气候变化风险的新型分类

风险分类是对气候变化风险进行系统风险评估和管理的前提和基础。本文首先按部门和领域识别了主要的气候变化风险,然后采用国际风险管理理事会(International Risk Governance Council, IRGC)的新型风险分类体系(简单风险、复杂风险、不确定风险和模糊风险)进行分类:提出以"不确定性"作为分类依据;把IPCC第四次评估报告中描述不确定性的主要术语——"信度"和"可能性"作为分类特征参数,分别构建了四类风险的模糊隶属函数,根据最大隶属度原则从定量角度对气候变化风险进行分类;同时利用IPCC的两个定性指标"达成一致的程度和证据量"对定量分类方法进行补充,初步建立了气候变化风险的分类方法体系。获得的气候变化风险分类的初步结果,可以为风险管理机构选择不同类别的评估和管理方法进行风险研究提供科学依据。

New classification method of climate change risks

Climate change risk can be defined as the possibility of impacts on natural ecosystems and socio-economic systems resulted from or aggravated by climate change, particularly the negative aspects. Many disciplines, particularly Geography have been heavily involved in the scientific assessment of climate change and its potential social and environment impacts. However, it still needs to be studied further using more systematic methods of risk assessment and management, while appropriate risk categorization is their prerequisite and foundation. In this paper, we first identify the main risks induced from climate change by sectors, in which not only the traditional abrupt risks are included, but some "low-probability" events and creeping hazards are also contained. And then, these risks are categorized into four risk categories applying a new risk categorization system brought forward by Ortwin Renn in a framework of IRGC: first, we propose that uncertainty of the risk-related knowledge and information could be treated as the classifying criteria. Then, we use IPCC's quantitative terms of expressing uncertainties-confidence' and likelihood' as the feature parameters to construct membership function for the four categories respectively, and according to the maximum principle we identify the type that a certain risk should belong to. Given that not all impacts are assigned with confidence' and likelihood' in IPCC report, level of agreement &; amount of evidence' is applied to form a qualitative classification method as a supplement. Thus a preliminary semi-quantitative risk categorization system for climate change has been established. Finally, the categorization results of climate change risks have been acquired. Thus, we can assess and manage climate change risks with different approaches and strategies, which will improve the efficiency of risk management, enhance the scientific nature in risk assessment and lay a good foundation for the integrated risk governance of climate change risks.