Improving International Climate Policy via Mutually Conditional Binding Commitments
This addresses the challenge of free-riding in international climate negotiations for policymakers and stakeholders, but appears incremental as it builds on existing concepts like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
The paper tackles the problem of ineffective climate policy under the Paris Agreement due to unconditional commitments, proposing a Conditional Commitment Mechanism to formalize conditional cooperation, and reports its performance in the AI4ClimateCooperation challenge.
The Paris Agreement, considered a significant milestone in climate negotiations, has faced challenges in effectively addressing climate change due to the unconditional nature of most Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). This has resulted in a prevalence of free-riding behavior among major polluters and a lack of concrete conditionality in NDCs. To address this issue, we propose the implementation of a decentralized, bottom-up approach called the Conditional Commitment Mechanism. This mechanism, inspired by the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, offers flexibility and incentives for early adopters, aiming to formalize conditional cooperation in international climate policy. In this paper, we provide an overview of the mechanism, its performance in the AI4ClimateCooperation challenge, and discuss potential real-world implementation aspects. Prior knowledge of the climate mitigation collective action problem, basic economic principles, and game theory concepts are assumed.