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.'"

Comments

Enough Gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there is already quite enough gaming in the Climate Treaty discussion.

Re:All well and good...

[Anonymous Coward]

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)

I did this in school once

[DaemonDan]

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.

Poor Summary

[Elbereth]

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.

Re:All well and good...

[TheRaven64]

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.