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Resource heterogeneity leads to unjust effort distribution in climate change mitigation

Author

Listed:
  • Julian Vicens
  • Nereida Bueno-Guerra
  • Mario Gutiérrez-Roig
  • Carlos Gracia-Lázaro
  • Jesús Gómez-Gardeñes
  • Josep Perelló
  • Angel Sánchez
  • Yamir Moreno
  • Jordi Duch

Abstract

Climate change mitigation is a shared global challenge that involves collective action of a set of individuals with different tendencies to cooperation. However, we lack an understanding of the effect of resource inequality when diverse actors interact together towards a common goal. Here, we report the results of a collective-risk dilemma experiment in which groups of individuals were initially given either equal or unequal endowments. We found that the effort distribution was highly inequitable, with participants with fewer resources contributing significantly more to the public goods than the richer −sometimes twice as much. An unsupervised learning algorithm classified the subjects according to their individual behavior, finding the poorest participants within two “generous clusters” and the richest into a “greedy cluster”. Our results suggest that policies would benefit from educating about fairness and reinforcing climate justice actions addressed to vulnerable people instead of focusing on understanding generic or global climate consequences.

Suggested Citation

  • Julian Vicens & Nereida Bueno-Guerra & Mario Gutiérrez-Roig & Carlos Gracia-Lázaro & Jesús Gómez-Gardeñes & Josep Perelló & Angel Sánchez & Yamir Moreno & Jordi Duch, 2018. "Resource heterogeneity leads to unjust effort distribution in climate change mitigation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-17, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0204369
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204369
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Azar, Christian & Sterner, Thomas, 1996. "Discounting and distributional considerations in the context of global warming," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 169-184, November.
    2. Mendelsohn, Robert & Dinar, Ariel & Williams, Larry, 2006. "The distributional impact of climate change on rich and poor countries," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 159-178, April.
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    Cited by:

    1. J. Doyne Farmer & John Geanakoplos & Matteo G. Richiardi & Miquel Montero & Josep Perelló & Jaume Masoliver, 2024. "Discounting the Distant Future: What Do Historical Bond Prices Imply about the Long-Term Discount Rate?," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-25, February.
    2. Alessandro Del Ponte & Aidas Masiliūnas & Noah Lim, 2023. "Information about historical emissions drives the division of climate change mitigation costs," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.
    3. Zhao, Jinhua & Wang, Xianjia & Niu, Lei & Ding, Rui & Gu, Cuiling, 2023. "Cooperation in collective risk dilemmas with endogenous heterogeneity: Nash equilibrium and evolutionary dynamics," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 175(P1).
    4. Roggenkamp, Hauke C., 2024. "Revisiting ‘Growth and Inequality in Public Good Provision’—Reproducing and Generalizing Through Inconvenient Online Experimentation," OSF Preprints 6rn97, Center for Open Science.
    5. Goeschl, Timo & Kettner, Sara Elisa & Lohse, Johannes & Schwieren, Christiane, 2020. "How much can we learn about voluntary climate action from behavior in public goods games?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    6. Isabelle Bonhoure & Anna Cigarini & Julián Vicens & Bàrbara Mitats & Josep Perelló, 2023. "Reformulating computational social science with citizen social science: the case of a community-based mental health care research," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, December.
    7. Rémi Suchon & Vincent Theroude, 2025. "Cooperation across the inequality divide: the effect of the magnitude of inequality," Working Papers halshs-05042251, HAL.
    8. Greiff, Matthias & Kempa, Karol, 2025. "Avoiding catastrophic climate change: Heterogeneous abatement costs and voting on redistribution in a threshold public good experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).
    9. repec:osf:osfxxx:6rn97_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Roggenkamp, Hauke, 2025. "A comment on ‘growth and inequality in public good provision’: Testing the robustness and generalizability of dynamic public good games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 115(C).

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