Altruism and climate change - Does altruism have a role to play in mitigating climate change?

Abstract

Global warming has been regarded as a global public bad in most studies. However, some countries may actually benefit from increased agricultural produce through a warmer temperature. This warrants a new type of analysis. In this thesis, we assume that global warming is not necessarily a global public bad and for some countries, global warming may be instead a public good. We also assume that some or all countries may be altruistic a?? in the sense that they may have concern for other countriesa?? welfare. We examine the implications of these assumptions and compare the actual emissions levels of each country with the respective Pareto optimal levels in a two-country model. We then extend our analysis to a multi-country model where one type of countries are hurt by global warming while the other type benefit from it. We consider the impact on total emission levels as we have more and more altruistic countries. We also examine the effect on welfare of each type of country.