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Given the lack of progress on climate change mitigation, some scientists have proposed solar geoengineering as a means to manage climate change at least temporarily. One main concern with such a risky technological solution, however, is that it may create a “moral hazard” problem by crowding out efforts to reduce emissions. We investigate the potential for a risky technological solution to crowd out mitigation with theory and experiments. In a collective-risk social dilemma, players strategically act to cooperate when there is an opportunity to deploy a risky technology to help protect themselves from impending damages. In contrast to the moral hazard conjecture, the empirical results suggest that the threat of solar geoengineering can lead to an increase in cooperative behavior.
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Climate cooperation in the shadow of solar geoengineering: an experimental investigation of the moral hazard conjecture
As international efforts to mitigate greenhouse gases continue to fall short of global targets, the scientific community increasingly debates the role of solar geoengineering in climate policy. Given the infancy of these technologies, the debate is not yet whether to deploy solar geoengineering but whether solar geoengineering deserves consideration and research funding. Looming large over this discussion is the moral hazard conjecture – normalizing solar geoengineering will decrease mitigation efforts. Using a controlled experiment of a collective-risk social dilemma that simulates the strategic decisions of heterogeneous groups to mitigate emissions and deploy solar geoengineering, we find no evidence for the moral hazard conjecture. On the contrary, when people in the experiment are given the option to deploy solar geoengineering, average investment in mitigation increases.
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- PAR ID:
- 10401065
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Environmental Politics
- ISSN:
- 0964-4016
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 9
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2022.2066285
