Cole: Climate Change and Collective Action

Daniel H. Cole (Indiana Univ., Indianapolis - Law) has posted Climate Change and Collective Action. Here's the abstract:

Climate change may present the greatest collective action problem the international community has ever confronted. The unequal distribution of expected costs and benefits from climate change creates different incentives for different countries, and those countries can be expected to bargain in their own perceived interests. That is the reason the Kyoto Protocol turned out to be weak and seriously flawed (in stark contrast to the Montreal Protocol on protection the ozone layer). Collective action problems continue to impede efforts to replace or improve on Kyoto. Policy recommendations and negotiating strategies that ignore those problems are likely to prove ineffective.

This paper explains how Kyoto's notorious weaknesses are rooted in unresolved collective action problems, and offers two recommendations for ameliorating those problems. Policy makers should incorporate into their cost-benefit calculations: (1) low-probability, high-magnitude climate 'catastrophes,' which could affect any or all countries; and (2) the secondary effects of climate change, including potential threats to national security. Due consideration of potential catastrophic impacts and secondary effects of climate change should better align the interests of the parties and ameliorate collective-action impediments to a stronger, more effective international climate change regime. At the very least, it should raise the lowest common denominator of the parties.