Loss and Damage negotiations.

If used in the right context and delivered in an appropriate manner, serious games of this nature could facilitate stakeholder engagement and promote the integration of scientific knowledge into policy and practice.

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