AI4GCC-Team -- Below Sea Level: Score and Real World Relevance
This work tackles carbon leakage in climate negotiations, but it is incremental as it builds on existing mechanisms like CBAM and Climate Clubs.
The authors proposed a negotiation protocol for climate-economic simulations to address carbon leakage, achieving temperature outcomes comparable to RCP 3.4/4.5 and SSP 2.
As our submission for track three of the AI for Global Climate Cooperation (AI4GCC) competition, we propose a negotiation protocol for use in the RICE-N climate-economic simulation. Our proposal seeks to address the challenges of carbon leakage through methods inspired by the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and Climate Clubs (CC). We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by comparing simulated outcomes to representative concentration pathways (RCP) and shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP). Our protocol results in a temperature rise comparable to RCP 3.4/4.5 and SSP 2. Furthermore, we provide an analysis of our protocol's World Trade Organization compliance, administrative and political feasibility, and ethical concerns. We recognize that our proposal risks hurting the least developing countries, and we suggest specific corrective measures to avoid exacerbating existing inequalities, such as technology sharing and wealth redistribution. Future research should improve the RICE-N tariff mechanism and implement actions allowing for the aforementioned corrective measures.