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Modeling a polycentric approach to the problem of climate change
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect Physics of Life Reviews 11 (2014) 593–594 www.elsevier.com/locate/plrev
Comment
Modeling a polycentric approach to the problem of climate change Comment on “Climate change governance, cooperation and self-organization” by Pacheco, Vasconcelos & Santos Manfred Milinski Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Thienemann-Strasse 2, 24306 Ploen, Germany Received 18 July 2014; accepted 23 July 2014 Available online 28 July 2014 Communicated by J. Fontanari
Climate change is a global problem. Because of unlimited use of fossil energy and resulting greenhouse gas emissions the global temperature is rising causing floods, draughts and storms in all parts of the world with increasing frequency and strength. Dangerous climate change will occur with high probability after the global temperature has passed a certain threshold [1]. To avoid dangerous climate change global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced to a level of 50% or less of the year-2000 emissions by 2050 [2–4]. All people on earth take part in this global target public goods game, “a game that we cannot afford to loose” [5]. Simulating this scenario in a nutshell a collective risk social dilemma game has shown that a small group of subjects can achieve a collective goal by sequential individual contributions but only when the risk of loosing their not invested money is high, e.g. 90% [6]. Cooperation in public goods games usually decreases with increasing group size [7]. Thus, does this mean that the global game will be lost? The late Elenor Ostrom, Nobel Prize winning economist, propagated a bottom up approach for solving collective action problems [8]: “Rather than only a global effort, it would be better to self-consciously adopt a polycentric approach to the problem of climate change in order to gain the benefits at multiple scales.” Her answer to the question “Are only global benefits generated from local-level efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or are there potential benefits at multiple scales?” remains, however, vague. Ostrom’s hypothesis has now been successfully modeled using a variety of concepts related to statistical mechanics of non-equilibrium stochastic processes [9]. For example, the stochastic process conveniently frames the strategy revision process in finite populations of individuals. Individuals revise their strategies through peer-influence, copying others whenever these appear to be more successful [9]. The results are very clear and encourage great hopes with the motto “Think globally, act locally.” The elegant mathematical procedures include many implicit assumptions that may or may not mirror reality. The model provides us with a proof of principle under a specific set of conditions. The problem could be solved in this way. However, the robustness of the results needs to be checked with realistic sets of parameters. Ostrom [10] saw a solution of the problem, e.g., of overexploiting game stock in small communities controlling hunting within their boundaries. In this way one village can solve its problem and profits whereas neighbor villages may fail and lose. If climate targets are approached in each country individually monitoring the achievements of others, what is the benefit for, say, the Netherlands meeting their target, whereas Germany fails? The climate will be DOI of original article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2014.02.003. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2014.07.013 1571-0645/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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M. Milinski / Physics of Life Reviews 11 (2014) 593–594
the same in the Netherlands and in Germany thereafter. All countries will harvest the profit simultaneously only after the global target has been met with the combined contributions of many countries. The motto should be rewritten “Think globally, act locally, win globally.” The new theory is an optimistic one. It is worth to get empirical attention. A reality check will show whether the optimistic view is supported and whether it can help humankind to win the game. References [1] Schneider SH. What is ‘dangerous’ climate change? Nature 2001;411:17–9. [2] Meinshausen M, et al. Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 degrees C. Nature 2009;458:1158–62. [3] IPCC. In: Solomon S, Qin D, Manning M, Chen Z, Marquis M, Averyt KB, et al., editors. Climate change 2007: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge (United Kingdom) and New York (USA): Cambridge University Press; 2007. [4] IPCC. Summary for policymakers. In: Stocker TF, et al., editors. Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge (United Kingdom) and New York (USA): Cambridge University Press; 2013. p. 3–29. [5] Dreber A, Nowak MA. Gambling for global goods. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2008;105:2261–2. [6] Milinski M, Sommerfeld RD, Krambeck HJ, Reed FA, Marotzke J. The collective-risk social dilemma and the prevention of simulated dangerous climate change. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2008;105:2291–4. [7] Boyd R, Richerson PJ. The evolution of reciprocity in sizable groups. J Theor Biol 1988;132:337–56. [8] Ostrom E. A polycentric approach for coping with climate change. Policy research working paper 5095, background paper to the 2010 world development report; 2009. [9] Pacheco JM, Vasconcelos VV, Santos FC. Climate change governance, cooperation and self-organization. Phys Life Rev 2014;11:573–86 [in this issue]. [10] Ostrom E. Governing the commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press; 1990.
ScienceDirect Physics of Life Reviews 11 (2014) 593–594 www.elsevier.com/locate/plrev
Comment
Modeling a polycentric approach to the problem of climate change Comment on “Climate change governance, cooperation and self-organization” by Pacheco, Vasconcelos & Santos Manfred Milinski Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Thienemann-Strasse 2, 24306 Ploen, Germany Received 18 July 2014; accepted 23 July 2014 Available online 28 July 2014 Communicated by J. Fontanari
Climate change is a global problem. Because of unlimited use of fossil energy and resulting greenhouse gas emissions the global temperature is rising causing floods, draughts and storms in all parts of the world with increasing frequency and strength. Dangerous climate change will occur with high probability after the global temperature has passed a certain threshold [1]. To avoid dangerous climate change global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced to a level of 50% or less of the year-2000 emissions by 2050 [2–4]. All people on earth take part in this global target public goods game, “a game that we cannot afford to loose” [5]. Simulating this scenario in a nutshell a collective risk social dilemma game has shown that a small group of subjects can achieve a collective goal by sequential individual contributions but only when the risk of loosing their not invested money is high, e.g. 90% [6]. Cooperation in public goods games usually decreases with increasing group size [7]. Thus, does this mean that the global game will be lost? The late Elenor Ostrom, Nobel Prize winning economist, propagated a bottom up approach for solving collective action problems [8]: “Rather than only a global effort, it would be better to self-consciously adopt a polycentric approach to the problem of climate change in order to gain the benefits at multiple scales.” Her answer to the question “Are only global benefits generated from local-level efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or are there potential benefits at multiple scales?” remains, however, vague. Ostrom’s hypothesis has now been successfully modeled using a variety of concepts related to statistical mechanics of non-equilibrium stochastic processes [9]. For example, the stochastic process conveniently frames the strategy revision process in finite populations of individuals. Individuals revise their strategies through peer-influence, copying others whenever these appear to be more successful [9]. The results are very clear and encourage great hopes with the motto “Think globally, act locally.” The elegant mathematical procedures include many implicit assumptions that may or may not mirror reality. The model provides us with a proof of principle under a specific set of conditions. The problem could be solved in this way. However, the robustness of the results needs to be checked with realistic sets of parameters. Ostrom [10] saw a solution of the problem, e.g., of overexploiting game stock in small communities controlling hunting within their boundaries. In this way one village can solve its problem and profits whereas neighbor villages may fail and lose. If climate targets are approached in each country individually monitoring the achievements of others, what is the benefit for, say, the Netherlands meeting their target, whereas Germany fails? The climate will be DOI of original article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2014.02.003. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2014.07.013 1571-0645/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
594
M. Milinski / Physics of Life Reviews 11 (2014) 593–594
the same in the Netherlands and in Germany thereafter. All countries will harvest the profit simultaneously only after the global target has been met with the combined contributions of many countries. The motto should be rewritten “Think globally, act locally, win globally.” The new theory is an optimistic one. It is worth to get empirical attention. A reality check will show whether the optimistic view is supported and whether it can help humankind to win the game. References [1] Schneider SH. What is ‘dangerous’ climate change? Nature 2001;411:17–9. [2] Meinshausen M, et al. Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 degrees C. Nature 2009;458:1158–62. [3] IPCC. In: Solomon S, Qin D, Manning M, Chen Z, Marquis M, Averyt KB, et al., editors. Climate change 2007: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge (United Kingdom) and New York (USA): Cambridge University Press; 2007. [4] IPCC. Summary for policymakers. In: Stocker TF, et al., editors. Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge (United Kingdom) and New York (USA): Cambridge University Press; 2013. p. 3–29. [5] Dreber A, Nowak MA. Gambling for global goods. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2008;105:2261–2. [6] Milinski M, Sommerfeld RD, Krambeck HJ, Reed FA, Marotzke J. The collective-risk social dilemma and the prevention of simulated dangerous climate change. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2008;105:2291–4. [7] Boyd R, Richerson PJ. The evolution of reciprocity in sizable groups. J Theor Biol 1988;132:337–56. [8] Ostrom E. A polycentric approach for coping with climate change. Policy research working paper 5095, background paper to the 2010 world development report; 2009. [9] Pacheco JM, Vasconcelos VV, Santos FC. Climate change governance, cooperation and self-organization. Phys Life Rev 2014;11:573–86 [in this issue]. [10] Ostrom E. Governing the commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press; 1990.