Robert Lempert is a principal researcher at the RAND Corporation and director of the Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition. His research focuses on risk management and decision-making under conditions of deep uncertainty. He was also a coordinating lead author on Chapter 1 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest report on climate impacts. We discuss how the IPCC works and how it has evolved in response to criticism, the key concepts needed to understand climate impacts, the challenges of adapting to climate change, decision-making under deep uncertainty, and the peculiar nature of climate scenarios.

Links:

• Profile at RAND: https://www.rand.org/about/people/l/lempert_robert_j.html
• The IPCC’s latest report on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-ii/
• The chapter that Prof. Lempert led the writing of: https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6wg2/pdf/IPCC_AR6_WGII_FinalDraft_Chapter01.pdf
• Prof. Lempert’s book by RAND, “Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis”: https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1626.html

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