INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT MODELS OF CLIMATE-CHANGE - AN INCOMPLETE OVERVIEW

Integrated assessment is a trendy phrase that has recently entered the vocabulary of folks in Washington, DC and elsewhere, The novelty of t he term in policy analysis and policy making circles belies the longev ity of this approach in the sciences and past attempts at their applic ation to policy issues, This paper is an attempt at providing an overv iew of integrated assessment with a special focus on policy motivated integrated assessments of climate change, The first section provides a n introduction to integrated assessments in general, followed by a dis cussion of the bounds to the climate change issue, The next section is devoted to a taxonomy of the policy motivated models, Then the integr ated assessment effort at Carnegie Mellon is described briefly, A pers pective on the challenges ahead in successful representation of natura l and social dynamics in integrated assessments of global climate chan ge is presented in the final section.