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Climate change: the global public good

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  • Marco Grasso

    (Dipartimento di Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale - Universita' degli Studi di Milano Bicocca)

Abstract

Climate change is the exemplary global public good, because each country’s emissions of greenhouse gases contribute cumulatively to the increase of the overall concentration, and each country’s abatements entail higher cost than benefit, unless effective concerted collective actions take place. Unfortunately there are weak political and economic instruments for entering a climate agreement and for attaining and maintaining its goals. Moreover there are strong free-riding incentives since it is quite difficult - and indeed very unpopular - for Governments to convince people to give up part of their current wealth for the sake of uncertain gains in the future, maybe accruing to population in remote distance. In this paper I deal with the main issues put forward by the global public good nature of climate change. Namely, I firstly shed some light on the economics of global warming in order to point out a benefit-cost framework suitable for quantifying its impacts. Then, I analyse the determinants of the provision of climate stability and the international collective action that should be undertaken to compel sovereign countries to enter into a climate agreement. Hence, after outlining the most important approach to international cooperation, I consider the possibility of a coalition formation according to the game theoretic perspective, the interests determining the participation in international agreements, and the possible sanctions imposable to countries that refuse to comply with an international climate agreement.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Grasso, 2004. "Climate change: the global public good," Others 0405010, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpot:0405010
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    Cited by:

    1. Gianluigi Cisco & Andrea Gatto, 2021. "Climate Justice in an Intergenerational Sustainability Framework: A Stochastic OLG Model," Economies, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-13, April.
    2. Pradosh Nath & Bhagirath Behera, 2011. "A critical review of impact of and adaptation to climate change in developed and developing economies," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 141-162, February.
    3. Guendalina Anzolin & Amir Lebdioui, 2021. "Three Dimensions of Green Industrial Policy in the Context of Climate Change and Sustainable Development," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 33(2), pages 371-405, April.
    4. Angel Prieto, 2019. "Alliances de villes pour le climat - Modélisation par la théorie des jeux," CIRANO Working Papers 2019s-16, CIRANO.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    climate change; public goods; international environmental agreements;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis

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