Hacker News Reader

Comment by qwtel | Hacker News Reader

> Limiting the global mean temperature rise to below 2°C with a probability of 66% would require an energy transition of exceptional scope, depth and speed.

It seems that sovereigns don't quite think like individuals: If this was a personal decision, I'd just put my hopes in boarding a plain that has a 66% chance of making it to its destination (or at least that's what the pilot, in an effort to look respectable, is telling me). But since I got the ticket on sale, I've convinced myself that it's "rational" to take the gamble. There's other tickets on sale, but they'd cost 30 - 50% of my total net worth. Clearly, I think to myself, it's better to die in a plain crash than to live in a smaller house.

View on HN

Although it's fashionable to denigrate 'economists' nowadays, I see this as a consequence of sovereigns not thinking like economists.

At the macro level, it's a classic collective action problem - the tragedy of the commons [0]. There are many well-known and efficient solutions. So I guess the real problem is a lack of political will. The US and China are mostly to blame for the lack of global action. Yes this is probably 'unfair', but it still happens to be the case. Everyone comes to the bargaining table when those two are there. Heck, they could easily enforce a bilateral agreement on the rest of the world if they really wanted to.

And at the national level, there's so much well-intentioned yet nonetheless sub-optimal, or frankly stupid, policy responses to this issue. Targeted technology subsidies, target abatement schemes, 'renewable energy targets' (i.e. picked winner targets, or 'cap and trade' without the trade) etc. It makes me want to scream.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

First, like in Prisoner's dilemma, if some sovereigns take drastic action, they pay the price but don't achieve the goal anyway unless almost all others are cooperating.

Second, the interests are not aligned - those who'd need to take the largest investment are those who'd suffer the least from consequences; and those who need the goal the most can't change that much.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com