Decision-support tools for climate change mitigation planning

This document describes three decision-support tools that can aid the process of planning climate change mitigation actions. The phrase ‘decision-support tools’ refers to science-based analytical procedures that facilitate the evaluation of planning options (individually or compared to alternative options) against a particular evaluation criterion or set of criteria.

Most often decision-support tools are applied with the help of purpose-designed software packages and drawing on specialised databases.The evaluation criteria alluded to above define and characterise each decision-support tool. For example, in the case of life-cycle analysis, the evaluation criterion entails that the impacts of interest are examined across the entire life-cycle of the product under study, from extraction of raw materials, to product disposal.

Effectively, then, the choice of decision-support tool directs the analysis towards a specific type of decision criterion.