Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Sensitivity of collective action to uncertainty about climate tipping points

Nature Climate Change volume 4, pages 36–39 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Despite more than two decades of diplomatic effort, concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to trend upwards, creating the risk that we may someday cross a threshold for ‘dangerous’ climate change1,2,3. Although climate thresholds are very uncertain, new research is trying to devise ‘early warning signals’ of an approaching tipping point4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11. This research offers a tantalizing promise: whereas collective action fails when threshold uncertainty is large, reductions in this uncertainty may bring about the behavioural change needed to avert a climate ‘catastrophe’5. Here we present the results of an experiment, rooted in a game-theoretic model, showing that behaviour differs markedly either side of a dividing line for threshold uncertainty. On one side of the dividing line, where threshold uncertainty is relatively large, free riding proves irresistible and trust illusive, making it virtually inevitable that the tipping point will be crossed. On the other side, where threshold uncertainty is small, the incentive to coordinate is strong and trust more robust, often leading the players to avoid crossing the tipping point. Our results show that uncertainty must be reduced to this ‘good’ side of the dividing line to stimulate the behavioural shift needed to avoid ‘dangerous’ climate change.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Probability of catastrophe by treatment.
Figure 2: Treatment means versus predicted values.
Figure 3: Individual pledges and contributions by treatment.

References

  1. Alley, R. B. et al. Abrupt climate change. Science 299, 2005–2010 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Lenton, T. M. et al. Tipping elements in the earth’s climate system. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 1786–1793 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Kriegler, E., Hall, J. W., Held, H., Dawson, R. & Schellnhuber, H. J. Imprecise probability assessment of tipping points in the climate system. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 5041–5046 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Dakos, V. et al. Slowing down as an early warning signal for abrupt climate change. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 14308–14312 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Biggs, R., Carpenter, S. R. & Brock, W. A. Turning back from the brink: Detecting an impending regime shift in time to avert it. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 826–831 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Scheffer, M. Critical Transitions in Nature and Society (Princeton Univ. Press, 2009).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Scheffer, M. et al. Early-warning signals for critical transitions. Nature 461, 53–59 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Ditlevsen, P. D. & Johnsen, S. J. Tipping points: Early warning and wishful thinking. Geophys. Res. Lett. 37, L19703 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Lenton, T. M. Early warning of climate tipping points. Nature Clim. Change 1, 201–209 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Scheffer, M. et al. Anticipating critical transitions. Science 338, 344–348 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Lenton, T. M., Livina, V. N., Dakos, V., van Nes, E. H. & Scheffer, M. Early warning of climate tipping points from critical slowing down: Comparing methods to improve robustness. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A. 370, 1185–1204 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Carpenter, S. R. et al. Early warnings of regime shifts: A whole-ecosystem experiment. Science 332, 1079–1082 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Wang, R. et al. Flickering gives early warning signals of a critical transition to a eutrophic lake state. Nature 492, 419–422 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Scheffer, M., Carpenter, S., Foley, J. A., Folke, C. & Walker, B. Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems. Nature 413, 591–596 (2001).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Dai, L., Vorselen, D., Korolev, K. S. & Gore, J. Generic indicators for loss of resilience before a tipping point leading to population collapse. Science 336, 1175–1177 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. May, R. M., Levin, S. A. & Sugihara, G. Complex systems: Ecology for bankers. Nature 451, 893–895 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Lackner, K. S. et al. The urgency of the development of CO2 capture from ambient air. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 13156–13162 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Allen, M. R. et al. Warming caused by cumulative carbon emissions towards the trillionth tonne. Nature 458, 1163–1166 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Zickfeld, K., Eby, M., Matthews, H. D. & Weaver, A. J. Setting cumulative emissions targets to reduce the risk of dangerous climate change. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 16129–16134 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Barrett, S. Climate treaties and approaching catastrophes. J. Environ. Econ. Manage. 66, 235–250 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Barrett, S. & Dannenberg, A. Climate negotiations under scientific uncertainty. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 17372–17376 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Ledyard, J. O. in Handbook of Experimental Economics (eds Kagel, J. H. & Roth, A. E.) 111–194 (Princeton Univ. Press, 1995).

    Google Scholar 

  23. Rockström, J. et al. A safe operating safe for humanity. Nature 461, 472–475 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Lenton, T.M. & Ciscar, J-C. Integrating tipping points into climate impact assessments. Climatic Change 117, 585–597.

  25. Robinson, A., Calov, R. & Ganopolski, A. Multistability and critical thresholds of the Greenland ice sheet. Nature Clim. Change 2, 429–432 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Hawkins, E. et al. Bistability of the Atlantic overturning circulation in a global climate model and links to ocean freshwater transport. Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L10605 (2011).

    Google Scholar 

  27. Drijfhout, S.S., Weber, S.L. & van der Swaluw, E. The stability of the MOC as diagnosed from model projections for pre-industrial, present and future climates. Clim. Dynam. 37, 1575–1586 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Hastings, A. & Wysham, D. B. Regime shifts in ecological systems can occur with no warning. Ecol. Lett. 13, 464–472 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Ostrom, E. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  30. Barrett, S. Environment and Statecraft: The Strategy of Environmental Treaty-Making (Oxford Univ. Press, 2003).

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank J. Rising for programming our ‘spinning wheel’, the MaXLab team at Magdeburg University for use of their laboratory and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies research community on Communicating Uncertainty: Science, Institutions, and Ethics in the Politics of Global Climate Change for financially supporting our experiments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth Institute and School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA

    Scott Barrett

  2. Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

    Scott Barrett

  3. Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA

    Astrid Dannenberg

  4. University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg 405 30, Sweden

    Astrid Dannenberg

Authors
  1. Scott Barrett
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Astrid Dannenberg
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

S.B. and A.D. contributed equally to this work. They both designed and performed the research and analysed the data and wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Scott Barrett.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Barrett, S., Dannenberg, A. Sensitivity of collective action to uncertainty about climate tipping points. Nature Clim Change 4, 36–39 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2059

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2059

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing