Question

what is the free rider problem that nordhaus describes with respect to climate agreements? would the US be considered a free rider because the US is the ONLY nation not to join the Paris agreements? why

Answer 1

William Nordhaus in his research on climate change and its impact described the known economic concept of free rider problem

Free rider in the public goods terms refers to getting benefited from the resources for which they have not paid . in case of public good ,we know that the good would be provided by the government , so the individuals have a tendency to hide the true value of the good they believe and ride freely when it is provided .

Nordhaus also stated that in case of climate change when global warming is increasing , environmental pollution is high, a few countries would not reduce or do efforts to reduce the carbon emission and pollution levels of their own country. Rather they would benefit from the reduction and mitigation taken by other countries to reduce the carbon emission and other efforts of pollution reduction and change in climate conditions.

He also stated that efforts to reduce the free rider problem and increase the accountability of countries leaning towards free rider problem is largely unsolved because there is absence of an enforciability institution at the global level for such implementations.

Yes, US would be considered a free rider in this case because though it has opted out of Paris agreements , it would still be receiving the advantages from the mitigation of carbon emission and pollution reduction other members of the agreement would be putting their efforts into, which makes US a free rider if it isnt making the efforts to reduce the carbon emissions (though it is not the part of the Paris agreement, it can make efforts to curb the carbon emissions at the national level )

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