Resource heterogeneity leads to unjust effort distribution in climate change mitigation

  1. Vicens, Julián 1
  2. Bueno-Guerra, Nereida 2
  3. Gutierrez-Roig, Mario 3
  4. Gracia-Lázaro, Carlos 4
  5. Gómez-Gardeñes, Jesús 4
  6. Perelló, Josep 1
  7. Sánchez, Ángel 5
  8. Moreno, Yamir 4
  9. Duch, Jordi 6
  1. 1 Universitat de Barcelona
    info

    Universitat de Barcelona

    Barcelona, España

    ROR https://ror.org/021018s57

  2. 2 Universidad Pontificia Comillas
    info

    Universidad Pontificia Comillas

    Madrid, España

    ROR https://ror.org/017mdc710

  3. 3 University of Warwick
    info

    University of Warwick

    Coventry, Reino Unido

    ROR https://ror.org/01a77tt86

  4. 4 Universidad de Zaragoza
    info

    Universidad de Zaragoza

    Zaragoza, España

    ROR https://ror.org/012a91z28

  5. 5 Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
    info

    Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

    Madrid, España

    ROR https://ror.org/03ths8210

  6. 6 Universitat Rovira i Virgili
    info

    Universitat Rovira i Virgili

    Tarragona, España

    ROR https://ror.org/00g5sqv46

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Editor: Zenodo

Año de publicación: 2018

Tipo: Dataset

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1284091 lock_openAcceso abierto editor

Resumen

Climate change mitigation is a shared global challenge that involves the collective action of a set of individuals with different tendencies to cooperation. However, we lack an understanding of the effect of resource inequality when diverse actors interact together toward a common goal. Here, we report the results of a collective-risk dilemma experiment in which groups of individuals were initially given either equal or unequal endowments. We found that the effort distribution was highly inequitable, with participants with fewer resources contributing significantly more to the public goods than the richer - sometimes twice as much. An unsupervised learning algorithm classified the subjects according to their individual behavior, finding the poorest participants within two "generous clusters'" and the richest into a "greedy cluster''. Our results suggest that policies would benefit from educating about fairness and reinforcing climate justice actions addressed to vulnerable people instead of focusing on understanding generic or global climate consequences. Vicens J, Bueno-Guerra N, Gutiérrez-Roig M, Gracia-Lázaro C, Gómez-Gardeñes J, Perelló J, et al. (2018) Resource heterogeneity leads to unjust effort distribution in climate change mitigation. PLoS ONE 13(10): e0204369. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0204369