Does climate skepticism necessarily mean climate inaction?

Climate skepticism in U.S. politics is alive and well. In the Republican Party, senators and governors frequently cast doubt on the science behind climate change, justifying inaction on climate policy. Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, was quoted as saying, "I'm a skeptic…I think we need to be very cautious before we dramatically alter who we are as a nation because of [climate change]." Although Bush's comments run counter to the vast majority of scientists calling for increased climate mitigation, he is certainly not alone.
 
Does being a climate skeptic necessarily mean advocating for climate inaction? Not quite, write Sweder van Wijnbergen and Tim Willems, professors at the University of Amsterdam and Oxford University, respectively. In a recent paper, they use economic analysis to demonstrate that skeptics have an incentive to support climate mitigation, since doing so will create information about the causes of climate change.
 
To conduct this analysis, the authors began by creating a simple model in which temperature change is either caused by human-generated greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) or external factors unrelated to GHGs. Given the current trend of rising emissions and temperatures, a skeptic can determine whether climate change is human-induced by creating a trend-break in emissions. If temperatures change from their current path as emissions change, this would support the notion that GHGs are the primary drivers of climate change. However, if the trend of rising temperatures continues despite a change in current emission trends, we would learn that climate change is primarily driven by factors unrelated to human GHG emissions.
 
The learning process, however, is not instantaneous. Due to natural variations in weather, or "noise," the relationship (or lack thereof) between temperature and GHG emissions will only become clear after around 15 years of data. Additionally, any change in emissions must be pronounced enough such that the response in temperature is definitively attributable to GHG emissions and not random "noise." Note that, up until now, the skeptic is concerned only with a sufficiently large change in the emissions trend — but does not care if we emit more or less.
 
This conclusion changes once the irreversibility of GHG emissions is taken into account. Since it is impossible to "unburn" oil or gas, the two scenarios — of significantly increasing/decreasing GHG emissions — are not equally preferable. If GHGs are significantly reduced, and no conclusive relationship between emissions and temperatures is found, society is still free to burn the fossil fuels available. However, if GHGs are significantly increased, and a definitive relationship between GHGs and temperatures is established, society can not easily undo the damage caused by emissions and reverse the burning of fossil fuels. Thus, the skeptic should argue for a change in emissions in the "safe direction," and favor emission reductions — contrary to popular belief.
 
Van Wijnbergen and Willem's conclusion of "being safe in the face of uncertainty" is not unheard of. In fact, Norwegian policy makers responded similarly to sulfur emissions and its relationship with acid rain in the 1960s, while the causal relationship was still highly controversial. By framing this in the context of GHGs, however, the authors lend new perspective to the climate change debate: even if one is skeptical of the science, they should be advocating for climate policy that is just as stringent on emissions, if not more.