Copenhagen: The Tragedy of the Commons
If you have never heard of the term “Tragedy
of the Commons”, Google it, you will get about 350,000 hits.
This is a quote from Wikipedia: “The tragedy
of the commons refers to a dilemma described in an influential article by
that name written by Garrett Hardin and first published in the journal Science in 1968.[1]
The article describes a situation in which multiple individuals, acting
independently, and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest,
will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it
is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen.”
Historically, the commons referred to an
area in a small community. Today that community is our planet and today we are
living a tragedy of our commons.
About 190 countries from around the world
are currently meeting in Copenhagen with the goal of establishing targets to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades. Thousands of people
from around the world are in Copenhagen representing business, government,
non-government organizations, all with their own agendas. Unfortunately many of these agenda compete
against each other.
Historically, the tragedy of the commons occurred
due to individuals’ self interest, today those self interests are country
based, not individual. And even then, people from within the same countries are
competing against the self interests of others from the same country.
For example, Fredericton’s own Taryn
McKenzie-Mohr, now a first year student at University of Toronto, made
headlines in the Globe and Mail two days ago for going head to head with
Canada’s chief negotiator in Copenhagen. Taryn has been apologizing to fellow
youth from developing countries for Canada’s lack of progress on climate
change.
Canada, in fact, is once again leading the
Fossil of the Day awards in recognition of the inaction on climate change (The
award is created by The Climate Action Network, a worldwide network of about
500 non-government organizations). As the tragedy goes, Canada is protecting
its own self-interest (Fort McMurray) and showing no leadership, claiming that
we are waiting to see what the Unites States will do.
China and the United States are trading
words. China claims that developed countries, such as the U.S. and Canada
should be doing more to help developing countries than they currently are
doing, or not. The U.S. says China should be doing more about their own
emissions. And so the story goes.
Perhaps self-interest can happen in the
commons in a positive manner. My interpretation of that phenomenon would be
those leading countries that are creating jobs by exporting green technology.
Take Germany for example. It is projected
that by next year, the renewable energy industry in Germany will exceed their
automotive industry in total jobs. There will be more green jobs than all of VW,
Porsche, Audi, Mercedes and BMW combined. That is leadership, that is
contributing the commons, at home and abroad.
Where does Canada rank on the renewable
energy radar? According to a recent report released by the WWF, Canada ranks
near the bottom, behind such countries as Kyrgyzstan and Slovakia.
We are depleting non-renewable energy
sources in Canada (taking from the commons) for a quick buck while negatively
impacting our ability to compete globally in clean energy technologies that can
make a positive impact on the commons and, just as importantly on our domestic
economy – jobs!
Much like the days when there were 100
citizens of a small town sharing a common area for their sheep to graze, we are
over 6 Billion people today sharing limited resources for the same purpose –
survival.
I sincerely hope that at some point before
the Copenhagen Conference ends that all of the countries of the world recognize
that we need to do this together and there is opportunity for everyone to
benefit in one form or another. Realistically if not a few days from now,
sometime soon. There is not much grass left to graze.