The accountability imperative for quantifiying the uncertainty of emission forecasts : evidence from Mexico
Abstract
Governmental climate change mitigation targets are typically developed with the aid of forecasts of greenhouse-gas
emissions. The robustness and credibility of such forecasts depends, among other issues, on the extent to which
forecasting approaches can reflect prevailing uncertainties. We apply a transparent and replicable method to quantify the
uncertainty associated with projections of gross domestic product growth rates for Mexico, a key driver of greenhouse-gas
emissions in the country. We use those projections to produce probabilistic forecasts of greenhouse-gas emissions for
Mexico. We contrast our probabilistic forecasts with Mexico’s governmental deterministic forecasts. We show that,
because they fail to reflect such key uncertainty, deterministic forecasts are ill-suited for use in target-setting processes.
We argue that (i) guidelines should be agreed upon, to ensure that governmental forecasts meet certain minimum
transparency and quality standards, and (ii) governments should be held accountable for the appropriateness of the
forecasting approach applied to prepare governmental forecasts, especially when those forecasts are used to derive
climate change mitigation targets.
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