Haggling at the Climate Change Talks

I have been pessimistic about climate talks for a while now. But my beliefs don't matter and rightfully so, because there are enough of us out there who just nod our heads and smile wryly as we watch the human race go through this extended debate about lifestyle choices, human ingenuity and predictions of global catastrophes.

So here we have countries from all over the world attempting find a balance between development and emissions. When you get countries who are at peace behind closed doors, you get to watch a lot of endless bargaining. In this case, they bargain about how to distribute pain, so future generations have less of it. No one wants to over-commit because, well, who wants to give more than necessary. By necessary, I mean just being able to appease the global community and by global community, I mean the diplomats of the countries that matter.

Every country wants to give only enough to appease both its own myopic citizens and the other countries who are themselves myopic to all but themselves. The talks do repeatedly break down, not because people don't care but because all people, and by extension, all countries, are inherently selfish. It is a "tragedy of the commons" dilemma — the kind that basic economics textbooks teach us.

But the selfishness is often justified. People are myopic for reasons beyond basic human nature. Developing countries where people still struggle to make a living will never understand the complexities that affect their livelihoods. Developing countries cannot afford to be farsighted, not when they still haven't reached lifestyles of opulence. In Inglehart's terms, there is still a far journey between survival and self-expression.

For any binding contracts to succeed, the developing countries need to be cleverly incentivized, because why would a poor country ever agree to go green at the cost of remaining poor? And the rich countries already having gone through industrialization without any environmental constraints, have a shaky moral ground to be able to impose upon the developing world.

Article Author: Priyank Chandra

Engineer. Economist. Teacher.
With an interest in psychology, sociology, mythology, technology, obscure movies and music, environment and writing.

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