| This study fills a gap in the literature on climate change policy: it investigates lessons from the historical experience of energy policy in addition to the more common analogies to environmental policy experiences that are drawn in the literature. By examining energy policies from the nineteen-seventies, an additional perspective is gained into situations where the costs of cooperation---and benefits of free-riding---are high. This provides a contrast with relatively easier cases like ozone depletion, where costs are low, benefits are high, and the incentives to participate and comply are both obvious and simple to modify. Such an approach can better explain persistent puzzles concerning divergences in policies relating to global public goods and common-pool resources, as well as to energy use and prices. The results suggest the need for a renewed focus on the incentives facing actors in the formation of climate change policies, and especially on the role that dynamic change in national resource bases play in shaping the initial conditions under which business-as-usual policy positions are set. |
