Page - 212 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

212 O.Serdeczny Box8.1 Incommensurabilityandeconomicvaluation Onewayofintegratingnon-economicvalueswithdecision-makingthatisbasedoncost- benefit analyses is through the economic valuation ormonetisation of non-economic values. Methods to do so exist, primarily through revealed preference, which trace consumerbehaviour that indirectly relates toanon-economicgood(e.g.healthexpen- ditures), or stated preference,where respondents are asked howmuch theywould be willing topay topreserveacertaingoodorhowmuch theywouldbewilling toaccept incompensationfor the lossofagood.Theapplicationofsuchmethods isnotwithout controversyandhasbeensubject tomuchdebateandscrutiny (UNFCCC2013a). Methodological issues—andmoral concerns regardingcost-benefit analyses ingener- al—aside, it isworthnoting that assigningmonetaryvalue to incommensurablegoods rests on a number of assumptions which themselvesmay be in conflict with values or interests in different cultural and political contexts. Assuming that a price can be assignedtocertaingoodsorservicesmaybereave themofwhatconstitutes theirvalue, namely the very fact that they cannot be bought or sold. The value of friendship is an example of such constitutive incommensurability (O´Neill 2001). Climate change affects livelihoods across cultures, whomay have differing understandings ofwhich values are undermined by the idea of assigning themmarket value; the application of economic valuation effectively imposes one interpretation, namely that there is no constitutive incommensurability,overanyothers.Further, theapplicationofeconomic valuationmasks questions of power and rights to ownership, which are often at the basis of conflicting values and are of high relevance for decision-making.While it is not the purpose of economic valuation to solve these issues, the problem is that “its applicationassumesthatananswerhasalreadybeengiven”(O´Neill2001:1868).Thus, whileeconomicvaluationmaypresentausefulwayofintegratingnon-economicvalues intocost-benefitanalyses, thisshouldbedonecriticallyandwithoutdivertingattention awayfromquestions that requirepolitical andpublicdeliberation. Alternativeapproaches to integratingNELs intocost-benefitanalysescouldbe further explored.Forexample, inanalogytoattemptsof incorporatingarights-basedapproach into cost-benefit analyses (Lowry andPeterson2012), non-economic values could be integrated intocost-benefitanalyses through theestablishmentof safeguardsoroutput filters. In thecaseofoutputfilters,anydecisions thatarebasedoncost-benefitanalyses are excluded if they violate certain rights (or losses), e.g. the right to bodily integrity (or loss of life). However, it should be noted that thismight be challenging to apply forallnon-economicvalues in thecontextofclimatechange, resourcescarcityand the virtuallyunavoidable risks that comewithanycourseofaction. 8.4 DevelopingSolutions The role of theWIM in promoting instruments to addressNELD is still evolving. Inorder toget someorientation regarding the scopeand levelof implementationof instrumentsunder theWIMit ishelpful to review the three functionof theWIMas outlined inDecision3/CP.18: (a)Enhancingknowledgeandunderstandingofcom-