Climate Games: Experiments on How People Prevent Disaster

Andrews, Talbot M.

doi:doi:10.3998/mpub.12089759

Talbot M. Andrews, Andrew W. Delton, and Reuben Kline

Open Access

Can humanity work together to mitigate the effects of climate change? Climate Games argues we can. This book brings together a decade and a half of experimentation, conducted by researchers around the world, which shows that people can and will work together to prevent disasters like climate change. These experiments, called economic games, put money on the line to create laboratory disasters. Participants must work together by spending a bit of money now to prevent themselves from losing even more money in the future. Will people sacrifice their own money to prevent disaster? Can people make wise decisions? And can people decide wisely on behalf of others? The answer is a resounding yes.

Yet real climate change is a complex social dilemma involving the world's nearly eight billion inhabitants. In the real world, the worst effects of climate change are likely to be felt by developing countries, while most of the decisions will be made by rich, industrialized countries. And while the world as a whole would be better off if all nations reduced their greenhouse gas emissions, any given nation could decide it would be even better off if it continued emitting and let other nations take care of the problem. These disaster experiments test how real people respond to climate change's unique constellation of challenges and deliver a positive message: People will prevent disaster.

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At top, six players hold money harvested from the commons. At bottom, six players contribute money to disaster prevention.

Illustration of contribution choices (4)

From Chapter 5

Fig. 21. The two phases of the self-created disaster game. The top panel shows the harvest phase, where each of the six players decides how much money to take from the commons. The bottom panel shows the disaster phase, where the same players have to decide how much of the harvested funds to contribute to prevent disaster. The cost of disaster prevention and the risk of disaster are determined by how much players harvested.

Bars showing amount harvested in each condition. Harvest is lowest in the newcomer condition. This holds for both samples from the US and China.

Percent harvested by condition

From Chapter 5

Fig. 22. The average amount each group harvests, by condition and country. Players could harvest at most $40.

Bars show the proportion contributed in each condition. Newcomers contribute less than the other conditions.

Percent contributed by condition

From Chapter 5

Fig. 23. The average proportion that players contributed from their endowments in each condition. To meet the threshold, players had to contribute 53% of their endowments on average. The dashed line represents this threshold.

On the left, bars showing choice of control players and leaders are identical in height. On the right, bars show that followers match leaders’ choices.

Leader and follower contributions

From Chapter 6

Fig. 24. The proportion making certain, risky, and no contributions in each condition. Error bars are standard errors of the mean.

At high thresholds only, players trust more and contribute more when in the control condition, compared to the inefficiency condition.

Trust in messages sent by the leader

From Chapter 6

Fig. 25. The first panel shows the proportion of players who believed the levee costs exactly what the leader says. The second panel shows the proportion who contributed their fair share to meet the threshold. Error bars are standard errors of the mean.

At left, the line graph shows that perceived costs rise with the known penalty. At right, a line graph shows that rational contributions rise with the known penalty.

Perceptions of the cost of disaster

From Chapter 6

Fig. 26. The first panel shows the distance between how much someone guessed the threshold cost, and what a payoff-maximizing player should guess the threshold cost. The second panel shows the distance between how much someone contributed to meet the threshold, and what a payoff-maximizing player should contribute to the threshold. The x-axis shows the size of the penalty. As the penalty increased, people believed disaster prevention was more expensive, and they contributed more to disaster prevention.

On the left, bars show that citizens behave identically whether or not geoengineering is used. On the right, bars show that leaders use geoengineering less when it’s less likely to work.

Percent using geoengineering and contributions to the threshold

From Chapter 6

Fig. 27. The left panel shows the proportion of policymakers who decided to use geoengineering, for each probability that geoengineering succeeds. The right panel shows the average contributions made by citizens toward the threshold when geoengineering was and was not used. Error bars are standard errors of the mean.

White bars show the contributions in each condition. Contributions are the same in each condition.

Contributions whether geoengineering is used or not used

From Chapter 6

Fig. 28. Average contributions to the mitigation threshold across experimental conditions. Error bars are standard errors of the mean. “No Geo” = No geoengineering used; “Geo” = Geoengineering used.

University of Michigan Press
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Climate Games: Experiments on How People Prevent Disaster

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Illustration of contribution choices (4)

Percent harvested by condition

Percent contributed by condition

Leader and follower contributions

Trust in messages sent by the leader

Perceptions of the cost of disaster

Percent using geoengineering and contributions to the threshold

Contributions whether geoengineering is used or not used

Climate Games: Experiments on How People Prevent Disaster

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