The Climate Change Cooperation Dilemma
Harry Glover | 7 February 2024
Summary
Countries have an independent incentive to let others take on the economic burden of implementing climate change provisions.
With the global cost to fully transition away from fossil fuels reportedly $62 trillion, international climate change negotiations must factor in the collective financial implications and responsibilities.
Employing a game theoretic approach to the political economy of climate change, states are viewed as rational actors who operate under strategic independence. In other words, states act according to their understanding of how they can benefit from interactions with other states. By using this logic to the climate change issue, it is likely that an overarching reason regarding the slow pace of implementing climate initiatives is a result of a climate change cooperation dilemma.
Ultimately, states have an incentive to cooperate for positive climate change policies, as the phenomenon is existentially perpetual, affects the whole world (albeit disproportionately), and is constant discussion among states. However, what is witnessed is a dilemma whereby states seem to free-ride on the back of other states' policies; there is a fundamental incentive for another to take on the economic burden of progressive climate policies, such as regulating industrial emissions. For example, Nigeria has previously struggled to implement climate change policies due to not having a national climate policy, despite a domestic societal desire to protect the environment. Fundamentally, developing countries, such as Nigeria, depend heavily on fossil fuels for industrial proliferation and, therefore, are incentivised to let other states bear the burden of expensive climate policies.
Melissa Bradley
Consequently, when states engage in diplomatic events, such as the UN Climate Change Conference and the Conference of Parties (COP), they struggle to reach conclusive and meaningful solutions. A key example of the challenges states faces when negotiating climate change policy, is that of the President of COP26, Alok Sharma, who was brought to tears in his closing remarks after India amended the Climate Pact to phase down the use of coal, rather than phase out. This is a crucial demonstration of the incentive for states to act with independent strategic interest, hoping that others will bear the burden of alleviating global warming issues. Importantly, COP28 in December 2023 demonstrated a relative step forward to overcoming these challenges, with 130 countries pledging to triple the global renewable energy capacity by 2030. However, given the extreme costs involved in the initial transition to renewable energies, the pledging states failed to address the financial challenges associated with such a transition.
Previous research by renewable energy scholars indicates that a global shift to renewable energy to replace fossil fuels completely will cost $62 trillion. The vast cost associated with transitioning toward sustainable energy further highlights the observed dilemma. On the one hand, states have a collective incentive to implement positive climate change solutions. However, we seem to witness a collective effort to outline ideas and initiatives without a collective agreement regarding the financial burden each state must be responsible for.
Forecast
International climate change conferences and pacts will continue to set out long-term strategies for mitigating the negative effects of climate change.
To transition these pacts into meaningful action, states will need to collectively share the global cost of a transition away from fossil fuels; such collective financial action must be recognised in future climate change summits.