Self-enforcing international environmental agreements with climate tipping events

Abstract

International environmental agreements (IEAs) can increase the efficiency of emission abatement and achieve climate change mitigation. Tipping events bring catastrophic and irreversible damages to ecological systems and human societies. This paper uses a game-theoretic model to investigate the effect of possible tipping events on countries’ emission and participation decisions in IEAs. Results show that if the emissions threshold of the tipping events is high, the possibility of tipping has no effect on the stable number of participants in IEAs. However, if the threshold for tipping is low, the damage associated with climate tipping determines if the climate system would cross the tipping point and the effect of possible tipping events increases the size of a stable coalition in a Stackelberg equilibrium. In a Nash equilibrium, the possibility of tipping would decrease the scope of participation in IEAs if the tipping damage is high, and induce more signatories in the IEAs if the tipping damage is moderate.