Cooperation to avoid tipping points in climate scenarios

Tipping points occur when an element of a system reaches a certain threshold and begins a self-reinforcing change that is extremely hard to recover from. They appear in many ecological systems relevant to climate change. For example, there may be a tipping point when the amount of fish in a lake reaches a low enough number that the population can no longer recover to normal levels, and fishermen may lose their livelihoods.

To avoid passing these tipping points and suffering the consequences they impose, we must work together to make decisions and efficiently manage the resources in which tipping points occur.

Different characteristics of the groups managing these resources can change how well these groups work together to avoid these tipping points effectively-for example, the age or gender of the members in the group. There can also be changes due to how the challenge of managing the resource is presented as a problem to the group. I want to examine how these elements affect cooperation by using experiments that replicate the situation of managing one of these resources and varying characteristics, such as group makeup, to see their effect.

Knowing which characteristics and presentations of problems better allow cooperation in this situation is crucial as it would allow us to recommend policy interventions that could increase cooperation and lead to better management of resources with tipping points, which would then allow us to avoid the adverse effects of crossing those tipping point thresholds.