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Climate Treaty Negotiators Are Taking the Wrong Approach, Say Game Theorists
An anonymous reader writes "Climate treaty negotiators would do well to have a little chat with some game theorists, according to this article. The fundamental approach they've been taking for the last several years is flawed, these researchers say, and they can prove it. From the article: 'The scientists gave members of a 10-member group their country’s “treasure”: a 20-euro national savings account, plus a fund for spending on emissions reductions that consisted of 10 black chips worth 10 cents apiece and 10 red chips worth one euro apiece. Each person could then contribute any number of these chips to a common pool. The contributed chips represented greenhouse gas reduction strategies that were relatively inexpensive (black) or expensive (red). Players could communicate freely about their plans for how many chips they intended to contribute.'"
I think there is already quite enough gaming in the Climate Treaty discussion.
The negotiations must fail, because they're all based on blame and negativity. Fingerpointing between the first world and the developing world is not at all useful. Every premise we've seen so far has been based on the lose-lose more strategy of negotiating.
We're fucked.
Indeed. The ultimate answer to the Fermi Paradox is too obvious to ignore: Greed.
The sooner we impose heavy tariffs on goods from countries that do not meet certain requirements for human rights and environmental policy, the better. We could do it now. It will hurt, but we could manage. If we wait a few decades, it will be too late.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Uhm, China has been quite willing over the past two decades. Especially in the period 1990 - 2005 China was open for serious reductions. It was the stubborn asshole-ness of Australia, USA and Canada that eventually made China turn around. If you want to play the blame game I suggest you start with Team USA.
(posting as anonymous as I don't want my account linked to this comment, I work on this for the Canadian government)
Think about it... there can only be two kinds of people who behave according to "game theory":
-Economists
-Psychopaths
I'm planning on watching this BBC Documentary this weekend; it looks like the first segment discusses game theory.
It was a geography class and we were supposed to be countries working together. If everyone in the group chose A, everyone got 1 point, but if anyone chose B, they got several points while everyone else lost points. If everyone chose B, everyone lost points. In only took a couple of rounds before we lost all trust for each other and always picked B, so at least you only lost the same as everyone else. Kind of sad that international politics is often so similar.
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In frustration, I read the linked article, because I couldn't tell what the actual was about, from the Slashdot summary. Here's a better summary:
Researchers gave each person a national treasury of €20. In order to avert catastrophe, a minimum of €150 in the main pool had to be collected total. If catastrophe is not averted, each player's account is depleted by €15. Players got to keep any remaining money in their national treasury. In almost every game, people contributed enough money to avert catastrophe. It was only when the catastrophe was made more unpredictable that the game collapsed. Instead of requiring €150 to completely avert disaster, the catastrophe had a chance of happening based on how much money was allocated. In the second scenario, people promised enough money to minimize the risk, yet they did not allocate it, thinking that the odds would not be significantly increased if they underfunded the mitigation. Because so many people "embezzled", the odds were significantly affected and the catastrophe invariably occurred.
Basically, the players should have studied their Kant.
China is already playing the game and beating America at it.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jackperkowski/2012/07/27/china-leads-the-world-in-renewable-energy-investment/
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
The page you link to is unsourced and doesn't seem to indicate that at all, but don't let that stop your ideology from talking for you.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
lol, there is no factor of 5 to 10.
There is a factor of 5, and there is a factor of 10.
Huge difference between the two, which is it?
According to this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/18/china-average-europe-carbon-footprint
Per capita emissions for the EU/China are about the same at just over 7 tons per capita while that for the US is just over 17 tons. That's a factor of c.a. 2,3. I don't know how accurate these figures are but the proportions sound about right (in the sense that they match other reports that I have heard previously).
Wikipedia has:
China (ex.Macau, Hong Kong) at 7,031,916 thousand metric tons which is 23.53% of world total
United States at 5,461,014 thousand metric tons which is 18.27% of world total
The European Union (all 27 countries) at 4,177,817 thousand metric tons which is 13.98% of world total
India at 1,742,698 thousand metric tons which is 5.83% of world total
Keep in mind that China has a population of 1,35 Biliion, India 1,2 Billion, the EU has about 0.503 Billion inhabitants and there are 0.314 Billion of our US American cousins. I know these figures don't quite match the per capita ones I cited from the Guardian article (which are probably newer than the ones on Wikipedia anyway) but it's the proportions that are interesting. Some 300 million US Americans manage to generate the carbon footprint of a Billion Chinese, while 500 million Europeans can hardly hold a candle to the US in terms of carbon emissions.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Canada will never have a low per capita rate of energy usage. Firstly, it's cold here. Heating energy use is related to population density and average temperature. Canada has a low population density, and with exceptions like Toronto and Vancouver, will likely always have that population distributed over a large area. This means we will always have a high energy use per person, simply because of heat and transportation costs.
Secondly, Canada has a great deal of economic activity per person (farming, heavy industry, mining.) Europe does not grow enough food to feed itself. Canada one farmer may have several thousand acres of land to farm. It takes a significant amount of energy (fertilizer) and fuel to run a 1000 acre farm. With 2% of Canada's population in farming, Canada will have a rotten per capita energy score. The same logic applies to any kind of heavy industry. Heavy industry is energy intensive. Many industries exist in Canada because we have cheap energy. 30% of Canada's population is tied to manufacturing, and that 30% will use a huge amount of energy per capita.
Unless the entire population of India moves to Canada, Canada is never going to score well on any per capita energy consumption index. To a lesser extent, the same applies to the US. It's heavy industry and farming sectors are on the same scale as China's, however the US population is a fraction of China's. Even if the US consumer stopped using SUVs, the US would still use a great deal of energy per person. The most popular vehicles in Canada are one full vehicle size smaller than the most popular vehicles in the US, and our gas prices are almost as high as Europes. Canada's per capita energy consumption and CO2 numbers are remain high.
Per capita metrics only make sense when comparing between countries with similar industrial outputs and economies. Europe will have declining CO2 output levels, because they have light industry and a declining population. China, US, Canada will have huge and increasing energy and CO2 numbers, because we have growing economies and huge heavy industry. Per capita, China will look a lot better than the US and Canada, because of the population difference.
Some 300 million US Americans manage to generate the carbon footprint of a Billion Chinese, while 500 million Europeans can hardly hold a candle to the US in terms of carbon emissions.
Well the reality is that 200 million Chinese manage to generate the carbon footprint of 300 million US Americans while the other 1.1 billion Chinese generate very little. Both the US and China need to get their shit together, while India should be commended for being able to ramp up their economy without generating so many greenhouse gases. For bargaining purposes, a more fair arrangement is to agree to a limit of X tons/person + Y tons/GDP.
If you actually did pay for yours, then no one would complain. The problem is when you dump all of your externalities on everyone else and expect them to pay for yours too.
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