Can’t we all just get along. Play nicely? Share? Such laments could be applied to many economic, political and social problems today. Perhaps the thorniest of them all is, climate change. Despite the relative success of the Paris COP21 in November, we are still far from effectively controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Could game theory help us rein in our impacts on the climate?

Game theory is the mathematical study of conflict and cooperation between actors or groups: animals, people, businesses, countries or even computer algorithms. It became a formal topic of study in the 1950s and has since made significant impact on economics, political science and evolutionary biology and ecology.

Could game theory help us rein in our impacts on the climate?”

The fundamentals of the climate change are simple: the Earth’s finite capacity to absorb additional CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels, and the self-centred motivations of governments, businesses, and people which leads them to try and use as much of this capacity as possible. Simply put, more CO2 produces more wealth. Consequently, what is best for the individual is not best for the group. Somehow these two incentives need to align. One way would be for all 197 nations to cooperate in working out how to allocate carbon emissions. Presumably they would then move onto world peace.