Game Theory: Climate Talks Destined to Fail

[GliderGuider]

Game Theory: Climate Talks Destined to Fail

Bueno de Mesquita makes a living by calculating the likely outcomes to various scenarios under the lens of game theory, a mathematical tool political scientists use to better understand how power relationships inform various strategies in negotiations. By applying numerical values to the influence and attitudes of actors, he has used his proprietary software to accurately predict the outcome of elections, foreign aid spending decisions and the Copenhagen talks.

His main argument: Governments probably won't conclude a major international treaty to reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, ever. And even if they do, any such treaty won't actually work.

"Universal treaties have one of two qualities," Bueno de Mesquita said in explaining the modeling. "They don't ask people to change what they're doing, and so they're happy to sign on ... or it asks for fundamental changes in behavior and it lacks monitoring and sanctioning provisions that are credible."

"Climate negotiations themselves are not a prisoners' dilemma, but addressing greenhouse gas emissions in the absence of international coordination is very similar to a prisoners' dilemma, leading to a sub-optimal outcome," Wood explained. "This is because (almost) every country wants global emission reductions, but would prefer that someone else take on the burden."

It confirms what many of us suspected. At best, climate agreement summits are boondoggles and magical thinking. At worst they are part of the bread and circuses intended to keep the proles occupied while their planet is looted.

[villager]

1. so what does game theory tell us when the weather disasters become constant and unavoidable?

how will the institutions/corridors of power react then? :shrug:

[GliderGuider]

3. They will react as they always have

"Protect hour own, and the devil take the little people" is and has always been their motto.
I suspect that the situation will only deteriorate as the climate problems get worse. Everybody will be too busy with their own survival to cooperate, lest they give someone "other" an advantage they might have had for themselves.

Humans are exceptional short-term thinkers, and TPTB are the distilled essence of humanity.

[Vincardog]

2. My only question is "Where do the looters think they are going to live after they are done?"

[jody]

4. Game theory fails when one or more of the parties act irrationally. n/t

[GliderGuider]

5. Are you suggesting somebody might snap and become irrationally altruistic? n/t

[jody]

6. No, just offering an observation. n/t

[Nederland]

7. Agreed, climate agreement summits are useless

Our only hope is a source of power cheaper than coal.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. Convincing, so long as we ignore inconvenient facts…

"Universal treaties have one of two qualities," … "They don't ask people to change what they're doing, and so they're happy to sign on ... or it asks for fundamental changes in behavior and it lacks monitoring and sanctioning provisions that are credible."

If that's true, how is it that the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol">Montreal Protocol succeeded?

[GliderGuider]

10. It's mentioned in the article

So then why did the Montreal Protocol work?

Wood isn't as fatalistic as Bueno de Mesquita's model. He believes a new global treaty can be achieved by December 2011, or at the very least a set of individual agreements along the lines spelled out at Cancun -- money for adaptation in the developing world, an anti-deforestation strategy, and other steps. The key is to overcome the free-rider problem by incorporating the appropriate incentives that will get nations to cooperate.

"One way that this could work is to link cooperation on climate change with cooperation on other issues, such as trade," said Wood. "If a country introduces a carbon price, it may also want to introduce a 'border tax adjustment' that levies a carbon price on emissions-intensive imported goods."

The NYU professor agrees that mankind can eventually solve the problem, just not along the lines governments are currently attempting to.

"The nature ... of international, global treaties is that they almost always fail to do anything," he said. "People get so caught up in the rhetoric they don't focus, from my point of view, on where they might have a political shot at being successful."

[joshcryer]

13. Gotta love it when people don't read your links.

:hi:

[Elmore Furth]

9. I do like magical thinking -- but it doesn't do me much good.

You can't negate human nature with a treaty: countries want prosperity and that is impossible without producing carbon dioxide.

[guardian]

11. "climate agreement summits are boondoggles"

But look at the bright side, they did manage to add about 135,000 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere (15,000 participants at an average of 9 metric tons per participant).

[Fledermaus]

12. So then why did the Montreal Protocol work?

From the same article.

There's no logical basis in the famous mantra that "global problems require global solutions," he says, contending that a series of localized, grass-roots or unilateral initiatives can add up to a solution if pursued appropriately.

Bueno de Mesquita would even like to apply his game theory modeling retroactively, to see if it can provide clues as to why some multilateral agreements, like the Montreal Protocol, do work. Unfortunately, no government or institution seems interested, he says, perhaps fearful of the conclusions that would be reached.

"Actually, I, with colleagues in Germany and Netherlands, put in several grant proposals to do that, and not just to do that but also to identify strategies for improving outcomes," he said. "We never get funded."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=game-theorist-predicts-failure-at-climate-talks