Applying Matching Strategies in Climate Change Negotiations

This paper aims to apply game theory matching mechanisms to international climate change negotiations using numerical analysis in order to overcome the free-riding problem without a central authority. The analysis found that the mechanisms can increase the reduction by 2.5 times compared to the case without the mechanisms. It also demonstrates that coupling it with an emission trading scheme could reduce total abatement costs, and improve countries’ payoffs substantially. Matching mechanisms could be tabled in international climate change negotiations based on the conditional pledges which are currently proposed by the European Union and a few other countries.