Reply to Bhowmik et al.: Democratic climate action and studying extreme climate risks are not in tension

We thank Bhowmik et al. for their letter, “From Climate Endgame to Climate Long Game” (1), in response to our manuscript “Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios” (2). We agree that extreme climate risks are currently understudied, and that it is vital and possible to understand them. We strongly support their call for democratic, inclusive governance and participatory action research. Indeed, this is why we suggested, in “Climate Endgame,” that catastrophic climate risk assessments should be “fed into open deliberative democratic methods that provide a fair, inclusive, and effective approach to decision-making” (2). Doing so enhances fairness, improves collective judgement (3, 4), and provides democratic safeguards (5). The proposed “Climate Long Game” of Bhowmik et al. (1) is a useful complement to the Climate Endgame research agenda and can be used in tandem. They are neither alternatives nor in tension.