How can Game theory be applied to current situation in climate change?

Question

Im not quite sure what game thoery exactly means but if it based on an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others. How can you relate this in the actions of human kind to climate change and reducing GHG.

Answer 1

The Prisoners Dilemma is a classic and a good example for the environment.  Essentially people will make suboptimal choices for everyone as a whole because they will be penalized if everyone doesn't make the nicest choice.  People have an incentive to choose the bad for the environment choice individually and thus things get steadily worse.  The role of legislation is to create a system that enforces proper behavior and punishes cheaters so that the world as a whole maximizes the environmental benefits for all.