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Game theory

Tipping climate cooperation

Nature Climate Change volume 4, pages 14–15 (2014)Cite this article

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Early warning systems can alert societies about coming irreversible climatic changes, but can they trigger action to avoid them? Research now suggests that to prompt social action, uncertainty about when the changes will occur must be reduced.

Imagine that you are heading downstream in a canoe with a group of strangers, tired and drifting happily with the current, when you think you hear the faint rumble of a waterfall ahead. You alert your fellow paddlers to the potential danger, but you are unsure how close it is. In order to turn the canoe around and head upstream against the current, not only will you all have to expend some effort paddling together, but you are all going to have to throw some expensive belongings overboard. Do you collectively manage to avoid the impending catastrophe? Writing in this issue of Nature Climate Change, Scott Barrett and Astrid Dannenberg1 report that the answer depends on how uncertain the group is about the proximity of the approaching threat. If it becomes clear enough where an impending threshold lies, a remarkable social transformation occurs in which groups coordinate to avoid catastrophe.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Timothy M. Lenton is at the College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QE, UK,

    Timothy M. Lenton

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  1. Timothy M. Lenton
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Correspondence to Timothy M. Lenton.

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Lenton, T. Tipping climate cooperation. Nature Clim Change 4, 14–15 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2078

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2078

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