Sustainability Scientists Suggest How Countries Can Cooperate On Climate
ScienceDaily (Sep. 12, 2011) — When countries try to work together to limit the effects of climate change, the fear of being the only nation reducing greenhouse gas emissions -- while the others enjoy the benefits with no sacrifice -- can bring cooperation to a grinding halt.
In a commentary in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Thomas Dietz, professor of sociology and environmental science and policy and assistant vice president for environmental research at MSU, and Jinhua Zhao, director of the MSU Environmental Science and Policy Program and professor of economics and agricultural, food and resource economics, suggest using game theory and a scalable method of rewards and punishments (called linear compensation) to help develop strategies that encourage all nations to participation fully in greenhouse gas mitigation programs.
Dietz also is a member of the MSU Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability.
"If we assume that each nation will act rationally in its own self-interest, then the path to reducing climate change risk is to design a set of rules for emissions that countries will agree to because they find the rules beneficial," said Dietz. "Punishments for not meeting the emissions targets are an important part of the design, but these punishments may discourage nations from joining. That's where the mechanism of linear compensation is useful."
Instead of imposing a fixed punishment, linear compensation calls for the punishment to be adjusted relative to how well other nations met the emissions goals.
"So if most other nations also failed to meet the emissions targets, the punishment for each nation would be less -- nations would be punished most for being the farthest away from the results of the other nations," Dietz explained.
"A key feature of linear compensation is that if a nation fails to meet its treaty obligations, other nations punish it by reducing their own abatement," said Zhao. "So each nation has leverage: its own abatement helps make other nations abate more. This is the beauty of the linear compensation mechanism." -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reflection
Climate change is a very serious issue that has been exacerbated greatly in the past decade or so. Although technology has developed at an exponential rate over the past few years, we have yet to discover a cheap and environmentally-friendly source of energy that is also easy to obtain. As such, our carbon emissions have reached an all-time high, creating many unwanted changes in our climate.
It is vital that climate change should not be underestimated. Although its progress might be deemed slow, observable effects have already emerged: Glaciers are shrinking, sea levels rising and abnormal weather patterns are becoming common.
In a Utopian world, everyone would happily co-operate with the scientists and do their best to reduce carbon emissions or such to prevent, or at least slow down climate change. However, the reality presents a much starker picture. Governments have their own interests at heart. This has been shown in previous G8 summits, a gathering of several powerful countries which takes place annually. In one, the countries pledged to reduce carbon emissions by a significant percentage. Yet there has been no sign of progress.
I agree with Mr Dietz in the sense that nations will look for benefits first before making a decision on whether they consent to abiding to carbon emission rules. Imposing strict fixed penalties on under performers is not a feasible solution either; this will actually discourage countries from joining in.
The linear compensation system is a decent way to solve this problem. It bases punishments on the overall performance of participating nations. So, if one country fails to meet its goals but other countries all achieve the targets set, that particular country will probably receive a more severe punishment. On the other hand, if the countries all perform decently, even if they fail to meet the intended targets, punishment will be greatly reduced. This system encourages countries to keep up with each other and not fall behind.
From this issue, my conclusion is that the work of a scientist is even more difficult than I thought. Not only is skill required, but even after the problem has been identified and solutions offered, people might still be unwilling to take action to rectify the situation. This could very possibly lead to frustration and the scientist giving up. Thus, a successful scientist should possess adequate resilience and determination to overcome controversy.
