Tragedy of Commons

Summary

COP15 successfully ends and all countries including China, Russia, and India start working toward new GHG emission target. Countries will introduce more energy efficient technology and renewable energies. However, global warming is not the all of problems which we are facing now. Resources also should be considered as a global level. Adoption of renewable energies and electric vehicles will make us less reliant on oil. Neverthless new technology will cause another problem of resource. For example, lithium which is a key raw material to prevail electric vehicles is distributed in a limited area. More importantly, rapid growth of population will cause food and water problems. The fact that developing countries are growing rapidly is also accelerating this problem.

Technological development will help solving this problem, but we can not expect that technology will solve them completely. Considering the basic economic concepts, a product price has to be higher when the demand increases with fixed supply. Thus, the competition to get resource will be fierce, and developped countries and countries which have affluent resources will apparently win this competition.

This scenario shows the future picture that developped countries will continuousely lead the world, and the least developed countries will be poorer.

Eric's version Summary Due to the global cooperation regarding green house gas emissions, rapid global warming was avoided. However, growing population and industrialization made resource issues more serious. Since there are a variety of resources on which each country has different interests, global leaders struggle with making international regulations in order to consume them sustainably. By the 2020s, some natural resources started to deplete, and countries stockpiled their resources locally. Increases in resource prices affect all product prices, and least developing countries can not follow this movement. Thus, countries reserving natural resources have prospered on one hand, and the gap between rich and poor countries has widened on the other hand.

2010
World leaders including China, Russia, and India started working on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to mitigate climate change in 2010. The Copenhagen Protocol of December 2009 and following meetings were successful in deciding new targets of GHG reduction and methods to achieve this target. Adoption of reduction rules was universal by 2013. These rules imposed limits of GHG emissions throughout manufacturing processes on companies and adopted financial incentives to popularize green technologies such as electric vehicles and renewable energies. Although people still made purchase decisions based on the price of products, they increased the consumption of eco-friendly products because local regulations barred cheap eco-unfriendly products from markets and financial incentives compensated the price gap. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it was expected in 2010 that we could contain global warming below the two degrees Celsius threshold in 2030. The world actually achieved this target. However, our active consumption brought up another problem, scarcity of resources.

2020
The world population reached X trillion X% compared with the level in 2010. China and India become one of the wealthier countries in the world and industrialization in these countries accelerated global consumption of resources. Because of the process of industrialization, food self-sufficiency rates declined and the composition of global trade changed. Reserves of nonrenewable resources such as oil and metals declined rapidly and consumption of renewable resources exceeded the speed of reproduction. Depletion of resources became a more serious problem than before, and their price soared. Although prevention of global warming and technological development contributed to increased supply of resources, demand increased further. Countries which had natural resources came to have stronger political power. Developed countries, which relied on import of resources, enhanced the recycling of metals and utilization of bio-fuels. High material prices continued to undermine developed nations industries. Increasing price of commodities fatally hit the economy in least developed countries which could not secure natural resources domestically. These problems raised the necessity of another global cooperation focused on international trade.

2030
Although everyone recognized the high possibility of depletion and following effects, global leaders could not reach an agreement easily. Taking the example of tuna fishing in the Mediterranean, some countries, which were making a business out of fishery, disagreed with volume control. Interests were different for each country and resource, and regulations had to take into account this issue. Negotiations gradually showed positive results, but the delay of the decision made the problem worse. Some of resources had almost depleted when new regulations were finally adopted. Under this situation, leaders became more sensitive with keeping resources in their countries, and imposed local regulations. For example, some countries decided to limit fishing and cracked down on illegal fishery. Seizer of fishing boats, which were illegally operating over the border, increased the tension among countries. Some countries made a dam which prevented countries in downstream from pulling water, and caused new conflicts. Rebellions caused by high food prices emerged in poorly developed countries. Conflicts due to resource problems have increased by 2030, and global leaders begin addressing resources in a global framework. (This is the second time you mention a global initiative. Perhaps you should be more explicit and say that nations attempt to build on the international agreement on climate change to also address other issues, but may or may not be successful. Then the myth being portrayed is that people only superficially address their problems)

Common characteristics
Lifestyle and Business,
People were still consuming at high rates. Eco-friendly products became more popular due to governments’ incentive and regulations.

Cooperation
The agreement in terms of new GHG emission target and relating regulations was great achievement. However, negotiation among countries gradually became more and more complicated. Unlike in the past, international negotiations had to involve countries which were not the member of G7. Leaders still advocated their opinion considering their own countries’ benefit. Thus some key international negotiations about natural resource collapsed.

Environment
Due to the global cooperation, we avoided 2 degrees Celsius of global warming which was expected in 2010. This stopped desertification and deforestation as well. However, growing population and industrialization accelerated global consumption of resources. Actually, several natural resources has almost depleted.

Uncertainty