Cooperation on climate change and ongoing urbanization

Climate change has become a major threat to existence of humankind on earth. Studies demonstrate that climate change gets exacerbated and people become nonprosocial with urbanization (Ehrlich et al., 2012, Wigginton et al., 2016, Shahrier et al., 2016, 2017, Jingchao et al., 2021). It is hypothesized that people’s cooperation on climate change declines as they become nonprosocial with urbanization. To examine the hypothesis, we implement a survey experiment consisting of climate donation (CD) and social value orientation (SVO) games in three areas of a developing country, Bangladesh: (i) rural, (ii) semiurban and (iii) urban ones. In CD game, a respondent splits a fixed endowment between herself and a donation to climate change countermeasures. The analysis reveals that the number of nonprosocials is higher in the semiurban and urban areas than in the rural area, and nonprosocials donate less than do prosocials. It also shows that education, belief in human-induced climate change and natural disasters’ experiences increase the donations. However, the magnitudes of the increases are less than the magnitudes of the decline in donations associated with urbanization and SVO from prosocials to nonprosocials. Overall, this research suggests that cooperation on climate change shall be compromised along with further urbanization, and a new paradigm, such as vision and/or core values for society development and education, will be necessary to counter such a trend.