Xiaorui Huang
PS 378 Game TheoryFinal Essay
2012-Aug-24th
Grade: A+
Introduction
Climate
change has an international (or spatial) dimension[1]
and an intergenerational (or temporal) dimension. The international dimension,
framed by various studies as a tragedy of the commons involving different
nations, become the major perception of climate change in public and political
discourses (Raihani and Aitken 47-55, Wood 153-68). In contrast, the intergenerational
dimension of climate change, despite certain academic coverage, is largely
overlooked, which has some interesting implications on the solution to climate
change as a whole (Gardiner 408, Schuppert 303-06).
In
this essay, I firstly construct an extensive model of the intergenerational
game of climate change. Then, based on this model and game theory, I discuss
both negative and positive influences of the neglect of the intergenerational
dimension on addressing climate change as a whole.
The
Intergenerational Game of Climate Change.
Inspired
by a thought-provoking work of Stephen Gardiner, a scholar in environmental philosophy,
I construct the model of the intergenerational game of climate change based on
two temporal characteristics of climate change, namely resilience and deferral
(403). On one hand, climate change is resilient in the sense that it takes
decades for even a radical reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission to
transfer into the decrease of GHG concentration in upper atmosphere. On other
hand, the deferral of climate change means that our current global warming is
caused by the GHG emission produced decades ago and our current emission will only
affect the degree of climate change several decades later.
In
the intergenerational game of climate change, we assume generations do not
overlap and each generation is a player who wants to achieve both a good
economy and a decent environment[2].
Starting from the first generation, each player is firstly imposed an offer
from the previous generation (if any) and then coercively impose an offer to
the next generation. Players can either make a cooperative offer or a defecting
offer. If Generation A imposes a cooperative offer to Generation B, it means that
Generation A restricts its own GHG emission by slowing down its own economic
development. If Generation A imposes a defecting offer to Generation B, it
means that Generation A maintains the economic development and does not
restrict its GHG emission. To quantify, we set both initial[3]
economic value (EC) and environmental value (EV) as 10. A cooperative offer
adds 1 point to the EC values of the generation making the offer and adds 1
point to the EV value two generations
later. A defecting offer adds 2 points to the EC values of the generation
making the offer and deducts 1 point from the EV value two generation later. This two-generation deferral of the environmental
impacts of offers is to simulate the resilience and deferral of climate change
mentioned above. EC and EV values are cumulative and are inherited from earlier
to later generations. Finally, in this game, we consider EV=0 as a point of
human extinction and the game will iterate until reaching this point. Figure 1
shows the game tree of the intergenerational game for the first 5 generations
with the EC and EV outcomes of each generation in each strategy-path in the tables
on the left.
As
Figure 1 shows, when isolating a single generation and its offer-making, the
outcome that this generation gets from making a defecting offer is always
better than the outcome from making a cooperative offer (e.g. for the 5th
generation, its outcome in Result #3 is better than Result #4). This is because
a defecting offer gives the generation that makes the offer an immediate 1 more
point on EC value. Meanwhile, both defecting offers and cooperative offers do
not influence the EV value of the generation that makes the offer. The economic
effects are immediate but the environmental effects are deferred. Therefore,
individual rationality makes each generation always prefer making a defecting
offer over a cooperate offer.
In contrast, collectively, most generations (except the
first several ones) prefer the cumulative outcome of everyone cooperating over
everyone defecting because a decent environment is also a goal other than the
economy. Furthermore, doomsday comes when EV=0. However, individual rationality prevents cooperation from happening. Therefore, the Nash Equilibrium for the intergenerational game of climate change is that every generation defects and mankind extincts at the 12th generation, which is represented by the all-red path in the game tree and the Result #1 in the tables.
Figure 1 with Result Tables
-
A Red line means a defecting offer;
a blue line means a cooperate offer;
-
The top numbers in the parentheses are the EC value and the bottom
numbers are the EV values.
-
From left to right, the five pairs of parentheses are the outcomes
for from 1st generation to 5th generation.
|
Of
course, limitations exist in this model due to its simplification and the
inevitable uncertainties of climate change. First, generations are not discrete
and they do overlap. Second, each generation lives on the planet for a
substantial amount of time before and after it takes charge (i.e. childhood and
old age). Third, we do not exactly know how many generations does it take to
reach doomsday if no generation restricts GHG emission. In other words, the
initial EV value and the quantification of the environmental impacts of offers
could be questionable. Fourth, after a certain degree of environmental
degradation, economic activities will be harmed, which is not shown in the
model.
Even
though certain academic effort has been done to reveal the intergenerational
dimension, it is generally neglected in public and political discourses. Such
neglect, partly manifested as the exclusive focus on the international
dimension, have negative implications on addressing climate change as a whole.
The
first negative implication is that it directs most political and academic
resources to address the international dimension whose solutions are
incompatible to the intergenerational issues of climate change, which crippled
the comprehensive (i.e. including both dimensions) mitigation of climate
change. Many studies have been done that seek for methods to encourage multilateral
cooperation to solve the international tragedy of the commons of climate change
(Gardiner 399-401, Raihani and Aitken 47-55, Wood 153-54). However, these
methods, which include both theoretical mechanisms like building reciprocity
and practical actions such as the United Nations Climate Change Conferences,
are inapplicable to the intergenerational dimension of climate change because the
bare co-existence of players in this intergenerational dimension (Gardiner 405).
Moreover, according to Fabian Schuppert, a scholar in environmental politics,
the three major schemes developed to mitigate climate change in the
international dimension, namely cap-and-trade schemes, carbon emission taxes, and
personal ecological space quotas, are ineffective in the intergenerational dimension.
Specifically, all three schemes are centered at equal mitigation burden among
all people (both intra- and intergenerational), which, given the scientific
uncertainties of climate change, conveniently provides current generation
excuses to push off its responsibilities and costs of mitigation of climate
change to future generations (Schuppert 308-17). Thus, with the solutions for international
dimension incompatible with the intergenerational dimension, the neglect of
intergenerational dimension cripples the comprehensive solution of climate
change.
Besides,
such neglect hides from public perception the institutional inadequacy of current
political structure, which lowers the bureaucrats’ and politicians’ expected
utilities for supporting GHG emission restriction and therefore impair the
political support for addressing climate change. The primary goal for
politicians and bureaucrats is to ensure being re-elected or promoted, which is
influenced by the public perception of their performance in their terms of
office. However, as discussed above, climate change is resilient, which means
that it takes decades (much longer than normal terms of office) for GHG
restriction to realize its effects. As a result, it is impossible for a
government to make perceivable mitigation of climate change within one term of
office, which is the institutional inadequacy of current political structure in
addressing climate change (Gardiner 403). If the public are aware of such
inadequacy, they are more likely to support a pro-GHG-restriction politician
whose policy appears to be ineffective in his or her term because they know it
takes more time. In contrast, if the public are not aware of such inadequacy, pro-GHG-restriction
politician are likely to have his or her policy be criticized as ineffective by
the public and his likelihood of being re-elected decreases. In other words,
politicians’ and bureaucrats’ expected utilities for supporting GHG restriction
decrease when the public awareness of the institutional inadequacy is low.
Since the neglect of intergenerational dimension hides the resilience and
deferral of climate change from the public perception, it also lowers the
public awareness of institutional inadequacy and therefore lower politician’s
expected utilities for supporting GHG restriction. Consequently, such neglect
impairs the political support for GHG restriction.
Positive
Implications of the Neglect of the Intergenerational Dimension on Addressing
Climate Change
The
neglect of the intergenerational dimension also has positive implications on
the solution to climate change, which is derived from its influences on the public’s
expected utilities on addressing and not addressing climate change.
Firstly,
such neglect may somewhat increase people’s expected utility of addressing
climate change by making people unaware of the deferral and resilience of climate
change, for such awareness undermines their will to address it (as shown in the
Figure 1). Specifically, while in mainstream discourse people do talk about the
long-term effects of addressing and not addressing climate change, the fact
that current actions, either restricting GHG emission or not, will not have
their impacts realized until decades later is blurred by the neglect of the
intergenerational dimension. Known from the game model, if people are fully
aware of the resilience and deferral of climate change, it is rational for them
to choose to maintain economic development but not restrict GHG emission. However,
the neglect of the intergenerational dimension make the public unaware these
two characteristics of climate change and therefore increases the public expected
utility of and support for restricting GHG emission and addressing climate
change right now.
Moreover,
such neglect, when manifested as the exclusive focus on the international dimension,
helps build a public perception that if we do not address climate change right
now, disasters will fall upon them very soon, which decreases the expected
utilities of not addressing climate change. Specifically, when focusing on the
international dimension, the current disastrous impacts of climate change are
highlighted. Such highlighting on disasters make people easily builds a direct
and immediate causation between what they are doing now (i.e. restricting GHG
emission or not) and what is happening (disasters happening or not). For
example, after Hurricane Katrina attacked America in 2005 (which is not
directly caused but closely associated with climate change), media coverage on
climate change suddenly rises in America (Everything’s
cool). In the year after, American public support for addressing climate
change reached the highest point in 2000s. If the public are well aware of the
intergenerational dimension of climate change, they should know that these
disasters are not caused by current GHG emission and will not be mitigated by
current emission restriction. However, the neglect of the intergenerational
dimension enables people to develop an immediate causation between climate change
and such disasters and make them less willing to leave climate change
unaddressed. In other words, such neglect changes their preference by lowering
the utility of not addressing climate change, which increase the public support
for addressing climate change.
Conclusion
The intergenerational dimension of climate change is
largely overlooked in political and public discourses. To explore this
dimension, I construct a model of intergenerational game, which shows a
devastating Nash Equilibrium of every generation keeping GHG emission high and
mankind rushes toward extinction. However interestingly, by changing the public’s
and politicians’ expected utilities of addressing and not addressing climate change,
the neglect of the devastating intergenerational dimension has both negative
and positive implications of the comprehensive solution to climate change.
Work Cited
Everything's Cool. Dir. Daniel Gold. Perf. Daniel Gold. Bullfrog Films, 2007. DVD.
Gardner, Stephen. "A
Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics and the Problem
of Moral Corruption." Environmental Values 15.3 (2006): 397-413.
Print.
Raihani, Nichola, and David
Aitken. "Uncertainty, rationality and cooperation in the context of
climate change." Climatic Change 108 (2011): 47-55. Print.
Schuppert, Fabian.
"Climate change mitigation and intergenerational justice." Environmental
Politics 20.3 (2011): 303-21. Print.
Wood, Peter. "Climate
change and game theory." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
1219.1 (2011): 153-170. Print.
[1] In
this essay, I use the term “international dimension” to denote the
intra-generational, spatial dimension of climate change because in a single
generation, addressing/not addressing climate change is generally considered as
interactions among different countries.
[2] In
the intergenerational game of climate change, the term “environment” and its
quantitative value EV introduced later only refers to climate change. A higher
EV value represents a LOWER degree of climate change and a BETTER environment;
vice versa.
[3] Historically,
the initial values could refer to the status right before the first industrial
revolution
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