Environmental governance and cooperation in an uncertain world

3^rd March 2017, 13:00 H223 Seminar Room
Dr. Francisco C. Santos
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Instituto Superior Técnico (IST),
University of Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract

When attempting to avoid global warming, individuals often face a social dilemma in which, besides securing future benefits, it is also necessary to reduce the chances of future losses. In this talk I will present a simple population dynamics approach to this type of dilemmas, in which the risk of failure plays a central role in individual decisions. This model can be shown to capture some of the essential features discovered in recent key experiments, while allowing one to extend in non-trivial ways the experimental conditions to regions of practical interest. Our results suggest that global coordination for a common good should be attempted through a polycentric structure of multiple small-scale agreements, in which perception of risk is high and uncertainty in collective goals is minimized. Whenever the perception of risk is low, our results indicate that sanctioning institutions may significantly enhance the chances of coordinating to tame the planet’s climate, as long as they are implemented in a decentralized manner. Finally, I will discuss the impact on public goods dilemmas of heterogeneous political networks, growing agreements, obstinate players and wealth inequality, including a distribution of wealth representative of existing inequalities among nations.