Key messages
- The precautionary principle, a powerful and flexible tool for governments. The precautionary principle can be used as a flexible decision-making tool, enabling governments to identify key potential risks and take adequate action, without adding excessive and unnecessary requirements.
- Managing risk-risk trade-offs in the energy transition. A sound and informed decision based on the precautionary principle requires the systematic consideration of risk-risk trade-offs, i.e. not solely focusing on the immediate risks stemming from a new technology, rather considering broader existential risks that are harder to quantify but have devastating consequences. In the energy transition context, decision-makers need to be mindful of the (evolving) balance of risks between acting and not acting, allowing and not allowing. Finding a balance between all the risks is a necessity.
- Precaution in favour of innovation. Applications of the precaution principle should foster introduction of innovations in a safe and agile manner, weighing their potential benefits against their potential risks and ensuring that sufficient experimentation takes place to expand knowledge and help gradually reach scientific certainty.
CONTACT
For further information, please contact:
Florentin Blanc, Senior Policy Analyst,
OECD Regulatory Policy Division,
Directorate for Public Governance