Cost-effectiveness analysis essentially seeks to find the lowest cost option to achieve a specified objective. Decision analysis focuses specifically on making decisions under uncertainty. In principle, this group of techniques could contribute to improving public policy decisions concerning the desirable extent of actions to mitigate global climate change, the timing of such actions, and the methods to be employed. In this context, cost- benefit analysis provides a systematic framework by which to determine a rule or target for undertaking climate change mitigation actions. It seeks to identify the most efficient climate change strategy by balancing the marginal costs of mitigation and adaptation measures against marginal damages avoided by those measures.
Emission reduction is used as a rough proxy measure for the state of the global environment.
A second type of approach is based on the concept of an affordable safe minimum standard, which would specify a maximum atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases based on an assessment of the risks associated with different atmospheric concentrations and the costs of achieving those concentrations. Although less rigorous than the previous approach, the iterative use of risk and affordability criteria enable the policymaker to determine a standard without reference to an explicit marginal damage cost curve. Multicriteria analysis could be used to help choose the affordable safe minimum standard. Finally, a more arbitrary rule may be derived based on an absolute standard. These rule-making procedures need not necessarily be used in a mutually exclusive fashion.