世界银行-历史阴影下的气候变化谈判（英）

Policy Research Working Paper11160Climate Change Negotiations under the Shadow of HistorySheheryar Banuri Ernest J. Sergenti Middle East and North Africa RegionOffice of the Chief EconomistJune 2025 Public Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedProduced by the Research Support TeamAbstractThe Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.Policy Research Working Paper 11160Climate change is a global challenge requiring unprece-dented levels of collective action. In this context, this paper asks: do appeals to historical responsibility facilitate or hinder collective action? This paper uses a simple lab exper-iment simulating climate mitigation bargaining between high- and low-income countries. A key design feature is that the need for mitigation is triggered based on historical actions that were undertaken without knowledge of their impact on the environment (and hence, the need for mitiga-tion). Two treatment arms were conducted, a baseline where the cause for mitigation (past actions) is not revealed, and a treatment—“the shadow of history”—where the historical origins of the problem are made explicit. In both condi-tions, negotiations take place regarding contributions to a mitigation fund (i.e., collective action). Results show that revealing the shadow of history marginally increases average contributions, but the distribution of those contributions changes markedly. When made aware of the historical causes of the climate problem, low-income countries significantly reduce their contributions, while high-income countries contribute more—offsetting the reduction. Critically, the overall welfare of low-income countries increases, while it decreases for high-income countries. Moreover, results from textual analysis of chat data show greater tension when historical responsibility is made explicit, with more nega-tive sentiment and adversarial conversations. These results suggest that appealing to historical responsibility appears to be a successful negotiations tactic for poor countries.This paper is a product of the Office of the Chief Economist, Middle East and North Africa Region. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Researc