Reply to Ruhl and Craig: Assessing and governing extreme climate risks needs to be legitimate and democratic

We thank Ruhl and Craig for their letter “Designing extreme climate change scenarios for anticipatory governance” (1) in response to our manuscript “Climate Endgame” (2). We agree that extreme climate risks are neglected, and integrated catastrophic climate assessments are needed. We also agree that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is not a perfect venue for assessing catastrophic climate risks. It is slow and its consensus decision-making tends to lead to lowest-common-denominator outcomes (3) and poses a challenge for extreme risk analysis. Yet, it offers legitimacy, credibility, and experience that few other bodies can match.