Climate change is arguably the greatest collective action problem the world has ever faced (Barrett 257). It would be inevitable to completely reduce all CO2 emissions, as developed and developing countries continually develop at different rates. Policy makers, like the general population, have very varied views on reducing CO2 emissions. Some people may really want to reduce CO2 emissions, while others will think that keeping CO2 emissions the same or increasing their amount can actually benefit the economy. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay This means that the benefits of economic development outweigh measures to save the environment. Regardless, people with common interests will come together and defend their opinions on various issues. It is true that in order to solve problems or implement policies, it would be extremely difficult to entrust a single person with the solution to these major problems. Sometimes issues such as reducing CO2 emissions require government intervention, as it is usually the private sector that is the source of this negative externality. This is why many people with a common goal and interest can form interest groups and participate in lobbying. Interest groups exist to influence the policies that policymakers make when elected. These groups can vary in size in terms of members. The growing problem facing policymakers who want to reduce CO2 emissions is that the ability of interest groups or lobbyists to lobby for CO2 emissions may become progressively more difficult to organize, particularly when these groups are becoming much larger, which raises the question of collective action. In addition to this, policy makers also have to face competition with other policy makers and interest groups who have different views, for example not wanting to reduce CO2 emission levels or maintaining them relatively the same. Develop a simpler version of collective action This situation would be the prisoner's dilemma involving two agents. In this example, we can use two small groups or two individuals. It is rational for individuals and groups to work towards the maximum reduction of CO2 emissions. There may be situations where if everyone decides to coordinate and tackle the problem, each person could potentially benefit more than if they were working in their own interest. There may also be times when both parties are working for their own benefit and one might be in a worse situation and the other in a better situation. It is not true that people are all inherently selfish and work in their own self-interest, because in real-world situations there may simply not be enough information for a individual knows if, if they could coordinate, they would be able to achieve more if then if they were to work in their own interest, hence the lack of transparency. Collective action is similar to the Prisoner's Dilemma, but on a much larger scale. As multiple countries make decisions simultaneously, theory shows that the likelihood of each person making the same improvement decision is very unlikely. Moreover,with so many people having their own personal opinions, it would be extremely difficult for everyone to coordinate for a common interest. Olson's argument is, first, that groups are difficult to create and maintain, and, second, that small groups seem less affected by these difficulties than large groups (Shepsle & Bonchek 241). Although the Prisoner's Dilemma provides a basic theoretical model, it has its limitations in explaining the underlying reasons and intuition behind why people or groups make their decisions in the first place. It would seem that with a larger group of people, there is greater overall support in targeting the problem and achieving the common goal. It is logical to assume that a smaller group of policymakers coming together is more likely to agree on a standard to apply. Small groups are more cohesive in the sense that their members are more exposed to personal communication as well as interpersonal persuasion. This contributes to more transparency between its members and makes it more obvious who would be the slackers within the group. The irony here is that larger groups may appear to have more power and have a greater voice in implementing policies, but a larger group may lack transparency and lack consistency and uniformity towards common goal. The larger a group, the less likely it will be to provide an optimal supply of a collective good, and the less likely it will be to act to obtain even a minimal quantity of such a good. In short, the larger the group, the less likely it is to promote its common interests (Chamberland 707). To some extent, larger groups have more difficulty responding to common interests. Larger groups also tend to be more likely to face organizational costs, enforcement problems as well as a lack of strict social control. Olson states that unless the number of individuals is small enough, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests (Olstrom 5). This is obvious in understanding why even smaller groups may be smaller in terms of numbers, but also have a greater ability to be more organized and efficient. Even more, small groups are more successful in training and advancing their agenda. Before a policymaker has the capabilities to pursue their CO2 emissions reduction goals, it is their part to gain public support and favor interest groups. . Through deeper analysis of different real and theoretical situations, Olson's theory of collective action will reveal that individuals will not contribute to a collective incentive if the additional benefits they obtain from receiving that good are less than the cost of their contribution. Even if the individual contributions of policymakers contribute to the overall goal, it is possible that many people within the group will not adhere to the standard, thus making the individuals who made their contribution in the first place less relevant to solving the problem (Olstrom 5). ). Voluntary compliance with behavioral sanctions related to the provision of a public good is more likely in small communities than in large communities; reliance on voluntary compliance in large communities or groups leads to free riding and under-provision or the failure to provide the public good (Muller 13). As an individual member of a typical large organization, his own efforts will not have a noticeable effect on his organization's situation, and he can benefit from any improvementscontributed by others, whether or not he worked to support his organization (Olson 16). .Sometimes encouraging individuals to collaborate should not be based solely on the group's overall collective goals. As we mentioned, individuals' opinions on what the ideal policy should be vary widely. As the number of members in a group increases, you will begin to see more deviations from the group's overall collective goal. Policymakers within these groups seek things that are separate from the group's core mission and that may be withheld from those who do not contribute. These so-called selective incentives, also known as Olson's byproduct argument, essentially involve adding benefits or pork outside of the common goal in order to not only prevent individuals from moving freely, but also to encourage them to stay in the group. Some of these gains could include, but are not limited to, material benefits, informational benefits, solidarity benefits, and deliberate benefits. Policymakers must rely on some of these interest groups to design these corrective mechanisms in order to stay afloat, especially in the long term. And just as a state cannot support itself solely through voluntary contributions or through the sale of its basic services on the market, so no other large organization can support itself without providing a distinct sanction or attraction. of the public good itself, which would lead individuals to help bear the burden of maintaining the organization (Olson 16). By providing more of these secondary benefits, the interest group will still have the ability to come together around a common goal. In this way, policymakers would have greater incentive to pursue their CO2 emissions reduction agenda with more support from more organized interest groups. Since larger groups may find it more difficult to maintain their common goals, a concrete example would be the formation of international environmental agreements (IEAs). Some of the common examples of IEA are the Montreal Protocol, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement (Meng 1). Recalling that CO2 emissions are known to be a global public bad, a common problem is that many BIAs are difficult to achieve because public goods/bads are not excluded and this would imply incentives for countries to go free -wrinkled. By using countries as representatives of individuals and IEAs as representatives of interest groups, countries can act freely in choosing not to join an IEA, choosing not to comply with the IEA to which they are associated and choosing to adhere to a less strict AIE. According to the World Bank, there are over 193 countries in the world and there is no real international government to enforce these agreements (World Bank 1). Under the rules of Olson's theory, it would be extremely difficult for all of these countries to collaborate together and push policymakers to completely reduce CO2 emissions. Although some countries have demonstrably high CO2 levels and their policymakers decide to comply with them to reduce their emissions, some policymakers in other countries do not need to consider reducing their emissions. Additionally, some countries may already be aware that some countries are taking steps to reduce CO2 emissions and benefit from free riding and would still benefit from cleaner air if they did nothing in the first place! THEPolicymakers wanting to reduce CO2 emissions could face a problem. opposition problem where policy makers are indifferent or encourage more CO2 emissions into the environment. This is partly because these policy makers and interest groups may believe that the environment does not really seem to be changing much or think that economic growth would outweigh the reduction of CO2 emissions into the environment. . Policymakers would also run into problems with smaller interest groups on the opposing side that tend to be more organized, according to Olson's theory. On the one hand, large groups that favor policymakers in reducing CO2 emissions tend to be more difficult to organize, thus delaying or preventing the adoption of legislation relating to their policies. On the other hand, smaller groups would have an easier time getting their policies adopted. A real-world example would be the large body gas companies, such as Exxon Mobil, BP and Shell. These companies may appear larger than their size, but in terms of numbers they are much smaller than the large interest groups that support an increase in polluted CO2 emissions into the environment. The harsh reality facing a policymaker who wants to reduce CO2 emissions is that many of these gas companies have a lot of power in government, which allows them to bully their way into responding to their policies. CO2 emissions are certainly a concern as they harm the environment, but many of these gas companies prefer to profit more from natural gas and economic gains. Since they have such economic gains, they essentially have the ability to buy or pay politicians to pass what they want. Researchers acknowledge that they were handicapped by a lack of transparency about corporate donations and lobbying, which made it difficult to determine exactly how companies were trying to exert political influence (Guardian 1). Furthermore, it would appear that money has a disproportionate influence and that industries such as these gas companies that generate a lot of money could take further advantage and add to this disproportionate influence when it comes to legislation and policy making . Policymakers lobbying for these companies is certainly an alarming problem, as it only makes it more difficult for policymakers who genuinely want to reduce CO2 emissions to be obscured by even more power and influence . As these gas companies are also smaller, they are much more organized and there are fewer differences of views on the policies they want to pass. Gas companies are just one example of more environmentally efficient collection actions. Even from an economic point of view, producers, like these gas companies, are more successful in forming interest groups than consumers or individuals themselves. Interest groups can vary in shape and size and if they at least have the ability to come together, they can influence policy makers on what legislation to pass. It may be that in democracies, interest groups can organize freely. But another problem that policymakers who want to reduce CO2 emissions need to be aware of is that at present there are smaller interest groups, such as gas companies, which can be so powerful that their voices are capable of crowding out all others on the field. Even if the.