Collective action and geoengineering

This paper investigates some of the myriad collective action implications of geoengineering. Its two major components – carbon dioxide reduction and albedo modification – present diverse collective action and strategic aspects. Carbon dioxide reduction may be characterized by Prisoners’ Dilemma, threshold, or harmony games, depending on capture and sequestration procedures. In contrast, albedo modification may abide by chicken, coordination, or threshold games. Once deployed, albedo modification presents an addiction problem that makes current efforts difficult to alter, even by countries originally opposed to such modification. With its many procedures, geoengineering is tied to a host of collective action problems that may ensue prior, during, or after geoengineering deployment. For carbon dioxide reduction, governance concerns encouraging action, while for albedo modification, governance concerns inhibiting unilateral action. The latter may be a more difficult governance issue.