FROM COMMON RESOURCE TO COMMON PERIL: EXPLORING A NEW MODEL FOR CLIMATE ACTION

Abstract

Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is one of the main challenges in order to limit global warming, and it requires an unprecedented form of collective action. Most of the mechanisms to organize climate action that have been envisaged thus far, such as a carbon tax, are based on a “polluter pays” principle and fail to reconcile equity and effectiveness. The gilets jaunes movement in 2018 in France epitomized such incompatibility. To resolve this dilemma, we assume that we need to change the way the situation is conceptualized. Indeed, we usually consider that the actors at play are all independent from each other, and only tied together by a limited resource. This model tends to make actors individually responsible for bearing the cost of reducing pollution. We can however consider that the situation is that of a common peril: from this perspective, the effort of one individual to reduce pollution contributes to conserving the value of all others. This suggests that this effort could be shared between all those who have an interest in such conservation. Building upon the old rule of general average, we show that by re-examining the model of collective action, we can explore new mechanisms to reconcile equity and effectiveness for climate action.